[Ulrich]

Last night I had

AK
AKQ
QTxxxx
xx

and my partner had

xxx
xxx
AKx
xxxx

I opened 1D, my partner said 1NT and I bid 3NT. The opponents took the first five club tricks. My partner said I should have bid 3D and we would have got to 5D, but I was taught that my D suit had to be better to bid 3D. Were we just unlucky or can anyone help us get to 5D?

[aisha759]

Hi Ulrich;
I am answering as an intermediate player (you can take it or leave it A 3 diamond rebid by you, is a non-forcing limit bid showing 5+ diamonds and 15-17pts... as your partner( with that hand) I would never bid 5 after a limit bid...... I think you just got unlucky with clubs
I would be very interested to hear comments on how to get to the right contract of 5♦

Aisha

[helene_t]

aisha759, on Jul 8 2004, 12:52 AM, said:

A 3 diamond rebid by you, is a non-forcing limit bid showing 5+ diamonds and 15-17pts...

6+ diamonds, actually (with a semibalanced 15-16 HCP you might have opened 1NT to avoid the rebidding problem, otherwise you would pass 1NT with 15 HCP or rebid 2♣ on a 3-card). I think the suit is good enough for 3♦ since partner denies a 4-card major and therefore probably has some diamond tollerance. Anyway, I agree that your hand is too good for 3♦.

A possible route to 5♦ would be
1♦ 1NT
2♥ 3♦
3♠ 5♦

But your 3NT bid is better. The opps are unlikely to lead clubs since partners 1[NT] response suggests club length. If you bid more informatively the opps are more likely to find the club lead.

[Gerben47]

Don't worry about it, you bid correctly. Next board!

You were doubly unlucky because they did not lead a major and partner, who denied length in all suits but clubs, did not have a stopper.

You have to watch out that this kind of "we had a bad result therefore I did something wrong" reasoning.

I had a similar experience yesterday. Individual tournament
(system is Polish Club i.e. 1♦ = 4+♦, 12-18).

Kxx
Qxxx
Axx
Jxx

ME
Pass (Pass) 1♦ (1♠)
Dbl (2♠) 3♦ (pass)
3NT (pass) pass (pass)

Partner has:
A
AKJx
KJTxxx
xx

And they take 5 club tricks. My partner says now as a good result bender that I should have bid 3♥ after 3♦l. This typical "bad results means partner did something wrong" attitude is terrible. Your partner in this case was guilty of the same thing.

First of all after the expected spade lead the ♦ fall out and we make 12 tricks and get more than everyone in 4♥.
Secondly my bidding shows 4 cards in hearts else I would've bid 1NT/2NT over 1♠.

Gerben

[bearmum]

Ulrich, on Jul 8 2004, 05:35 PM, said:

Last night I had

AK
AKQ
QTxxxx
xx

and my partner had

xxx
xxx
AKx
xxxx

I opened 1D, my partner said 1NT and I bid 3NT. The opponents took the first five club tricks. My partner said I should have bid 3D and we would have got to 5D, but I was taught that my D suit had to be better to bid 3D. Were we just unlucky or can anyone help us get to 5D?

IMHO you bid was good - just unlucky that pard did not have a club big enough to prevent them running 5 clubs Please remember that a less than optimal score is not necessarily the result of "bad" bidding ----- in MOST cases your 3NT would be an OK score

and--- unless you are willing to bid FOUR Diamonds on your hand ( therefore going past 3NT which might be the BEST contract as your ♦'s are not that strong ) partner will bid 5♦ on the actual hand (wow a LOT of what ifs there) please ---- remember hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20

[nikos59]

Your partner is a result merchant; if enemy clubs were 4-3 he wouldn't
have uttered a word. Your bid was perfect.

[Free]

Your bid is correct, btw, what person will bid 5♦ when he has a 4 card in the 4th suit anyway?

The only other option imo is bidding 2♥...

[helene_t]

And even with clubs splitting 5-2 and a club lead, the suit may block, or partners 10 may get promoted because the opp with a doubleton must deblock an honour. Or partner might have a club honour that must be protected against the opening lead.

[paulhar]

You didn't mention scoring, but if you were playing matchpoints, then you MUST be in 3NT. Most of the time, you'll be +600 in 5D for a bottom against a boatload of +660's. With the opps having eight spades and seven hearts and only seven clubs, a major suit lead is very likely. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think it's right at IMP's too to give the 6 to 1 odds (you gain 2 IMPs for being in 3NT making 5 against 5D making 5 but lose 12 for going down one). To be beaten, LHO needs to have five clubs, (if RHO has five, you would hardly get a club lead) and have the suit not block. In a lot of the hands that LHO does have five clubs, RHO probably has enough a few major suit cards to make a preemptive jump or show a 2-suiter in the majors or maybe just overcall. Your opponent's silence reduces the chances that you'll be beaten on a club lead. Not vulnerable, the odds are even better since you still get the same 2 IMPs for overtricks but your risk is less.

[Trpltrbl]

1 NT implies ♣.
It's a normal bid and normal contract. Your pd is just resulting. Wouldn't bridge be much easier if we can decide the final contract after we know all the hands.

Mike

[the hog]

"The only other option imo is bidding 2♥... "

Hmm now I am totally confused. You bid 2H on this hand and responder bids 4H.
Responder this time has of course a bad 4 card H suit which he was give advice in a previous thread not to bid. You can't have it both ways.

[EricK]

Ulrich, on Jul 8 2004, 04:35 AM, said:

Last night I had

AK
AKQ
QTxxxx
xx

and my partner had

xxx
xxx
AKx
xxxx

I opened 1D, my partner said 1NT and I bid 3NT. The opponents took the first five club tricks. My partner said I should have bid 3D and we would have got to 5D, but I was taught that my D suit had to be better to bid 3D. Were we just unlucky or can anyone help us get to 5D?

1) You were unlucky - I would expect 3NT to make a large proportion of the time, either becasue clubs break, or on a non-club lead

2) You are, IMO, too weak to raise to 3NT. Sixteen of your eighteen points are in short suits, so they don't help to promote long cards., and your long suit is short in high cards, so you may have to lose the lead a few times before you can set it up. On many hands for repsonder, I can easily imagine 3NT going many down on a ♠ lead if ♦ don't behave. 2NT is closer to the mark. That also allows partner to give delayed support for ♦, if he so wishes.

3) You don't say what system you were playing, but I assume it was some 5 card major system. If, however, you were playing Acol, I much prefer a 2♦ raise to a 1NT bid by partner. There is a big danger of wrong siding a NT contract. This doesn't apply here as opener has no tenaces, but give opener something like ♠AQ ♥AKQ ♦Txxxx ♣Ax, and any NT contract is so much better played from that side.

4) Your partner was being a results-merchant. This is a very bad habit to get into. In the worst cases, after each bad result, the partnership finds a convention which would have prevented that result then adds it to the system without properly discussing all the follow-ups, nor even the pros and cons. This is why you see so many pairs playing a mish-mash of conventions which they don't fully understand.

Eric