[paulg]

Scoring: IMP

1♣    (Pass)  1♦   (1♠)
Pass (Pass)  Dbl  (Pass)
?

---

Playing 2/1, what is your call now? You are playing Walsh, so partner will only have a 4-card major with a game forcing hand.

Paul

[han]

2C.

[pclayton]

han, on Oct 29 2008, 06:49 AM, said:

2C.

Yes, seems perfect. WTP?

[paulg]

Well, it is simple but I bid a non-thinking 1NT.

I believe it does need one seconds thought to realise how poor this is.

Paul

[ASkolnick]

I have no real objection to 2♣, but when I have a stopper, I show it. I don't like bidding 2♣ on a bad 5 card suit. Yes, I know it may be leading through my partner's Q of spades, but at some point I need to show a balanced hand. If partner has club support, he can always bid clubs over my 1N.

[mikeh]

ASkolnick, on Oct 29 2008, 02:43 PM, said:

I have no real objection to 2♣, but when I have a stopper, I show it.  I don't like bidding 2♣ on a bad 5 card suit.  Yes, I know it may be leading through my partner's Q of spades, but at some point I need to show a balanced hand.  If partner has club support, he can always bid clubs over my 1N.

1N is horrible.... horrible.

If we belong in 1N, partner would have bid it.

If we belong in 3N, partner won't pass 2♣. We can show our stopper later... if he continues 2♠, we can happily bid 2N, knowing that our auction, including our entirely proper pass over 1♠ (we can bid 2♣ on many hands with a good club suit) and our refusal to bid 1N over the double has afforded partner a good understanding of our hand type.

We have an awful hand.. Axx in spades with a spade lead coming and partner marked, if he passes 1N, with a useless holding in the suit, and with the opps holding sure entries.

As for partner bidding clubs over 1N... surely you jest? Give him a mediocre 2=3=5=3.. why can't you hold a minimum 4=4=2=3? He's denied hearts (he'd have reversed into 2♥ playing walsh.. he wouldn't try for a 1 level penalty with 9+ red cards and gf values. He'd have to be a mindreader to pull 1N... and be prepared to defend that before a committee if there were any break in tempo.

[han]

If partner passes 2C it is probably as good or better than 1NT. On many hands where 1NT is the best partscore partner would have bid it.

Another reason to bid 2C is that if 3NT is a good game then it will likely play better from partner's side.

[edit: was writing this before mikeh posted. Yes, I am slow!]

[whereagles]

I'll go with a "horrible" 1NT because I belive shape/strenght should come before right-siding.

However, I do agree there are hints 1NT might wrong-side the NT, and that NT might be our strain. But I do not consider these hints strong enough to mastermind a 2♣ rebid.

To me, 2♣ should show an unbalanced hand with 5 clubs.

[awm]

Suppose the auction had gone 1♣-P-1♦-P; how many would bid 1NT?

I bet it would be close to unanimous!

Even if we change the hand very slightly to:

Axx
xxx
KT
KQTxx

How many rebid 1NT over 1♣-P-1♦-P?

My point is just that an awful lot of the same reasons to avoid bidding notrump apply here as well. Note that:

(1) You're almost always going to get a major suit lead against notrump, and whichever major this is the hand probably plays better from partner's side.

(2) If partner has a balanced hand he could've bid an appropriate number of notrump and he chose not to. This increases the odds that either partner is unbalanced (and would pull 1NT anyway) or that we have one or more very poorly-stopped major suits (partner was trying to right-side our non-existent tenace).

(3) If partner has some 2254 hand (for example) is he really going to remove 1NT? Especially playing Walsh where you could bypass one or both four-card majors, why would he do that?

(4) If 3NT is the right contract you have plenty of space to explore over 2♣ and determine which stoppers you have/don't have/need to right-side.

All this being said, I certainly can understand that there are many bad things about rebidding 1NT on the hand from this thread. I just think it's interesting that a bid that is so unanimously reviled would be so unanimously selected in what seems to me a very similar situation.

[mikeh]

awm, on Oct 29 2008, 05:20 PM, said:

Suppose the auction had gone 1♣-P-1♦-P; how many would bid 1NT?

I bet it would be close to unanimous!

Even if we change the hand very slightly to:

Axx
xxx
KT
KQTxx

How many rebid 1NT over 1♣-P-1♦-P?

My point is just that an awful lot of the same reasons to avoid bidding notrump apply here as well. Note that:

(1) You're almost always going to get a major suit lead against notrump, and whichever major this is the hand probably plays better from partner's side.

(2) If partner has a balanced hand he could've bid an appropriate number of notrump and he chose not to. This increases the odds that either partner is unbalanced (and would pull 1NT anyway) or that we have one or more very poorly-stopped major suits (partner was trying to right-side our non-existent tenace).

(3) If partner has some 2254 hand (for example) is he really going to remove 1NT? Especially playing Walsh where you could bypass one or both four-card majors, why would he do that?

(4) If 3NT is the right contract you have plenty of space to explore over 2♣ and determine which stoppers you have/don't have/need to right-side.

All this being said, I certainly can understand that there are many bad things about rebidding 1NT on the hand from this thread. I just think it's interesting that a bid that is so unanimously reviled would be so unanimously selected in what seems to me a very similar situation.

Anyone who thinks that the sequence 1♣ [P] 1♦ [P] 1N is the same as the sequence under discussion here is missing some basic points about the game, and I am astounded that someone as astute as Adam suggests that these situations are remotely the same.

[han]

Just because the hands are the same, we opened 1C on both and partner responded 1D on both doesn't mean the auctions are the same. Here are some difference:

- On the actual hand, it is our third chance to bid, not the second. Our pass over 1S already suggested a more balanced hand. We could have bid 2C directly if we had 6 of them. Certainly partner knows we don't have a good 6-card suit now.

- The opponents have overcalled. More precisely, our right hand opponent has overcalled in spades. If partner has as little as Jxx or Qx of spades then notrump from our side is worse than notrump from partner's side.

- Partner has made a takeout double of 1S, suggesting a weak holding there and some length in the other suits.

Three important reasons that make this auction very different from 1C-1D.

[655321]

awm, on Oct 29 2008, 05:20 PM, said:

I just think it's interesting that a bid that is so unanimously reviled would be so unanimously selected in what seems to me a very similar situation.

Yes, everyone would bid 1NT in the uncontested auction, and nobody would bid 1NT on the actual auction. So, perhaps nobody at all agrees with you that the two cases are similar?

[fred]

awm, on Oct 29 2008, 10:20 PM, said:

Suppose the auction had gone 1♣-P-1♦-P; how many would bid 1NT?

I bet it would be close to unanimous!

Even if we change the hand very slightly to:

Axx
xxx
KT
KQTxx

How many rebid 1NT over 1♣-P-1♦-P?

My point is just that an awful lot of the same reasons to avoid bidding notrump apply here as well. Note that:

This is not a fair comparison - the auctions may look similar, but they are really not that similar.

For one thing, in the actual auction you probably don't have 6 clubs (you usually would have bid 2C the round before if you did). Rebidding a 5-card club suit is not even a possibility in the auction you present whereas 5 cards is the expected length for a club rebid here.

Besides that, when partner Doubles he is saying that he can handle the concept of you bidding 2C with a hand like this - that is certainly what you would do if you had a similar hand with no spade stopper right? If partner can't handle a 2C response to his Double with this hand, then he should not have Doubled.

If the auction is to continue then 2C is certainly better than 1NT (because it leaves open the possibility of playing notrump from partner's side while describing a key feature of your hand, your 5-card suit, while 1NT does neither of these things). If the auction is to die then my judgment suggests that you would rather have it die in 2C than 1NT more often than not (because partner will usually have 3 clubs and, if he doesn't, he will have a doubleton club and no spade stopper).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[benlessard]

2C here,

I have a hard time seeing partner with short spades on that auction. Since we pass 1S and pull the double to 2C its basically show a minimum balanced hand or a 5C/4S minimum wich is a good description of our hand.

The times 1nt is a better partscore than 2C or 2D is so small that its more important to rightside the contract in the likely case partner got a strong hand.

[awm]

Okay, here's a challenge. Construct a hand for partner to hold opposite:

♠Axx
♥xxx
♦KT
♣KQTxx

such that partner would reply 1♦ to 1♣ in the walsh style, and 3NT from my side is a better contract than 3NT from partner's side (assuming no substantial information about the location of opponents cards).

It's tough isn't it? On the other hand it is very easy for me to construct hands where 3NT from partner's side is better than 3NT from my side.

Now certainly we could say that this "right-siding" business doesn't matter and I should just show a balanced hand with a balanced hand... but doesn't that apply after an overcall as well, especially since we have already denied holding a really good spade stopper by passing 1♠ to begin with?

And how exactly are we going to get partner to bid notrump first on Qx later in the bidding?

[fred]

awm, on Oct 29 2008, 11:20 PM, said:

but doesn't that apply after an overcall as well, especially since we have already denied holding a really good spade stopper by passing 1♠ to begin with?

Disagree.

A "free" 1NT not only suggests a good positional spade holding, it also suggests a good hand in the 12-14 range. You shouldn't bid 1NT with a crappy balanced 12-count just because you have, say, KQx of spades.

Quote

And how exactly are we going to get partner to bid notrump first on Qx later in the bidding?

Even if you can't imagine such an auction, maybe partner has Qxx of spades - it is not hard to imagine getting to notrump from his side now.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Walddk]

awm, on Oct 30 2008, 01:20 AM, said:

And how exactly are we going to get partner to bid notrump first on Qx later in the bidding?

First, if Qx is what partner has, West does not want to declare 3NT unless he has 9 top tricks.

Second, it's quite easy to make East bid NT later if he has Qx or Jxx. He could have bid a number of notrumps on his first turn but didn't. He doubled. Accordingly, if he bids NT later, what do you expect him to have in spades?

I think 2♣ is considerably better than 1NT. Now, if partner bids NT over 2♣, I will be happy to pass with as little as Jxx.

Roland

[655321]

awm, on Oct 29 2008, 06:20 PM, said:

Okay, here's a challenge. Construct a hand for partner to hold opposite:

♠Axx
♥xxx
♦KT
♣KQTxx

such that partner would reply 1♦ to 1♣ in the walsh style, and 3NT from my side is a better contract than 3NT from partner's side (assuming no substantial information about the location of opponents cards).

It's tough isn't it? On the other hand it is very easy for me to construct hands where 3NT from partner's side is better than 3NT from my side.

Now certainly we could say that this "right-siding" business doesn't matter and I should just show a balanced hand with a balanced hand... but doesn't that apply after an overcall as well, especially since we have already denied holding a really good spade stopper by passing 1♠ to begin with?

And how exactly are we going to get partner to bid notrump first on Qx later in the bidding?

Why am I reminded of this?

[kenrexford]

I cannot believe that anyone would seriously consider anything but 2♣ here. No one is vulnerable. I cannot imagine being able to stop in 1NT all white with only three spades and partner making a call that strongly implies a doubleton spade when the opponents have bid spades once already. What chicken world is that?

Here's the bigger fear. If the auction goes 1NT-2♠-P-P-? I'd feel a lot better if I just bid the clubs I was given, so partner can bid or not bid 3♣ over 2♠.

[paulg]

mikeh provided a good summary of the one second of thought that passed me by at the time.

The 1NT bidders get to play a no-play 3NT.

The 2♣ bidders will hear 2♠ from partner, to which they will respond 3♠ and hear partner bid 3NT on his ♠Qx.

Paul