Too difficult (for me)

[wanoff]

I was going to post this in the Expert forum but we're discouraged from doing so.

Match from this week, love all, imps, E/W are current internationals.

 

[hv=pc=n&s=sjt9hj8da964cq973&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=pp3ddp]133|200[/hv]

 

Where did I go wrong ?

[helene_t]

You didn't go wrong until now, your initial pass is fine :)

 

I would pass now but who knows. 3NT is reasonable. 4♣ is wrong imho.

[mikeh]

I would bid 3N. Obviously aggressive, but the choice is between pass and 3N. The reason I bid is that partner could have a very big hand, and, if so, my values will be working...the diamond Ace will likely be more valuable than, say, KQx, and opposite a huge hand, my major suit Jacks may be very useful. I'll pass 4N, but he may be able to drive us to slam on a good day. When we can't make anything, we probably weren't getting rich against 3♦.

[broze]

3N at IMPs. Pass at MPs.

[ggwhiz]

I was going to post this in the Expert forum but we're discouraged from doing so.

 

Well you did have only 2 Internationalists at the table vs. zero "real" experts discouraging this.

 

I would pass.

[gnasher]

Against 3♦x we'll score something between -470 and +300. In 3NT we'll get between -100 and +400. When you look at it like that, we don't need very good odds in 3NT.

[vinchy]

I would interpret (and if sitting N, bid) the double as a beg-partner-not-to-pass bid.

[SteveMoe]

Pass. Missing honors rate to be offside with RHO.

[inquiry]

Takeout doubles are for take out. I do leave them in from time to time, but not with one sure defensive trick. 3NT is better than it might look at first because you can hold up in diamonds to break their communication and West is might not have a sure entry with partner's values behind him. So 3NT seems clear to me.

[nige1]

[hv=pc=n&s=sjt9hj8da964cq973&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=pp3ddp]133|200|

I was going to post this in the Expert forum but we're discouraged from doing so. Match from this week, love all, imps, E/W are current internationals. Where did I go wrong ?[/hv]

IMO, Pass = 10. 3N = 9. 4♣ = 7. A 3rd seat pre-empt has a wide range and passing the double is risky. In spite of expert opinion to the contrary, I reckon that it's still the percentage action.

[PhantomSac]

I like passing more than most in this spot but I would bid 3NT with this hand.

[PLimprove]

It's no solution.

[GrahamJson]

I think it was Bobby Wolff who said that when faced with a choice of calls, one of which is 3NT, bid it. I think that this is one of those occasions.

[Fluffy]

To play a partscores doubled we normally need slow trump tricks or fast outside tricks,only ♦9 could be one of those if partner has a helpful ♦J in front or something, passing looks like a bad bet to me.

 

Nobody likes 4♣, and I suppose they are right because partner might be stretching with 5422 or something, but I don't like 3NT either, we are too far from the values needed. I guess the good thing of 3NT is, it is harder to double when it is wrong. So 3NT isbest, but I don't find 4♣ so bad.

 

Against 3♦x we'll score something between -470 and +300. In 3NT we'll get between -100 and +400. When you look at it like that, we don't need very good odds in 3NT.

6 diamonds and 2 aces is more than -100

[fourdad]

What was your partnership agreement for the value of the X?

[PhilKing]

I think it was Bobby Wolff who said that when faced with a choice of calls, one of which is 3NT, bid it. I think that this is one of those occasions.

 

Yet for some reason they call it Hamman's Law. ;)

[Trump Echo]

I'd bid 3 NT.

[GrahamJson]

Yet for some reason they call it Hamman's Law. ;)

He must have stolen the idea.

[PhilKing]

He must have stolen the idea.

 

Wolff's mantra is "too dangerous is not a reason to pass," which he stole from Mike Tindall.

[canimprove]

Bid 3NT, the most reasonable action here. One cannot be perfect against preempts.

[masonbarge]

I was going to post this in the Expert forum but we're discouraged from doing so.

Match from this week, love all, imps, E/W are current internationals.

 

[hv=pc=n&s=sjt9hj8da964cq973&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=pp3ddp]133|200[/hv]

 

Where did I go wrong ?

 

You passed.

 

You do not have sufficient values to pass. You are effectively doubling a 3 level contract with one trump trick and no idea about partner's hand except 1) he has the offensive strength to play at the 3 level and 2) shortness in diamonds (!). You have one defensive trick. You have support in the unbid suits.

 

I would rate 3NT as the best bid and both 4♣ and 4♦ (asking for his longer major) as better bid than pass.

[1stpanda]

Let's try to look at this carefully.

 

1. I doubt that bidding 4♣ is going to lead to our best result very often. So I am going to just analyze whether it is right to bid 3NT or pass for penalty.

 

What do we need to make 3NT?

 

A. If we have a double stopper (any diamond honor in N, or a singleton honor in E, or a doubleton honor in E coupled with an honor lead by W), then our chance are probably pretty good - in this case we need to take 7 (or 8 if our second "stopper" is a blockage) tricks outside diamonds, without letting W in twice. I would guess that we would make 3NT more than 80% of the time when we have a double stopper or a blockage. On defense, however, it makes a big difference. When we have a true double stopper, then their expected number of tricks is probably equal to LHO's number of diamonds or number of diamonds +1; we will get 100 or 300 against a 7-card suit and 300 or 500 against a 6-card suit. A diamond blockage will have little effect on their number of tricks as declarer, though, and the suit will never block when E has Hx. So they will get 1 more trick, and we will get +100 or +300 against a 6-card suit but +100 or -470 against a 7-card suit.

 

To summarize this case, if we have a true double stopper we will score +400 on offense 80% of the time and -100 to 200 about 20% of the time. Our expectancy is probably +290 or so on offense, and +300 or so depending on the frequency of the various results on defense. When there is a blockage, we will still have an offensive expectancy of +290, but our defensive expectancy plummets to -20 or so. So in this case it's right to bid.

 

B. When we have a single stopper, then we will either need to have 8 fast winners outside diamonds or find W with no entry. I would guess that these combine to about 1/3 of the time. And we will beat 3♦X about 3/4 of the time as above in the blockage case. So our offensive expectancy is probably around +50 and defensively about -20. Once again it is right to bid, at IMPs, to avoid the occasional huge loss (perhaps even a double game swing) by offering up a lot of small losses. Note, however, that it is right to pass at matchpoints because we will likely go plus instead of minus about half the time, and other times we will collect +500 for a larger plus.

 

C. If W is the sort who might "fool around" with, say, ♦KQJ10xx and a minimum opening bid, then 3NT is going down practically all the time, likely doubled. (My experience has been that when W has opened 3♦ with this hand type, and we bid 3NT, W will double far more often than not.) In this case, the odds are heavily with passing, since a W with this hand type is likely to take nearly as many tricks on defense as on offense, and we have no intersecting case where bidding would result in a poorer result than passing.

 

So now, your job is to decide how likely cases A, B, or C are. My guess would be 25%, 70%, and 5%. But note that only in case C is is right to pass at IMPs under my assumption that 4♣ is futile. So I think the IMP odds for bidding are enormous; we will win 5-7 IMPs for 3NT making a large percentage of the time in case A and about 1/3 of the time in case B, while losing 3-6 IMPs most of the rest of the time. Only in case C, where passing is our only hope of a non-disaster, do I think passing has the better of the IMP odds. At matchpoints (or board-a-match) I think it is right to pass based on the frequency of small gains in case B.

 

Thus the basis for "Wolff's Law." It truly is wrong to pass just because you are afraid to bid. You will find that in most cases where you do an analysis of high-leverage auctions such as this one, the odds will come out similarly.

[jogs]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hamman

 

Hamman's Law is the maxim, "If you have a choice of reasonable bids and one of them is 3NT, then bid it."

From English Bridge, June 2006, p. 19.

[AyunuS]

I'd say 3NT gives you the best odds. When I double at level 3, I'm generally very short in the opponent's suit. It's like just begging partner to bid something. So I'd like a little more than Axxx in the suit to pass. Preempter probably has KQJ10xxx or something in which case we still only win one trick in that suit. But partner probably has enough that you have a good chance at 3NT. Neither opponent has all that much, and you have a lot of good cards for finessing LHO so that you can deny him being able to lead again and you can duck initially until RHO runs out of diamonds. Given the preempt, 3NT is a pretty good guess for this situation.

[kevincline]

I think it was Bobby Wolff who said that when faced with a choice of calls, one of which is 3NT, bid it. I think that this is one of those occasions.

 

That's Hamman's Law.