[awm]

Playing matchpoints at a club, you pick up this hand at none vulnerable:

Scoring: MP

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LHO passes and partner opens 1♥. RHO passes too. At this point I bid 2♥ (we are not playing constructive raises or anything like that; would you bid 1♠ instead?)

After two passes this went to RHO who balanced with a double. I passed again (would you have done something else?) and LHO bid 3D. Passed back to me...

RHO is one of the best players at the club, playing pro with a fairly weak partner.

[whereagles]

Everything seems normal to me.... pard heard you had no max (else you'd rdbl RHOs dbl of 2♥), so pass now. If 3♥ makes.. well, tough luck. It's pard who should have bid it.

[Cascade]

I raise to 2♥ and pass forever on this auction.

I am pretty close to always support with support. The frequent gains from 2♥ far outweigh the occasional gains from 2♠ in my opinion.

Frequency is what it is all about in Matchpoints.

[pclayton]

This seems like a completely normal auction.

If its a weak game, you can't count on RHO balancing at the other tables but you are going to be stuck, so just get through this round and play on.

[Halo]

I would have bid spade.

Impossible to resist, with sort of contract winning possibilities,and discouraging the oppos.

[655321]

2♥ is completely normal. A 1♠ bid might be excusable if you are playing with a bad partner who is happy for you to hog the hands, but not otherwise.

Over 3♦, I would have said Pass, WTP, but Justin makes some interesting points. I suppose this is the w/w at MP factor again.

[Apollo81]

agree with 2h but dont have a problem with 1s either, id rather not let them in at 2m
would bid 3h now, justin covered the reasons, I think -1 doubled against -110 is possible too

[mike777]

Even with no agreements prefer to start one spade planning on rebidding 2H.
I will need to see how the auction goes now.

[inquiry]

2♥ is clear to me.

I would pass 3♦ unless i really needed a board and this was late in the event

[Codo]

I would bid 3 Heart too after 3 Diamonds. Besides the points Justin mentioned, I am the one with the short diamonds, so it is to me to act now.

There is just one reason (besides the risk) against competing: The client would play, which may give us a good result anyway.

[the hog]

Halo, on Feb 26 2008, 04:39 AM, said:

I would have bid spade.

Impossible to resist, with sort of contract winning possibilities,and discouraging the oppos.

2H followed by eternal silence from me. 1S is a hand hog bid.

Now why on earth would you want to discourage the opps from balancing into S with your S holding? Or didn't you mean what you posted?

[mikeh]

I'm not sure the pro won't double... he may well be the opp looking at 3 hearts and he heard the auction as well.. in particular, he heard your pass of the double. I agree that LHO ain't likely to double.

I have one partner who would, I am sure, bid 3♥. He really doesn't pay a lot of attention to the LOTT (and before any of you scoff, he's won a few national titles).

I, otoh, am more of a wimp and I suspect that I would pass at the table.

BTW, I don't feel strongly about 1♠ or 2♥. The main advantages to 1♠ are: once in a long while partner is 4=5 (we don't play the dreaded F******y); and, when the hand is a partial battle, the sequence of 1♠ by me and then 2♥ over any of 1N, or 2minor is tougher to balance against. The main disadvantages are that LHO has an easier entry with a minor overcall after 1♠, and partner may not appreciate the full strength/length of our heart support if we give a preference over a minor by him... and so miss a game. I am not so worried about a possible overbid of pulling 1N to 2♥... this hand is only a trifle undervalue for that sequence.

I can tell you that. on the actual auction, I wish I'd bid 1♠

[Apollo81]

The_Hog, on Feb 26 2008, 03:27 AM, said:

2H followed by eternal silence from me. 1S is a hand hog bid.

But you are The_Hog!

[awm]

Here is the actual hand:

Scoring: MP

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3♥ can be defeated on a trump lead, but will probably make on another lead. I don't know what the chances of RHO (the pro remember) finding a trump lead are, or whether he would consider doubling 3♥... since I passed 3♦ out at the table.

While 3♦ has no real chance to make, it should be down one (lose one heart, three clubs, one spade). LHO (the weak player) managed to go two down!

The matchpoint scores on an 8 top for likely results:

-100: 0 matchpoints
-50: 1 matchpoint
+50 or +100: 2 matchpoints
+140: 4 matchpoints
+300 or +530: 8 matchpoints

While I agree with Justin that many tables will be defending 2♥, I don't think this makes bidding 3♥ necessarily a good plan. After all, if 3♥ makes we get only an average and if it doesn't make we get a near-bottom even if 3♦ was making (since the field defends 2♥). Surely there is some chance that partner plays the hand better than the field, but we also have at least one defender (the one on lead) better than the field. On the actual hand it depends only on the defense and partner's play is basically a non-factor.

In hindsight I rather like a call no one has mentioned -- double! Note that LHO is a passed hand and RHO couldn't double 1♥. So they are on marginal values at best. And we've got the weak player declaring, which could easily be worth a trick. Double seems like the only likely way to get a top board from this pair on the auction; any other action will get us average (if we're lucky) and a poor result (if we're unlucky) because RHO found the anti-field double...

[pclayton]

This is in a field that doesn't know how to balance. Unfortunately many games are like that, and you can only really hope that you get to be making the key decisions instead of RHO.

I expect in a normal event that you would get a lot of field protection for selling out to 3♦. Maybe its a 4-5 on a 12 top, but no big deal.