[manudude03]

Scoring: XIMP

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Sitting West, opps playing 12-14 NT 4 card majors if it helps.

(1♣)-P-(1♠)-??

[655321]

2♦

[petergreat]

3♦. Seven diamonds, bid three level.

Your hand isn't particularly strong anyway - it can have many losers especially opposite a diamond void so you ought to be careful. 3♦ should be pre-emptive oriented. After all, partner is the only one who hasn't shown anything!

[whereagles]

4♦. Looks like hearts is their fit. This will make it quite hard for them to find it.

[andy_h]

5♦, to be in synch.

Partner doesn't have to be totally broke. So I prefer to start a 'constructive' auction with 2♦.

[Codo]

6 ♦ of course to hold the line...

Seriously I prefer 3 Diamond. If they want to play heart in the light of a 5-0 break, they can do.

[whereagles]

Codo, on Apr 21 2009, 02:13 PM, said:

Seriously I prefer 3 Diamond. If they want to play heart in the light of a 5-0 break, they can do.

That's the point: if they do bid 4♥, maybe pard has a stack over it

[nick_s]

2♦

Who says it's not our hand? I have to show that I have some defensive strength. I haven't ruled out 3NT yet.

[Gerben42]

4♦, middle of the road

[skjaeran]

whereagles, on Apr 21 2009, 03:27 PM, said:

Codo, on Apr 21 2009, 02:13 PM, said:

Seriously I prefer 3 Diamond. If they want to play heart in the light of a 5-0 break, they can do.

That's the point: if they do bid 4♥, maybe pard has a stack over it

Can't be much of a stack, he didn't make a NV 1♥ overcall.

[mikeh]

2♦

While I understand 3♦ (but not 4), there are many reasons not to choose it.

We have a bad suit... certainly not a suit that rates to play well opposite an entryless dummy with short diamonds.... of course, he may have a fit, in which case I may wish I had bid 3

The bidding to date suggests bad news more than good.

Assume partner has heart length... he passed at favourable.

Assume partner has only 4 hearts... rho has 5-5 or better in the majors, and therefore opener probably has short spades... he opened 1♣ and we are positing 4 hearts for him.. if he has fewer hearts, then either rho or cho has more... and so on.

We have enough defence, and enough of a distributional surprise, that we shouldn't be overly concerned about their bidding a winning game.

We love them playing in spades.

We don't mind them in 3N after we encourage a diamond lead

We don't mind them in hearts if partner can't make a preemptive raise in diamonds.. he'll likely have lots of hearts then

And 2♦ will probably be nearly as good a preempt as 3... lho probably can't/won't be able to show a moderate hand with 4 hearts, and who knows what will happen next?

I would be more inclined to 3♦ without one of the two black honours... now the need to preempt would, imo, outweigh the risks, because partner's silence would suggest the opps do have a good game somewhere.

[Apollo81]

2♦

[whereagles]

mikeh, on Apr 21 2009, 05:13 PM, said:

While I understand 3♦ (but not 4), there are many reasons not to choose it.

We have a bad suit... certainly not a suit that rates to play well opposite an entryless dummy with short diamonds.... of course, he may have a fit, in which case I may wish I had bid 3

The bidding to date suggests bad news more than good.

Assume partner has heart length... he passed at favourable.

Well, it is true that when you hold extreme length in a suit and an opponent suit, pard rates to have a huge 55 across.

However, this looks like an exception to me: I think that there's a good chance pard has a diamond fit (hence the 4♦ bid).

Why? Precisely because of your last observation: pard didn't bid hearts at 'green', so it's likely he hasn't got many of those. Since he doesn't seem to have many spades as well, he probably has a couple of diamonds.

Still, you are right that the situation might be more dangerous than it looks. I don't think so, but if I have time I might do a little simulation.

[mtvesuvius]

2♦. I hate 3, and kinda like 4, but there is no reason to rule out 3NT. In addition, if partner is broke with 5♥, then I wouldn't be suprised if 4♦ went for 800.