[keylime]

I agree with you Mike wholeheartedly.

However I do not agree at all with many that feel that we are in a forcing pass situation. If I passed it around to pard they will double...only to find that a spade winner is gone due to the 5H caller being void in that suit. They are bidding red on white at the FIVE level. Either they have a death wish, or they got a hand that is going to go off only 1 in most situations worse case.

I also disagree with the notion that pard is strong and balanced. If pard had 4 card support and a solid club suit, and the inability to bid 4C rebid to show that hand (a certainly they would bid it this way, ESPECIALLY if they felt their hand was ill suited for a slam try if they splintered. Picture a scattered 19 count with K-x of diamonds and a stiff Q/K in hearts. No bueno.

Thusly, having 5♠ is half showing our offense, half taking insurance. It can't be in any way a slam try - I'd bid diamonds first THEN spades to show that hand.

[mikeh]

If you saw the stuff I bid 1♠ on in these situations, you'd never play this auction as creating a forcing pass

However, independent of that, I do not see this as a forcing pass situation.

If you have agreed that opener's 4♠ MUST be a balanced 19 count or so, then, yes this can and perhaps should be a forcing pass. But I heard my partner make what might well be a tactical call on the auction: he realizing that doubler will not be psyching and thus not worrying about scientific constructive bidding but preferring to put it to the opps as soon as possible: say KQJx xx x KQJxxx.

Would I bid that way? Probably not, but I tend to be a little stodgy in my approach, and a bid of 4♠ on that type of hand has a lot going for it.

Unless, of course, I am about to ignore the inferences available to me from RHO's bidding and play partner for a hand that he cannot have if RHO is even close to being in the same universe as the rest of us.

Unless, of course, we are in a random BBO game: the other night, playing with my wife, we encountered an opp, claiming to be advanced, who opened 1♦ in 3rd chair... I doubled...his partner bid 4♦... he bid 4N and passed the 5♣ response. He held J10xxx in ♣ and a stiff ♦A and a minimum opening hand. He refused to leave and I didn't bother booting him: the table left instead. Now, if he were RHO here, I'd rethink everything I just wrote about inferences

[akhare]

5♠ seems to be pretty clear assuming the opps are remotely sane (in the bridge sense)...

[Stephen Tu]

Scoring: MP

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So North has made the tactical 4S bid rather than something more descriptive.
So if South passes (minority view, but what happened at the table) North is supposed to?

Is there any way to get this right, but also get it right if hand happened to be something like oh

Scoring: MP

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[pclayton]

Hi Stephen.

Sathya gave me the hand from the other side with what to bid over 1!s with the 4-6, and I think its a classic walsh jump. I think 4!s tends to show the 18-19 semi-balanced, since no splinter or walsh jump.

I also don't think a pass is forcing. But if opener bids 4!c, finding a 5!s call with the 5053 is a piece of cake.

[Blofeld]

flytoox, on Nov 6 2006, 01:13 AM, said:

5S is more than enough. Pd may have a hand for slam, but if he has it he will bid it. I will be happy if i can make 5S.

Partner will never bid slam if we bid 5♠ now.

I think pass is forcing, and am happy to pass. If partner has a weak tactical hand rather than the balanced ~19 count then clearly she won't accept the slam try; no harm done.

[Apollo81]

Jlall, on Nov 6 2006, 07:39 PM, said:

Apollo81, on Nov 6 2006, 12:08 PM, said:

Pass is clearly forcing in this auction.

On the other extreme, I couldn't imagine ever having an agreement to treat this as forcing. The guy has Xed and bid 5H on his own, he has shown a much bigger hand than partner has. He is even red/white. We have shown about 0+ defensive tricks. Anyways, I would bid 5S this doesn't seem close to a slam try to me (the worst club holding possible and very few HCP).

Since when is 1m-(x)-1M-(p)-4M a preemptive sequence? If we were bidding to make and opponent is bidding to make, it seems like pass should be forcing. It must be right to either double them or bid on. Maybe I am wrong about 4M being "to make." If opener is going to bid this way on some 6-4 12 count, then pass should not be forcing.

[sathyab]

I was the one guilty of bidding 4s with KQxx x xx AKQxxx. Unless "North is a complete lunatic" said one of the posts. Hey don't pre-judge people without knowing them, they could be indeed be totally off the rocker

Far too often one makes a bid not totally consciously, but based on some experience and instinct and often we think of reasons to justify the bid later. This was an exception. Of course I could have bid 4c showing 6-4, but given the favorable vulnerability I rejected that descriptive call in favor an obstructive 4s bid. At any other vulnerability I'd have bid 4c. Even as I made that bid, I was thinking "If my LHO now bids at the 5-level, partner should be able to figure out the relative strengths of the hands around the table given the colors". The 4s bid is so much the in-your-face-I-know-am-sticking-it-to-you call. I think of it as the Bridge-equivalent of Dennis Rodman in Magic Johnson's face.

The easiest notion for me to brush aside holding the responder's hand is that partner has a balanced 19-20 HCP hand. Whatever else may be happening, that ain't one of them. It's pretty nearly impossible for partner to have 19 HCP outside of hearts and your red/white opponent to have his 5h call. Can someone actually try running this on a simulator ?

On the actual hand, x AKJTxxxxx AK x, RHO was covered, he probably had decided he could bid safely upto 5h. But what if he had a slightly weaker hand, say "only" eight hearts topped by AKQ, two black stiffs and AKx Diamonds; may be you would bid 4h or 1h, avoiding the double. But if you did double, would you rather bid at the 4-level at the second opportunity or the 5-level. Over 4c, you bid 4h and now your partner can look at the Queen of Diamonds if he was dealt that card quite fondly and may bid 5h over 4s. But over 4s you don't have any of that luxury. Too strong to bid 1h or 4h, how about trying the 5-level, sir ?

Sathya