[mikeh]

MarkDean, on Mar 17 2009, 01:52 PM, said:

So, a constructive 2♠ was not available, otherwise I would have gladly bid it.  To me, some of the temptation of 3♣ is that I do want to take a stronger call then 2♠, but perhaps not as high/inviational as 3♠. 

At the table, I bid 3♠, due to my pretty good intermediates and my increased hope for club help.  Partner bid 4♠ with x Axx AKQxx Jxxx, which was not a good contract.  My counterpart at the other table bid 3♣.

We presumably chose to accept the reality that the lack of a constructive 2♠ rebid would make this hand-type problematic.

But the lack of the tool does not, imo, justify overbidding a misfitting (in spades) 8 count with zero hcp in partner's suit and the real possibility of very short spades opposite.

If we don't like our methods, the appropriate action is to change methods, not to overbid in an effort to make good the deficit... else we risk getting to silly contracts as happened here... and on a not so remote day, the contract is doubled.

As it is, the fact that 2♠ is not defined as constructive does not reduce the maximum strength it shows (or not by much).. it operates to widen the range, not to lower the top of the range.

Partner knows that we may have this good a hand, and so while he will be a little more conservative than opposite a constructive rebid, he will, at this vulnerability and at imps, stretch if needed to invite once you announce the 6 card suit.

So while I agree that the lack of a constructive definition for 2♠ makes the bid less palatable, I really don't see any useful alternative. 3♣ 'worked' but that doesn't make it best... it worked by getting to a good partscore, but 2♠ would have done the same thing, and the exercise is to maximize game chances while preserving partscore safety. 3♣ offers a worse route to most good games than does 2♠, while 3♠ lacks safety and overstates values in any event, especially when partner will and should stretch to accept.

[whereagles]

Actually, why did pard raise your 3♠ with a singleton? His hand seems like a 3NT bid

[MarkDean]

I cannot answer for partner. Though it was online, perhaps he needed to be dummy to do something.

[mikeh]

As opener, with x Axx AKQxx Jxxx, if I were to bid game after an invitational 3♠, I would always bid 4♠.

To bid 3N here, with a short(ish) single stopper in the suit they are likely to lead, and an anti-positional one at that, is the type of error that many players make when deciding which game to bid after an auction such as 1♠  1N  3♠.

Good players will bid 3N on doubleton support far more often than they do on singleton support... with a singleton, the tendency is to raise the major, not to bid 3N. Lesser-skilled players tend to run to notrump with the stiff, and to raise with the doubleton. However, the doubleton usually increases the chances that the suit will develop for tricks quickly, and perhaps run immediately, making the 9 trick game attractive, while the stiff argues that partner will usually have to lose the lead in spades more than he would opposite a doubleton, making it far more probable that the opps can establish and then run their own suit in notrump.

I would bid game, and I think that decision is in itself far closer than the decision as to which game to bid... for me, the decision to bid spades is easy.

To test this, construct hands on which partner has about 9-10 hcp with a decent or better 6 card suit in spades. Sure, on some of them, 3N will work, but I think that you will find that 4♠ is usually a better spot, which is not at all surprising given the quick trick nature of your hand.

[whereagles]

Which game to choose with a singleton depends on how solid a suit the invitational 3♠ requires. If the suit can be half-broken (as it can around here), you probably don't wanna be in 4♠ with 6 opposite a stiff.

[Fluffy]

2♠. Doubleton ♥Q is awful, a working honnor such as ♣Qxxx instead and 3♠ will be a decent alternative