[ArtK78]

IMPs - 12 Board Match

Sectional Compact KO Final against good opposition.

No one vul, you hold:

Kx
KQxxxx
K
KQxx

RHO is dealer, and the bidding proceeds:

RHO...You.....LHO....Pard

..1♦*....1♥......2♠**......3♦
..4♠......?

* 10+ HCP natural
** weak

Your action?

[Lord Molyb]

this hand makes me hate, hate kings.
I pass

[gszes]

Hard to imagine going down more than 2 in 5h and if the opps lead spades down

1 is looking better al the time. It is a decent form of insurance to bid 5h since 4s

may all too easily make. the 5h bid should generally make sure this is not the

hand we lose the match on whereas letting the opps make 4s when 5h might even

have a chance could easily be a back breaker.




5H

[PhilKing]

Why would I not bid 5♥ to make? I might be being a bit thick, but partner has show a good hand, and I do not expect to get that rich on defence.

The bidding does not stack up, but I trust partner. Anyway, worst case scenario for bidding is not that bad. However, if I play 2NT in this sequence as a good four-card raise, I would just smack them. It should be our hand, but even then the decision is close, since I expect they have stretched on the basis of shape, so it rates to be a double fit hand.

FWIW, I think the world has it wrong regarding 2NT as a good four-card raise and cue as three cards (ie the English ). This happens to correlate reasonably well with hands we should take the dive (2NT) and take the money (cue), but I feel the way forward is to play 2NT as offensive and cue as stodge. Playing thes methods, I would have an easy double opposite a cue and an easy Five Hearts opposite 2NT. We should play 2NT as showing our hand type rather than just a bean count as to how many trumps we hold.

[mikeh]

I disagree with phil about the bidding making sense: I think it does. However I agree with him about bidding 5♥. I will ignore any discussion about 2N v 3♦ since the OP gave no hint that there was any such meaningful information available. How about:

---

[Mbodell]

I'm closer to wanting to explore 6♥ than sell out to 4♠, but think I just bid 5♥.

[Fluffy]

Chances of partner having less than 2 aces are really slim. I would take the push although those pointed Kings favour doubling. Passing is out of the picture.

[Cascade]

Fluffy, on 2014-February-13, 02:05, said:

Chances of partner having less than 2 aces are really slim. I would take the push although those pointed Kings favour doubling. Passing is out of the picture.

I was going to write the same thing about partner's two aces. And obviously even if the spade ace is wrong partner can have a stiff. Not bidding 5h seems way too pessimistic.

[ArtK78]

The last few posts are more on target with regard to the actual hand.

If you are going to bid 5♥, why not keycard? Isn't slam pretty good if partner has THREE ACES?

Here is the hand:

---

Our opponents made life very difficult for us. The spade barrage kept us from exploring for slam leisurely. I didn't get the shape of their hands, but I suspect we could have gotten 500 against 4♠. Meanwhile, 6♥ is easy. At the table, my partner (holding the long hearts) bid 5♥, and I could not bid slam.

Do you disagree with 3♦? Should I bid 3♠ instead? Is pass forcing over 4♠? I thought it was given the cue bid, but no one has mentioned it in this thread. Even if pass is forcing, it doesn't solve the problem. Only a 4NT bid by the long heart hand allows him to work out that slam is a good bet.

Interestingly, the hand was a push, even though EW at the other table were given a free run (no opposition bidding). Considering that my team won this match by 1 IMP, it was a fortunate push for us.

[Cascade]

ArtK78, on 2014-February-13, 07:13, said:

The last few posts are more on target with regard to the actual hand.

If you are going to bid 5♥, why not keycard? Isn't slam pretty good if partner has THREE ACES?

Here is the hand:

---

Our opponents made life very difficult for us. The spade barrage kept us from exploring for slam leisurely. I didn't get the shape of their hands, but I suspect we could have gotten 500 against 4♠. Meanwhile, 6♥ is easy. At the table, my partner (holding the long hearts) bid 5♥, and I could not bid slam.

Do you disagree with 3♦? Should I bid 3♠ instead? Is pass forcing over 4♠? I thought it was given the cue bid, but no one has mentioned it in this thread. Even if pass is forcing, it doesn't solve the problem. Only a 4NT bid by the long heart hand allows him to work out that slam is a good bet.

Interestingly, the hand was a push, even though EW at the other table were given a free run (no opposition bidding). Considering that my team won this match by 1 IMP, it was a fortunate push for us.

I don't think pass should be forcing. Both the overcall and the cuebid could be much lighter.

[P_Marlowe]

Pass, forcing.

I am assuming 3D was fit and inv.+

with kind regards
Marlowe

[mikeh]

as a matter of bridge logic it would seem to me to be unplayable to have a fp available in this auction. We cannot, as a partnership, know that opener has psyched. Our overcall could be a lot weaker, and the 3♦ call is a force only to 3♥. It is normal to play that a pass is forcing only when it is below the level to which we have forced, or when we have made a game-force call. 4♠ is beyond our level of force and we did not even remotely force to game. The only justification for playing fp here is that we can all see that we hold 16 hcp. Strangely enough, in the real world, partner wouldn't know that, anymore than we'd know that he held a 14 count.

Anyone who designs their bidding structure on the assumption that opps who open and then jump to game have a combined 10 count is being very foolish.

[Winstonm]

I know truthfully that I would have doubled with the overcalling hand to show a good overcall with defensive prospects. I would imagine with the other hand partner would pass and there we would sit in 4S doubled, down 1.

The problem on the hand is the Kx of spades is pretty much useless on offense so basically my offensive hand is an aceless 13-count where my defensive strength is a 16-count with a (seemingly) well-situated trump honor.

Sometimes, the opponents' actions win.

[ArtK78]

mikeh, on 2014-February-13, 08:45, said:

as a matter of bridge logic it would seem to me to be unplayable to have a fp available in this auction. We cannot, as a partnership, know that opener has psyched. Our overcall could be a lot weaker, and the 3♦ call is a force only to 3♥. It is normal to play that a pass is forcing only when it is below the level to which we have forced, or when we have made a game-force call. 4♠ is beyond our level of force and we did not even remotely force to game. The only justification for playing fp here is that we can all see that we hold 16 hcp. Strangely enough, in the real world, partner wouldn't know that, anymore than we'd know that he held a 14 count.

Anyone who designs their bidding structure on the assumption that opps who open and then jump to game have a combined 10 count is being very foolish.

I don't believe opener psyched, per se. They open all 10 counts nonvul. I suspect that he stretched a bit. As for advancer, I believe he had Jxxxxx of spades and out. Both of them bid a lot on very little, which made life difficult for us.

[gszes]

ArtK78, on 2014-February-13, 07:13, said:

The last few posts are more on target with regard to the actual hand.

If you are going to bid 5♥, why not keycard? Isn't slam pretty good if partner has THREE ACES?

Here is the hand:

---

Our opponents made life very difficult for us. The spade barrage kept us from exploring for slam leisurely. I didn't get the shape of their hands, but I suspect we could have gotten 500 against 4♠. Meanwhile, 6♥ is easy. At the table, my partner (holding the long hearts) bid 5♥, and I could not bid slam.

Do you disagree with 3♦? Should I bid 3♠ instead? Is pass forcing over 4♠? I thought it was given the cue bid, but no one has mentioned it in this thread. Even if pass is forcing, it doesn't solve the problem. Only a 4NT bid by the long heart hand allows him to work out that slam is a good bet.

Interestingly, the hand was a push, even though EW at the other table were given a free run (no opposition bidding). Considering that my team won this match by 1 IMP, it was a fortunate push for us.

I think most of us play the 3d as invitational + and therefore (due to the huge range of overcalls) it is impossible to
have a forcing pass situation over 4s.

I like the 3d bid.

4n sounds reasonable but there is danger in using it what happens if after 4n lho bids 5s? do we really want p to bid more with
a min like x with zero aces (dopi) (depo) if I could convince the bridge world that podi pori is always the best way to go one
could bid 4n with far less fear since p would not go beyond 5s without at least 2 aces and make any negative score tiny at worst.
I do disagree that p is highly likely to have 2 aces as there are just a ton of distributional hands with a heart fit that might
invite given the huge range of the 1h overcall.

[ArtK78]

gszes, on 2014-February-13, 13:35, said:

I think most of us play the 3d as invitational + and therefore (due to the huge range of overcalls) it is impossible to
have a forcing pass situation over 4s.

I like the 3d bid.

4n sounds reasonable but there is danger in using it what happens if after 4n lho bids 5s? do we really want p to bid more with
a min like x with zero aces (dopi) (depo) if I could convince the bridge world that podi pori is always the best way to go one
could bid 4n with far less fear since p would not go beyond 5s without at least 2 aces and make any negative score tiny at worst.
I do disagree that p is highly likely to have 2 aces as there are just a ton of distributional hands with a heart fit that might
invite given the huge range of the 1h overcall.

I understand your concerns about a 5♠ bid over 4NT. I have two comments about that:

1. The opps will be a level higher, so if you double you are more likely to gain compensation for your missed game/slam.

2. In this situation, whether you use Dopi/Ropi or Podi/Pori, you will not be able to withstand partner's response with 2 aces, as you will be in slam off 2 cashing aces. What you need to be playing is Dope/Rope or Pode/Pore. However, even that won't necessarily help you here. Partner doubles (Dope) or passes (Pode), showing an odd number of key cards. Is it one or three? This is one of those unusual situations in which you really don't know.

[Zelandakh]

Is it not more common to play DEPO/DOPE over 5♠ interference than DOPI/PODI? There is an argument for playing the responses as 0/2 - 1/5 - 3 - 4 on the grounds that bidding more with 3 or 4 is rarely if ever going to hurt but I do not know anyone who has even suggested this before let alone plays it.

[gnasher]

I'm not worried about having to defend 5♠x. We're not going to let them play there undoubled, are we?

It did cross my mind to bid 4NT, but the risk of hearing 5♠ followed by a two-ace response seems far higher than the chance that partner actually has three aces. Even if we play DEPO, partner might decide to insist on a slam - he knows about the ambiguity between 0 and 2, and two aces is as many as he can reasonably be expected to hold in this sequence.

I like Zel's idea, though I'm struggling to find a suitable acronym.

[Fluffy]

teh way I read DEPO is 0/2 and 1, I don't think anyone is ever going to bid a non forcing anything with 3 unless opponents are above 6 or our fit.

[rmnka447]

My gut reaction is to bid on. You're hardly likely to lose more than 2 tricks in their suits. Opener has shown some sort of big fit with responder's weak jump shift. Partner has shown some sort of a good hand with the 3 ♦ cue. Looking at a 16 count and placing partner with a decent 11 or 12 for the cue, the opponents must be bidding on distribution.

If I make the wrong decision in bidding on where we're down 1 doubled and 4 ♠ is down 1 doubled, we're giving away 5 IMPs at most. If 5 makes our way, then bidding on was right. If 5 goes down, but 4 ♠ makes, you're ahead of where you would have been from passing. Finally, and the situation that propels me most to make a call, if both 4 ♥ and 4 ♠ both make, you have a potential double game swing situation if your partners don't find the 4 ♠ "sac".

Normally -- with my playing partners who play new suit forcing after overcall -- I'd just bid 5 ♥. I f you play new suits NF, then maybe you might consider a 5 ♣ choice of game call unless partner might take it as a move toward slam.