[Elianna]

In second chair, all white, no special agreements (not playing any two-suited bids). You hold AJT9xx -- Jxxxx xx. What do you bid?

Is there a second choice, and what are your reservations?

[P_Marlowe]

Pass, matter of style / philosophy.
I pass those hands, hoping to show the
hand later via a 2-suiter overcall

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mike777]

2s barely, Playing Roth Stonish, having a 2 suited weak 2 bid is very common.

Pass is fine also.

Really dislike all the bids for 3s and 4s which people are voting for. I guess that does not mean 7 or 8 spades anymore at this vul.

[whereagles]

Easy 3♠ bid for me. With an ODR of 7-to-1 I can hardly bid less than that.

[gwnn]

2nd seat, I don't have anything. So I pass. This should be very clear-cut.

In 3rd, I'd bid a number of spades.

[inquiry]

Looks like a clear 2♠ bid to me.

[helene_t]

In first seat, it would have been an easy 3♠. Now I'm going to pass. The hand is too strong for 2♠ and the suit isn't good enough for 3.

[brianshark]

2♠s for me.

[hrothgar]

Mark me down for pass in 2nd seat

(There is a reason that I normally play methods that permit openings with these hand patterns)

[pbleighton]

2S. I don't criticize a partner for opening 3S with these cards

In the first seat at favorable, I open 4S.

Peter

[inquiry]

helene_t, on Feb 12 2007, 07:35 AM, said:

In first seat, it would have been an easy 3♠. Now I'm going to pass. The hand is too strong for 2♠ and the suit isn't good enough for 3.

I am not a believer in a hand being too strong for a 2♠ bid that is not strong enough for a 1♠ bid. If it is too strong for 2♠, open 1♠.This hand has more than enough ZAR points for a 1♠ opener, but I would not do that.

Nor as for a second seat "weak two", these should be "sound" upper range kind of things so as to not preempt your partner. Clearly this is a sound hand (you claim it is too strong for 2♠ and the spade suit is clear strong enough for secnd seat).

The advantage of passing is that later you can show a two suited hand, but really are you EVER going to show this as two suited with the difference in suit quality? And if you pass now, how will you ever convince your partner you have a good six card spade suit that you choose to pass? He will be imagining you with either very weak spades or only five at most on most competetive auctions.

The lack of the willingness o show two suits in a competitive auction if you pass added to concerns about partner never being able to guess a suit as good as this if you pass and bid spades later, make 2♠ 100% clear in my mind (1♠ is not out of the question in non-ACBL events).

[fred]

I would open 3S.

If you took one of your diamonds and made it a spade I suspect almost everyone would open 3S and the actual hand has roughly the same playing strength as the hypothetical 7042 hand.

2nd choice for me would be 2S.

I am a believer in the concept (expressed by some other posters) of passing with certain 6-5 hands in the hope of having a better chance to describe what you have later in the auction.

But this is not one of those hands (at least for me) for several reasons:

1) You will not be able to describe this hand after Passing first. It is not unlikely that you will get a chance to make a bid to suggest spades, diamonds, and a lot of shape, but that would not be a good description of this hand (because not only are your spades longer than your diamonds, they are much stronger than your diamonds and partner won't expect this much disparity).

2) Although this hand is certainly not a classic 3S bid, in my view 3S is not a serious misdescription of this hand (because this hand has close to the expected offensive and defensive potential of a classic 3S opening).

3) Not clear you want to be giving an accurate description of this hand. No matter what you do there is a good chance you will end up as declarer in some number of spades. Keeping the opponents in the dark about your unusual shape will make it much harder for them to defend accurately.

In my view, if you are ever going to open 3S with a hand that contains a 6-card spade suit, this hand is close to perfect for that action.

If I had the same hand without 2 small spades instead of the 10 and 9, I would open 2S.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[MickyB]

3♠ for me. If I opened 2♠ then I wouldn't feel comfortable on most auctions - we could be too low, we probably should be competing over 3/4♥, etc.

I agree that 3♠ is about right on offensive strength. There is a case for passing, but only if you feel that you can describe the hand (much) better by passing first, e.g. if pard will expect a 6-5 for a pass followed by a high-level spade bid. This will enable your side to reach diamonds when it is right, and for partner to judge whether there is a double fit. However, it does make life much easier for the opponents. Preempting on these hands often leads to getting doubled in a making contract, or in a contract that gets let through.

[jikl]

I went for 3♠, but how would people think if ♦ and ♥ were swapped?

Sean

[DeltaG]

i will bid 2s, standing for 5spades & 5minors (most cases, 5-4 at least). I use multi 2D. 2d= weak two or strong bal. 2h 2s=h/s +minor.

if you don't use this conventional bidding, i suggest pass for these following reasons. One is i hate bid weak two with a void (lots of experts hate doing that too ). And i hate bid weak two with another long suit. On the other hand, i have a long spade suit, so you always have chance to bid. Anyway, spade is overwhelming.....

[Gerben42]

If the hand has too many tricks for a 2♠ opener your choices are Pass and 3♠. I choose the latter.

[Apollo81]

My top 2 choices are (1)2♠ and (2)3♠. If you switched my hearts and spades then I would open 3♥.

[pclayton]

3♠. For me it's closer to 4♠ than 2♠. 6-5's are very powerful hands .

[Vilgan]

Think I was distracted and hit 1♠ in the poll, but for me this is an automatic 3♠ preempt. You are all offensive, and as someone said.. take a diamond away and make it a small spade and you have about the same playing strength.

The opps could have a club game, a heart game, etc and this makes it harder. If you have a spade game or slam your extra shape gives extra value to the hand that outweighs the 1 less spade. The only disadvantage is if you push them into a game they might not find normally, but this seems to be less frequent than getting them to land in the wrong spot.

Eric

[whereagles]

pclayton, on Feb 13 2007, 07:03 PM, said:

3♠. For me it's closer to 4♠ than 2♠. 6-5's are very powerful hands .

Roger that