[SchTsch]

Scoring: MP

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1♥ - (2♠) - 4♥ - (4♠)
?

You have the agreement with your partner that at this vulnerabilities after 4♥ bid you are in a forcing pass situation.
Also, 2NT would be inv+ with 4+♥.

[han]

Double.

[SchTsch]

han, on Mar 14 2008, 10:05 AM, said:

Double.

So you are not afraid that it can be 300/500 vs. 650?

[FrancesHinden]

SchTsch, on Mar 14 2008, 04:08 PM, said:

han, on Mar 14 2008, 10:05 AM, said:

Double.

So you are not afraid that it can be 300/500 vs. 650?

Sorry to sound rude, but that's a pretty stupid question. Of course han knows that is a risk, but thinks double is still correct. As do I.

If you double, you risk being +300 against +650
If you bid, you risk being -100 against +300 or more
If you pass, you risk exactly the same exact now it will be partner's fault.

[SchTsch]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 14 2008, 10:12 AM, said:

Sorry to sound rude, but that's a pretty stupid question. Of course han knows that is a risk, but thinks double is still correct. As do I.

If you double, you risk being +300 against +650
If you bid, you risk being -100 against +300 or more
If you pass, you risk exactly the same exact now it will be partner's fault.

sorry to sound rude, but the question is as stupid as an opinion that something is or is not correct in this situation.

This is a game of odds. If you want to just pass or double use the poll, that's why it is here.
I expected a bit more from a comment, like how did you make your decision that the odds are for doubling and not for passing? Because it is pretty close to me.

[mikeh]

Sorry to be rude, but the idea that this is a forcing pass, just because of the vulnerability, strikes me as less than optimal. Most standard or 2/1 players treat 4♥ as preemptive... using the cue bid for the forcing raise. The old argument that non-vulnerable opponents have to be sacrificing has been disproven quite a few times... heck, I even heard of one non-vulnerable pair bidding and making a slam!

As it is, I have got myself into a silly position.... presumably our agreement means that partner could have values or could have the type of hand on which I would bid 4♥... a weak distributional hand with long trumps.. so I no longer have a clue as to what is going on.

Having said that, and fully cognizant of the risks, I double. I have the WRONG hand to bid 5♥... my spade holding is hideous and I refuse to play a partner who bid 4♥ for the trump filler, the diamond card and the club card I need (well maybe I don't need the trump filler since the hook may work).

And this is not the hand on which to pass the decision to partner... because of the spade holding.

[TimG]

mikeh, on Mar 14 2008, 10:40 AM, said:

As it is, I have got myself into a silly position.... presumably our agreement means that partner could have values or could have the type of hand on which I would bid 4♥... a weak distributional hand with long trumps.. so I no longer have a clue as to what is going on.

Having said that, and fully cognizant of the risks, I double. I have the WRONG hand to bid 5♥... my spade holding is hideous and I refuse to play a partner who bid 4♥ for the trump filler, the diamond card and the club card I need (well maybe I don't need the trump filler since the hook may work).

Isn't double simply an expression that your hand is more defensive than offensive? Once we've offered that opinion, partner can still bid 5H with a hand that is unsuitable for sitting for the penalty suggestion, can't he? It's not like this is an auction where anyone is going to have a trump stack. I would think the double is more a difference between 1534 and 2524 or 2533 than a final partnership decision to defend.

I agree with double. No, I'm not afraid it will be 300/500 instead of 650. If I was afraid of a bad result, I wouldn't be playing bridge. Am I confident that defending will always be right? No. But, sometimes partner will know it is right to remove the double to 5h and sometimes we will get this wrong.

[mikeh]

TimG, on Mar 14 2008, 10:59 AM, said:

Isn't double simply an expression that your hand is more defensive than offensive? 

Yes, in the context of the problem in which we have agreed to make this a forcing situation... my point was that this is a horrible agreement. Stuck with it, I double for precisely the reason you stated. But if partner can be 2=5=2=4, for example, maybe we can't beat it... and maybe we can't make 10 or 11 tricks in hearts either.

BTW, should we be alerting either double or pass here? We have a non-standard agreement that this is a forcing pass situation, such that double is no longer a strong expression of expectation of beating the contract, but more a vote against bidding 5♥.

I think we should alert, but I haven't looked at the alert regulations with this in mind.

[jdonn]

I really really really hate this as forcing pass, I think it's awful. I will bid 5♥ now as a save, I think despite our high cards this is their hand. Of course even 500 will be a good save since apparently if they play it we have to double them.

[SchTsch]

mikeh, on Mar 14 2008, 10:40 AM, said:

Sorry to be rude, but the idea that this is a forcing pass, just because of the vulnerability, strikes me as less than optimal. Most standard or 2/1 players treat 4♥ as preemptive... using the cue bid for the forcing raise. The old argument that non-vulnerable opponents have to be sacrificing has been disproven quite a few times... heck, I even heard of one non-vulnerable pair bidding and making a slam!

As it is, I have got myself into a silly position.... presumably our agreement means that partner could have values or could have the type of hand on which I would bid 4♥... a weak distributional hand with long trumps.. so I no longer have a clue as to what is going on.

Having said that, and fully cognizant of the risks, I double. I have the WRONG hand to bid 5♥... my spade holding is hideous and I refuse to play a partner who bid 4♥ for the trump filler, the diamond card and the club card I need (well maybe I don't need the trump filler since the hook may work).

And this is not the hand on which to pass the decision to partner... because of the spade holding.

I agree that the methods are very weird but this is an occasional partnership, and you play like this to simplify some other problems.
But it is not the point here to discuss methods.

As far as i know my partner, for this bidding she has either 4 card support with 8-10 points or 3 card support with 10-13 points.

I know it sounds funny, but I assure you that 4♥ was not a weak bid.

[ArtK78]

Given the conditions of contest, I double.

But I think the conditions of contest are silly. I would never play that 4♥ is a strong bid in this auction.

[helene_t]

Sorry if this is a rude question but what is the difference between 4♥ and 2N? And what would 3♠ have shown?

[TimG]

mikeh, on Mar 14 2008, 11:29 AM, said:

TimG, on Mar 14 2008, 10:59 AM, said:

Isn't double simply an expression that your hand is more defensive than offensive? 

Yes, in the context of the problem in which we have agreed to make this a forcing situation... my point was that this is a horrible agreement. Stuck with it, I double for precisely the reason you stated. But if partner can be 2=5=2=4, for example, maybe we can't beat it... and maybe we can't make 10 or 11 tricks in hearts either.

Let's suppose the auction had been 1H-(2S)-3S-(4S). Now many would agree with a pass being forcing. Wouldn't you still double because your hand is more defensive than offensive?

I guess my question is: in a situation where a pass would be forcing, isn't double a suggestion rather than a demand? Some of the comments in this thread make it sound like when we double we are definitely going to be defending. But, to me, our description of our hand as more defensive than offensive is to help partner make the right decision when it comes around to her rather than a definitive statement of what the partnership will do.

[helene_t]

TimG, on Mar 14 2008, 06:46 PM, said:

Let's suppose the auction had been 1H-(2S)-3S-(4S).  Now many would agree with the a pass being forcing.  Wouldn't you still double because your hand is more defensive than offensive?

I guess my question is: in a situation where a pass would be forcing, isn't double a suggestion rather than a demand?  Some of the comments in this thread make it sound like when we double we are definitely going to be defending.

P took up a lot of bidding space, while less space-consuming bids like 2N or 3♠ were available. So whatever 4♥ is supposed to show, it must be something quite specific. So we must be in a position to make a decision. And in the unlikely event that we can't make a decision, we even have a forcing pass available. So dbl is 100% penalties.

I think. I could be wrong since I don't quite understand this 4♥ bid.

[awm]

Say we had a small spade instead of ♠Q. Now we're looking at a decent hand (14 high) with nothing wasted in spades and a fair number of controls. It's pretty easy to imagine that if partner has singleton spade (say x Kxxxx Axxx Qxx or x Kxxxx xxxx Kxx) then we might make 5♥ and we might even fail to beat 4♠ if someone has a heart void. It seems pretty reasonable to forcing pass with this hand rather than doubling.

Does the ♠Q make a difference? Do we really expect it to take a trick on defense? I'd be surprised. Forcing pass for me. If pass was not forcing, then I would make a non-forcing pass.

[Echognome]

awm, on Mar 14 2008, 10:15 AM, said:

Say we had a small spade instead of ♠Q. Now we're looking at a decent hand (14 high) with nothing wasted in spades and a fair number of controls. It's pretty easy to imagine that if partner has singleton spade (say x Kxxxx Axxx Qxx or x Kxxxx xxxx Kxx) then we might make 5♥ and we might even fail to beat 4♠ if someone has a heart void. It seems pretty reasonable to forcing pass with this hand rather than doubling.

Does the ♠Q make a difference? Do we really expect it to take a trick on defense? I'd be surprised. Forcing pass for me. If pass was not forcing, then I would make a non-forcing pass.

There's a flaw in your analysis. Our holding the ♠Q means that opponents are bidding and do not have it. I'm in danger of totally misquoting here, but isn't one of Mike Lawrence's fundamental theories that if we hold wasted values in opponent's suit, then partner is minimum for his action? (This is from his book on hand evaluation.) Basically if we take the ♠Q away from our hand, then there's a better chance that partner has some values that are working for us and that opponents have values that are working for them. Thus our hand becomes more offensive.

[Cascade]

I would pass. Partner decided to bid 4♥ partner can decide what to do next. I can't really tell if we want to defend 4♠ or not and I have some extra values so I don't want to prevent partner bidding on with good distribution.

[jdeegan]

dbl
5-4-2-2 shape, the extra high cards and the spade queen control. If pard is bidding on nothing with heart length, he may (or may not - disaster!) pull. At least, I'm ahead of the game, plus I am a good partner offering an informed opinion.

[benlessard]

Forcing pass after a vuln game (R vs W) is a good treatment imo. R vs W a 4H preempt is a lose-lose proposition unless playing in a pretty weak field. Cuebidding without slamish hand (just to turn FP on) is less then perfect imo, so 4H as a good hand make sense, in my book the 4H should say that hes a bit gambling into game and that 4H is far from being cold.

I would bid 5H with 6H and a stiff spades, ill make a FP with 6H or with 5H & a stiff S and ill double with 2S & 5H. It might seems too straightfoward and simple but in practice it work fine for me. On this hand the Qx really suggest X.

[SchTsch]

So, whatever you do, your partner will have the following hand:

x
98x
AQJxxx
K10x