High Level Hypothesis

[mgoetze]

Matchpoint pairs, vulnerable against not, you hold ♠Q7xxx ♥QJxx ♦KQxx.

 

The bidding begins on your left with 1♠, partner overcalls 4♥, and RHO finds a 5♣ bid. You decide not to enquire about the 5♣ bid, and put in 5♦, which partner will take as lead-directing/values with a heart fit. The opening bidder promptly doubles.

 

Question 1: what is the best use of 5♥/pass/redouble for partner now?

 

Partner bids 5♥, though you don't think you can read too much into that, and now RHO discovers that he can bid 5♠.

 

Question 2: what do you do now?

[steve2005]

you want one bid to show defense - maybe redouble

one bid to show no defense 5♥

pass - can just be an average preempt

 

good to try science but this is a goulash hand so good luck

[gnasher]

I suggest that 5♥ is his normal action, pass suggests some interest in competing to 6♥, and redouble shows an unexpectedly good hand where he thinks we're going to make 5♥. But I just made that up, so I wouldn't assume it without discussion.

I'd bid 6♥, because either:

- Partner has a spade void, in which case 6♥ is quite likely to make, or

- Partner has a singleton spade, in which case 6♣ may be making.

[gszes]

My normal take is:

5h nothing special

pass surprisingly good distribution no dia fit

xx surprisingly good distribution and a dia fit

 

I feel it is entirely too rare for a 4h bid to have much defense (void xxxxxxxxx Ax Ax) so using xx for that purpose seems like too tiny a target Using xx to show extra potential and a dia fit (since we really dont know just how good the promised heart support is) might find us in a superb spot and the fate of even 5h might also be heavily dependent on how the dia suit fares. We may not care much on this particular hand since we only have 4 dia but there are a ton of others where we have more dia length and such information can be crucial.

void AKxxxxxx Jxxxx void (xx) or void AKxxxxxx void Jxxxx (pass) gives you an idea how distribution can make a monstrous difference.

 

Question 2 is much more diffcult to answer w/o some decent agreement on 5h/p/xx. I would imagine the 5h bid is "run-of-the-mill" 4h bid so it seems 6h is out of reach and there is no guarantee we can set 6/7c so pass 5s and good luck.

[Fluffy]

For all that I know every suit contract at the 6 level might make, so let's try one of them ourselves.

 

5♥ weakness, redouble = strong, pass on the middle is my meta agreement, however it is not clear how to apply to this case. I think most logical is defensive values, so 5♥ = biggest ODR, redouble = lowest ODR

 

EDIT: I made a typo on redouble.

[Zelandakh]

5♥ = biggest ODR, redouble = highest ODR

What is the difference? Or did you mean lowest/smallest for XX?

[mgoetze]

By way of a resolution, here was the board in question:

https://app.pianola.net/Results/Session57844/Travellers/18

 

I bid 6♥ and was not unhappy when the opponents doubled as I fully intended to make. Unfortunately it turned out the opponents were lying and partner had a spade, so we went off. Fortunately this was still a good result (26 matchpoints out of 36 max) as opps had 7♣ available.