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How to bid and play this 4H at the edge

#21 User is offline   Stephen Tu 

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Posted 2015-September-20, 09:31

The alternative to 1 is 2, not 3. If you think the hand is strong enough for an invite (I do, personally), I see nothing to recommend 3 over 1. I don't see why this would ever be "counterproductive". Bidding 1 then jumping to 3 would describe the hand perfectly, it finds superior spade fits, it doesn't overstate the length of the heart support. Where's the downside? (I suppose you could argue that you reveal less to the defense on heart contracts). The debate about stone-age vs. stone-age is basically irrelevant IMO.

The key thing is if one bids 1, you are committed to bidding *3*, not 2. 2 as noted is just a preference, and won't be particularly encouraging to partner. If one judges the hand *not* to be worth an immediate invite, in a 5 card major system it is very important to raise hearts directly, and not bid 1. This is far more encouraging to partner and will be better able to find games on hands that don't have a move over just a preference. You gain more often by finding these games than you lose by occasionally playing 2 when 2 happens to play better. Note if you have a game in spades it's still possible to get there after 1-2-2-3. When you are strong enough for two descriptive bids without partner showing extras, it's usually better to make them, you give a fuller description. The time to bury the spades is when you only have enough for a single raise, because concealing the 3rd heart is too injurious to your side.

As for the play, it seems to me a lot easier to make if you ruff the 3rd club with hj.
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#22 User is offline   Stephen Tu 

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Posted 2015-September-20, 09:33

View Postcheers OvO, on 2015-September-19, 01:37, said:

1S isn't a bid worse than 2H/3H because west may find a better fit if east has 4support. After east bids a new suit to show a good hand which is not so strong, west has to stop at 4H immediately with not so good distribution but 3support and 10hcp only and to indicate that you have 4H(he knows you have 25+pts) but he has no interest in slams. So I suggest the process:1H-1S-2D-4H. Some readers may dislike 2D weaker than a general reverse because 3jacks are the most useless honors, but it's more acceptable in relaxed discussion.

Almost no one plays the old Roth-Stone idea that new suit by opener (vs. 1nt) shows extras anymore. 2 for most doesn't show more than a minimum opener. So 4 is going to be an overbid, 3 will get the job done.
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#23 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2015-September-20, 10:51

The hand is far more interesting, I think, than the comments so far suggest.

Let's start with Stephen's suggestion that declarer ruff the 3rd club with the Jack.

Now, most players would automatically overruff, and the hand is now of no interest. However, a strong player can see that he always gets a heart trick no matter what, and so may pitch smoothly.

Consider declarer's situation should the J hold and S have pitched with little thought. Many declarers, who would themselves have overruffed were they South, would now have a completely incorrect view of the hand. They would place N with the Queen of trump.

How would you play then? I think the logical line is to play the A and unblock the spades and then low to the K. Now S has 2 trump tricks.

One might argue that declarer ought to unblock the spades and then play heart A and low to the 10, which works on the given hand since spades are 3-3 and S in any even has no safe diamond exit even if he has short spades. Indeed, I think that line to be clearly correct, but my point is that ducking the heart J is safe, in the context of the trump suit, and may persuade an incautious or inexperienced declarer to go wrong.

On the actual hand, with (I assume) a low ruff and then an overruff, the question for declarer is whether to assume that hearts are now 2-2 (thus originally 3-2) or whether to go with what I think to be the better analysis: with clubs known to be 6-2, place the heart Queen with S, and tackle hearts by laying down the Ace, unblock spades (in case they are 4-2) and then low to the 10.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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#24 User is offline   zillahandp 

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Posted 2015-September-20, 11:16

Sry west's 2hts the error 3hts is clear, west must bid a spade and two ds shows 5/4 in the reds. Tough 4hts goes down but its 75% plus chance sometimes lousy bidding eg being in two hts gets you agood result but only a small percent of the time. End of non question!
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