[the hog]

"And to the hog: I like to rely on my opponents to help me out of tough situations sometimes."

In that case I would love to play against you. You would make it sooooo easy.

[mike777]

kfay, on 2010-November-30, 20:44, said:

---

2c easy

fourth seat.

I can rebid 3h showing long d and 4+ h



have not read the forum posts but I do know for years that the forum hates to open 2c with two suited hands..

[655321]

the hog, on 2010-December-06, 18:36, said:

mtvesuvius, on 2010-December-06, 12:23, said:

And to the hog: I like to rely on my opponents to help me out of tough situations sometimes.

In that case I would love to play against you. You would make it sooooo easy.

Why do you make posts like this?

Mtvesuvius has represented the USA internationally at the age of 14. I don't think it is too unkind to point out that his opponents already have a much tougher time than your opponents ever did.

[mycroft]

When *I* open that hand 2C, if I'm *lucky*, I wrongside the diamond contract. If I'm unlucky, it goes 2C-X (or 3C, whichever is clubs)-p (GF)-5C. Enjoy.

[kfay]

mycroft, on 2010-December-07, 13:06, said:

When *I* open that hand 2C, if I'm *lucky*, I wrongside the diamond contract. If I'm unlucky, it goes 2C-X (or 3C, whichever is clubs)-p (GF)-5C. Enjoy.

You play PDI, right? This is even less annoying than your standard preempt.

Anyway so you open 1♦, LHO bids 2♣, partner passes and RHO bids 5♣... actually you're even worse off in this scenario.

[mycroft]

I don't know what PDI is (pass denies interest? if so, no). Pass, in standard American, is "unspecified game force". So, we know partner doesn't have 5 cards in a "black suit" (spades, of course) to 2/top 3, and she's got an ace or a king somewhere (in my partnership case, or two queens). It's clearly safe to do anything (including pass - it's forcing), but what? Pull 5S to 6C?

Over 1D:
- 2C means something. X/3C over 2C at all white simply means LHO's got more than his share of the 13 outstanding clubs. Unless it's 100 honours in clubs and out, it's probably the SK or a losing red-suit finesse.
- pass means something (or means "nothing", if you will). Yeah, the two red queens is enough for a red slam. But after 2C, I don't have a bid for "unless your control is in clubs, bid slam in a red suit". After 1D, I have a hope of getting that across (even if the chance of much more than both red queens is much lower).

Actually, my scenario is more like 1D-*3*C-p-5C, or 1D-3C-X (may be offshape) -5C than 1D-2C-p-5C, and at least in these auctions, 1D is, in fact, one of my suits. And 2C auctions will pass with spade hands that partner will show after 1D and competition.

Note: I play Precision frequently. We've got the same problem as the 2C bidders, only more so (although some hands 2C bidders will pass, we will do something other than card-showing semi-positive).

Now that I think about it, a scary 2C auction is 2C-3C-p-*4*C. Now partner could have as many as 5 (yeah, unlikely, but 4 is very possible. Of course, so is 2) clubs. Good luck sorting this one out before it's too high.

[mtvesuvius]

PDI = Pass-Double Inversion (inverting the meanings of Pass and Double in forcing pass sequences, so X = I want to bid, P = I want to defend (or pass and pull))

[mycroft]

Ah, sorry Kevin, thanks Adam, you're talking about opener's rebid. That certainly helps, but I'm not sure how much is PDI and how much is simply "it's a forcing pass auction", whereas the 1D auctions aren't. The two keys are:

1) any club card, including the Ace, is irrelevant
2) secondary honours are huge in red suits, irrelevant in spades, and partner won't know which suit to discount the Q in.

Plus, you're committing to slam when partner has spades; 1D...5H is committing to slam when partner has diamonds-better-than-hearts.

On a total tangent, I don't know which one is better in avoiding the good 7C sac, or prompting the bad one...

[han]

kfay, on 2010-December-07, 15:46, said:

Anyway so you open 1♦, LHO bids 2♣, partner passes and RHO bids 5♣... actually you're even worse off in this scenario.

Are you? I would bid 5H and even though it could be terrible, I think we're in a better position than after having opened 2C and seeing 5C come back to us.

Opening 2D (multi, weak with a major, very strong balanced or GF with diamonds) would work about equally well as opening 1D.

[FrancesHinden]

The opponents are vul against not and have passed in first and third seats. Those who think that the auction will be at 5C by the time it gets back to us seem to have missed that point.
I can't get excited about this hand. I'd open 1D in first or second seat. We just seem to have been given the opportunity to tell partner how good our hand is.

[olien]

Why not just play fantunes? and I think the reality that the auction will stay alive after (p)-p-(p)-1♦// (p)-p is close to nil. The opps know that I have a huge hand, and are not going to be willing to keep the bidding alive. Although, I will still risk it and open 1♦ because I think the hand is worse to describe after a 2♣ opening. Agree with Han that it would be nice to have a 2♦ opening that includes strong hands with primary ♦s. (I like to play it as 22-23 balanced or any 3-suiter or primary ♦s, but I'm sure I'm in the minority view on that one.)