[aguahombre]

gwnn, on 2011-February-20, 16:19, said:

Am I another misreader of this thread?? Who plays 2♦-p-3♦-x as penalty?

Indeed. Not even someone as old as me. Not even Fishbein players after the raise. But North's hand is close to a Fishbein double direct.

[JLOGIC]

mr1303, on 2011-February-17, 16:45, said:

Agree with the tuna fish. You need more to bid anything over 3D here.

So you're happy just defending 3D? It doesn't bother you that you will be defending 3D often cold for 4 of a major, all for the gain that partner can safely force to slam when you do bid? Seems like your priorities are off.

[JLOGIC]

Han your idea to bid 3H is interesting. I am concerned that over the expected 3N bid, when we bid 4D, we will be showing 4-6 rather than 5-6, and partner with 31 in the majors will bid 4H. I also think on average when partner is 3-2 we will want to play spades and obviously we will get to hearts in that case. I think this concern outweighs the concern of partner trying for slam over our 4D bid, but maybe that is because I don't think partner should be trying for slam that often when he knows we can be very light out of necessity.

[Poky]

I just cannot believe the results of this poll.

The board is very easy. When the bidding goes 2♦-pass-3♦ and we have 6-5 majors with a couple of points, partner's range is pretty strong, I will say about 10-14 points. Therefore, 4♦ is an obligatory bid. Not bidding it is very bad bridge. This bid means just one thing - "on the long run it will be good to play in partner's longer major". 3♥ instead will be bad bidding, because this bid promises much more points and probably less shape.

From the other side, bidding anything but 4M with North's hand is pure horror. North has a awful hand (no ruffs, Qxxx in diamonds), not much above partner's expectations (in isolation, on this particular sequence, partner should've played him form some 10 HCP, and North should have known that) and should be happy partner found an action over 3♦.
Not to mention that bidding anything after an initial pass on 2♦ is a big inconsistency.

Conclusion:
- South bid perfectly;
- North doesn't understand anything about bridge (or he was very very deconcentrated).

[the hog]

Poky, on 2011-February-21, 05:22, said:

I just cannot believe the results of this poll.

The board is very easy. When the bidding goes 2♦-pass-3♦ and we have 6-5 majors with a couple of points, partner's range is pretty strong, I will say about 10-14 points. Therefore, 4♦ is an obligatory bid. Not bidding it is very bad bridge. This bid means just one thing - "on the long run it will be good to play in partner's longer major". 3♥ instead will be bad bidding, because this bid promises much more points and probably little less shape.

From the other side, bidding anything but 4M with North's hand is pure horror. North has a awful hand (no ruffs, Qxxx in diamonds), not much above partner's expectations (in isolation, on this particular sequence, partner should've played him form some 10 HCP, and North should have known that) and should be happy partner found a bid.
Not to mention that bidding anything after an initial pass on 2♦ is a big inconsistency.

Conclusion:
- South bid perfectly;
- North doesn't understand anything about bridge (or he was very very deconcentrated).

"because this bid promises much more points and probably little less shape."
rofl

[Fluffy]

IMO north is worth a slam try, but not a slam drive. I accept that partner could be weak for his 4♦, but this doesn't prevent grand slam from being cold on other hands. When you can imagine grand slam without much imagination you should at least try for 6.


For what its worth, I might overcall 3♠ instead of 4♦

[pooltuna]

gwnn, on 2011-February-20, 16:19, said:

Am I another misreader of this thread?? Who plays 2♦-p-3♦-x as penalty?

I think not. But playing X here as TOX isn't the problem ...it is partner's pass that I don't want to hear.

[pooltuna]

JLOGIC, on 2011-February-20, 18:39, said:

So you're happy just defending 3D? It doesn't bother you that you will be defending 3D often cold for 4 of a major, all for the gain that partner can safely force to slam when you do bid? Seems like your priorities are off.

It is easy to criticize but he never said he was happy about passing, IMV he said he was system limited for choice of calls, and I haven't seen your constructive choice of calls other than admitting you would consider Han's choice, which I also happen to find interesting.

[Lorneg]

IMHO this hand was lost when North failed to compete over 2d. A double of 2d would show at least opening HCP
and a desire to play in any of the unbid suits. Then South should bid 3H even if the double is not taken
out, to show a fare responder hand.

Now where you go from there is another story. An opening hand and a fare hand doesn't add up to slam
as the results show.

So I'm saying North blow it by hiding in the bushing and not letting his parter know he had points.

[MrAce]

This is a very rare situation, almost a sci-fi. And yes I agree with Justin that we know we are very likely to miss game if we decide to pass. But i will pass and no i am not happy to see them make 3♦ while we can make 3 major and probably more.

But seriously how often do you all face such a problem ? Perhaps i was lucky in last 30 years and i did not encounter much enough to worry about them. But if i rescue this board, and tell him to be careful and not bid much when i do that, i know me and my partner will live the rest of our lives in a nitemare each time one of us make a call at 3 level over their preempt or cue bid their preempts at 4 level, and he is not even on pass out seat!

And sometimes we know whats right for us, but we also know we cant hold the partner at the level we desire to play. This is one of them, cuer knew what was good for them but partner didnt. Don't get me wrong, if you wanna bid this hand, go for it and hope to play at desired level, but if things go bad, take responsibility instead of making rules for hands that almost never comes. ( this is my personal experience though, some maybe encountering more than i do) This will risk or make it unclear and blury the future bids over preempts, and the targeted gain and hand types are very rare.

I mean look at the hand, he has 6 hcp, add a ♥ K and make it 9 hcp it is almost cold for slam, add another A and make it 13 hcp and cold for grand, and we want him to just bid 4♥ and guess that the cue or call was made on 6 hcp... Cmon now...

[JLOGIC]

Sorry I will never buy the argument that we have to defend 3D making when we're cold for game sometimes in order for us to be able to bid slam more accurately other times. Making sure we can bid our games will always have a much higher priority to me than being able to make more accurate slam decisions in a pressure auction. I honestly think people would do better just never trying to bid slam on this auction so that they would feel comfortable bidding on hands that are likely to make game.

[FrancesHinden]

I gave the South hand to jallerton and he bid 3H.
I think it's got more going for it than it appears at first sight.
It doesn't tell partner about the 5-card spade suit, but it also doesn't lie to partner quite so much about how strong we are.

[awm]

The problem with 4♦ is that it leaves no space below game. Partner will often have a hand like this one (i.e. opening strength, too many diamonds to bid over 2♦) and make a slam try which pushes us too high. I do think north should give some leeway to south by bidding 5♦ instead of 6♦, but as the original post noted even 5♥ is too high on this particular hand.

For this reason I rather like the 3♥ bid. This lets partner bid 4♦ (slam try in hearts!) and then we can still get out in 4♥. If partner tries 3NT we can bid 4♦; sure this might lead to playing a 6-2 heart fit instead of a 5-3 spade fit (if partner assumes 4-6 for the sequence) but it keeps us out of slam and there's no particularly strong reason that a 5-3 spade fit has to play better anyway.

[the hog]

I can live with 3H. Not 4D.