[wank]

---

matchpoints. i was south. my partner (better player than me) surprised me here. your bid/plan?

edit: you play xfers from 1nt upwards, so partner didn't have a natural 1NT available.

[JLOGIC]

I would just bid 3D and find it clear, I have a minimum hand that is pretty bad, I don't really want to encourage partner with 2N.

Edit: I guess it matters whether partner had a natural 1N available over the X, do you play transfers there?

[wank]

yes we play transfers from 1NT upwards. XX would have been normal, i.e. looking to collect a penalty.

[JLOGIC]

 wank, on 2013-August-04, 12:53, said:

yes we play transfers from 1NT upwards. XX would have been normal, i.e. looking to collect a penalty.

I guess I owe him 2N then, not thrilled about it and will obviously pass 3D or sign off over 3C. Part of the problem is it makes it easy for them to lead a club when I bid 2N. I kinda want to pass but I imagine partner will never play me for a spade stopper and will go low if I do that.

[aguahombre]

 JLOGIC, on 2013-August-04, 13:57, said:

I guess I owe him 2N then, not thrilled about it and will obviously pass 3D or sign off over 3C.

Yeh, but what would 3C even mean? Not a long club suit for sure. Anyway, I sure hate letting the t/o double which consumed none of our space nonetheless deprive our side of the most likely response to 1♥ --and then trying to figure out just how much responder is trying to make up for the original pass.

[wank]

partner signed off in 3d. we had 3nt, 5d and 4h on. i felt pass would be a decent middle option to let partner have another go. partner will then bid 3h - he's 2245 with a doubleton heart honour,

[JLOGIC]

I dunno, I'm not really trying to play 4H in a 5-2 with 24-25 HCP, hearts unlikely to be 3-3, and our hearts not being that great even opp Kx, at mp. /pointcounter

What was partners hand out of curiosity

[wank]

I had ax kj 108xx jtxxx which I considered not to be worth a xx or some kind of heart raise. I thought the best way to describe my hand was passing and later Xing spades for t/o, assuming I got opportunity. would be interested to hear if you think I was responsible for our doom, though 150 in 3d was 40% so far from a catastrophe.

[aguahombre]

 wank, on 2013-August-05, 13:37, said:

I had ax kj 108xx jtxxx which I considered not to be worth a xx or some kind of heart raise. I thought the best way to describe my hand was passing and later Xing spades for t/o, assuming I got opportunity. would be interested to hear if you think I was responsible for our doom, though 150 in 3d was 40% so far from a catastrophe.

I believe you were responsible only to the extent that you agreed to use methods where a decent responding hand must pass the original double. If partner had, however, bid 2NT instead of the 3D signoff over your 2S (allowing for the possibiility you held this hand), then you could have gone on to game.

[jogs]

North should have bid XX. It would show a spade stopper and extras.
Now you can bid 3NT. Only your partner didn't get over 24 hours
to ponder on his call.

[Zelandakh]

What would 1NT followed by 2♥ have meant in your methods?

[wank]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-August-06, 01:47, said:

What would 1NT followed by 2♥ have meant in your methods?

this type of hand - it's just a question of whether you think the clubs are worth bidding

[JLOGIC]

 wank, on 2013-August-05, 13:37, said:

I had ax kj 108xx jtxxx which I considered not to be worth a xx or some kind of heart raise. I thought the best way to describe my hand was passing and later Xing spades for t/o, assuming I got opportunity. would be interested to hear if you think I was responsible for our doom, though 150 in 3d was 40% so far from a catastrophe.

I think your pass was fine/normal playing transfers, I would not introduce clubs on JTxxx. SOP is to pass then double as you said.

I think your doom was caused by your partner going a little bit low and you having a perfect hand, you had spade help, the jack of hearts, and clubs well stopped, even opposite your actual hand 3N is down on 5-3 spades though obviously 4H is great. I think he should have bid 2N but on the hope of getting to 3N opposite an 8-9 count where you can run diamonds and survive the rest of it. Still there are clubs to worry about, RHO having 5 spades, the DT and whether partner has the ace or the K of diamonds are all relevant things.

But the whole "we got a 40 % anyways" is kind of the point to me, it is not going to be a disaster to play 3D and at MP there is way less reason to stretch to very aggressive spots hoping for perfectas, I would never imagine playing 4H with his hand after 1H X p. Maybe there is even some argument for you to carry on with 3H since the KJ of hearts is pretty awesome, but he made the most discouraging bid and you have 4 small diamonds so I don't think that's right.

To me this kind of result is par for the course in a session of MP, you are trying to thread the needle and take the highest percentage actions while avoiding zeroes if you can, so sometimes you misjudge very slightly and get a small average minus, it happens, no one did anything crazy and your methods hurt you a little (though everyone I know plays transfers over 1M X so it's not like they are bad methods). TBH if spades were 5-3 I would expect above average since I would think most would play 3N, and I don't think that is so unlikely, they doubled 2S with nothing and the other person didn't raise to 2S (though they also have seem to have nothing lol, some people always raise with 4 there).

I guess I would say if this is the worst thing you and your partner do you are gonna win every time Nobody was crazy, and you didn't get to a crazy spot or have a disastrous result.

[aguahombre]

 JLOGIC, on 2013-August-06, 10:51, said:

your methods hurt you a little (though everyone I know plays transfers over 1M X so it's not like they are bad methods).

Yes, but do they all start at 1NT? Starting at XX seems to plug more holes and doesn't entirely give up punishing them.

[jallerton]

Were you playing 4- or 5-card majors? If the latter, I'd be tempted to bid 2♦ on the first round on your hand. I'd expect to make a heart partial and score more than 2 or 3 of a minor. If partner bids on he should not be too disappointed with the dummy.