[AL78]

MPs against one of the strongest pairs in the field:

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Do you overcall?

[bluenikki]

AL78, on 2022-November-18, 05:28, said:

MPs against one of the strongest pairs in the field:

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Do you overcall?

I thought the guideline was simple: Strain to overcall with a singleton or void. Strain not to otherwise.

[DavidKok]

Partner is a passed hand so game is unlikely. I'm mostly concerned about having to defend 2♠. With hearts this good it will be difficult for them to punish us. I think it is a close decision either way, and would probably pass.

[ali quarg]

I will bid the balanced 5 card Major with an opening bid, especially over a Weak NT and White vs Red via a transfer. This is little different from opening 1H and ending up in 2H the majority of the time with a non-GF partner. The
exception being that they would have passed an opening bid when bust.

[Cyberyeti]

DavidKok, on 2022-November-18, 05:47, said:

Partner is a passed hand so game is unlikely. I'm mostly concerned about having to defend 2♠. With hearts this good it will be difficult for them to punish us. I think it is a close decision either way, and would probably pass.

I agree with your general assessment, partner needs xxx, xxx, and either KQxxx/Ax or Kx/AQxxx to make game decent or the (43) versions with the J of the long suit for game to be good.

I agree it's close but I would bid.

[ali quarg]

An update on my simplistic view
Partner has on average 7 hcp and 2 hearts. You end up playing 2M much of the time on a 1M opener when partner is a passed hand.
Just under 50/50 defending 1NT +100 vs -90
Playing in 2M +110 vs -50
I'll transfer to Hearts so the Weak NT hand can lead.

[jillybean]

1♥, however you get there.
It's still a bidders game, even opposite the strongest pair in the field.

[TMorris]

AL78, on 2022-November-18, 05:28, said:

MPs against one of the strongest pairs in the field:

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Do you overcall?

No. You are balanced and defensive and they are vulnerable. If you are making a partial they are going off vulnerable.

[Cyberyeti]

TMorris, on 2022-November-18, 08:55, said:

No. You are balanced and defensive and they are vulnerable. If you are making a partial they are going off vulnerable.

Depends how many hearts partner has, xxx, xxxx, Kxx, Axx they have 4-5 losers, you have 5 you want to bid as far as 3♥ if 3♠ makes and they stop there well done.

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2022-November-18, 08:20, said:

1♥, however you get there.
It's still a bidders game, even opposite the strongest pair in the field.

Hmmmm…..getting to 1H? I understand why you didn’t state how you get there. The 1N opening might be a problem, lol

(Sorry, I couldn’t help it…I know it was a typo😀)

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2022-November-18, 08:20, said:

1♥, however you get there.
It's still a bidders game, even opposite the strongest pair in the field.

Hmmmm…..getting to 1H? I understand why you didn’t state how you get there. The 1N opening might be a problem, lol

(Sorry, I couldn’t help it…I know it was a typo😀)

[TMorris]

Cyberyeti, on 2022-November-18, 10:12, said:

Depends how many hearts partner has, xxx, xxxx, Kxx, Axx they have 4-5 losers, you have 5 you want to bid as far as 3♥ if 3♠ makes and they stop there well done.

Sure if both sides have a fit bidding may work well but there is no reason to assume that. Also if they do have a fit they may not be able to find it eg 1nt opener has 5 spades & they have a 5-3 fit. Anyhow lots of possibilities but for me on balance pass works well.

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2022-November-18, 08:20, said:

1♥, however you get there.
It's still a bidders game, even opposite the strongest pair in the field.

I’m primarily an imp player, which biases me against bidding here. Doing my best to offset that bias, I still think that bidding is an error.

We have a reasonable chance for a plus if the auction ends at 1N.

Bidding 2H wont matter much if LHO is bidding spades….they will outbid us. Even worse, if partner takes us seriously and raises in competition, we don’t have the sort of distribution that we probably need.

Plus, while with our hand it may not matter, if we bid we will paint a road map for our ‘strong’ declarer opponent? This is a factor that’s often overlooked. We all like to bid but sometimes it can cost in subtle ways



We have fewer ways to win by bidding than we have ways to lose

Win:

It’s our hand in hearts. But we have a flat hand with a passed partner and a virtually unlimited LHO

We fail in hearts but score better than we would on defence. But we may go plus on defence.

We make 2H (or 3H) and would be only plus 100 or have a small minus on defence. But see point one

Lose:

We turn a plus on defence into a minus or smaller plus on offence

We go for a number

We tell the opps how to play the hand

Partner takes us too seriously…2H ‘worked’ but partner couldn’t take a joke

We warn the opps away from a failing game when LHO, absent our bidding, would bid 3N or invite…they have no spade fit of 8+ cards and no heart stopper.

I’ve played a lot of weak notrump. My experience is that coming in over a weak notrump with 5332 shape is usually….not at all ‘always’….a bad idea. Just as it is over a strong 1N.

[AL78]

Thanks for all the opinions, a somewhat mixture of bidding and passing. It was my partner who held this hand and she decided to pass on the basis she felt the hand was defensive in nature and if opps stay in 1NT it has a good chance of going down.

The auction proceeded as follows:

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Are you tempted to come in now?

[mycroft]

One of the joys of playing a weak NT is that it's frequently not obvious whose auction it is. That means you get some wins when it goes 1NT-AP when they should compete (and in north America, they would compete opposite the more common 1m) and you get some wins when it goes 1NT-overcall when they should have let us play 1NT.

It also means that you get some losses when it goes 1NT-AP when they would compete opposite 1m, and you get some losses when it goes 1NT-overcall when 1m-(1M)-X; 1NT is the auction at the other tables.

When LHO has (basically) a weak NT as well, is when that volatility is at a maximum. No matter what they decide to do, they will lose sometimes. They will win sometimes, no matter what they decide to do. And in NA, that volatility (at MPs at least) is higher than in UK because the number of other tables opening 1NT is so much lower (to within error bounds, "zero").

So, given that I am saying "these hands are a crapshoot, and there is No Correct Answer with these hands", I focus on other things to make these decisions. My feeling from experience and discussions from others is that "constructive overcalling" should be a priority. You should be expecting to win the auction, and you should expect to make it; partner should be expected to invite or bid game with suitable hands, and expect to make it.

With this hand, I don't like my chances, for the reasons Mike is mentioning (easy to get outbid in spades, partner's a passed hand, 2533 shape). I also see a good chance of 5, maybe 6 tricks against 1NT, so if partner has 4 spades (so they're not going to bid spades) and a card or two (so they're not inviting/bidding game), we have a very good chance of setting this. -200 is a great score; -100 probably is a good one on these kinds of "any plus is good" hands.

Now this is one of the hands where if I'm in a *really old* world, I'm more likely to bid 2♥ than in a more modern world. Because if they're the kind of 12-14 pair that doesn't play transfers (whether 2-way Stayman in NA or Forcing Stayman/Crowhurst in UK), when they do compete in spades, I want a heart lead. If LHO's way of showing spades is to bid hearts, no problem, I'm on lead; but if LHO's way of showing spades is bidding spades, it's harder for partner to mindread.

[mycroft]

In answer to the followup - if I passed before, I'm definitely passing now. Operation "get them to the 3 level" has succeeded without us doing anything.

Yes, we could very easily be +100 (or even -110) when we could be +140, but we're still 20-20, and we still can't promise a good TT count.

3163 8-ish count would do this (concerned about exactly our hand in 1NT), especially if the cards are in the blacks and the diamond suit is more like QTxxxx or KJxxxx.

There are three real pluses to bidding, though, besides "+140 beats +100":

• partner's on lead, and what I said about mindreading applies (although the heart lead isn't likely to do as much in the 6-x diamond fit than a theoretical 5-x spade contract);
  
• it's very likely that if we do bid 3♥, we're playing it (they're not going to compete further), and partner's short in the obvious diamond lead;
  
• it is going to be hard to double (-200 isn't an possibililty, they're not going to have a real "trump stack").

But just as "+140 beats +100", "+100 beats -50".

[Cyberyeti]

mycroft, on 2022-November-18, 15:06, said:

In answer to the followup - if I passed before, I'm definitely passing now. Operation "get them to the 3 level" has succeeded without us doing anything.

Yes, we could very easily be +100 (or even -110) when we could be +140, but we're still 20-20, and we still can't promise a good TT count.

3163 8-ish count would do this (concerned about exactly our hand in 1NT), especially if the cards are in the blacks and the diamond suit is more like QTxxxx or KJxxxx.

There are three real pluses to bidding, though, besides "+140 beats +100":

• partner's on lead, and what I said about mindreading applies (although the heart lead isn't likely to do as much in the 6-x diamond fit than a theoretical 5-x spade contract);
  
• it's very likely that if we do bid 3♥, we're playing it (they're not going to compete further), and partner's short in the obvious diamond lead;
  
• it is going to be hard to double (-200 isn't an possibililty, they're not going to have a real "trump stack").

But just as "+140 beats +100", "+100 beats -50".

There is very little upside to bidding second time, I don't have this problem because I bid first time to avoid it, I may well be -50/100 vs -110 or could be +140/170 against +100, but I'm not going to make the last guess, I gave partner the chance to show me if he has 4 hearts or 3 and values and a decent suit of his own, particularly if he only has one diamond.

[DavidKok]

mikeh, on 2022-November-18, 13:33, said:

Lose:

[...]

Partner takes us too seriously…2H ‘worked’ but partner couldn’t take a joke

This was my main concern. My agreements are too IMP-focused, where overcalling a weak notrump is constructive. We simply don't have that hand, and will end up too high too often. At MPs I think the agreements should be subtly different, but I would still have passed.

Obviously we pass the next round. They haven't even landed in our short suit!

[mikeh]

In my weak notrump partnerships we lack the ability for the two step to 3D. We describe our direct 3m bid as ‘to play’, which is not the same as, though includes, ‘weak’. We may well have decent values but prefer, for one or more of several possible reasons, to play 3m rather than to pass 1N.

Thus it isn’t as simple, after they reach 3D, as taking LHO as showing weakness. Bidding 3H here, after passing, is nuts imo.

It’s nuts against pairs like my weak notrump partnership but it’s even nuttier against the methods in use in the OP, since north might have invitational values and they can carve us up.

[AL78]

I didn't think anyone would bid 3♥ over 3♦ and I wouldn't, nor did partner. The full deal:

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I led a top of nothing ♥9 and after we took our four minor suit tricks, declarer played me for spade length and took a double finesse through my holding leaving me powerless to prevent him taking three spade tricks and making the contract. I did cover the first round but he played to the nine on the second round, and if I don't cover he runs the jack. That was a bottom for us, the full traveller:

1♥S -2 -200
2♥W = -110
2♥W -1 +50
3♦N -1 -100
3♦N = +110 (us)
2♥W = -110

We might have done better if partner had overcalled on the first round but I don't blame her for passing and even if she overcalls, NS will probably go through a Lebensohl sequence to reach 3♦ and we still get a bad result.