How to proceed here?

[nullve]

Please explain why it's stupid to play 3♦ over 1♦-1♥; 2♥ as NF.

[gordontd]

Please explain why it's stupid to play 3♦ over 1♦-1♥; 2♥ as NF.

It's not if it fits in with the rest of your structure. It's recommended in "Better Bidding with Bergen".

[Zelandakh]

We may have a different definition of intermediate. Yours might have 200 masterpoints.

Masterpoints are an indicator of player ability?!?

 

It's not if it fits in with the rest of your structure. It's recommended in "Better Bidding with Bergen".

Does Bergen's structure include a 2♠ or 2NT relay perchance? If you have an alternative auction to handle the natural 3♦ rebid hands then it is no problem but that is obviously not the case for the OP.

[mycroft]

It's not stupid. But in a standard, wide-ranging everything system, the number of times you want to show a double fit and either "game try based on the double fit" or "more than game", and the rewards when that works and other calls do not, outweigh the number of times you want to play 3♦.

 

I do think that there are many in this thread who can't remember how flight C (or D, or bracket 10) play; and who have forgotten that for every tournament player, there are 5 who only play in the "safe" clubs, or only play rubber (in the bar where even okay non-rubber players can make money), or only play in the kitchen. Kaitlyn knows a lot more of those, and they are there. One of the perennial questions is "how do we turn these people on to duplicate bridge?" And the answer is frequently either "you can't any more, because they were so badly treated last time" or "you can't, because bridge is just the Tuesday reason to get together to chat".

 

I showed up to my church's "bridge night" a few times when it started to try to build it up. I was hoping I could start teaching them real bridge, but they clearly weren't there. I gave up not because of the play (partner opens a *22-24* 2NT. You hold a flat 10, and partner has shown himself to be the best player in the room. What do you do? 3NT, of course, and when he pulls off the squeeze for 7, wonder if you should have invited) but because of the speed - even with me at the table, hands took an average of 10 minutes to play. And they weren't really wasting time, not the way we all think about it. That's 11000 of your "good players" right there, and I'm sure we're not the only church basement or senior centre with a non-sanctioned bridge game.

 

This applies even at the duplicate level; which is why we have a 20-table Monday night team game full of sub-1000 (and frequently super-1000) MP players I never see anywhere else, and why we have 25 tables playing their regular Friday afternoon game opposite our local sectional. And there are people with 994.78 MPs who are playing in the 0-1000 game, and there are people with 2200 who gripe about not being in X, and...

[helene_t]

Phil, if I was playing with you or Rhm I would play the bids as you intended them undiscussed. However, (a) there was talk of playing with a random partner and (b) the OP said he was playing with another beginner so in his shoes I would not be at all surprised that the "forcing" 3D got passed or that 3S would be misunderstood or that 4C would be taken as Gerber (if his partner even knew Gerber - otherwise it would be taken as a huge hand with clubs.)

You are of course right. But unless OP is asking for advice on how to game a high-stake indy tourney with beginners I think it is not so helpful to try to cater to partner being capable of passing a bid that is forcing to everybody who has listened to the improvers' lessons.

 

This could lead to the advice to blast game in lots of auctions in which we may belong in a different strain, just because every other bid could be misunderstood. Which is of course true. But if OP asks in order to learn something that can help him and his (semi)regular partner improve their understanding of bridge, it is better to make the advice on the basis of the assumption that partner can be trusted. Not that we trust partner to be a genious or a clairvoyant. But for the purpose of this discussion I believe we should trust partner not to make basic mistakes. Even if that trust may not always be deserved.

 

We may lose this particular board if our trust is undeserved but at least we learned something about good bridge. I'd rather teach good bridge even if bad bridge may sometimes be more profitable in the short term.

[Kaitlyn S]

You are of course right. But unless OP is asking for advice on how to game a high-stake indy tourney with beginners I think it is not so helpful to try to cater to partner being capable of passing a bid that is forcing to everybody who has listened to the improvers' lessons.

You make a good point. That being said, (say) if Timo presented the problem, I would presume a world class partner. When someone doesn't specify anything about his partner's ability, or even imply that it is with his regular partner, I feel somewhat justified in giving a practical response based on playing with a "random expert" in the BBO Main Bridge Club. An example should illustrate the value of being practical, rather than making the technically correct bid and explaining to partner later why she should have done something different:

 

First board of a pairs event I overcalled 3D with 3NT and partner bid 4H. Our agreement was that 4C was a prelude to a signoff and everything else was encouraging, but it had never come up. I had AKQxx (!) of hearts and thought that I should accept the encouragement and bid 6H. Partner had jack-sixth of hearts and out and started screaming at me for making such a "stupid" bid. When I explained what our agreement was, partner was unmoved and played the rest of the game as if I was an idiot. Clearly there was a good chance that partner forgot the convention (my heart holding might have been a clue) and would totally ruin the game if that happened so it was probably right to pass and admit to forgetting the convention myself if it turned out that partner remembered, since partner would have been less upset had that happened and might have played the rest of the event reasonably (clearly partner's temperament matters in these decisions.)

 

If others would prefer that I keep my "practical" views to myself and only answer as if the partnership is going to be a rapidly advancing one with on temperament issues if they score a bad board, I can try to answer the questions in that way (although why should I answer at all when there are clearly better bidders on the site?) But I believe that the practical side of bidding is important and few, if any, others are addressing practical bidding with a human being who might have flawed bidding ideas.

 

People can see the context in which I am replying, and if the question was in the context of a serious partnership with much talent, they can choose to ignore my answer which clearly won't apply to them. Should I put a disclosure on my posts like "Assuming that partner has limited or unknown bidding skills"?

[el mister]

 

If others would prefer that I keep my "practical" views to myself and only answer as if the partnership is going to be a rapidly advancing one with on temperament issues if they score a bad board, I can try to answer the questions in that way (although why should I answer at all when there are clearly better bidders on the site?) But I believe that the practical side of bidding is important and few, if any, others are addressing practical bidding with a human being who might have flawed bidding ideas.

 

People can see the context in which I am replying, and if the question was in the context of a serious partnership with much talent, they can choose to ignore my answer which clearly won't apply to them. Should I put a disclosure on my posts like "Assuming that partner has limited or unknown bidding skills"?

As the OP I can only say that I appreciate anyone taking the time to post an answer, but yours was surprisingly worthless. Like it stood out. This is quite unusual for this site IME, which is almost all signal, no noise. Disrupting this extremely rare internet phenomenon with 'practical' bridge advice would be a tragedy.

[helene_t]

I don't think Kaitlyn deserves such a harsh response. She gave a well articulated and well meant opinion. We can disagree about where the line goes between the good advice not to be the unlucky expert who burdens his partner with unnecessary obscurity and the not so good advice to treat partner as the neanderthal he probably is. But in any case let's keep a friendly tone.

[el mister]

I don't know abar that Helene. She didn't read the thread, stated the obvious, and started waffling on about posting in the beginner's forum where someone can tell me what a splinter is :lol: If that's well-articulated and well meant, I'd hate to see clumsy and patronising.

Nonetheless, your advice to keep a friendly tone is well-taken and I apologise for any tin-eared comments from me - we can of course disagree on a friendly basis.

[mike777]

Picked this one up last night at the club and was uncertain on the best way of proceeding. Vanilla 2/1 system.

 

[hv=pc=n&s=s5hkq965dqjt73cat&d=w&v=0&b=8&a=p1dp1hp2hp]133|200[/hv]

 

This is possibly very routine, but I'd appreciate advice as I wasn't sure on the definition of 3♦ here. It seems miles too weak for my hand, but I want to show the double fit, and need some space to hear about diamond controls, and I'm not sure how you go about that here.

 

I like 3d whatever it means, 3s splinter would be second choice. May be tough to stop short of slam with what looks like an adjusted 4 loser hand (double fit).

[Kaitlyn S]

If that's well-articulated and well meant, I'd hate to see clumsy and patronising.

Nonetheless, your advice to keep a friendly tone is well-taken and I apologise for any tin-eared comments from me - we can of course disagree on a friendly basis.

I can also disagree on a friendly basis. Many beginners who play only the most basic of conventions, if any, post questions here, and get answers from the experienced players involving conventions that beginners shouldn't play with their peers.

 

You are apparently not one of those. I did not know that when I answered your question, and depending on who you were, my answer could have been the only worthless one or the only worthwhile one. Your response tells me that you are probably a seasoned bridge player who has picked up some of the attitudes of certain other seasoned bridge players. That's fine, I'm used to that. However, some players who bid nothing but naturally and don't want to hear about gadgets and esoteric bridge theory might enjoy my response in a sea of answers explaining how some convention might help. I can only hope that the next poster will be one of those, for if I get several posters like you in a row, it may drive me away from trying to be helpful.

 

In theory beginners are supposed to post in the B/N forum so that the others can answer in a way that will be understood by the OP; but most don't know that and aren't willing to read all the "read this first" information that tells them, so they post in the Expert forum thinking that this is the way to get answers from experts, and some of the experts respond in a harsh or condescending way (How dare you enter our forum with this drivel?) which only serves to make the poor beginner wonder why he plays bridge in the first place.