[mr1303]

In my experience, there's a problem with knowing what to do when the opponents make a (usually rubbish) overcall, and you have a penalty double.

You pass, hoping for the X to come back from partner, but unfortunately he bids something else.

E.g.

1H (1S) P P
2H

or so on.

Fairly frequently, this is met with a sigh and a leap to 3NT. But fairly frequently 3NT won't be the correct place to play.

Case in point:

Scoring: IMP

---

Partner opened a strong 1C, and had a 1H overcall. This was passed back round to partner who reopened with 1S. We did eventually find 6D, but I wasn't happy with the way that we got there.

1C (1H) P
1S 1NT
2D 3D
3H (X) XX
4D 6D

At the other table, it went

1S (2H) P P
3D P 3NT

and this went 2 off on a club lead.

Any suggestions?

[MickyB]

mr1303, on Apr 24 2006, 10:10 AM, said:

At the other table, it went

1S (2H) P P
3D P 3NT

and this went 2 off on a club lead.

Any suggestions?

No, they were playing a strong club too -

1C (2H) P (P)
2S (P) 3NT AP

[FrancesHinden]

I think your auction to 6D was fine.

The difficulty is that the penalty passer can have absolutely anything from a string of hearts headed by the Queen to a strong hand. I don't know how to solve this for every possible hand.

This is an even tougher hand not playing Precision, when opener is also unlimited, and our team-mates missed the slam. They bid

1S (2H) P (P)
x (P) P (3C)
3D (P) 5D all pass

There was a lot of debate about this hand afterwards (the only good news was that we won the match 20-0 anyway!). We were all agreed that

- opener can't pass over 3C because it's not forcing, and he can't double because he doesn't have enough clubs, so he's left with having to choose between

i) 3D, which is an underbid
ii) 3H, which shows a good hand, but isn't very descriptive
iii) 4D, which gives up on 3NT, still the most likely game

we also debated whether 5D was the correct call opposite, bearing in mind that 4D is not forcing, 3H is very wishy-washy, and 4H is natural. 4C or 5C would both show a load of diamonds, but now comes the debate about how good responder's hand actually is for the auction: plus points for the ace of hearts, the singleton club, the 5th diamond; minus points for only one working high card (the HA) when he could have had a huge amount more.

The democratic analysis after the even was that both hands had underbid (as 7 is on a finesse, and they played in 5, that probably isn't so unlikely a conclusion!)

The auction at our table where oppo had the strong hands was

1S (2H) P (P)
3D (P) 5D all pass

where responder had exactly the same problem - no idea how good her hand actually was in the context of the auction.