[Echognome]

Scoring: IMP

(P) - 1♥ - (1♠) - ?;
(2♠) - 3♥ - (P) - ?

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What are your calls on each of the rounds of bidding? Of course your action on the first round will affect everyone else's action. However, to keep things simple, I'm holding everyone else's actions constant.

[JLOGIC]

Obvious pass and then obvious 4H.

If I started with double then it would be an obvious pass on the 2nd round but I think thats horrible.

[pooltuna]

1NT and 3♠

[Codo]

Obvious pass and non obvious 4 Heart.

[jdonn]

Non-obvious pass and blatantly obvious 4♥.

[Fluffy]

double then pass for me

[Echognome]

Without saying what the result was, I made the non obvious (to me) pass and the non obvious (to me) 4♥ call.

We were playing against a pro pair and to the pro on the left, Double was obvious ("Too much to pass initially. You do have 6♦ and can convert a 2♣ response from partner to 2♦.") and the pro on my right felt it was a non obvious pass, but could live with double. Both felt that it was an obvious raise given the earlier pass.

[JLOGIC]

When we are making a bid, a good thing to ask yourself is "What am I trying to accomplish with this bid?"

Typically you make an offshape double in order to show some values so that you don't get stolen from, and partner can feel free to bid a game or partscore based on that knowledge that you have values.

A more immediate goal might be to avoid defending 1S when you should have been competing.

On this hand we have 3 spades and a stiff heart. If partner passes out 1S he will also have spade length and that is probably fine. Given that we have 3 spades and only a misfitting defensive 8 points, if LHO raises to 2 spades or 3 spades or whatever and we have a game, partner will be able to do something.

Yes it's true we might have trouble showing values later, but our hand is not good unless partner fits diamonds or is strong balanced. If we had a doubleton spade there would be a much higher urgency in bidding since partner with say 18 balanced and 3 spades would not be able to bid over a 2S raise, and we might have a cold 3N.

When we make a negative double with this hand all that will happen in my opinion is that we encourage partner to bid 4H when it's wrong (if we make 4H we would get there after passing), or that we encourage him to compete in clubs when it's wrong, or compete to 3H over 2S with a medium hand and 6 hearts which will be wrong.

Yes, we have 8 points and a 6 card suit but it's not like if they have a spade fit we are going to stop spades and run diamonds and take 9 tricks on a light hand. Compare this to xx xx AQJxxx Jxx where bidding 2D is obvious since we might even make 3N opposite a weak NT hand type, and we have some offense for hearts if partner wants to compete there.

So basically:

-We do not want to encourage partner to compete/bid game in hearts
-We do not want to encourage partner to compete/bid game in clubs in clubs
-We do not care if 1S is passed out, it might well be best
-We do not have enough values where we think we will make a light 3N that would otherwise be missed if we would pass. Of course if it's just a routine 3N it will probably go pass pass 1N p 3N.
-We have a piece of ***** unless we find a diamond fit (in which case we can bid accordingly).

So I go back to my original point, what are we trying to achieve by making this negative double? What are we catering to? We are not barred from bidding later, and neither is partner.

It seems like a very common misconception that with 7 or 8 points we must bid something. If we have length in their suit and shortness in partners suit, it is never important to bid with a hand in the 7-8 range. I think this comes from the fact that responding is 6+ points, ergo with 6+ points if RHO bids people still feel like they need to bid. The reason we respond with 6+ is because partner can have 20 and we need to keep the auction open. That need is gone when RHO bids.

But really treating this hand like 8 points with terrible honor location, JTx of RHOs suit, etc etc just seems like bad evaluation.

[MFA]

Prefer double, but I can live with pass.

I think double works a little better in competition, since it gets our values in immediately. The actual sequence exposes one of the downsides with pass. Yes partner bids when we have a game, great, but how are we ever going to play 3♥? We have to raise partner to game now for sure but it may cost the plus score if he is not so strong. This dilemma will arise every time partner bids volunterily again. If we double to start with, partner can here bid 3♥, which we can pass, or 4♥ by himself. We have a reasonable dummy regardless since our points rates to be working.

I can understand criticizing having only one heart for acting now, but I don't understand criticizing the honour location. Having the queen of hearts is a great asset if partner should repeat his suit or whatever he bids. Yes ♠JTx looks soft, but even then we might belong in 3NT.

[bluecalm]

This is this artificial "standard" right ? If so I can't bid natural 2♦ because it's forcing in this system.
That leaves me with pass and 4♥ now because I have a lot of cards I wasn't able to show round before.

My answer: first round pass, 2nd round 4♥ I also add "wtp" to that

Quote

but how are we ever going to play 3♥?

It's good to know what partner "expects" us to have here.
The answer to that is not obvious but according to one quite good theory from polish theoretician partner bids assuming about one trick in our hand in this position.
So if we have close to 2 tricks we bid game. If not we don't.

[655321]

I am in the pass then 4♥ camp, with spade length and no clear bid I am happy to pass.

MFA, on Sep 7 2010, 04:28 PM, said:

Yes partner bids when we have a game, great, but how are we ever going to play 3♥? We have to raise partner to game now for sure but it may cost the plus score if he is not so strong. This dilemma will arise every time partner bids volunterily again. If we double to start with, partner can here bid 3♥, which we can pass, or 4♥ by himself.

It doesn't seem to me that missing out on 3♥ is a big problem. When partner bids on his own, we are happy to raise to game. So the hands you are worried about are either (1) hands where partner can bid 3♥ after we pass, yet doesn't want to be in game, or (2) hands where partner can't bid 3♥ on his own, yet we need to get to 3♥.

I think hands of type (1) almost don't exist - obviously I am not saying that game is always cold or even always good, just that almost always when partner bids 3♥ opposite a passing partner, our hand makes game a reasonable shot. Hands of type (2) seem more possible perhaps, but if 2♠ is passed around to us we can try 3♦ if we want to compete for the partscore.

[JLOGIC]

MFA, on Sep 7 2010, 04:28 PM, said:

I can understand criticizing having only one heart for acting now, but I don't understand criticizing the honour location. Having the queen of hearts is a great asset if partner should repeat his suit or whatever he bids. Yes ♠JTx looks soft, but even then we might belong in 3NT.

I guess this is where we disagree. To me having jack sixth is very bad honor location.

KJT third is not that bad, but given that we have a 6331 hand with 9 points it just takes away from points we can have in our 6 card suit (assuming our most likely game is going to be 3N).

Stiff queen of hearts I don't really view as an upgradable or downgradable card. We can upgrade it when partner volunatarily rebids his suit, but if we induce him to rebid his suit he can just have any 6 card suit, of course it's still good but it's not as good as it is in this auction, and of course most times partner won't have a 6 card suit and will bid something else in which case I don't view my HQ as very valuable at all.

And of course the SJ could be helpful but usually isn't, and is not really a good card compared to what it could be. I just think the overall honor location of this hand is bad, much worse than whatever an average 6331 8 count would be. This does not mean to me that all cards are terrible, just that it is well below average given those parameters which means it is bad honor location.

I agree with what 655321 said about getting to 3H, I don't really want to play 3H unless partner can bid again by himself. I am actually very worried about an auction like 1H 1S X 2S 3H, not happy about it.

[aguahombre]

I have the unauthorized information that whether I pass or make a neg double, partner bids 3H regardless; and this is an overload of my alleged brain.

If I passed on the first round, yes 4H now.
If I doubled on the first round, yes pass now.
But knowing pard would bid 3H in both cases, screws me up.