[kenrexford]

1♠ seems obvious. If I have to play in a partscore, I play in the partscore that probably takes the most tricks AND that is most likely the best contract when the obvious field contract will fail.

[Bbradley62]

ahydra, on Sep 8 2010, 05:33 PM, said:

I'd open the North hand 2NT (as I play 19-20).

with a small singleton?

[Elianna]

My new partner is from a different country than me, and they definitely have different styles that she thinks is the only way to play. It gets rather frustrating, as she thinks that she is educating me about bridge, and I think that she is informing me about the style typical in her area of the world.

So the auction 1D-1H came up during bidding practice, and she asks me if 2NT denies 4H for me. I say of course, but that I'd also prefer it to deny 4S (I know that this is not STANDARD in the US, but it is my preference). She thought that this was really bad, because for her, the auction 1D-1H-1S is at most 16 points, and I thought that it is at most 19 points.

So we then moved on to the tangent of what hands would actually pass 1S by her. I told her only hands that would pass 2NT, that have exactly three spades.

After going around and around on the same subject for 15 minutes, saying the same thing, I told her to make her second bid and I would pass whatever she bid (not that I necessarily would with this hand, I just was tired). She bid 2NT, and I passed, and then we debated about which contract we would rather be in only considering our two hands.

We disagreed on that, too, and I was just curious what other people thought, analysing the hands.

The full layout on our bidding practice was something like:

---

[bluecalm]

Quote

Bluecalm's XXX KJXXX XXXX X would rebid 2D after responding 1H. Any hand tempted to pass a 1S rebid would not respond 1♥.

This hand is for 1♣ opener. Make it: xxx KJxxx x xxxx for 1♦.
I hope you don't want to pass 1m opening with that ?

Quote

She thought that this was really bad, because for her, the auction 1D-1H-1S is at most 16 points, and I thought that it is at most 19 points.

16 and 19 sounds like random figures to me.
If you say "16" what do you do with:
KJxx A KJx AKxxx ?

If you say "19" what do you do with:

AKxx x AKxx KQJx ? or add another J somewhere.

[the hog]

Interesting. Most people i know play 1X 1Y 1Z as 100% forcing.

[hanp]

Interesting post Elianna. I moved from the US to the Netherlands a little over a year ago and encountered many problems that are similar to those you describe. For example, here it is quite common to play that a 2NT rebid is forcing and can contain 4-card support. There are a million other auctions where styles differ. The best chance for your partnership to be succesful is for both partners to be flexible, and to accept the occasional mishaps that are bound to occur in the beginning.

On the given hand, I agree with you that your partner's style is not something I would want to adopt. However, wouldn't it be better to aim at playing 1S as up to 19, and 2NT showing a balanced 18-19 hand without 4-card support? By taking the position that 2NT should deny 4 spades, you are positioning yourself further from your partner, and I wonder if this particular discussion was constructive to your partnership.

On the other hand, besides coming to an agreement it is important that each finds out how the other thinks about bridge. So perhaps making a case for why one should not rebid 2NT with a 4-card spade suit is constructive after all.

[bluecalm]

Quote

here it is quite common to play that a 2NT rebid is forcing and can contain 4-card support.

People in Poland play this often too but it makes a lot of sense here because even playing wide range openers 1♣ - 1♦ is art negative.
Do people play 2NT forcing in Netherlands playing standard 1m openers ?
If yes, what kind of hands such 2NT contain ? Only balanced or some other unbal too ? (like 6-4, 5-4 kind of stuff).

[hanp]

I must admit I never got into to this part of dutch bidding. I just see people bid like

1C - 1S
2NT - 3C (checkback)
4H

all the time and 4S then shows 4-card support. NMF is pretty much unknown here (thankfully!).

[Hanoi5]

Even though in this hand 10 tricks are available in both NT and Spades, a simulation shows that there are more tricks in spades than NT in the long run. So 1♠ should be better than 2NT.

[hanp]

That depends on the form of scoring Hanoi, which was not provided.

[Hanoi5]

Read the poll title again Han.

[hanp]

Oh, so it's matchpoints and your comment was wrong, correct?

[Bbradley62]

hanp, on Sep 9 2010, 12:37 PM, said:

Oh, so it's matchpoints and your comment was wrong, correct?

No, Hanoi's analysis is incomplete. We'd need to know how often ♠ makes more than NT, and how often they make 7 or fewer when they make the same number of tricks.

[Hanoi5]

Hanoi5, on Sep 9 2010, 10:39 AM, said:

Even though in this hand 10 tricks are available in both NT and Spades, a simulation shows that there are more tricks in spades than NT in the long run. So 1♠ should be better than 2NT.

In this hand 1♠=170, 2NT=180, NT is better (just as I had chosen in the poll and my first comment). However in the simulation spades were usually better than NT, in which case:

1♠ making 3 better than 2NT just making (140 vs 120). Just by yielding one trick more spades will outscore NT, as long as the same type of contract is played (i.e. part-score or game). So spades are better than NT, therefore 1♠ should be better than 2NT, even though in this particular hand it's not like that. Of course this is based on my simulation which didn't accept hearts worse than 5-2 or spades worse than 4-2. So I don't see how my comment is wrong.

[Bbradley62]

Hanoi5, on Sep 9 2010, 01:03 PM, said:

So I don't see how my comment is wrong.

You still haven't given us enough data to know. The possibilities are:
U% of the time, 2NT goes down and 1♠ goes down more;
V% of the time, 2NT and 1♠ go down the same amount;
W% of the time, NT makes more tricks than ♠, and 2NT at least makes;
X% of the time, ♠ makes more tricks than NT;
Y% of the time, they make the same number of tricks, which is 8 or more;
Z% of the time, they make the same number of tricks, which is 7 or fewer.

I presume that U, V, W and Z are small numbers.

So, 2NT scores better (U+W+Y)% of the time and 1S scores better (X+Z)% of the time.

Based on your simulation, can you tell us what U, V, W, X, Y and Z are?

[JLOGIC]

Why is the south hand passing 2N here?

Also is it not reasonable to jump shift with a good 19 count?

The poll asked whether 2N or 1S was better, but I would rather be in 3N than both of those, and that should be feasible with 25 HCP and some good spots and honors.

[Elianna]

JLOGIC, on Sep 9 2010, 09:25 AM, said:

Why is the south hand passing 2N here?

Also is it not reasonable to jump shift with a good 19 count?

The poll asked whether 2N or 1S was better, but I would rather be in 3N than both of those, and that should be feasible with 25 HCP and some good spots and honors.

Oh, I wasn't saying that I actually WOULD pass either with this hand, but this was the hand that came up when we were "talking", and I thought that it was obvious that 1S (one-level, plus more tricks available quite likely) was a better place to play than 2NT (discounting that fact that we'd actually be in 3NT which ever way she bid, quite likely) but she thought that 1S was making 2 at most, and 2NT was making three, and so 2NT was better. And I thought this was ridiculous. So I thought I would ask you wise ones.

[JLOGIC]

Elianna, on Sep 9 2010, 02:03 PM, said:

JLOGIC, on Sep 9 2010, 09:25 AM, said:

Why is the south hand passing 2N here?

Also is it not reasonable to jump shift with a good 19 count?

The poll asked whether 2N or 1S was better, but I would rather be in 3N than both of those, and that should be feasible with 25 HCP and some good spots and honors.

Oh, I wasn't saying that I actually WOULD pass either with this hand, but this was the hand that came up when we were "talking", and I thought that it was obvious that 1S (one-level, plus more tricks available quite likely) was a better place to play than 2NT (discounting that fact that we'd actually be in 3NT which ever way she bid, quite likely) but she thought that 1S was making 2 at most, and 2NT was making three, and so 2NT was better. And I thought this was ridiculous. So I thought I would ask you wise ones.

I see, I think passing 1S after 1D-1H-1S is quite reasonable with the south hand/is what I would do even though it might not work out, but over 1D-1H-2N I would drive to game with the south hand. That is one reason I like jump shifting with the north hand, a stiff heart is bad but 19 is 19, and I think it is worth it to show that to partner. That said I think 1S is also reasonable, and 2N is not reasonable at all. To me the decision would be between 1S and 2S, I would not lie about my length in partners suit.

[jdeegan]

1♠ I don't mean to be difficult, but THE QUESTION WAS: WHAT CONTRACT WOULD YOU PREFER AT MATCHPOINTS? That one is E-Z, 1♠ has an edge.