[Shugart23]

Partner opens 1H will 11-15 Hcp and you have 5 spades and 3hearts and say around 8 Hcp. Do you show the spades or raise the hearts?

[jillybean]

Assuming you are not playing 4 card majors, I raise hearts

This is a pet peeve of mine, when partners don't show me support and don't have a game forcing hand.

[mycroft]

Precision makes this interesting.

Standard, 100% show support in a "one-bid" hand. Partner could have slam, never mind game, and she may not evaluate her hand properly if you don't show the hearts now.

But since partner is limited, "lying" and showing spades (and "preferring" hearts, which might show 2) might deter the automatic balance after 1♥-2♥; p. Which is more likely, and probably safer, in direct seat as they know opener doesn't have 20. Sure, your max is higher, too, but it could also be 11-opposite-Kxx. Now, you do have spades, so it's also less concerning letting them in - where is the balance?

I'm going table feel here, but I'm likely to bid spades if it's lead-directing, and raise hearts if my spades are just long.

[smerriman]

mycroft, on 2024-May-21, 15:01, said:

But since partner is limited, "lying" and showing spades (and "preferring" hearts, which might show 2) might deter the automatic balance after 1♥-2♥; p. Which is more likely, and probably safer, in direct seat as they know opener doesn't have 20. Sure, your max is higher, too, but it could also be 11-opposite-Kxx. Now, you do have spades, so it's also less concerning letting them in - where is the balance?

Pretending to have 2 hearts will also stop partner competing to 3♥ when that's right though..

[shugart24]

The actual hand I had was A Q J 9 x in spades with xxx in hearts....I ended up bidding 1S and going back to 2H on my rebid....Probably best to bid 2H....(there was no interference)

[P_Marlowe]

Fit-Jumps may be a worth while consideration, you could still have the power to make game
if the hands do fit.
The opening hand may be worth an upgrade, if they know about a fit, sometimes opener is
allowed to have a 6+ carder.

[helene_t]

With 6 points you can bid
1♥-1♠
2m-2♥
and with 10 you can bid
1♥-1♠
2m-3♥
But with 8 you have to raise immediately.

Or something like that. Partnerships have different agreements about the strength required for a direct raise.

[DavidKok]

Support with support worked very well for me.

[foobar]

2H without batting an eyelid. Over 1H - 2H, partner is well placed to make Kokish and other GTs if applicable. It gets the hand across immediately compared to the muddled 1H - 1S - 1N/2m - 2H. It also forces 4th hand to bid their minor at the 3-level, and on a good day, they might bid 2S.

[mycroft]

with partner's max 15 count?

[johnu]

mycroft, on 2024-May-22, 17:49, said:

with partner's max 15 count?

Playing a strong club, I've had countless auctions that started 1M - 2M that ended in game. Sometimes opener is good enough to jump to game without a game try.

[mycroft]

Possibly. Of course, sometimes it's 4♥ intending to go down 2 or 3, but better than their game (7 hearts and a 10 count).

I don't doubt that it exists. I do doubt that it is something that happens more than 10, 15% of the time (never mind the times that it doesn't go 1♥-p-2♥-p).

I'm more concerned with smerriman's issue - that partner will read it wrong and not compete when they should.

The question is: given partner is limited to 15, does the benefit of opener knowing we have spades (double-fit, potentially, or crossruff, or...) gain over potentially misleading them over heart fit length? I could be wrong here - which is why I said this question is more interesting playing Precision, and why I thought my answer would be "show a lead-director 5 spades, hide a meh one". But I can see several games bid when partner knows about the spades, that they don't look for after 1-2.

But on the other side, I say that the main benefit of Precision is that we have a lot more "place the contract" auctions after 1M than standard. And now I'm arguing in favour of not using that. So maybe I should just stick to my initial beliefs.