[Little Kid]

Scoring: IMP

Pass-(Pass)-1♥-(1♠)
 2♥ -  (2♠) - ?

---

[rogerclee]

pass

[PhantomSac]

Your hand has no special feature at all, and your trumps are terrible. This is a really clear pass.

[the hog]

Pass, agree with both posters above.

[jjbrr]

ditto

[neilkaz]

Easy pass here. You have nothing that your opening bid didn't promise. Your trumps are weak and if PD has 3 small, a penalty double could really hurt at the 3 level.

Pass doesn't prevent PD from competing.

Very clear PASS.

[pooltuna]

Little Kid, on Feb 6 2010, 07:33 PM, said:

Scoring: IMP

Pass-(Pass)-1♥-(1♠)
 2♥ -  (2♠) - ?

---

LOTT is pretty effective for this type of hand so pass and let partner move to 3♥ if he has 4

[P_Marlowe]

3H.

I am closer to making a game try than to Pass.
If you need a justification, well 3H is the LOTT bid, if you think
the LOTT has any merrits, than this would be a justification for
you.

Another reason - you are short in spades, if your p is looking
at 3 spades, he should be wary to move.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[aguahombre]

P_Marlowe, on Feb 7 2010, 12:28 AM, said:

3H.

I am closer to making a game try than to Pass.
If you need a justification, well 3H is the LOTT bid, if you think
the LOTT has any merrits, than this would be a justification for
you.

Another reason - you are short in spades, if your p is looking
at 3 spades, he should be wary to move.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Don't know what hand Uwe was looking at, but a rather normal 12 count, with the most balanced distribution a 5cM hand can have has no reason to make a further move. LOTT refers to trumps=tricks theory. No 6th heart is present. If we have 9 trumps, partner will know it.

Bidding 3H now, with this hand says: "Partner, perhaps you didn't see that I opened --and just in case, I have the same hand I opened with."

[gwnn]

DONT compete!!

[nigel_k]

aguahombre, on Feb 7 2010, 09:00 PM, said:

Don't know what hand Uwe was looking at, but a rather normal 12 count, with the most balanced distribution a 5cM hand can have has no reason to make a further move. LOTT refers to trumps=tricks theory. No 6th heart is present. If we have 9 trumps, partner will know it.

There's obviously no reason at all to bid on this because you have nothing that suggests offence except what you have shown with the opening bid.

I don't find LOTT reliable and don't use it. However, LOTT does not say that you need nine trumps to bid to the three level. All it says is that the total tricks for both sides is equal to the total trumps for both sides.

On this hand the LOTT analysis should be as follows:

The opponents likely have either eight or nine trumps so the total is 16 or 17. Assuming partner has three, 3♥ (9 tricks) will make whenever 2♠ fails (7 tricks), and both may make if it is a 17 trump/trick hand. So Uwe is right that the LOTT suggests bidding, of course it will also suggest that partner should always bid if we pass. That's because LOTT is bad, not because Uwe is applying it incorrectly.

[Little Kid]

My partner and I didn't agree on this one. I said he didn't have anything to bid on with holding a flat 5332 and lots of finesseable honours under the overcaller. He suggested I shouldn't raise to 2♥ holding:

Scoring: IMP

---

Would you raise or not?

[the hog]

P_Marlowe, on Feb 7 2010, 02:28 PM, said:

3H.

I am closer to making a game try than to Pass.
If you need a justification, well 3H is the LOTT bid, if you think
the LOTT has any merrits, than this would be a justification for
you.

Another reason - you are short in spades, if your p is looking
at 3 spades, he should be wary to move.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Uwe, where is the hand that is close to game? You have a 7 loser average 12 pointer.

[NickRW]

Little Kid, on Feb 7 2010, 10:43 AM, said:

My partner and I didn't agree on this one. I said he didn't have anything to bid on with holding a flat 5332 and lots of finesseable honours under the overcaller. He suggested I shouldn't raise to 2♥ holding:

Scoring: IMP

---

Would you raise or not?

Playing British style where there is probably some opening for an Acol 2 in hearts, I probably wouldn't bother responding with that collection - game seems quite a stretch of the imagination. Playing American style opening 2s, then, well I don't play them, but maybe I would stretch to say something with that lot.

[shyams]

Little Kid, on Feb 7 2010, 10:43 AM, said:

My partner and I didn't agree on this one. I said he didn't have anything to bid on with holding a flat 5332 and lots of finesseable honours under the overcaller. He suggested I shouldn't raise to 2♥ holding:

Scoring: IMP

---

Would you raise or not?

Yes I would

[pooltuna]

Little Kid, on Feb 7 2010, 05:43 AM, said:

My partner and I didn't agree on this one. I said he didn't have anything to bid on with holding a flat 5332 and lots of finesseable honours under the overcaller. He suggested I shouldn't raise to 2♥ holding:

Dealer: ????? Vul: Both Scoring: IMP

♠ Q76 ♥ Q53 ♦ T7643 ♣ J8

Would you raise or not?

I would only raise if I was using (semi) forcing 1NT and then actually using it before correcting to 2♥.

[gwnn]

P_Marlowe, on Feb 7 2010, 07:28 AM, said:

3H.

I am closer to making a game try than to Pass.
If you need a justification, well 3H is the LOTT bid, if you think
the LOTT has any merrits, than this would be a justification for
you.

Another reason - you are short in spades, if your p is looking
at 3 spades, he should be wary to move.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Hi Uwe,

Perhaps I am misunderstanding something but it looks like the same reasoning could be applied completely irregardless of what we have. Assuming opps have a fit, one of us will always bid 3H. Can this be right? Please correct me if I did not fully understand your reasoning. Danke

[P_Marlowe]

The_Hog, on Feb 7 2010, 06:04 AM, said:

P_Marlowe, on Feb 7 2010, 02:28 PM, said:

3H.

I am closer to making a game try than to Pass.
If you need a justification, well 3H is the LOTT bid, if you think
the LOTT has any merrits, than this would be a justification for
you.

Another reason - you are short in spades, if your p is looking
at 3 spades, he should be wary to move.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Uwe, where is the hand that is close to game? You have a 7 loser average 12 pointer.

A joke.

But I just wanted to make it clear, that for me it is not a close decision between
3H or Pass.
It is a way of living - those who live by the sword (may well) die by the sword.
Of course I suspect that I sometimes I have some "Todes Sehnsucht" - sry I cant
translate this one, I dont think death wish is appropriate, but this may just be
semantics.


With kind regards
Marlowe

[P_Marlowe]

gwnn, on Feb 7 2010, 08:23 AM, said:

P_Marlowe, on Feb 7 2010, 07:28 AM, said:

3H.

I am closer to making a game try than to Pass.
If you need a justification, well 3H is the LOTT bid, if you think
the LOTT has any merrits, than this would be a justification for
you.

Another reason - you are short in spades, if your p is looking
at 3 spades, he should be wary to move.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Hi Uwe,

Perhaps I am misunderstanding something but it looks like the same reasoning could be applied completely irregardless of what we have. Assuming opps have a fit, one of us will always bid 3H. Can this be right? Please correct me if I did not fully understand your reasoning. Danke

First of all - I am assuming standart 2H raises.

Not the joke raise I suggested in the thread
http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...=0&#entry432292

My suggestion was just semi serious, although I believe, that as long as you
understand the risk, you should be prepared to go for it, there are certain
circumstances, which ask for making off beat actions, lets say you are a heavy underdog and you need to generate action, but please dont over do it.

If you assume serious 2H raises, than partners 2H bid is a joke, in my regular
partnership, I could make the bid, but our direct raises are limited to 4-7, so
assuming standard methods, partners hand is too weak to bid 2H.

Now too your question:

Of course you should not always bid 3H with a fit, when they have a fit, lets assume
they do play SuppX, to be sure that they have a 8 card fit.

But the hand is fairly pure and you have the shortage, and no wasted spade honors.
So from a LoTT point of few, you should bid 3H.
Playing IMPs you basically play Poker with the opponents, you raise and that they are
being able too call your bluff they need a pretty good hand to do this.
Do you think they are often going for blood - when we are Red, and 3Hx= is game?
And you may still win, sometimes p has 4 card support, unless you regular raise to 3H
with a bal. garbage hand (which I think is suicied), i..e. you make 3H= and if they
let play your complementaries 2S= than this 250 for you.
And you remove options for them to invite, now they just have X.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: I am not a LoTT fanactic, but think the LoTT is a nice observation, if I ever find
the time, I would like to calculate the variance of the LoTT.
It is all pretty well to know about the expected value, but knowledge about the
variance of the expected value would also be helpfull

[gwnn]

they won't double us. we will just go down when they were going down. that is bad for us.