[Phil]

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Matchpoints

2♣ was inverted.

2♠ and 3♦ showed stoppers.

Your lead?

[JLOGIC]

I lead a heart because:

RHO bid 2S. Presumably he does not have hearts double stopped.
LHO bid 3D. Presumably he does not have hearts stopped.

So I think they have 1 heart stopper (not a lock or anything, RHO might have ATx and LHO Jx or w/e, but a good bet) and I want to knock it out. The diamond queen just gives them a trick immediately and seems bad.

Edit: Although if they play 2N as non forcing I suppose LHO might bid 3D with a heart stopper if he didn't want to just jump to 3N? Does anyone play 2N as non forcing over 2S though?

[wank]

I would lead the QD - if partner has the jack declarer's unlikely to cover, assuming it's in dummy so we can always readjust. passive defence sounds like a bad idea when RHO has the major cards over partner.

[gnasher]

JLOGIC, on 2010-December-17, 23:20, said:

Does anyone play 2N as non forcing over 2S though?

If 2NT would be forcing, that effectively makes 2♠ game-forcing, as presumably we don't want to play 3♣ with 4333 opposite 2344. That seems a bit unwieldy.

[dellache]

♥6, and consider it a "wtp".

[wyman]

wank, on 2010-December-18, 02:47, said:

I would lead the QD - if partner has the jack declarer's unlikely to cover, assuming it's in dummy so we can always readjust. passive defence sounds like a bad idea when RHO has the major cards over partner.

This was my first thought also, but I consider the H6 lead normal as well.

[Phil]

This was part of a ruling I made yesterday. Mods, feel free to move over to simple rulings if you like.

Dummy was J8 AQ Jxxx KTxxx. Declarer held: A6xx 9xxx Kx AQx.

The player who held this hand led the ♦Q expecting the ♦K in dummy. The ♦J was the 9th trick.

There were no alerts in the auction. North asked before the opening lead, and West (declarer) said that 2♠ and 3♦ showed stoppers. Dummy did not correct the explanation.

Upon questioning, East said that 2♠ showed a stopper and 3♦asked for a stop. West sort of denied this, but when I asked West how could he bid 3N if 3♦ really showed a diamond stop? Presumably if his partner held both red suit stoppers, she would have bid 2N, so they would be open in hearts. To me this smacked of non-disclosure on West's part. It was the 2nd to the last round and I made my ruling after the scoring was done. His justification was "I was gambling".

I looked at 3N -1, but wondered if a split score would be appropriate. I think the ♦Q lead, while perhaps not optimal, is certainly reasonable and does not construe something "gambling or reckless". I adjusted to 3N -1 for both sides. I could have adjusted to -2; the battle for the 6th trick is kind of interesting.

[JLOGIC]

gnasher, on 2010-December-18, 04:32, said:

If 2NT would be forcing, that effectively makes 2♠ game-forcing, as presumably we don't want to play 3♣ with 4333 opposite 2344. That seems a bit unwieldy.

Don't bid 2C with 2344? Problem solved! Seriously I thought bidding 1D was normal with that shape, do you disagree? Maybe it is a function of me not being able to play 2N after an inverted raise though. All auctions to me seem unwieldy if 2N is not forcing. Sometimes you want to just show your stoppers and still have room to do intelligent things imo.

[Fluffy]

Phil it seems to me they just don't have any agreements, don't think you should adjust, opener bid 3NT because he he though 9xxx might be good, and anything else could be very stupid.

[Phil]

Fluffy, on 2010-December-18, 12:33, said:

Phil it seems to me they just don't have any agreements, don't think you should adjust, opener bid 3NT because he he though 9xxx might be good, and anything else could be very stupid.

Gonzalo - it was clear to me that not only did they did have agreements based on the explanations, but that the explanation and the subsequent 3N call confirmed this. Dummy could have spoken up at any time before the lead, and corrected the explanation.

[gnasher]

JLOGIC, on 2010-December-18, 11:45, said:

Don't bid 2C with 2344? Problem solved! Seriously I thought bidding 1D was normal with that shape, do you disagree? Maybe it is a function of me not being able to play 2N after an inverted raise though.

I think it makes sense to respond in the suit that we're more likely to want to play in. If you respond 1♦ with a 2344 invitation, and opener has a minuimum weak notrump with four or five clubs, won't you end up in 2NT rather than 3♣?

There's also the question of 3334 responding hands. Do you respond 1♦ on those too?

Quote

All auctions to me seem unwieldy if 2N is not forcing. Sometimes you want to just show your stoppers and still have room to do intelligent things imo.

Personally I've never wanted to show my stoppers in this situation. If I have a balanced hand, I want to be able to say "I have a balanced hand" without broadcasting details of my honour location, then leave it to responder to decide whether to engage in further discussion or simply to bid 3NT.

And it's not as if we don't have better uses for 2♠. If opener is unbalanced, it's a good idea for responder to know that. I think it's awful to have to bid the same way on a 4216 shape as on a 4333.

[JLOGIC]

gnasher, on 2010-December-18, 16:05, said:

Personally I've never wanted to show my stoppers in this situation. If I have a balanced hand, I want to be able to say "I have a balanced hand" without broadcasting details of my honour location, then leave it to responder to decide whether to engage in further discussion or simply to bid 3NT.

And it's not as if we don't have better uses for 2♠. If opener is unbalanced, it's a good idea for responder to know that. I think it's awful to have to bid the same way on a 4216 shape as on a 4333.

Totally agree with this obv, standard inverted minors is awful.

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I think it makes sense to respond in the suit that we're more likely to want to play in. If you respond 1♦ with a 2344 invitation, and opener has a minuimum weak notrump with four or five clubs, won't you end up in 2NT rather than 3♣?

There's also the question of 3334 responding hands. Do you respond 1♦ on those too?

I would much rather end up in 2N opposite 4-5 clubs and a weak NT if it meant also getting to end up in 2N opposite a weak NT and 3 clubs. Often when partner has 5 clubs and a min I will wind up in 3C anyways since they will bid something. Of course this is circular, I personally think inverted minors including being able to stop in 2N in all situations is just unplayable. I mean seriously, think about 1C 2C 2S showing a stopper, and now having 2N and 3C as non forcing. I don't see how the auction could be reasonable. It sounds like you would never play these stupid methods which is fine, I can get down with raising if you have more sensible methods where you can both get out in 2N, and have playable auctions (and in fact when I play inverted minors I have this option available). As it is, to me it is a lesser evil to not raise with 4 clubs and an invitational hand in order to be able to play 2N as forcing later which I think is much more important. I would just never play stopper showing bids after inverted minors but sometimes I am forced to.

As for 3334, I will usually either just bid 1N or 2N, if I have a particularly anti-positional hand I will probably stretch to GF it with 12 (sounds like I'm prime!) or go low with 11.

[JLOGIC]

This is what I wrote about the standard inverted minor structure ~4 years ago, I still agree with myself:

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Inverted minors are a great idea. The ability to establish a low level force and investigate level and strain is always a good thing if it doesn't come at too high a cost. Sadly, the standard followup structure is woefully inadequate. Valuable space is wasted showing stoppers instead of degree of fit, shape, hand orientation or concentration of values. The fact is, stoppers matter very little when compared to the rest of the things mentioned.