[Siegmund]

You did well to show a mixed raise (and have a system and an auction where you could show same.) I'm not surprised that got you ahead of the field.

Yes, the 4th heart is still worth something; and a 4th trump + a doubleton somewhere is usually worth counting as a cover card; but xx in diamonds felt a lot less likely to be a useful ruff than in another suit, after there has been a diamond preempt.

In an uncontested auction, I would be in significant danger of missing this game if North didn't have a way to show a singleton diamond. (And in a lot of situations, we avoid showing singleton aces.)

[Stephen Tu]

In an uncontested auction I'd always expect to get to game, or really any auction where the south hand has space to raise hearts below game. North is much nearer the top of his overcalling/opening range than he is to the bottom and can easily bid game when South shows life.

In the actual auction, from my perspective North could easily have d6 instead of the club 6, creating a diamond loser, now you need to guess the spades (and still not have 3-0 hearts offside), and also can have a much worse hand (only 5 hearts, less high card strength etc.), and the worse hands are going to be more common than this hand. If South always raises, then you win this hand certainly, but will lose on a good fraction of North's lesser hands. Or North will have to overcall on a higher, tighter range since when he can make 3 South is raising to 4, and you lose out on a lot of chances to get 140 instead of -110/100 or -50 instead of -110 when North doesn't play South for a "useful 7 count" I was taught to assume when dealing against preempts. The hand here with the 4th trump makes it a bit more than what North should play for, but is it enough to raise? Vul at imps I certainly would have raised, non-vul maybe. But MP I think North should be overcalling on a wide enough range that I think it's questionable for South to raise.

[JLOGIC]

@Siegmund

I guess you are not accepting:

1H 2H
4H

as a reasonable auction. I guess part of that depends on how light you raise to 2H vs bidding 1N. Lets say you have a very wide range for 2H then, so that north cannot bid game (as many do).

Surely

1H 2H
2S 4H

is likely. If the range is wide then responder can accept the game try with this hand with spade help and a 4th trump. But even if you think this is too aggressive, the least aggro auction I can come up with is

1H 2H
2S 3C
4H

where responder counter game tries with the minor he has. Now opener will loveee his hand

[eyhung]

Moving the 6 of clubs to the 6 of diamonds is not as minor a change as it would seem.

JTx
AKJxxx
A6
QJ

looks pretty gross to me. Opposite a passed hand, a 3H overcall can't get much worse. So I don't think that's a very representative hand that you should be using for your argument to pass.

Even if partner could very well have some horrible piece of tripe that doesn't fit, I feel game is percentage. Almost any reasonable hand with 6 hearts (the above is definitely on the bottom end, with potentially no working black suit cards and the biggest side value in the enemy suit), most minimum primish hands with 5 hearts make game at least playable. And if partner has a max? You're likely cold.

Not every game you bid has to make. I think it's ok to reach a no-play game some of the time if, by doing so, you avoid missing a cold game more of the time. And you even have some vig : sometimes you reach a bad game, but they misdefend.

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

looks pretty gross to me. Opposite a passed hand, a 3H overcall can't get much worse. So I don't think that's a very representative hand that you should be using for your argument to pass.

So you are using a somewhat stronger range to overcall 3♥ than I am at MP. You get to more of the games than I do when overcaller is strong, responder is weaker (I get to some games you don't when you pass instead of overcall, responder has top of opening pass range and raises). I get more 170s/140s/-50s to beat the -110s than you do when I go ahead and overcall on the lesser hands that you pass with. At MP I feel the latter category is more frequent. Your opinion may differ. Probably 90+% hands we'd agree on, the only difference is at the boundaries of our range.

[eyhung]

Stephen Tu, on Jul 15 2010, 04:29 PM, said:

Quote

looks pretty gross to me. Opposite a passed hand, a 3H overcall can't get much worse. So I don't think that's a very representative hand that you should be using for your argument to pass.

So you are using a somewhat stronger range to overcall 3♥ than I am at MP. You get to more of the games than I do when overcaller is strong, responder is weaker (I get to some games you don't when you pass instead of overcall, responder has top of opening pass range and raises). I get more 170s/140s/-50s to beat the -110s than you do when I go ahead and overcall on the lesser hands that you pass with. At MP I feel the latter category is more frequent. Your opinion may differ. Probably 90+% hands we'd agree on, the only difference is at the boundaries of our range.

I'm using common sense. As intruder, I don't see the need to stick my neck out with a 3-over-3 when my partner is limited to at most a bad 12. The hand you cited is a minimum to me because it has a bunch of very poor cards that could easily be valueless -- doubleton QJ, JTx of spades. When the hand verges towards unbalanced, losers seem to be a better metric than points in this situation, and the hand you cited has 7 losers. Just changing the QJ of clubs to a more normal black king in either suit would increase the offensive strength significantly. (Obviously partner can't have a black king because we have them, but you get the idea -- he could easily have a single ace instead of all the quack crap, and now we have 9 top tricks and a hook against the non-preemptor for 10.)

Also, just because I may pass 3D on a hand you'd overcall, doesn't mean I am forced to accept -110. First, sometimes they are plain overbidding and I get +200 the hard way, or +100 vs nothing. Partner can sometimes balance back in, and we can still reach a part score. And, sometimes, partner balances with double and I may even get +200 where you get only +140. So I don't agree you beat me on frequency in terms of results. You certainly get to declare more often, but that's not necessarily a win.

[cloa513]

jdonn, on Jul 14 2010, 11:46 AM, said:

If I may be simplistic, north has 6 losers! A random balanced 7 count will probably not cover 3 of those losers! Overcalling 4♥ is so bad, the suit isn't even that great.

But you shouldn't assume its not quite a randomly assigned balanced hand- the ace of diamonds makes it so much more likely that south has nothing in diamonds then south only need have 7 HCP in 3 suits.

[neilkaz]

I think South should definately carry on to game at IMPs but at MPs it is a closer decision.

I think that North would need more to commit to game on his own.

.. neilkaz ..

[Hanoi5]

I think North could have done a little more like bidding 4♥ right away or doubling 3♦. 3♥ is too little.

[Siegmund]

Quote

@Siegmund:
I guess you are not accepting 1H-2H-4H as a reasonable auction. I guess part of that depends on how light you raise to 2H vs bidding 1N...

Yes, that feels like almost a full trick's worth of an overbid to me. Funny you mention 2H vs 1NT -- I think I mentioned during one of our previous exchanges about regional differences that when I first heard of Single Raise Constructive (96ish), I heard it described as a silly experiment that had a stake driven through its heart in the early 80s, and was quite shocked to find a couple of online players (both from New England, as it turned out) who believed it was standard practice in 2005.

Returning to the other auctions, 1H-2H-2S is reasonable, and yes, I can see responder taking an aggressive view and getting to game.

[bluecalm]

1♥ - 2♥
4♥

For me in in uncontested auction is 100% but I am used to playing 2♥ showing something as openers are either up to 17 or up to 15.

[jdonn]

Siegmund, on Jul 16 2010, 03:52 AM, said:

Returning to the other auctions, 1H-2H-2S is reasonable, and yes, I can see responder taking an aggressive view and getting to game.

Aggressive view? Surely at least he will bid 3♣ and opener will now go to game for certain. Are you saying it's even concievable south would just sign off over 2♠?

[ArtK78]

JLOGIC, on Jul 14 2010, 06:04 PM, said:

Siegmund, on Jul 14 2010, 05:28 PM, said:

You want North to force to game with 6 losers, or South to raise with 2 covers?

No reason for him to think his 4th trump is worth much since he won't be doing any ruffing.

I don't know anything about covers but I thought a 4th trump was supposed to be counted as one?

You assign no value to the 4th trump because we won't be ruffing but it has value opposite basically any heart holding with partner. It eliminates a loser. If partner has AQxxx, AQxxxx, AKxxx, AKxxxx, KQxxx, KQxxxx, AJxxx, AJxxxx, Kxxxxx etc the 4th trump always has value in reducing our losers. Even opposite AKQxx 4 small is way better than 3 small.

Not to mention that there's no reason our doubleton diamond can't be a ruffing value sometimes, all they did was open 3D. You are acting like our hand is equal in value to K9x xxx xxx Kxxx which I think is very far off.

The fourth trump is not a cover card when using losing trick count hand evaluation. You don't know that it is covering a loser, as there may not be any heart losers - partner could have AKQJxx.

Any heart honor (A, K or Q) is a cover card, since partner is counting a loser for the lack of that card in his hand.

In real life, the only time the fourth trump is a strong favorite to cover a loser is when partner's heart suit is between AKxxxx and AKJTxx. The fourth trump probably covers a loser when partner has AKJxx, and is about a coin flip to cover a loser when partner has AKxxx. But, for purposes of counting cover cards (assuming that partner is evaluating his hand by loser count) the fourth heart doesn't cover any losers.

[bluecalm]

With all the respect I think any system which doesn't adjust for huge difference between having xxx and xxxx of trumps is not even worth mentioning. Sorry LTC !

EDIT:

Just to contribute something I run quick simul with opener having 11-14hcp and 5+hearts and responder having either actual hand or same hand with small ♥ moved to ♠.
Average difference is half of the trick. I am pretty sure it's higher if opener doesn't have balanced shape.

[JLOGIC]

bluecalm, on Jul 16 2010, 04:52 PM, said:

With all the respect I think any system which doesn't adjust for huge difference between having xxx and xxxx of trumps is not even worth mentioning. Sorry LTC !

lol seriously

[hanp]

bluecalm, on Jul 16 2010, 04:52 PM, said:

Just to contribute something I run quick simul with opener having 11-14hcp and 5+hearts and responder having either actual hand or same hand with small ♥ moved to ♠.
Average difference is half of the trick. I am pretty sure it's higher if opener doesn't have balanced shape.

Half a trick, how many covers is that?

Also, unless you were very careful this simulation is not quite right. The random hands you deal for partner when you give us 4 trumps are less likely to have 6+ hearts for example. The actual difference in playing strength between 3 or 4 trumps should be a little bit larger than what you found.

[ArtK78]

bluecalm, on Jul 16 2010, 04:52 PM, said:

With all the respect I think any system which doesn't adjust for huge difference between having xxx and xxxx of trumps is not even worth mentioning. Sorry LTC !

EDIT:

Just to contribute something I run quick simul with opener having 11-14hcp and 5+hearts and responder having either actual hand or same hand with small ♥ moved to ♠.
Average difference is half of the trick. I am pretty sure it's higher if opener doesn't have balanced shape.

That is a rather flippant dismissal of LTC as a means to evaluate hands.

Anyone with any intelligence knows that 4 card trump support is better than 3 card trump support, even lacking any honors in the trump suit. And, obviously, the difference will be taken into account in evaluating the hand.

I was merely pointing out that there is no difference between 4 card trump support and 3 card trump support in the initial determination of how many cover cards one has. Clearly, one has to be aware that xxxx may eliminate a trump loser opposite some trump holdings (AKxxx(x), for example) but will have no effect opposite others (KQJTx, for example). And the distinction between 3 and 4 card trump support is also relevant in determining how many potential cover cards one has. For example, a side singleton or doubleton is two or one potential cover cards, respectively. Subsequent bidding attempts to determine whether the singleton or doubleton is pulling its full weight or is a duplication of values. Clearly, a short suit is more valuable with xxxx in trump support as opposed to xxx in trump support.

[H_KARLUK]

6 points side can bid game.

[gnasher]

ArtK78, on Jul 20 2010, 03:36 PM, said:

That is a rather flippant dismissal of LTC as a means to evaluate hands.

Are you saying that LTC merits a more respectful dismissal?

[hanp]