[twcho]

Scoring: IMP

W N E S
1D X pass 2H
All pass

---

Result: 2H+3

Is South's 2H an underbid or North pass conservative?

[mike777]

Very tough hand I only make a few observations that I hope you find helpful.
1) If you assume partner has longish hearts then
2) having AK of spades and A of club is a plus outside of trump suit. If you assume partner has longish hearts then having the same honors in hearts is a negative.
3) having ruffing values in D and txx in hearts becomes a plus.
4) With all that said this is a hard hand.

[P_Marlowe]

2H by South is certainly not an underbid,
the dbl could have been made on a weaker
hand.
2H is ok, but the bid is hand on the lower
end of the required strength.
Taking this into account, North could raise,
selling his hand as +15, but having only 3
card support, pass is reasonable.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[HeartA]

P_Marlowe, on Mar 2 2006, 02:46 AM, said:

2H by South is certainly not an underbid,
the dbl could have been made on a weaker
hand.
2H is ok, but the bid is hand on the lower
end of the required strength.
Taking this into account, North could raise,
selling his hand as +15, but having only 3
card support, pass is reasonable.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Agree with Marlowe

[coyot]

This hand could take 3♥ from north. Diamond void in the short trump hand indicates that it would even be possible to make 4♥ on Moysian fit. The club suit looks pretty nice and has two side entries that would be available even after drawing trump.

South cannot IMHO bid more than 2♥ - outside hearts, the values are scatterred and of doubtful usefulness. After hearing 3♥, no doubt about accepting, though.

[whereagles]

I'm sorry, but I think it's just plain nuts to ask North to bid 3♥ on a min hand with lousy fit, especially opposite what might be a 8-9 hcp with ♥Kxxx for a suit.

That being said, South has an obvious 3♥ bid (which shows 5 cards), if not 4 outright.

If you want a 'technical' explanation for bidding 3♥, you can use Lawrence's SST & WP evaluation, which hints at an expected 10 or 11(!!) tricks. Heck.. now that I see it, you should just bid 4♥.. lol.

[FrancesHinden]

Maybe this is related to what a take-out double shows.
I also think South has a fairly clear 3H call over the double.
I don't believe North is close to a move over 2H.

[twcho]

Actually is there any standard meaning for:
2H, 3H, 4H, 2D and 3D by south?

[joker_gib]

I also would have bid 3♥ with the south's hand

Alain

[inquiry]

twcho, on Mar 2 2006, 05:29 AM, said:

Actually is there any standard meaning for:
2H, 3H, 4H, 2D and 3D by south?

I use Glenn Ashton's published methods for responding to takeout doubles as published as part of his excellent ETM victory bidding system. This involves bidding only 1♥ with 0 to 10 hcp and a four card suit, and saving jump to 2♥ to show FIVE card suit and 7 to 10 hcp (can include 5 and 6 hcp with KQxxx in the suit).

Thus 2♥ would show this hand so no concern raising with Txx as you will not catch Kxxx or Qxxx or Jxxx opposite. In fact, i suspect my auction would be

1♦-x-p-2♥
ps-4♥

but even if I only raise to 3♥ with north, south has easy 4♥ rebid then.

[hotShot]

twcho, on Mar 2 2006, 07:17 AM, said:

Result: 2H+3

Is South's 2H an underbid or North pass conservative?

South bid is not an underbid and North does not need to bid further. It is pure luck that this time 11 tricks are on. There is no point in bidding game with any combined 21HCP.

But there are indications.......
South knows that both North and East must be short in ♦. So almost all of his points are working, there is no need to downgrade the Q♣. The problem is, that without agreement it is not clear if 2♥ shows 4 (more likely) or 5 cards. So 3♥ is an overbid, but only a slight one. If North X guarantees 3cards in ♥, it can be made.

North sang his song by dbling. There is no extra strength or information he can give.

[whereagles]

twcho, on Mar 2 2006, 10:29 AM, said:

Actually is there any standard meaning for:
2H, 3H, 4H, 2D and 3D by south?

In French style:

2♥ = 8-10 hcp & 4 cards OR 5-7 hcp & 5 cards
3♥ = 8-10 hcp & 5 cards OR 5-7 hcp & 6 cards (the case of this hand)
4♥ = 11+ hcp & 5 cards OR 8-10 hcp & 6 cards
2♦ = 8+ hcp, 4 cards in a major
3♦ = no meaning

[calg]

Assume N-S were playing natural system, they do not have additional tool. South's 2H bid was slightly underbid. As some post mentioned above, 2H+3 was because of lucky distribution. North could easily have 2 Diamonds that could be 2 losers in only one suit. However, North's hand is great value, passing 2H was too conservative. Singleton Diamond, top cards in Spades, and good Club suit are suitable for a 3H raise. Even it could be 4-3 fit, I can not see many loser tricks from North's hand.

[FrancesHinden]

For Justin and me (and others) that North hand is a fairly minimum take-out double in support of hearts, and South could easily have only 4 hearts for the 2H bid.

If you think it's right to double a 1D opening on various random balanced hands (I can't think of an example right now, but something like Kxxx KQx xxx Axx would get votes elsewhere on BBO) then 2H from South is a serious call and North has a great deal extra.

[Al_U_Card]

Is south able to bid 2D before showing his H? I think not, but 3H is certainly reasonable. The CQ is nice and will likely allow for D pitches from hand. The S are golden and will finesse S values out of opener's hand. I think that South underbid as 2H can be bid on much less.

[Al_U_Card]

twcho, on Mar 2 2006, 05:29 AM, said:

Actually is there any standard meaning for:
2H, 3H, 4H, 2D and 3D by south?

2H is 5 with 7-9 hcp or 9-11 with 4
3H is 5+ with 8-11 hcp
2D shows invitational values
3D shows both majors and invitational values

[mikeh]

North has no blame here: he has a minimum takeout double. The black suits render the hand a 'good' minimum, but the ♥ holding is less than partner expects and the stiff ♦ is no more than partner expects for classic minimum takeout double. North has done his job by doubling.

I think that South has underbid slightly with 2♥. Yes, 2♥ does show this range of high card: typically 8-10 with 4-5 trump. But this is not a 10 point hand... except to the Walter the Walruses amongst us. The Jxxx of ♦ warrants an upgrade, because we have no wastage, and we can turn some of those x's into winners by ruffing them in dummy.... note that we are speaking in terms of S's expectation on the auction, not asserting that on ALL hands this will happen: sometimes the ♦ are 5422 and East will be overruffing if we don't pull trump in time. But on average, this Jxxx is a good holding on the auction.

The black suit holdings are promising as well. Usually J98 is not great: but here we should be expecting a decent 4 card holding in dummy with any finesse likely, tho not assured, to work. Imagine AQ10x in dummy: absent any enemy bidding, this would be a 50% chance of 4 tricks. Once LHO opens and RHO passes, it is probably around a 75-80% chance of 4 tricks.

And the stiff ♣Q works as well.

So I think the S hand should be upgraded significantly.

Does this mean that S should bid 3♥?

Not for me. In my preferred scheme (and I believe that this scheme was and maybe still is at least a variant of 'standard') the jump to 3♥ is semi-preemptive: a long, usually weak suit in a weak hand: xxx QJxxxxx xx x would be a hand on which I would bid 3♥.

My scheme:

1♥ 0-8 with 4-5♥... could be 6♥ with a truly weak hand
2♥ 8-10 with 4+♥, constructive
3♥ see above
4♥ very rare: sort of the same as 3♥ but the suit or the hand is slightly better: I do not believe in preempting partner in constructive auctions.

All good hands, of genuine invitational or power game force values, start with the cue bid which is forcing until suit agreement or game.

Thus for me this S hand is worth an invitation and I would bid 2♦. This would, it turns out, get us to game more or less by accident.

BTW, while everyone so far agrees with double by North, I don't think that 2♣ is hideous, intending to bid 2♠ if convenient. If partner transfered to 2♥ (in my methods) or simply bid 2♥, north raises to game in ♥: on such a sequence, the north hand will have grown up considerably.

[joshs]

I really don't think anything went wrong. South might have bid more than 2H on that hand (he has good shape and only 1 point wasted in diamonds) but 2H is pretty normal (thats all I would bid). North can't bid over 2H with that hand. Quite frankly, would you be suprised to lose 3 trump tricks a diamond and a spade on those 2 hands here? I think you had a normal auction to a normal spot and it happens to make a lot of tricks. I would expect a push....

The other day I held ATxxx Axx xx xxx
LHO opens 1H, partner bids 1S, RHO bids 2H, I bid 4S, LHO x's and we made 4S-x on our 18 high. As they were leaving the table, one of them said something like "you guys are too lucky, you need to learn how to bid, imagine bidding game on only 18 high." As he walked away, a walrus mustache seemed to appear....

[Al_U_Card]

mikeh, on Mar 2 2006, 12:39 PM, said:

Does this mean that S should bid 3♥?

Not for me. In my preferred scheme (and I believe that this scheme was and maybe still is at least a variant of 'standard') the jump to 3♥ is semi-preemptive: a long, usually weak suit in a weak hand: xxx QJxxxxx xx x would be a hand on which I would bid 3♥.

I agree that your method is what I expect modern expert standard to be. Undiscussed, I think the gentleman would get into less trouble with the more old-fashione recipe...