[rona_]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

- - - 1♠
Pass 2♥ Pass 3♦
Pass 3NT Pass 4♦
Pass 4♠ Pass Pass
Pass

Playing 2/1, I was south. My partner said I should have opened a diamond. Would any experts care to comment?

Thanks
Rona

[helene_t]

We have had a similar discussion about 6♣5♠. As I recall, Fred said that most experts open 1♣.

If I opened this hand 1♠ I would pass partner's 3NT. 4♦ should be a slam invite.

The auction may start
1♦-1♥
1♠-2♣*
2♠**
*FSFtG
**Does this promise 5 spades or could it also be "nothing to say"? I think most would say it promises 5 spades.

maybe it continues
.... -2NT
3♦-3NT
pass

[1eyedjack]

I realise that it does not invalidate the question, but you ended up in a very good spot. As the suits broke well you presumably made 12 tricks, but it is not a slam to be in.

Personally I would open it 1D, but would not shoot someone for opening 1S.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

simple rule: open your longest suit, i.e. diamonds.
If you follow this rule, you will be more often right
than wrong.

There is a small exception, if we are talking about
6-5 hands, and the suits are touching say diamonds
(6 card suit) and hearts (5 card suit), and your hand
is not strong enough for reverse, than open the 5
card suit.

One concrete example would be your hand, but
spades and hearts switched.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[bid_em_up]

Let me preface this by saying that since this is in the Beginner/Intermediate forum, my recommendation is somewhat different than it would be for players of higher skill levels.

Open it 1♠. and rebidding ♦ twice is fine as long as you have the room to do so below 3N. I would not take partner off 3N with this hand (as it tends to imply slam interest in one of your two suits, and should be a much stronger hand).

I would open the hand 1♦ and then rebid spades twice. The second spade bid cancels the reverse (if one was made). This implies 6+♦ and 5♠. The problem with doing this is that the auction frequently gets to the 3 or 4 level by the time comes where you are able to bid spades the 2nd time.

On this hand opening 1♦ will work out much better, as the auction will proceed
1♦-1♥-1♠-2♣? (assuming 4th suit forcing)-2♠-......

and now you have described your hand fully and can pass 3N (when it gets bid) in comfort.

If partner bid 3N over 1♠ (as some people are prone to doing), I would be comfortable passing it.

I think more and more higher level players are opening these kind of hands in the 6 card minor these days (I know I do). It makes it much easier to describe the hand pattern which can be crucial information later in the auction.

[rona_]

If my partner responds 1NT to 1 diamond then what is my next step..I can't bid two spades, do I just rebid diamonds?

Thanks

[bid_em_up]

rona_, on Oct 11 2006, 10:54 AM, said:

If my partner responds 1NT to 1 diamond then what is my next step..I can't bid two spades, do I just rebid diamonds?

Thanks

If partner bids 1N as a response to 1♦, you bid 2♠ anyway.

[pclayton]

This hand isn't good enough for 1♦ - 1N - 2♠; I'd content myself with 2♦.

I think the best sequence is:

1♦ - 1♥
1♠ - 2♣
2♠ - 3N
Pass

A few comments: Some play 2♠ as the default with 4-4 in ♠/♦ without a club stop and without 3 hearts. Their 3♠ call reveals a 5-6.

3N for some shows 15-17 (and me); others would rebid 2N with this hand.

I don't think this is a good slam, even though it rolls 6♦, 6♠ and 6N.

[P_Marlowe]

rona_, on Oct 11 2006, 10:54 AM, said:

If my partner responds 1NT to 1 diamond then what is my next step..I can't bid two spades, do I just rebid diamonds?

Thanks

Hi,

a matter of style, since 2S is a reverse, you need
to decide for your self, if you have the strength to
make the bid.

Personnally I would bid 2D, and I am pretty sure,
that the opponents will allow me to show spades the
next round.
Unless I miscount, the opponets have 9 card heart fit,
which means one of the guys is looking at a 5 carder.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[bid_em_up]

While 2S initially implies a reverse.....the later rebidding of spades cancels the reverse, so dont worry about it too much.

Partner has denied 4 hearts or 4S (so should have some sort of diamond fit), but there is absolutely no reason why 4♠ should be ruled out as a valid contract now. If you chose to open 1♦, then you should begin to complete your hand pattern and you will never be able to do this if you do not bid 2♠ now.

Partner is expected to bid 2N, 3C or 3D, and now 3♠ will finish describing your hand and cancels the reverse.

[mikeh]

There is a small school of experts, influenced by Steve Robinson, who fervently believe that opening a minor denies a 5 card major. They are very much in the minority.

The vast majority of experts tend to respect length and will usually open the longer of the suits in a 5=6 hand.

There are exceptions to everything. Thus with 5♥ and 6♦, or 5♠ and 6♥, opening the longer suit almost always forces opener to choose between a reverse on the next round or suppression of the 5 card suit: see Phil's comments about 1♦ 1N..... he'd bid 2♦.

So on hands that are borderline in term of strength, many experts will open the shorter suit if it is the suit immediately above the longer.

With 5♠ and 6♣, there is no need to reverse over either 1♦ or 1♥, so it is the clearest situation in which to bid length honestly. With the given hand or with 5♥ and 6♣, we are in between, and most experts would tend to decide based on suit quality and overall hand strength.

While the given hand adds up to only 11 hcp, and thus would seem to be a minimum, that is a very misleading view. We have Aces in our long suits and our major is headed by AK. So we have 5 controls... the typical minimum opening hand has only 3... and we have a losing trick count of 5.. the usual minimum opening hand has 7.

This is therefore NOT a minimum hand and I would comfortably open 1♦, hoping for a 1♥ response, over which I would bid (and later rebid) ♠s.

If partner bid 1N: I am somewhat torn between 2♠ and 2♦. I think I would bid 2♠... make the hand KQxxx x AQxxxx x... the same hcp and LTC and I would bid 2♦.

As for how the bidding would proceed:


1♦    1♥
1♠    2♣  FSF
2♠    3♦
3♠    3N
P


This seems reasonable to me, altho there are many alternate sequences that seem ok as well. I think responder has to make a slam move over 2♠: imagine opener with AKxxx x AQ10xxx x... the bidding would be the same through 2♠ and opener has few rights over 3N, having already desribed this hand fairly well.

The key is that responder, having heard of a 5=6 hand, has a side Ace and 3 working cards in opener's suits. So 3♦ agrees trump: KJ tight is more than adequate opposite a known 6 card suit. Now opener bids 3♠ as the only 'noise' that she can make and responder can bid 3N, content that she has already shown that she is interested in a ♦ contract...if she were not, she would have bid 3N the round before.

Now opener can reason that responder has some interest in a high-level ♦ contract but not enough to force the issue. Opener can pass because of her lack of interior cards in the two suits: with AKxxx x AQ10xxx x, she should move over 3N.. which move she makes depends on cue-bidding style etc.

[inquiry]

As you can see you will get diverse answers to this question. I would open this 1D, but many will open 1S. In fact, the weaker the hand the more likley some people will open 1S. To demontrate this, I took a quick look at bridgebrowser data and 5S, 6D, eahc suit headed by at least the king, and not strong enough to open 2C (but included hands clearly worth a reverse and those not worth a reverse). In one database, I found 8211 hands (I restricted the opening choice to 1D or 1S, to eliminate precision bidders.

Of these, 4,041 opened 1D, and 4,170 opened 1S. For what it is worth those oopening 1D averaged +0.40 imps, those openign 1S averaged -0.43 imps, the 1S openers however, averaged 50.39 MP while the 1D openers averaged only 49.47%.

Since I was showing some charts in the other post, thought I would show some here too. First how did the 1D openers compare to the 1S openers in hcp..First off I mislabbled these, the 1S opener is on top and 1D on bottom, you can see that in the small print just above the large 1S and !D added backwards.


The yellow bars above are actual HCP. The Green bars are hcp plus distibutional points. A hand with 6520 gets 6 distributional points. I am not certani, but it seem the algorithm counts 4 points for a void, 2 for a singleton and 1 for a doubleton. So that 6511 gets plus 4, and 6520 gets +5, There is a clear difference, the 1D openre are more likely to have 13 hcp or more than the 1S opener (compare yellow bars at 14, 15, 16, 17 hcp for 1D to the those for 11 and 12, and then do the same for 1S opening. This demonstrating people will open 1D when stronger, and 1S when weaker, presumably because they can afford to bid spades twice to get the legnth across.

How about contracts?


The eagle eyes amoung you will note the axis is wrong, but the nubmer of hands are right if you click on a bar. This shows the final contract for all the contract after the 1D or 1S opening. The red bars are contract the oopponents got to play, the bluish bars are contracts opener side played. As you can see 4S was popular no matter what the opening bid. The numbers below the chart are the results for 4S contract after opening 1D (upper chart) or 1S (lower chart) at both matchpoint and imps. Those hands, BTW, can then be used as a data set for further exploration. As a matter of fact, you can click each spade contract bar (or all the 2, and 3 level contracts or any other combination) to call up the underlying hands and use for further study in bridgebrowser, that includes the effect of lead, the number of hcp held for the 4S contract specifically, etc. I found it a little interesting that 4S was a better average contract if you got there after opening 1D than if you opened 1S. Note, if you open 1D, compared to if you opened 1S. 6D averaged very good result. (BTW, I only have access to old version with a bug on this chart page, where the frequency is wrong. In the real version it is not.

The bottom line, perhaps, is was there any trick taking differnce if you opened 1D versus 1S? The following chart shows that.


The biggest improvement in tricks taking potential for opening 1D was taking 12 tricks versus (compare those bars). If someone curious, they could separate out the diamond contracts from the spade contracts and measure total trick taking potential in each. There are more spade contracts so you willl have to this as percentages.

There are other charts as well, the suit qualty (the lowest tab on the left hand side) allows you to pick suits opened headed by any honor or combitinaton of honors (and if diffrent suit lenghts existed, by the different legnth, here spades were always five and diamonds always 6. The shape give you opener and responder shape. Openers was always 6511 or 6520 because I forced it to be, responders was all over the place.

[hotShot]

There are 2 groups:
Those who favor strength over shape and those who favor shape over strength.

Strength over shape:
You need to remember all the time that with a weak hand the second suit of your partner can be longer. You will often have to guess partners shape. (You need to alert both bids and inform opps: "There may be a longer minor!")

Shape over strength:
You need to remember that reverse bidding sometimes means minimum with a lot distributional strength, as in 6+ - 5+ distributions.
(You need to alert the second bid announcing: "Reverses may be weaker with distributional hands!")

Both ways are valid and have their up's and down's. As long a your partnership agreement is clear about what group you are in.

If your 5 card suit is ♠ and your 6 card suit is a minor, opening the minor is usually better, because you have more bidding space left to show your distribution and strength.

If your 5 card suit is ♥ and your 6 card suit is ♦, showing your shape might get you to high, opening ♥ will prevent that, but your partner will never know about your 6 ♦.

[inquiry]

I reran the test checking different HCP ranges using bridgebrowser data for such 6-5 hands. The data supported the general conclusion from looking at the hcp ranges in the earlier post.

Stronger hands (16 to 21) people favored opening 1D (57%) heavily (0.63 imps to -1.09 imps, and 51.65 to 47.98% mp), It also wotrht noting that 1D was opened 1138 times with these hands versus only 862 for 1S.

Weaker hands (11 to 12) were more likley to be opened 1S (1655 for 1S, 1197 for 1D) and the bias towards 1D in the results at mp was gone. 1S earning 51.80 on average, and 1D only 48.10). The imp score still favored 1D, 0.22 versus -0.20. 1D was only opened 42% of the time.

Intermediate hands (13-15), 1D was opened 49.5% of the time, 1S once again lead to (on average) better mp score, but 1D better imp score (48.43 versus 51.16, and +-.28 versus -0.28)

So that is the tendency.. with

11=12 hcp, 1D opened 42% of the time
13=15 hcp, 1D opened 49.5% of the time
16=21 hcp, 1D opened 57.0% of the time

In the vast world of online bridgedom, most with your 11 hcp hand (58%) seems to choose 1S opening bid for rebid reasons. I would still open 1D.

[1eyedjack]

Not sure if I can see the wood for the trees, but all this seems to suggest that my earlier post had some justification when I said that whatever partner chooses it is not worth shooting him over it.

Having said that, what these statistics can never show is what the net imp result is if you open 1D on these hands where partner would EXPECT you to have opened 1S (or vice versa). Regardless of the absolute merits of the bids, not being on the same wavelength as partner probably counts for the big minus.