[pdmunro]

My hand as West:
♠ 987
♥ AQJ9
♦ AQT6
♣ 53

Partner (East) opens with 1D, South passed, I bid 1H, and North overcalled 1S. Partner passed. South passed. Playing Standard American, what are your suggestions for my bid?

[mike777]

So partner did not make a support double or rebid one no trump or rebid 2 clubs or 2 diamonds.

Give partner perhaps

Jxx..xx.. KJxxx...AKx

You might try two spades...

Maybe

Qxx...xx...Kxxxx..AKx?

[mw64ahw]

Failure to bid:
X <3♥
1N implies lack of ♠ guard ?
2♣ <4♣ ?
2♦ <6♦ ?
So 3253 ?

Your hand has some play for 4♦ opposite a min. with 3♠ losers so do you really want to invite 3N/5♦?

How accurate is partner's bidding? 2♠ could jog their memory and shut the ops. out or 3♦.

[mike777]

mw64ahw, on 2025-December-19, 21:59, said:

Failure to bid:
1N implies lack of ♠ guard ?
2♣ <4♣ ?
2♦ <6♦ ?
2♥ <4♥ ?
So 5♦(332) ?

Your hand has some play for 4♦ opposite a min. with 2♠ losers so how do you invite 5♦ looking for something like xx Kxx KJxxx AKx?

No support double

[mw64ahw]

mike777, on 2025-December-19, 22:06, said:

No support double

Yep - was still editing my post and I see you got in there before me.

BTW I'd bid 1N with Qxx

[jillybean]

Partner has multiple bids available, I think there’s been a slip up here.
Forgot support double, reluctant to bid 1nt?

[DavidKok]

Partner's pass is nice and descriptive. We should bid 2♠ now, though double is a fair alternative.

[pdmunro]

Original poster here.

Thanks for the suggestions. Actually, I was playing East. I held:
♠ KT54
♥ 65
♦ J952
♣ AKQ

The full bidding:
E...S..W..N
1D P 1H 1S
P P 2D all pass

I asked my question, pretending to be West, hoping your answers would help me to better understand my partner's dilemma and options.

My go-to bid in West's situation is to "cue bid" the opponent's suit, that is, I would bid 2S. I would take that as a general directive to keep bidding: "Tell me more about your hand, partner".

I can understand my partner's annoyance that I didn't immediately bid 1NT to show stoppers. But I know that there have been other similar situations where, holding cards in an opponent's suit, I have passed to "await developments". And that pass has worked out fine.

A related question:
I took partner's 2D bid as minimum support, so I passed. We play "inverted minors". Are inverted minors still on in this situation? Our general agreement is that they are off in competition.

[DavidKok]

Your partner is completely wrong on both counts.

Pass is descriptive and does not deny a spade stopper.
Inverted minors refers only to a direct raise of a minor suit opening, not to later round bids.

[pescetom]

DavidKok, on 2025-December-20, 05:03, said:

Pass is descriptive and does not deny a spade stopper.

I agree with that, but do you feel Pass describes this particular hand better than 1NT?

[akwoo]

There is no standard standard American.

In 1960s Goren, 3♦ as a forcing diamond raise would work for West, but Standard American had switched to invitational jump raises. Also, the idea that you just ignore opponent bidding in the meaning of your bids is 50 years outdated.

Neither double nor 2♠ is defined for West in standard american. Someone who had not learned otherwise and had not thought about the proper construction of bidding systems might assume that double is penalty and 2♠ shows spades. Both of those are terrible agreements, but beginners think of bidding systems as coming from stone tablets, not as something that can be modified.

Even if West thinks double and 2♠ are something sensible, those bids just might not occur to them.

When, as East, you are playing with a novice (possibly a very experienced novice), you have a choice (which, ideally, partner should agree on). You can make the technically superior bids and plays, helping partner learn what they are and how to work with them, or you can make the bids that partner will understand, optimizing for partner's comfort and your results. Passing might be the technically superior bid as East, but 1N would have made West's life easier.

[DavidKok]

pescetom, on 2025-December-20, 06:47, said:

I agree with that, but do you feel Pass describes this particular hand better than 1NT?

No, I think 1NT is a better description. However, I think a very slightly changed hand would be well described with pass, and in this case I feel like it does not impact West's decisions and is not that misleading.

I understand that West might have an easier time over 1NT, but (even for beginners) I think it is debatable whether that means it's a better action. It scores better on this deal, but if double and 2♠ by West are truly undefined on the actual auction I expert the partnership to benefit from having a poor score once and discussing after.

[mw64ahw]

akwoo, on 2025-December-20, 08:48, said:

There is no standard standard American.

SAYC must come close

[bluenikki]

mw64ahw, on 2025-December-20, 11:14, said:

SAYC must come close

Do you mean ACBL SAYC? Then no. (No forcing raise of a minor, for example.)

Or some undocumented SAYC? Then how would you tell?

[pescetom]

DavidKok, on 2025-December-20, 09:06, said:

No, I think 1NT is a better description. However, I think a very slightly changed hand would be well described with pass, and in this case I feel like it does not impact West's decisions and is not that misleading.

Thanks, agree with all of that too: just checking to see if I understood and sensibilities match. I would have bid 1NT because it fits and makes partner's life easier, but Pass is not far off and I would not expect him to get it wrong.

[mycroft]

SAYC is a camel (an elephant designed by committee) of "conventions and agreements almost all flight A players in 1975 could play, even if it wasn't their preferred decisions", designed for one purpose - to hold a "one system" event for those who kept complaining about how all these newer players (like E.R./J.M., or all those Europeans) just played weird stuff to confuse, and the true measure of skill in bridge was in the play, not all these weird coded languages. Because of course, their play was top-notch, but their bidding had antiquated to the point where they weren't really competitive any more and didn't want to learn anything new.

After holding a few events that were massive in their under expected attendance, they realized that all those complainers really meant "hey, don't take away our useful tools, just their weird stuff" and it quietly died on the vine.

Until some Californian nobody who was lonely doing grad work in Sweden decided to use this newfangled academic network to play bridge with his girlfriend and other friends back home, so wrote an OK server and client. He found pretty quickly that one of the problems with playing with randoms from all over the world is that they didn't share a bidding system, and couldn't there be something we could default to? And lo and behold, there on the ACBL web site was this *booklet* explaining a system, and basically everybody (except the Poles) could play it (even if it wasn't their preference)!

Nobody can play SAYC - even those who claim they do so. I know - I've tried. Most don't. It was the previous century when A. B. wrote "you are given the information that your opponents play SAYC, but all that means is that they can find the letters "S", "A", "Y", and "C" on their keyboard." It truly has not got better.

And no, it is nowhere near close to what I would expect from a Standard American pair today, who play negative doubles through 3♠ if not 4♦ (and probably responsive and support doubles), obviously inverted minors (which means the strength of 2♦ raise is "inverted"), some form of Keycard Blackwood, some non-YC agreement about when 4♣ is Gerber, probably some conventional defence to 1NT, ...

[akwoo]

DavidKok, on 2025-December-20, 09:06, said:

I understand that West might have an easier time over 1NT, but (even for beginners) I think it is debatable whether that means it's a better action. It scores better on this deal, but if double and 2♠ by West are truly undefined on the actual auction I expect the partnership to benefit from having a poor score once and discussing after.

Only if partner wants to discuss and will remember the discussion two weeks from now.

The kind of life novice who knows double and 2♠ are artificial here but won't think of either bid when the possibility of it comes up won't think of them next time or the time after either. Maybe after a couple years if their partner makes the bids enough and points it out a few times, but that's far from guaranteed.

[Huibertus]

As to the question if East denies a stopper by passing, I agree that is not the case. But I think it is NOT the most important question for West. The most important question for West is "Does 1NT promise above minimal values. I feel it should and it does.

As a partnership you do not want to see the bidding go 1♦ - p - 1♥ - 1♠ - 1NT - X where East has a minimal opening with a spade stopper and a ♥ misfit, south had a trap pass over 1♦ and west has a meagre 6HCP 4/5 card ♥ without a 2♦ escape, that will NOT end well.

Because of this East having w minimum opening without 3♥ and with or without ♠ stopped is the most logical explanation for his pass, to me this is implied bridge logic, you don't need to discuss explicitly. Even though some suggest 1NT on the actual hand would have been easier, yes, but it would be completely wrong imho. Imagine this -300 or -100 against nothing nightmare:

---

So yes, I agree West needs to bid 2♠ looking for 2/3NT, and possible bailing out at 3/4♦ if there is no ♠ stop.