[1eyedjack]

Scoring: IMP

E....S...W...N
1♥..2♦..2♠..P
3♥..All P
Lead ♣6
Result +1

---

I was West, and perhaps could have raised. But I just Luuuved East's comment at hand end.

(Tip: If you decide to self rate yourself as advanced and put "POLITE" in your profile, don't do what my partner did:)

"P you had 13 p your singleton is 2"

ROARRING! Still wiping the tears from eyes.

[the hog]

I would have opened 4H, but that is by the by. After partner's 3H bid your hand is definitely worth a gf. Bid 4C and then pass the obvious 4H bid.

Further, I am not being nasty, but I would not be ridiculing my partner here. Ok her comment regarding the point count for a s/t in her suit is silly, but she is totally correct in terms of hand evaluation given the hand as a whole. With AQJ sitting over an overcaller and with an outside Ace you have to bid a game. Your pass is not the best bridge decision you will ever make in your life.

This is an instructive hand as it also shows up the fatuousness of making an overcall with South's hand.

[pclayton]

Be happy you didnt have a heart void, otherwise youd have a slam try.

[whereagles]

You guys are very optimistic. I wouldn't bid even 4♥ over pard's 3♥ 100% of the time...

[the hog]

whereagles, on Jan 7 2007, 10:36 AM, said:

You guys are very optimistic. I wouldn't bid even 4♥ over pard's 3♥ 100% of the time...

How unfortunate for you.

[neilkaz]

The_Hog, on Jan 6 2007, 05:24 PM, said:

I would have opened 4H, but that is by the by. After partner's 3H bid your hand is definitely worth a gf. Bid 4C and then pass the obvious 4H bid.

Further, I am not being nasty, but I would not be ridiculing my partner here. Ok her comment regarding the point count for a s/t in her suit is silly, but she is totally correct in terms of hand evaluation given the hand as a whole. With AQJ sitting over an overcaller and with an outside Ace you have to bid a game. Your pass is not the best bridge decision you will ever make in your life.

This is an instructive hand as it also shows up the fatuousness of making an overcall with South's hand.

I have to remind you, that unless playing some type of NFB, the 2♠ bid is forcing 1 round, so E may have to rebid 3♥ with something worse than what he actually has here, so West's singleton ♥ and 3 losers behind the overcall may not look to good to him !

This being said, the 2♠ bid can really pressure opener since it is higher than 2 of his suit and forcing and opener may not have the overcalled suit stopped and can really be stuck for a bid with a min.

That being said, E could have opened 4♥, but may have felt that one shouldn't preempt with a very sound opening bid, or jumped directly to 4♥ ater 2♠, but perhaps he now downgraded his ♦ holding.

Just my opinion .. neilkaz ..

[HeartA]

pclayton, on Jan 6 2007, 07:08 PM, said:

Be happy you didnt have a heart void, otherwise youd have a slam try.

Agree. Two side aces are priceless.

[dake50]

East must go 4H over 2S! Not crime West for not promoting his single support. 5-losers if demoting D under to 2S force= must have 2 tricks.

[neilkaz]

dake50, on Jan 6 2007, 10:26 PM, said:

East must go 4H over 2S! Not crime West for not promoting his single support. 5-losers if demoting D under to 2S force= must have 2 tricks.

That would certainly make things easier, considering that East has 7 sure tricks, or 8 if the ♥ can be picked up.

[the hog]

3H is a strong bid. With a weaker hand you would use good bad 2NT.

Ok. Lets assume you do not play Good/Bad as no doubt some poster will say. So lets analyse 2S! Is 2S forcing? In that case the 2S bid was thoughtless. Not playing g/b what does opener do? His choices are to raise, to bid a new suit at the 3 level or to rebid his own suit. So how can he differentiate between a good hand and an average hand? The answer is "He can't."

If 2S was non forcing, then 3H shows extras. The other option for responder, (if 2S was forcing), is to X and then bid 2S over a 2 level bid. Had this been the sequence, our opener would no doubt have bid 3H and the easy game would have been reached. No! I totally blame the thoughtlessness of responder here. So yes, Neil, I agree with you here!

Further to ridicule pd, who had a far better sense of hand evaluation, is going a bit beyond the pale. AQJ and an outside A sitting OVER an overcaller, are worth at least an opening bid. I think the pass was priceless as well as the comment made by partner!

As I said in an earlier post, this hand is instructive on a variety of levels, not the least of which is the appalling 2D overcall - something no one else as yet has commented on.

[mike777]

I agree that good/bad 2nt is a very tricky and confusing convention but can we at least agree that rho has to bid just before we use it?

On this hand it looks like North passed?

In any event I open 4H per Richard and Ron's numerous posts.

[the hog]

Mike, if you are saying that because Nth passed, 2NT cannot be g/b I would disagree. However, this is not a discussion of g/b, (another thread??), it is a discussion of hand evaluation, and I think 1EJ stuffed up.

[1eyedjack]

Had not agreed on g/b 2N. I would assume that unless agreed it was not in place, and I do not believe that this partner was showing extras. Indeed there is some evidence from partner's comment that partner was not playing g/b 2N. Had the convention been in force the appropriate comment would be "P you cannot pass a forcing bid", not (effectively) "P you are too strong to pass".

I am only guessing, on the basis of no evidence, but my gut feel estimate of the number of the population falling in the intersection between those who play g/b 2N and those who rate a singleton trump support as an asset worth the equivalent of an extra Queen to be approximately zero.

As I said at the outset I might have bid 4H. There was a temptation. What grieves me is that I missed the obvious snappy comeback:

"P you have 16 points: Two singletons is worth 4"

or perhaps

"sorry, I reckoned I needed 14 points to raise. If I had held a trump void I certainly would have done".

[FrancesHinden]

I think East had more of a 4H bid than West had a raise.
I don't understand opening that hand 4H, it seems a total mis-description.

I don't understand the idea of making a negative double on the West cards with a nice AQJxx suit when you can simply bid the suit. Double then 2S over 2H shows a weak hand with long spades which is not what he has (the only advantage of a double on this particular hand is if partner passes and EW take their easy 1100).

I don't understand the "problem" over a 2S bid with East's hand: with a minimum hand, he makes a minimum rebid. With a better hand he does something stronger (in this example, he bids game in hearts).

Yes, West might have bid game. But it's way short of obvious: partner had a clear 4H bid, underbid with 3H, and still only made 10 tricks. 3 low diamonds is a horrible holding.

I also think the percentage of people who think that 3H shows extra values is very limited indeed. Even if you play g/b 2NT this is not a normal g/b 2NT auction - g/b should only apply when 2NT is not needed in a natural sense (what is opener supposed to do with a balanced minimum, or 2542 minimum?). What is opener supposed to bid over 2S with a minimum 1633 with 3 low diamonds?

[Stephen Tu]

I completely agree with Frances here.

Out of players who play good/bad 2nt I would think only a tiny percentage would assume it is on for this auction. It's a valuable natural call here, & opener with a good hand can jump or cue-bid since responder has promised game-inv values.

Good-bad has more usefulness when responder is more wide ranging, when there is a desire to be able to show extras inviting but not committing to game, and also to be able to show weaker more distributional hands to compete for the partial. When responder has already invited game it's not necessary. It might help on some slam auctions perhaps but I don't think with enough frequency to make it worth giving up the natural call on this auction.

[the hog]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 7 2007, 07:27 PM, said:

I think East had more of a 4H bid than West had a raise.
I don't understand opening that hand 4H, it seems a total mis-description.

I don't understand the idea of making a negative double on the West cards with a nice AQJxx suit when you can simply bid the suit. Double then 2S over 2H shows a weak hand with long spades which is not what he has (the only advantage of a double on this particular hand is if partner passes and EW take their easy 1100).

I don't understand the "problem" over a 2S bid with East's hand: with a minimum hand, he makes a minimum rebid. With a better hand he does something stronger (in this example, he bids game in hearts).

Yes, West might have bid game. But it's way short of obvious: partner had a clear 4H bid, underbid with 3H, and still only made 10 tricks.  3 low diamonds is a horrible holding.

I also think the percentage of people who think that 3H shows extra values is very limited indeed. Even if you play g/b 2NT this is not a normal g/b 2NT auction - g/b should only apply when 2NT is not needed in a natural sense (what is opener supposed to do with a balanced minimum, or 2542 minimum?). What is opener supposed to bid over 2S with a minimum 1633 with 3 low diamonds?

To answer your points Frances.

I strongly agree with Paul Marston's philosophy that pre emptive to medium weight 7-4s should be opened at the game level. This hand qualifies.

Whether or not you make a sputnik X on the West cards depends on whether you are playing negative free bids or not. Assuming you are not, you have to plan the auction ahead - a 2S bid is fine IF you know what to do after the 3H bid. The 3H bid can show a multitude of holdings, ranging from a minimum opening to a strong hand, unable or unwilling to bid 3NT, unable to raise and not having a good enough suit to bid 4H. A possible example is K AKJxx xxxx KQx. Sure, many US players will bid a non existent suit bid of 3C with this, a bid that I detest.

East "might" have bid 4H over the 2S bid, but for me 4H would show that the 2S bid had in some way improved my hand - it hasn't. Also would you bid 4H without the T9 of H? I also think my previous point about holding AQJ and an A over an overcall is valid and that this is definitely a gf. West made a clear underbid imo and then ridiculed his partner.

As far as 2NT being useful as a natural bid - when the opps intervene, or whenever I hold a 6 card suit, I have long given up 2NT as a natural bid. How often are you going to make exactly 8 tricks in those circumstances??

[1eyedjack]

The_Hog, on Jan 7 2007, 11:55 AM, said:

East "might" have bid 4H over the 2S bid, but for me 4H would show that the 2S bid had in some way improved my hand - it hasn't.

Whatever the application to this particular hand, I think that in principle there can arise circumstances in which you may become aware, during the course of a hitherto non-GF auction, that you have combined game values, even if your own hand in isolation has not improved by that knowledge. In those circumstances it behoves you not to make a non-forcing bid.

To take an extreme example (unrelated to the original post), say you have a 20 count and your system requires you to make a bid that initially shows 12-20 points, which you do. Partner then makes a bid that shows 10+ points that does not fit well with you. At this stage the auction is not GF. As far as partner is concerned you could have an ill-fitting 12 count, not an ill-fitting 20 count, so he at least does not know you want to be in game. An ill-fitting combined 30+ count is however still a combined 30+ count, so you now know that you want to be in game even if partner does not, despite that your hand may have deteriorated in light of partner's chosen bid.

Returning to the hand of the original post, you take the view that West has been made aware of combined GF values by reason of apparent additional values shown by East's 3H bid. I and others take the view that East has been made aware of this by reason of West's forcing 2S bid.

Now, you may also take the view that West is worth GF opposite a 1H opener and 2D overcall, even before East's 3H rebid. That is certainly a view that has some practical merit. I leave that to the statisticians. But whether the 3H rebid itself shows extras (which would I agree clearly make West worth a raise) is a matter of partnership style. It may be a sensible style but I am sure it was not a style that we were playing.

[whereagles]

East obviously played the "transfer-the-blame" game. He had two chances to bid 4♥ and both times he chickened out.

On another note, I don't think good-bad 2NT should apply here.

[hotShot]

This hand is far more interesting as claimed.

East has singles in both black suits and holding 4♦ with KQ in opps suit ensures partner is short in ♦. His values have to be in the black suits and this means lots of wasted values and little communication. Change ♣A4 to ♣KQ or ♠A to ♠K+♣J and there is no way to make 4♥ even 3 could get hard. South 2♦ bid indicates that ♦KQ are not well placed.
What we have here is two hands that fit much better than usual so that 10 tricks are made.
I can't blame west for not rising ♥ as 3♥ could show 6 cards as well.

I would have opened this hand 4♥. Bidding game with hands like these stays guessing, so I'll guess right away to restrict opps communication.

[pclayton]

Ron, do you really know of knowledgable pairs that would play g/b here? It violates one of the basic rules of g/b in that RHO needs to take a call.

Im not saying it isnt playable, but it is far from mainstream.