[FrancesHinden]

If you are British and played last night, you might recognise these...

Scoring: MP

1♠ P 2♠ 3♦
3♠ ?

---

Your agreement is that double shows "cards". Do you pass, double, raise diamonds, or bid 3NT? (We got a result I'd never had before on this hand, but we weren't in the best contract!)

Scoring: MP

1♠ P 2♠ 3♦
3♠ ?

---

Partner's double is "penalties" (this time you bid game), but of course partner will double on many hands with random high cards where she thought 4 hearts was probably mking.

[coyot]

FrancesHinden, on Jul 27 2005, 05:25 AM, said:

If you are British and played last night, you might recognise these...

Scoring: MP

1♠ P 2♠ 3♦
3♠ ?

---

Your agreement is that double shows "cards". Do you pass, double, raise diamonds, or bid 3NT? (We got a result I'd never had before on this hand, but we weren't in the best contract!)

Scoring: MP

1♠ P 2♠ 3♦
3♠ ?

---

Partner's double is "penalties" (this time you bid game), but of course partner will double on many hands with random high cards where she thought 4 hearts was probably mking.

First hand - double.
P is most likely able to determine my spade length (give or take 1 card) so p knows that my dbl is not based on trump stack, but on general strength. If p has super-long diamond hand or no values outside the suit, will run to 4♦. If p has good side values, 3♠ should be nice.

3NT is suicide. It would be asking for working diamonds AND a side ace, while non-working diamonds and a side ace are much more likely to happen and 3♠ should still go down a few.

Second hand - 5♦. I don't know how good is my p's spade holding, but my hand is too great. We might even make 6 with average hand (A♣, K♥, Q♦ makes it laydown.) (And, on the other hand, if p has a bad hand with 3 hearts, 4♠ can make...)

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

1) I lean towards Dbl, but would ask the opponents,
what a dbl of 3D would have meant, and if 3S was
purely competitive

2) 5D, a 6-5-2-0 shape is justification enough for
bidding on

Marlowe

[flytoox]

The first one is quite diffuiclt. Pd overcalled 3D red vs white, He should have a good suit. Does he have a side ace to make 3N? Probably not. I think I would dbl to get a sure plus.


With the second hand I think it is a clear pass. SOme pairs may not bid 4H as you did here. So you are already ahead of them. Second, you have good defense tricks. Pd, knowing you are short in spade, suggested to defend, I am very glad to pass. Bidding 5D need quite a few cards from pd. If he has KQxx in spades you wont feel happy.

[coyot]

flytoox, on Jul 27 2005, 07:41 AM, said:

With the second hand I think it is a clear pass. SOme pairs may not bid 4H as you did here. So you are already ahead of them. Second, you have good defense tricks. Pd, knowing you are short in spade, suggested to defend, I am very glad to pass. Bidding 5D need quite a few cards from pd. If he has KQxx in spades you wont feel happy.

The big Q is: Will you be happy to beat 4♠ once?

If 3♠ raise is preempt, almost EVERYONE will bid 4♥ - as it makes with as little as K♥ or J♥ and Q♦ - mere 3 points!.
And this is the same reason why I would bid 5♦ - the shape is simply too good to defend. You know opps have a good spade fit so you can assume that you have a good fit too - and it might be either ♥ or ♦.

Of couse, you might go one down if p has something like KJ10x in spades and club KQ and nothing else, but there are simply too many possibilities with low honors in red suits to make. P might be assuming a long heart suit and fear diamond losers, therefore going for the sure money in doubling...

[ochinko]

1. I bid 3NT at these vulns. Let's show some respect and trust to our partner. She won't be appearing at the 3rd level vuln. vs. NV with some weak diamonds and nothing else.

2. I almost never shift a penalty dbl by my partner, but here I have too rich of a distribution, so it's a close call. If it turns out that we have fits in both red suits, and opps - in the black, 4Sp will probably make. It depends very much upon partner's style. For many players a double even at that level is not necessarily penalty, but more of a cooperative dbl. Partner could be saying: "I don't know what to do, so I propose a double."

Petko

[mgtusi]

Two nice judgment bidding problems...

First hand :

Sadly, we played at MP so I'm afraid than both the 2 ♠ and 3 ♦ are not be considered as "constructive" one.
Happily, we played at MP, so I double, because I had twelve combat points.


Second hand :

With my usual partner, I pass quietly : he had a bunch of defensive tricks because he knows that I could have just one, and he is clearly misfit.
With an occasional partner, I pass too but
............................no so quietly !
If four ♠ is a make, perhaps double was the wrong bid or perhaps opps are lucky. That's life

[whereagles]

1. 3NT. Pard may be weakish (obar), but I think he's a bit better than that.

2. 5D. With a freak, I'm doing the declaring.. lol.

[EricK]

whereagles, on Jul 27 2005, 01:40 PM, said:

2. 5D. With a freak, I'm doing the declaring.. lol.

Are you referring to your hand or your partner?

[whereagles]

I mean, our side declaring. Not necessarily me. Can be pard too.

[mike777]

1) Pass, playing OBAR pard has taken life in hands Vul and pushed them to 3 level, well done partner. Obar=bid as if in balance seat. If we want partner at MP to balance on AKJXX and short spades in pass out seat VuL. then let's not punish them for doing the same in direct seat VUL.

If we agree to not play OBAR Vul that is fine. If we agree to not balance aggressively VUL at MP that is fine. Otherwise let's not punish partner for bidding our partnership agreements.

BTW perhaps if we had bid x the first time we would not have had this issue?
2) 5D, Keeping my philosophy of not keeping in doubles when I am void in trump suit.

[FrancesHinden]

I was going to tell you what happened on this boards, but then I remembered you get a second problem on the first one.

Scoring: MP

1♠ P 2♠ 3♦
3♠ ?

---

To answer a couple of points raised:
i) 3D will not be particularly light
ii) A double of 3D by RHO would have been penalties. They don't know if 3S is competitive or a game try. They are Acol 4CM players, so the 2S bid is systemically 6-9, 4 card spade support (or 3 cards and a shortage).

Anyway:
i) If you double ("cards") the auction continues ...Dbl Pass 4D 4S ?
ii) If you bid 3NT, the auction continues ....3NT Pass Pass 4S ?

[flytoox]

Just realized this is MP. This is a hand if you can make 3N, then you can make 4. So if you bid 3N in the previous round then you should bid 4N now. After pd's 4D I will bid 5D.