[mikl_plkcc]

The field were in 5♥ and 5♠x, both were good to us.

---

After West pulled the penalty double, I bid 5♠, hoping East would double again. However, East made a forcing pass, which drove West to the slam. Should I stop instead of making a profitable sacrifice?

[bigbenvic]

My mind just recoils from this bidding.

4♥ confuses me greatly. It's pre-emptive just about everywhere I play as it cuts out any Slam room E/W could use.

he has a void, 5 card support and 2 side Aces, my god that's superb support! I'm starting with 3♠ splinter and going slam hunting!

If I chose 4♠ as North I'd pass 5♥, with this hand, I've made them make a guess should they X, should they bid, should they try for slam in some way. They've made their guess with 5♥ so I wouldn't give them a second chance.

[PhilKing]

mikl_plkcc, on 2013-May-23, 07:26, said:

Should I stop instead of making a profitable sacrifice?

No - you should obviously make a profitable sacrifice. The trouble is that you do not have one - 5♠ goes for 800 and you have dubious defensive prospects against a slam.

[sfi]

PhilKing, on 2013-May-23, 18:59, said:

No - you should obviously make a profitable sacrifice. The trouble is that you do not have one - 5♠ goes for 800 and you have dubious defensive prospects against a slam.

To be fair, put the DA in the East hand or make South's QC the king and 5S-X is the par score. However, that is a very narrow target to aim at.

Generally, once you make them guess in the auction you don't want to give them a second chance at getting it right. Here they guessed by pulling the penalty double. Looking at the North hand you're not sure whether 5S is a good sacrifice or what they are making. Given that, 5S just takes some losing options away from them.

And yes - 4H is ridiculous. There's no reason to save them here though.

[gszes]

Commenting on W bidding is useless we are more concerned
with the N hand. When we bid 4S was it to make or as a sac??
Opposite any minimum overcall 4s is a sac that means the
opps are guessing what to do. Since we are unsure our side
has any defensive tricks outside the heart A and we are certain
any "tricks" p has in spades are worthless) I see no reason to
assume 5s is the right thing to do since we are unsure about
setting 6h. The opps are guessing 5h is the right spot let's hope
they are wrong.

[FM75]

You bid the same values twice. Usually that is wrong.

[Trinidad]

FM75, on 2013-May-24, 18:30, said:

You bid the same values twice. Usually that is wrong.

North certainly had the values for 5♠. So that is not the problem.

The problem - as others have pointed out - is that you give EW a second take by bidding 5♠. You made them guess by bidding 4♠. They guessed to bid 5♥. That guess is basically only correct if they take precisely 11 tricks in hearts. You should sit back and wait what happens:

if 5♥ makes precisely, you can expect a 40% score (at MPs)
if 5♥ goes down, you can expect an 70% score
if 5♥ makes with overtricks, you can expect an 70% score

Estimating very conservatively that these 3 events are equally likely, you expect (40+70+70)/3= 60% for just sitting back and wait what happens. I would take those 60%, rather than risking it with another bid.

North could have bid 5♠ directly. I am not saying that North should do that (I wouldn't), but he does have the values for it. The fact that this particular South hand doesn't fit well with the North hand is not relevant (change the ♠A and ♠K and you would like to be in 5♠).

So, North did have values to spare for an other bid, but he couldn't afford to give EW a second chance. That last reason has very little to do with the value of the hand.

Rik

[cargobeep]

Half the problem here is the dubious lead of the 4♠. K♠ is far better. Partner liked Spades enough to push up to 4 Spades, so either we got all the Spades or declarer is set no matter what he does. In this hand, if diamond is discarded trick 1 by declarer error, the only way for W/E to make the contract is to eliminate North's entries, so that declare can trap North in Spades and get a ruff and a discard. If club, then W/E need to guess the diamond situation, but declarer is likely to not put N on a singleton ♦K here.

[PhilKing]

cargobeep, on 2013-May-25, 15:15, said:

Half the problem here is the dubious lead of the 4♠.

Slam makes with diamond king offside even on top spade lead:

Trick 1: ♠A, discard club
2: ruff a spade
3,4,5: Clubs. If North overruffs, he is endplayed (if he had ♦K).
6: If dummy held trick 5, exit with a heart.

[cargobeep]

All I was saying was that a K♠ lead makes it more difficult for the declarer to make the contract. As the defense, I want declarer to have to guess, not just hand him the contract!

[rmnka447]

North's 4 ♠ bid was primarily a sacrifice. So, as others have said, once you've forced the opponents to make a decision, you have to sit.

The only time to ever consider carrying on to 6 ♠ might be if they strongly and voluntarily bid on to 6 ♥. Even then, holding the stiff ♥ A, it's probably not a good idea to do so.

Also, the higher you sacrifice, the more distributional you want to be to minimize the penalty, especially shortness outside their trump suit. On the bidding, partner likely has no more than a doubleton ♥. So partner, like you, must have minor cards. So neither of you may be able to ruff away losers in those suits. But say, North's hand held ♥ xxx and a minor suit stiff instead of the stiff ♥ A. Now North would be able to ruff some minor suit from South's hand and reduce the overall sacrifice penalty.

[1eyedjack]

I have seen worse bids than 5S

[benlessard]

5S could easily have worked and your somewhat not lucky that they bid and made 6H, im not really worried about 6H making im mostly worried about -800 or that 5H doesnt make.

Having no pts in S is a serious drawback because partner rate to have great spades and with great spades he will stretch to make an overcall meaning that the chance you go -800 is decent.

Here partner overcall is not a minimum yet you go -800 and even -1100 on a DD low club.