[Jlall]

Bart Bramley just gave me this hand at work... he disagreed with my answer pretty strongly so just wanted to see what you guys thought. I might have overlooked something very important when I answered.

Jx
Tx
JTxxx
AJxx

None vul. Partner opens 1S, RHO bids 4H, p p X p ?

You are playing a normal 2/1 system.

[helene_t]

I don't think the odds are much in favor of either pass, 4♠, 4NT or 5♦. I wouldn't make any slam try but maybe I am crazy. I would go for 4♠.

[jdonn]

I waffled a long time. Finally I'm pretty convinced in pass, because the chances of 4♠/4NT/5♦ reaching the wrong suit, or the 'best' suit when it's still not good enough, are too high. At least I have a good lead and an ace.

[aguahombre]

Jlall, on Oct 27 2009, 12:15 PM, said:

You are playing a normal 2/1 system.

Let's don't go there again. You are brave.

On the question, heck --how many did they make in 4HX when I passed?

[Phil]

Im quite sure Bramley disagreed with your pass here and advocated 4N.

Right?

BTW, I think I'm just good enough for 4N, although Jx xx A argue for a pass.

[jdonn]

Phil, on Oct 27 2009, 12:44 PM, said:

Im quite sure Bramley disagreed with your pass here and advocated 4N.

Right?

I also predicted it was Justin's pass that he disagreed with.

[pooltuna]

Jlall, on Oct 27 2009, 12:15 PM, said:

Bart Bramley just gave me this hand at work... he disagreed with my answer pretty strongly so just wanted to see what you guys thought. I might have overlooked something very important when I answered.

Jx
Tx
JTxxx
AJxx

None vul. Partner opens 1S, RHO bids 4H, p p X p ?

You are playing a normal 2/1 system.

pass obv

[Trinidad]

This is a pass.

That is not because you will get rich defending 4♥. It is because you will have to guess what to bid if you don't pass. 4♠ could be right or wrong. You don't have to guess what minor to play in, since you can bid 4NT, but you will have to guess to play in a minor and then you can't play 4♠.

When you have decided on the strain, you will have to guess the level. It is entirely possible that you belong in 6♣. But you are never going to bid it, so at best (that is when you are not in 4♠) you will be in 5♣, scoring 20 points for the extra trick. If I won't be able to get the 500 points for the extra trick (because I can't judge whether we should be in game or slam), I will prefer getting 300 points for the extra trick by taking it while defending 4♥X, rather than the 20 that I get for the overtrick in 5♣.

Rik

[dburn]

Anything could work, and slightly surprised that Bart's view is "very strong" one way or the other. But the philosophy here is that we pull to a contract that we think will have some chance to make, and the reason for this is that if we can make a slam, partner can bid one. Since all our cards are likely to be working hard on offense, I would be inclined to bid 4NT because of the large gain that will accrue (vis-a-vis pass or 4♠) if partner bids six of a minor and makes it (in addition to the small gain from plus 400 as opposed to plus 300, and avoidance of the large loss for -590). But I would not be at all surprised to be wrong at the table.

[Jlall]

Well he disagreed strongly with pass. I don't think he felt strongly about which bid to make. But yeah, a big part of the reason I pass is because even though it is probably right to bid, pass is probably better than any bid in particular.

[nigel_k]

Passing could easily be right but I prefer to bid when it is close. It's hard to choose between 4♠ and 4NT but I think either will do better on average than passing. Would probably go with 4♠.

[fred]

I think this problem was in The Master Solvers' Club in The Bridge World within the past few months. If I recall correctly, 4S got the most votes which surprised me at the time (I would have expected it to be close between Pass and 4NT with 4S being the panel's 3rd choice).

To me all 3 choices are reasonable. I have no strong feelings about any of the choices being significantly better or significantly worse. I will say that my perception has been that passing in situations like this doesn't seem to have worked as well for me as I would have thought it should (not that this proves anything).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Jlall]

fred, on Oct 27 2009, 02:53 PM, said:

I think this problem was in The Master Solvers' Club in The Bridge World within the past few months. If I recall correctly, 4S got the most votes which surprised me at the time (I would have expected it to be close between Pass and 4NT with 4S being the panel's 3rd choice).

This happened last night against Bart (though now that you mention it I remember a very similar MSC hand...weird).

You can see the movie: here

Shane chose to bid 4S which has an upside that I didn't give much weight until Bart mentioned it; they might bid 5H given their seeming great length in hearts. 4N has the same advantage, but probably slightly less (they save over 4S more than 5m).

I guess I'm too predictable since everyone knew I chose to pass Fwiw a large part of my reasoning to pass was partner might have a strong hand with a doubleton heart, like 5233 and 52(42). Passing is going to be right then most likely, but we still might land on our feet because partner should have a very strong hand to reopen with a doubleton heart. Playing strong club I would have bid though because they are more likely to be making, and partner always has real heart shortness.

[jdaming]

I don't know that my opinon holds the most weight, but I will give it anyway.

I share most of Bart's sentiment about bidding here. I think we have quite a lot of positives here on offense that make bidding 4N the best choice. I think we can all agree that partner rates to be a pretty strong hand with at least some minor suit tolerance. I think 4nt is the right bid for several reasons:
1) It will get us into the correct 5 of a minor game if this is the "magic spot" everyone has alluded to.
2) It will allow us to best explore for slam especially if opener is a large 3 suiter.
3) It will allow partner to know we have both minors to better evaluate his hand for a fit/sidefit for slam.

I don't really agree at all that 1 more trick between making 5 of a minor and 6 of a minor will translate into an additional trick that we set them as I can think of about as many cases that this is true as when it is not.

As a side not while I like 4N more than 4♠ I think I still like it better than pass.

[fred]

Jlall, on Oct 27 2009, 08:02 PM, said:

This happened last night against Bart (though now that you mention it I remember a very similar MSC hand...weird).

It was problem C from August 2009:

K5
106
106542
Q853

So the shape (and the auction) were the same, but the honor cards were completely different. Also both were vul in The Bridge World (versus none vul in the actual problem).

Apparently eyesight is not the only thing that deteriorates post-40

The panel voted:

Pass 11
4S 8
4NT 7
5D 1

But the moderator (Kokish) made the somewhat unusual decision to overrule the panel and award 100 to 4S.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Jlall]

fred, on Oct 27 2009, 03:49 PM, said:

But the moderator (Kokish) made the somewhat unusual decision to overrule the panel and award 100 to 4S.

I'm sure the reasoning was because more people bid than passed, so he gave the top score to the top bid. I think that is misguided in a situation like this where much of the reason to pass is that bidding doesn't come close to guarantee that you get to the right spot.

[jdonn]

I like pass a bit less in the bridge world hand. You no longer have an ace for defense, and your spades are better so I would bid that. Also the vulnerable 4♥ bid tends to be a fair bit better than not vul.

[Jlall]

Heh when Fred posted those results of the bridge world hand, I remembered that Bart was the 1 5D bidder. I think he liked 5D on this hand too.

[655321]

I am a 4NT bidder.

For me the double says a lot more about heart shortness than it does about strength. If my partner is minimum with short hearts then 4♥ will often make, so I don't want to pass. I guess to bid 4NT instead of 4♠ because it brings two suits into play, and because 4♠ will usually need partner to have 6 cards to be a good spot.

[skjaeran]

I think this is close.

Agree with those saying that in the long run, bidding would be the winner. But only if you're able to pick the winning bid often enough. But there are three possible bids, and very often one of them will be good and two bad, sometimes both 4NT and 5♦ will be good. And pass will very often be the 2nd best call.

I'm voting for pass.