[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP

1♦-2♠*-4♦-pass
? ?

You are playing with world class opponents and partner... you are, well, me (I apologize for making you the weakest player at the table for this hand)... your only agreement with partner is 2/1, criss-cross, bergen, udca, nmf, 14,03, and 3/5 leads. This auction, clearly has never been discussed.

What do you bid?

---

[han]

4S, I don't need much for game and I don't want to risk partner passing 4H.

[655321]

5♦

4♦ should be preemptive. Perhaps I should pass, but if partner was prepared to play in 4♦ opposite a weak NT, I will try 5♦.

[Echognome]

4♠ seems clear. We have too much to pass and might as well bid to 5♦ strongly.

[TimG]

655321, on Mar 22 2008, 09:25 PM, said:

5♦

4♦ should be preemptive. Perhaps I should pass, but if partner was prepared to play in 4♦ opposite a weak NT, I will try 5♦.

Early on, don't we learn not to preempt a preempt?

[655321]

TimG, on Mar 22 2008, 09:41 PM, said:

655321, on Mar 22 2008, 09:25 PM, said:

5♦

4♦ should be preemptive.  Perhaps I should pass, but if partner was prepared to play in 4♦ opposite a weak NT, I will try 5♦.

Early on, don't we learn not to preempt a preempt?

All my partnerships bid 3♠ with a forcing raise, bid 3♦ with a competitive raise, and 4♦ is free to show a hand too weak to bid 3♦, but with compensating distribution. If your bridge teacher tells you that when the opponents open a weak 2♥, your jump to 3♠ is a strong bid, that is good, but it has nothing to do with this auction. Why should responder, with a weak hand and a big fit for opener, be unable to describe this just because opponents have made a weak jump?

[kfay]

I voted 4♠ but then felt stupid when I was the only one in the poll. Glad some people agree with me

[kgr]

han, on Mar 23 2008, 04:24 AM, said:

4S, I don't need much for game and I don't want to risk partner passing 4H.

I would think that 4H is clearly forcing and that 4S denies a H control and partner can only bid not 5D with heart shortness?
...I prefer 4H and hope partner will be able to bid 4S with singleton.

[kenrexford]

NOTE: I would have opened 2NT. I think that this is fairly commonplace at the level of this game these days.

As to the actual problem. I would want 4♠ to be RKCB here, making 4NT natural, balanced, almost this hand, and descriptive. But, I have no idea what anything means here. 4♠ works as a WAG, though, as it will not be passed. If partner's next call is:

4NT -- I bid 6♦
5♣ -- I bid 6♦
5♦ -- I pass
5♥+ -- I'll get to 6♦, but I'm still thinking.

[han]

Hate a 2NT opening.

[655321]

kenrexford, on Mar 23 2008, 08:50 AM, said:

NOTE: I would have opened 2NT.  I think that this is fairly commonplace at the level of this game these days. 

As far as I know, it is not commonplace to bid an ugly 4333 19 count as if it were a balanced 20+. I assumed that Ben was not playing a range for 2NT that included 19 counts, hence the normal, commonplace and correct 1♦ opening.

[kenrexford]

Funny, though. If you review the (available) vugraphs from thesemi-finals and finals in 2007, there were 7 2NT openings. One was weird (some 6331 hand). Of the six typical hands, the HCP spread was:

19 HCP: 4
20 HCP: 1
21 HCP: 1

This hand has 19 HCP.

How about control count?

This hand has seven controls. Of the 19-counts, one had 6 controls, two had 7 controls, and one had 8 controls.

How about shape?

This hand is 3-3-4-3. Of the 19-counts, we saw 4-3-2-4, 5-3-3-2, 4-3-4-2, and 3-3-4-3.

How about working cards? This hand had no short, unprotected honors. Of the 19-counts, one had a Qx.

How about stoppers? This has no open suit. Of the 19-counts, one had xx in a side suit.

I think one intriguing reality from Shanghai is that 2NT is becoming a weaker bid. I found this interesting and found the trend to extend into the other rounds also (I did not run those for this post). I seem to recall 19 being about 3X more likely that 20/21 (75% of opening 2NT calls were 19-counts). Traditional concepts like a five-card suit or lots of working 10's or high control counts were not required.

[655321]

The convention cards used at Shanghai are still here: http://tinyurl.com/2k9bmf

All the auctions should still be be here: http://www.worldbrid....07/Results.htm

I did not look at the auctions, but I did notice that all of the semifinallists who played a natural 2NT described it as 20-21 (or even 21-23), and no-one included 19 on their card.

(Sorry to hijack Ben's thread )

[kenrexford]

An additional note.

I also went and reviewed the WBF convention cards for these folks. Some interesting observations:

1. These people are damned lairs! LOL The only pair admitting to 19-count 2NT openings is Meckwell, who notes 19-20 but 20-21 in 3rd/4th seat.

2. Some liars are ridiculous, opening 19-counts but noting "20-22."

3. There seems to be two diverging trends among those who use a strong 2NT. Some are opening lighter (lots of 19's) but some are going the other way, often as strong as 23 even, but perhaps because of 2♦ as a Mexican treatment or something similar.

Another observation: Hel-Hel noted (19)20-21 in 2003 but dropped the "(19)" for 2007, despite opening 19's. Strange.

Japan in 2002 noted (19)20-21. I'm googling this stuff and finding this out. ["(19)20-21" 2NT opening] yielded 971 hits. ["19-21" 2NT opening] yielded 30,300 hits.

[Fluffy]

Its hard to imagine what 4♦ can be except a 2-suiter, the only reasonable alternative being a real forcing raise at this vulnerability, but our hand doesn't make it real.

The 2 suiter is probably with clubs, and we have some overpower in the majors, with minors weak, I think 5♦ is probably gonna be enough.

[inquiry]

I don't mind opening 2NT with the occassional 19 point hand that is "upgraded". 4333 is not such a hand.

I feel better after seeing the replies to this post, as so far 20 votes and no one choose the "winning" call of pass. I had thought expert standard was what justin said in his reply, "don't preempt over a preempt" so i assumed partner must have something useful for his bid, but partner had an extreme preemptive hand, he was 2-3-6-2 with J9 of diamonds and Qx of clubs (xx xxx J9xxxx Qx).

The club king was behind my AJ, and diamonds split 3-0 so i had to lose 3♦, 1♣, 1♠ and if you bid any more, you will be crushed doubled. The defense slipped and i could have beld it to down three, but managed to lose the trick they gave me, for -1100 in 6♦x.

[mr1303]

I went for 5D, deciding that partner could have something a bit ropey.

Anyone else think that partner's 4D bid was fruity at unfavourable?

[Fluffy]

ridicoulous is what strikes me, we have a monster and he goes for -800, on a 12-14 4432 hand he should go what?, 1700?, congratulations for bidding 7 team mates, sorry, you lose 5.

[inquiry]

Fluffy, on Mar 23 2008, 01:34 PM, said:

ridicoulous is what strikes me, we have a monster and he goes for -800, on a 12-14 4432 hand he should go what?, 1700?, congratulations for bidding 7 team mates, sorry, you lose 5.

well, i didn't post this to be criticial of my partner, who played well. I just wanted to double check the concept that i had that most people would not take this 4♦ as preemptive. (parnter was mildly critical of my bid over 4♦). Two strikes against it being preemptive I thought, 1) we were vul, they were not, and more importantly, 2) they had already preempted on this hand, so it couldn't be preemptive. I just wanted to confirm that i had not lost my mind. It was a simple partnership misunderstanding.