Help
I steal the 3♥ contract from opponents by bidding 4♦, GIB with a minimum hand raises to 5♦ and I go down 1. How could this happen?
The problem is in the strength range of the 4♦ bid. The label says "15-22 total points" which, opposite partner's "10+ HCP", is at the same time to play, invitational, game forcing and slam interest. Can't be. Wouldn't I bid something else such as 5♦ or 4♥ with a really strong hand?
I'm aware that this is difficult from the programming point of view. On the other hand these situations occur soooo often. Maybe someday something should be done about it?
I wouldn't have reported this if that were all. There is another problem perhaps more serious. The thing is that we can play 3NT, it's cold. We can also have opponents play 3♥X for 300. But how can we get there?
From my hand it looks like partner may hold a penalty double but somehow it didn't bid that. That doesn't matter as long as I on my side have a double that partner can convert into a penalty double with a suitable hand. So before bidding 4♦ I checked the double, and it was a penalty double. This is plain stupid with my hand because I have bid two suits and have already denied holding more than a singleton in their suit. Am I expected to double for penalty guessing that partner holds more than xxx in ♥? Partner's redouble on the other hand suggested already having cards in their suit, so this is the side where a penalty double should be but somehow GIB failed to bid that. Even if partner's double would have been for take-out, it could still have been a good bid because we still might have had a 4-4 fit in ♠, at least my label so far doesn't deny 4 cards. On the bridge table, most likely I would have bid 2♠ rather than 3♣ with a 4144 or 4054 distribution, but that is a yet another matter.
If somehow the north hand could confirm the expected ♥ quality, I may even find the 3NT bid.
By the way, maybe someone can explain: I have never understood the sense behind "opponents cannot play undoubled below 2NT" in the XX label. Sure if we want to double them on the 2 level, we also want to double them on the 3 level? Is that perhaps the root of the problem? If GIB's pass was forcing, it should be labeled accordingly.
