[Oceanss]

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Assuming 2♥ was weak 2 opening, how I should evaluate this hand?

Thanks

[Winstonm]

Support with support. I raise to 3S.

[fromageGB]

Start by thinking about partner's hand. What does he need for this bid? I would say 2♠ is a typical opening hand with 5 or 6 spades, but not a particularly strong hand, as that could make a different bid, such as doubling first and then bidding spades, or jumping to 3♠, or whatever your method would be. As it is not that strong, I would rule out looking for a slam. The question then is do we want to be in game.

Giving partner a 12 count and 6 spades, you can see a 10 card fit with 21 hcp at initial evaluation. That seems to be in the game zone. Give him 13 points and a 5 card suit, and that is 22 with a 9 card fit and this is borderline game values. Would he bid with weaker hands than this? Not much weaker, I would say. Could he be stronger than this? Certainly, he could be quite a bit stronger and not strong enough to make a stronger overcall. This indicates that we should bid game immediately, because if we just invite game he could well pass when game was there.

Game in NT is possible, as there could be 9 running tricks, but may not be desirable on a club lead. Spades is better.

Finally, for a spade contract, what about the intermediate cards you have, the T98s? These are wasted. You will not be setting any heart tricks up, and trumps will be drawn before your spades come into play. So should you downgrade the hand? Not really. You cannot see where the 10 tricks will come from, but as partner is probably short in hearts, you will probably be ruffing a club and solidifying his minor honours.

So cross fingers and bid 4♠. It may be too high, but the risk of inviting with 3♠ is also high.

[billw55]

I am not especially impressed with the ♥Q, and partner need not have six spades. I will settle for 3♠.

[Codo]

The best way to evaluate the estimate strength of the combined hands is to built some possible hands from partner and look, where you want to be.
So maybe he holds AKxxx,x,Kxx,Axxx? What about Akxxxx,xx,xx,KQx? Or maybe even AKQJxx,xx,Kxx,xx?
These hands are surely not maximum for a 2 spade bid and your game chances in the first two cases are great, in the third nil. But he surely is allowed to have a little more, so I would not invite, but bid game, but this is a close descission, inviting is fine too.

[Zelandakh]

You have a constructive hand that is too good to pass but not good enough to bid game, so raise partner to 3♠ and let them make the final decision.

[ahydra]

I think this hand is only worth an invite. Partner would be expected to raise if he has anything more than a minimum overcall. AKJxx x Kxx Kxxx is one such non-minimum hand but 4S is still (likely) going down, losing two clubs and a heart to go with the likely-offside spade Qxx.

If your overcall style is more solid than mine, then perhaps the hand is worth a raise to game.

ahydra

[wyman]

We are certainly playing in spades. The question is 3 or 4, as fromage points out, since partner should not have a gigantic hand for his 2S call. And if he does, we'll hear about it later anyway.

In favor of 3S:
* Our club J is overvalued at 1 HCP
* Two more of our 9 points are in hearts, their suit.
* Lefty has the heart cards sitting behind us.
* Remember that we expect partner to have 12-15, we have 9, and LHO has at most around 9. That means we expect righty has about 5-10. Since righty didn't raise, he is likely to have 1 or 2 hearts. If he only has 1, we might be facing the ace of hearts and a ruff for 2 quick losers.

In favor of 4S:
* We have 4 trumps
* We have shortness in a side suit (clubs)
* We have strong intermediate hearts (so even if they cash the ace and give a heart ruff, that might be promoting winners for us in the heart suit).
* If LHO's cards are in hearts, he probably doesn't have the king of diamonds, and that makes our AQ look really good (either it's over RHO's king or it combines with partner's K).
* In the unlikely event that LHO's high cards are not in hearts, partner is likely to have those missing heart high cards, which strengthens our holding in the suit.
* Partner will have an easier time playing the hand than usual. If the opponents can't beat us right away, partner will have really good information about the opponents' shape and their high cards, since we've seen LHO bid 2H! [And especially since we expect the lead to be a heart, we can expect to get a lot of info about which high cards are where at trick 1!]

Also, there may be a consideration if you are playing matchpoints or IMPs. At IMPs, I think you have to bid 4S; it pays to bid games more aggressively, especially vulnerable! At MPs, you only want to be in game if it's making more than 50% of the time. I think this is really close. I'd bid 4S, but I wouldn't object if partner "took the low road" and only bid 3.

Hope this is helpful.

[the hog]

This hand is worth an invite, so I bid 3S. Both passing and 4S are poor.

[655321]

Oceanss, how you should evaluate the hand is that it is a balanced 9 count with 4 card support. I wouldn't worry too much about the heart suit being bid over you, in fact with such solid pips sometimes partner will make a couple of tricks there.

As to what to bid, after an overcall a bid of the opponents suit is a cue raise, usually played as a good raise to at least the level of the cue. Here, 3♥ is the cue raise, and that is what I would bid, showing a hand worth (at least) a raise to 3♠. If partner only rebids 3♠ we can pass.

3♠, more of a courtesy raise perhaps, can be saved for weaker hands - for example a similar hand with only 3 trumps.

[Fluffy]

people are deciding between 3♠ and 4♠ when the obvious in the midle step is missed: 3♥.

3♠ is a constructive raise, shows a strength that matches 8 points on a balanced hand
3♥ is an invititational raise, shows a strength that matches 10 points on a balanced hand, but might also be a stronger hand looking for slam.
4♠ is a game drive normally with strength equal to 12 balanced.


Its easy to see that this hand is between 3♠ and 3♥. 4th spade is good, and there are 2 tens, however the 10s are most often useless on the suits they are, and the ♥Q and ♣J should be slightly devalued, so I would go for 3♠.

[TylerE]

Kind of a tough one.

Playing with a beginner I would just bid 4♠ here, as they tend to undervalue fitting hands and will pass 3♠ too often.
Playing with a good player, I'll probably just invite (but I expect them to accept maybe 90% of the time, especially at IMPs).

In fact, since no one has brought it up, I think form of scoring and vuln are very important here.

[Oceanss]

So sorry, I forgot to mention - it was imps. Vulnerability was shown: we were red against white, so I was affraid not to miss game.
And I choose 3♥, meaning it to be invitational (bit stronger that simple 3♠ would be, but still not GF). Partner understood it as GF, not necesarely with spade support. So, it went:

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♣AK , third club over-ruffed by West with Jack, and ♠A took us to -1 which was very bad score, since none else was in 4♠. Hence this my question, I wondered if I over-evalueted that hand.

All your answers were so helpful, I hope I'll try use those guidelines how to think of the hand (& not only count hcp lol).
Thank you all so much

[billw55]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Vulnerable at IMPs, taking the shot at game is not bad.

[the hog]

As this is the novice/beginners forum, I think those that are advocating a cue raise deserve to be laughed at. It is not appropriate for this level of player.

[1eyedjack]

the hog, on 2013-April-13, 20:11, said:

As this is the novice/beginners forum, I think those that are advocating a cue raise deserve to be laughed at. It is not appropriate for this level of player.

As the OP actually used the cue raise on the original hand I don't think it unreasonable to discuss its merits. For what it is worth I quite like it, despite that his partner misinterpreted it.

In terms of priorities, a cue raise is one of the earlier things to learn. Borderline suitable for this forum, but certainly not to be laughed at. Ultimately they would want to rise above the label.

On balance, looking at the two hands I would say that game is fractionally odds against, even vul. But you can only bid the hands that you see and I would not be casting any blame at self or partner if we end in 4 going down on this one.

[BillPatch]

A short simulation of 30 reveals that the contract of 4♠ makes 47% for
a net gain of 1.5 imps per board in an imp match. (With double dummy leads
it only makes 40%, but that assumes E will not lead partner's suit with
a small doubleton, rather than lead away from an ace tenace or six small in
an off suit. Vulnerable at Imps, a 40% game still averages 0.4 imps per board.)