[rogerclee]

IMPs, Red vs White

♠QJ8
♥J8
♦AQT5
♣A862

In second seat:
1♥-Dbl-P-2♠
3♥-P-P-4♣
P-?

Go for the money?

[655321]

4♠. Is that the money?

We are already at the 4 level, and I would rather try 4♠, even (probably) in a Moysian than 5♣.

[han]

4♥, let partner choose.

[pclayton]

You dangle a 620 in front of me and expect me to pass?
Plenty of hands with 9 or 10 black cards where we can roll 10 in spades.

This hand has increased in value.

[jdonn]

wth is 4♠? Why would partner offer another suit if he wants to play in spades when we have three of them!

[Cascade]

Pass seems very normal.

[655321]

jdonn, on Feb 3 2008, 01:34 AM, said:

wth is 4♠? Why would partner offer another suit if he wants to play in spades when we have three of them!

Well, we do have a decent hand. We have 13 working HCP (we could have much less), we have a club fit, and some sort of a spade fit.
Our alternatives seem to be Pass, 4♠ and 5♣.

5♣ is not attractive with a doubleton heart, as we rate to lose the first 2 tricks there.
Pass is reasonable, but they don't pay a vulnerable game bonus for playing in Gerber.

So I choose 4♠. True, partner can be confident we have 3 card ♠, and not a doubleton, but our chunky QJ8 will hopefully combine with partner's holding. I don't know what partner has, perhaps ATxx, xx, Jx, Axxxx, perhaps (OK, probably ) some other hand.

I don't claim 4♠ is the correct bid here, but to me it does seem a reasonable bid, and not a 'WTH' bid.

[jdonn]

655321, on Feb 3 2008, 02:49 AM, said:

jdonn, on Feb 3 2008, 01:34 AM, said:

wth is 4♠? Why would partner offer another suit if he wants to play in spades when we have three of them!

Well, we do have a decent hand. We have 13 working HCP (we could have much less), we have a club fit, and some sort of a spade fit.
Our alternatives seem to be Pass, 4♠ and 5♣.

5♣ is not attractive with a doubleton heart, as we rate to lose the first 2 tricks there.
Pass is reasonable, but they don't pay a vulnerable game bonus for playing in Gerber.

So I choose 4♠. True, partner can be confident we have 3 card ♠, and not a doubleton, but our chunky QJ8 will hopefully combine with partner's holding. I don't know what partner has, perhaps ATxx, xx, Jx, Axxxx, perhaps (OK, probably ) some other hand.

I don't claim 4♠ is the correct bid here, but to me it does seem a reasonable bid, and not a 'WTH' bid.

It's a wth bid. What is this "some sort of spade fit", our spade fit is the minimum it can be! You say essentially "our hand is not bad and we have a better fit for clubs than spades" and then list 4♠ as an alternative. I am not seeing where that logical connection was made. If you are bidding 4♠ here then you are just always bidding it on this auction, which means partner's opinion means nothing to you since he has suggested a better alternative.

They don't pay a vulnerable game bonus for going down either.

Partner doesn't have the ace of clubs as well.

[benlessard]

Clear pass for me

If 4S had a play partner would have already bid it (we are in imps and we are red). Our hand isnt a dead minimum but with Jx in ♥ we can safely say that our hand has no extra. I expect -1 in 4C will be the most frequent result.

[skjaeran]

Clear pass IMO.

We're not making game on this one after this bidding. Partner might make 4♣, but spades rate to be 4-2 (or even 5-1), so I'd say we'd not even make 3♠.

[655321]

jdonn, on Feb 3 2008, 03:03 AM, said:

655321, on Feb 3 2008, 02:49 AM, said:

I don't know what partner has, perhaps ATxx, xx, Jx, Axxxx

Partner doesn't have the ace of clubs as well.

D'oh!
I agree with you there.

[pclayton]

Jlall, on Feb 2 2008, 08:35 PM, said:

parddhas 4 spd aes guys!

No problem.

Our hand is taking the tap, or we may to make our hand the master. RHO has a maximum of one more entry, and after that, RHO is out of the picture and the tap can't be continued. I agree there may be serious handling problems, but they should be able to overcome.

Our hand has really improved here with the double fit that we didn't know about, and the presumed lack of heart duplication. I would say pard has about a 10 count and 4=2=2=5, 4=3=1=5 or 4=1=3=5.

Some typical hands would look like:

1. ♠Kxxx ♥Ax ♦xx ♣Kxxxx

2. ♠Axxx ♥xxx ♦x ♣KQJxx

3. ♠AKxx ♥x ♦xxx ♣QJxxx

On #1, is a decent game.

On #2, game is definitely a dog.

On #3, game looks pretty good to me.

[gwnn]

Pass is very nice but I'd 100% bid 4♥ at the table

[Winstonm]

How can you decline a game invitation and then suddenly decide to accept later when partner makes a non-forcing, competitive bid?

[gnasher]

Perhaps Winston's question should have been "How can you decline a game invitation and then suddenly decide to accept later when your hand has actually got worse?"

[han]

Yep, good point gnasher and others, and I think you are right. I regret my initial post in this thread.

[pclayton]

gnasher, on Feb 3 2008, 10:25 AM, said:

Perhaps Winston's question should have been "How can you decline a game invitation and then suddenly decide to accept later when your hand has actually got worse?"

Why worse?

1. RHO's 3♥ call has made it less likely pard has worthless ♥ honors;

2. We now have a double fit we didn't know about, as well as a pard willing to take a call at the 4 level.

I recognize that 1 is somewhat intertwined with 2.