[broze]

As South you hold: AQxxx Txx x J976. Love all.

How do you act on these two similar auctions? And how much consideration to give to "the LAW".

Auction 1:

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Auction 2:

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Partner will almost never have 6H here so you can ignore that possibility. The scoring was MPs but please comment how your reasoning might differ at Teams. These opponents had no agreements about what 2NT would be instead of 3m - does that change a lot?

[gszes]

P has an extremely good idea how much power we have but they have little idea of the extra offensive abilities of our hand. We have little to fear from bidding 3h (p will not get carried away after our limiting first pass over 2h) now and since both 3c and 3d might easily make 3h does not have to be a rousing success to improve our score especially at MP. Imps I might try for the set since going down 1 or 2 is of little use at IMPS.

[rmnka447]

West should have a pretty decent hand somewhere about 8-10 to continue to compete over 2 ♥.

Auction 1 - After 3 ♣, I'm usually passing no matter the method of scoring as my hand has good defensive values. Opener can't directly compete over 2 ♥ at the 3 level as responder could be passing on anything initially. So opener could still show up with 5 ♣. At MPs, I might double if I think our side needs a top. At IMPs, I'll correct to 3 ♥ if partner somehow finds a 3 ♦ bid in pass out seat.

Auction 2 - After 3 ♦, I don't know which minor partner has. If partner has ♣, we can probably make 3 ♥. But if partner happens to have ♦, bidding probably is saving defeat from the jaws of victory. So, I'll stay fixed and pass at either form of scoring.

[Jinksy]

Call me simple-minded, but I'll pass 3♣, which we might set and and bid over 3♦, which we probably won't (given the SK is pretty good odds to be well placed for them). On the latter, we might well be no worse than 1 off, so even if they double us, as long as they were making, we might still get a good score. If we're two off, they still might not be able to X.

[WesleyC]

In the first auction where the opponents have landed in 3C it looks pretty clear to defend. Partner is marked with diamonds and any soft diamond values carry a lot more weight on defense than offense. The ♣J9xx should provide at least 1 defensive trick (and also greatly reduces the chance that the opponents have a 9c fit). And finally the major suits might sit poorly for our side, LHO is marked with Spades and RHO will have the long hearts and could easily find a double holding a couple of trump tricks.

In the second auction where the opponents have landed in 3D, bidding is far more appealing because we might still have a double fit in clubs and hearts (giving the opponents a big diamond fit). However, I don't think bidding is automatic because we still have the issue of the majors being poorly placed an partner holding short spades. Also some of the time partner WILL have diamonds. You could certainly tempt me to bid here especially NV against passive opponents but I don't think it's mandatory.