[gszes]

we are not overly strong here and an x has so many bad
outcomes it is difficult to imagine doing that here. Too much
risk and not enough reward.

3c

while somewhat underpowered has one huge benefit that an
x lacks---just about anything p chooses to do will generally be
right. the club suit is long enough to give us a shot at 3n over
a pesky 3d bid we have a nice 3h bid and if p bids 3s we merely
rebid our nice clubs at the 4 level. If p bids 3h we happily bid 4h
(who needs and x anyway). While bidding 3c gives up on a
possibly huge penalty it also removes some of the risk of the opps
making where p sits with KJ654 spades and another trick and
they make 2s ick.

[JLOGIC]

mikeh, on 2013-May-06, 10:40, said:

I'd be interested in finding out, if possible, how often we make a 4-4 heart game and do not make 3N. My take on it is that it is unlikely to be common: I'd expect 3N to make most times partner can bid it over 3♣. I do have what will usually be 6 quicks.

I don'tknow, if partner has spade length and heart length he will be short in one of the minors usually. If he is short in clubs hearts seems a lot better (clubs aren't running, we have entry problems, maybe he has only 1 spade stop, whereas in hearts we can just ruff out clubs and be on our way). If he has short diamonds they are going to run diamonds.

I would agree with your point if our clubs were solid or even if we had a solid entry like a side ace but with this actual hand I would think that 4H rates to be a lot better than 3N if we have a 4-4 heart fit.

[JLOGIC]

So I threw out 4 hands. Out of the 16 hands the swings were:

3D down 400ish vs either +110 or -100 or -400. Let's call ita medium swing for 3D

3D down 300 vs 3C down 100, medium swing for 3D

3N making vs either 2S X making or 3N making. Big swing for 3D

3H down 100 vs 3C down 300, medium swing for X

3N down 100 vs 2S X + 200, medium swing for X

Notably, over these 16 hands I was completely wrong that we will often get to 4H. In fact, I think partner only had 4 hearts like 3 times. Partner also only had 5 spades one time as has been noted, so having 2S X crushed is maybe less likely than I thought.

Still it's a very small sample, I'm not sure if it's totally representative of what is likely but it is definitely likely that we do not play 4H instead of 3N as often as I thought.

One more thing, I will note that just glancing at the 20 hands, the 2S opener had 4 hearts 5 times. Even given that I threw out 2 of those, I doubt the 2S bidder having 4 hearts almost 20 % of the time is realistic when my shape is 1426. I would honestly still double even after this excersize, maybe I'm just stubborn but it was close enough and that is weird enough to make me think that my general experience leading me tobelieve that double is right is still probably more accurate than this 16 hand sample.

[fromageGB]

Zelandakh, on 2013-May-06, 05:24, said:

What do you bid with a balanced hand too strong to pass?

Pass or X. While 2NT natural is a good bid, we have come unstuck bidding a suit with a fairly wide range of values, and have chosen to sacrifice that to play a sort of Lebensohl, 2NT then a suit being an opening hand, with a direct bid being about a 17-20 count. This does help in deciding on game or partscore. There are probably more sophisticated methods!

[Zelandakh]

Thank you for the analysis Justin. Everyone here appreciates it a lot when you go into hands like this. It seems to me that the decision between X and 3♣ here is pretty close, perhaps close enough to be a matter of style rather than one being much better. Can I throw out an additional idea on it, that perhaps 3♣ is better at MPs and X better at IMPs. That is, that 3♣ is right more often but that X leads to bigger swings.

For the record, the deal conditions were very simple (West 6 spades and 5-10 hcp; North 14hcp or less; East at most 2 spades and at most 14hcp). I then threw out a few hands because West did not look remotely like a preempt or because North was an obvious overcall. I admit freely that this might exclude some trap pass hands from North, which is a disadvantage for X. There is nothing in the script to make West more likely to have 4 hearts though. The next 3 after I had my 20 were all of the "missing" types:

n K976.KT542.T86.6 e Q2.A96.AJ9753.Q5 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ8543.8.K2.J932
n KQ875.T85.A952.5 e 9.A94.KJT863.J96 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ6432.K62.7.Q32
n AQ972.K965.J83.9 e 4.AT.AT7652.Q532 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KJ8653.842.K9.J6

Perhaps adding these to the sample would tip it back to X being ahead.

[JLOGIC]

Zelandakh, on 2013-May-07, 02:29, said:

Can I throw out an additional idea on it, that perhaps 3♣ is better at MPs and X better at IMPs. That is, that 3♣ is right more often but that X leads to bigger swings.

Yeah I think this is right, I actually think I would bid 3C at MP.

Quote

For the record, the deal conditions were very simple (West 6 spades and 5-10 hcp; North 14hcp or less; East at most 2 spades and at most 14hcp). I then threw out a few hands because West did not look remotely like a preempt or because North was an obvious overcall. I admit freely that this might exclude some trap pass hands from North, which is a disadvantage for X.

It's not perfect but it's good enough for rough estimation. Yeah it throws out some trap passes, but it also throws out hands where we are gonna get doubled from east (like stiff small spade and 16 counts he would pass and on those hands no doubt 3C will work better than X since partner is gonna leb and bid 3D a lot of the time).

Quote

There is nothing in the script to make West more likely to have 4 hearts though.

FWIW I didn't mean to imply there was an inherent flaw in your script, it was just normal randomness when looking at only 16 hands.

Quote

n K976.KT542.T86.6 e Q2.A96.AJ9753.Q5 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ8543.8.K2.J932
n KQ875.T85.A952.5 e 9.A94.KJT863.J96 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w AJ6432.K62.7.Q32
n AQ972.K965.J83.9 e 4.AT.AT7652.Q532 s T.QJ73.Q4.AKT874 w KJ8653.842.K9.J6

Perhaps adding these to the sample would tip it back to X being ahead.

REDEMPTION.

Lol just kidding, this excersize was pretty useful to me. Thanks for simming the hands.