[hrothgar]

Here's the complete hands

---

We produced the following auction

P - 1♦
1♠ - 2♠
3♥ - 3♠

[whereagles]

South should bid 3♦, not 3♥. With the spade fit guaranteed, there's no need to show a jack-high suit with a useful honor in pard's 1st suit.

3♥ would be the bid with

AKTxx
QJTx
xx
xx

and now your auction would be impeccable and you'd have reached the correct contract.

[gnasher]

whereagles, on Mar 12 2008, 02:55 PM, said:

South should bid 3♦, not 3♥.

I'd normally play 1♦-1♠; 2♠-3♦ as an invitation with exactly four spades and four diamonds - like a 2NT bid, but with four diamonds, so that when you stop in partscore you can play in the right strain. Is that an unusual way to play it?

[whereagles]

I don't know if it's unusual, but Richard apparently was supporting with 3 cards on a regular basis, and that's usually coupled to a 2NT relay for all invitational hands, so 3♦ now is probably a trial for spades. Hence my comment.

[foo]

hrothgar, on Mar 9 2008, 08:48 AM, said:

IMPs

Red v Red

♠Qxx ♥A ♦J9864 ♣KQxx

Auction starts with three passes and you decide to open 1D in fourth seat

(P) - P - (P) - 1D
(P) - 1♠ - (P) - 2♠
(P) - 3♥ - (P) - ???

Whats your call?
Do you consider it close?

I don't have a problem opening this. Even at IMPs, you have to contest the partscore and the OP hand fits Peterson's Rule of 15
(HCP + number of Spades >= 15)

I try to avoid raising Responder with only 3 trumps, and this board demonstrates some of the reasons why.

Responder is going to be expecting 4 card ♠ support and very likely evaluated their hand based on that when they had to decide whether to make a game try or not. We could easily be too high already because of this.

Just as bad if not worse is the fact that Opener has never mentioned the best trick taking asset of their hand in this supposedly constructive auction. Why are we hiding our KQxx of ♣'s?

...1D-1S;2C-2H avoids this whole mess since 2H by a Passed Hand can not be 4SF and must be Natural and Invitational.

Opener can now take a preference to 2S and We are done.

On the days where one or both of Us have better hands, the more descriptive sequence I'm suggesting helps get you to the all important Red IMP game when it rates to be odds on enough (>= 34%. That's a 32 Trump break + a finesse or better in the play) .

[han]

gnasher, on Mar 12 2008, 09:05 AM, said:

whereagles, on Mar 12 2008, 02:55 PM, said:

South should bid 3♦, not 3♥.

I'd normally play 1♦-1♠; 2♠-3♦ as an invitation with exactly four spades and four diamonds - like a 2NT bid, but with four diamonds, so that when you stop in partscore you can play in the right strain. Is that an unusual way to play it?

This is also what I play.

[jdonn]

I don't see why south would want to emphasize any suit. Why not 3♠? If you play this as 'upping the ante' then probably you play 2NT is an artificial ask. If you also don't play that, I can't help you