[skjaeran]

Halo, on Oct 3 2007, 10:35 PM, said:

This is interesting. Obviously the fact that Lauria bid doesn't imply it was right, or even normal for him.

But I haven't seen too much argument for passing. Is that becaust it is obvious to the passers, or just an instinctive judgement that might be different next time? To put it another way, why is bidding a losing option rather than just another option.

[Edited to make sense - possibly]

I'd pass since then I expect to go plus 90+% of the time, whereas bidding in my experience lead to a negative score 70+% of the time. And bidding and making game IME is such low percentage that passing is a clear long time IMP winner.

[han]

To elaborate on what Skaeran said, the fact that your LHO has 5 spades really lowers the potential of this hand. Partner would need quite a decent hand for you to make game, and partner didn't act while she likely is short in spades. So really the chance that you can make game is quite low.

If you can make a partscore then you probably do better defending 1S.

If you don't make a partscore then you will almost certainly do better defending 1S.

In general, if the opponents are about to play in your best suit you should consider letting them play there. I'm not saying you should always pass it out, but the more of your length/strength is in their suit, the more you would want to defend.

[jdonn]

I would pass, but only marginally and I'm not as down on bidding as many are. Partner could have two or three spades and a decent hand that just had no bid, so certainly we could have game. Plus maybe he leads a spade, and even if we gave up our plus defending 1♠ we could just rest in a making partscore.

If they were vul I'd pass for sure. I still pass but it's close.

[keylime]

I wrestled with this for a while, but I would pass with Larry - he would have made a 1NT t/o on enough hands to tell me the situation unless he was weakish or held 3 spades.

I have a good hand IF RHO had opened instead of LHO. My QD and soft spot cards in diamonds are downers. I don't mind defending here at equal colors.

[benlessard]

Maybe the opps were playing 4cM or frequently psych. He probalby felt that the chance of going minus by reopening were low enough and the chance of having game sufficient. I would never reopen but i don't think its that crazy to reopen.