[pescetom]

IMPs

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Playing 2/1 with strong 1NT, partner decides to torture you with 3♦ (good 15-17, well honoured suit).
What is your agreement for 3♥ here and would you bid it with this hand?

[DavidKok]

My agreement is that 3♥ is forcing to game with 5(+)♠ and 4(+)♥. It depends a bit on what partner is showing - I expect 15-17, though I've also played 14-16. If there is significant overlap in your system between the strength ranges for 3♦ and a 2♥ reverse then partner has likely denied four hearts - and at any rate, 4♥6♦ isn't that likely. Playing 3♥ as artificial here makes sense, but I do not.

Consequently, I cannot bid 3♥ here.

I would bid 3NT, but think pass is not crazy. Our ♦K is a huge card and we do have 25-27 HCP combined. Also I think 4♠ is a bad idea as we'll be the ones ruffing hearts in our hand and 5♦ is very far away. Partner also denied four clubs, though we may have a 6-3 fit there. Because of our combined HCP partner likely has heart values, so we may survive bidding 3NT despite the lack of a stopper. I'd like partner to declare it, but we can't get there from here. And if not 3NT, then which game?
There are two reason's I'm considering pass - one good one and one bad one. The good reason is that very few of our points rate to be working. We don't have much in the way of entries, we have no guarantee of club length opposite to set up the suit, the spades are slow and we don't have communication in diamonds. 3NT may well make on power, especially if partner is kind enough to have ♣Ax or ♣AQx, but it also may not. The bad reason is that I've seen quite a few players fall in love with their 14-count and upgrade into 3♦, in which case we may be too high already. It's a bad reason because you should never play partner for a misbid, but bitter experience has taught me to also not play partner for knowing how to bid a minor suit-oriented hand.

[apollo1201]

Problem know as the diamonds issue

3H is (primarily) a strength en route to 3NT, with an issue about C stoppers. It does not promise 5 spades, what else would you bid with

Kxxx
Axx
Qxx
xxx

With those 9 HCP incl. a golden DQ that will allow to develop 6 diamond tricks, the hand is worth a GF but how not to go above 3NT?

Of course if later you override 3NT then it becomes an advance cue.

You can have 5S but usually you look for 3NT rather than a 5-3 fit.

If partner does not stop C and fits you at 3S, you can choose between 5D and a Moysian 4S. With weak S like here maybe 5D.

So with your given hand (yeah, life sucks), you have to bid 3S, either 6+ cards or 5 strong, or 4 cards and no H stopper. Partner 1st task is to bid 3NT with the H stop. But these auctions are slippery. Or you can take a conservative pass because the sg KD is blocking the suit.

I think they call these strongish hands with 6+D and 3S the death hand...

[DavidKok]

apollo1201, on 2024-November-24, 10:06, said:

So with your given hand (yeah, life sucks), you have to bid 3S, either 6+ cards or 5 strong, or 4 cards and no H stopper.

This is the first time I'm hearing of this treatment. Are you sure this meaning is included, rebidding a four card suit that may also be a six card suit?

[Zelandakh]

DavidKok, on 2024-November-24, 10:08, said:

This is the first time I'm hearing of this treatment. Are you sure this meaning is included, rebidding a four card suit that may also be a six card suit?

One common meaning for 3♥ here is a grope, where ♥ values and ♣ weakness is one of the potential meanings. I have never heard of that being paired with 3♠ being natural or ♥ weakness but perhaps I was living under the wrong rock. Generally the hand with ♥ weakness is amongst the known system holes in natural systems, one of several that apply to the specific 1m - 1M; 3m auction. Where Opener's suit is clubs, the hole does not exist so it is a relatively small hole.

[jdiana]

Maybe a dumb comment, since I've never played Last Train so am not fluent with it, but this seems like a similar problem in that there is no way to show a club stopper below 3NT. I wonder if anyone has tried to adapt Last Train principles to this situation.

So, in this example, 3♥ might show interest in 3NT, maybe show a club stopper and say nothing about hearts? Of course, then I don't know how you would show a heart stopper. Just a thought (obviously half-baked).

[DavidKok]

Let's say you have a heart stopper ask available and partner shows no heart stopper. What contract do you wish to play?
More generally, if you're using an asking bid you need to have a bidding plan for any answer. Without an answer to the above question we may as well always go for 3NT. So which contract is it? 4♣ or 4♦ partscore (and can we get there after a stopper ask?), 4♠ in at best a Moysian, or 5m?

[jillybean]

Oops
I punt 3nt

Now I will read what I coulda, shoulda bid

[jdiana]

DavidKok, on 2024-November-24, 10:50, said:

Let's say you have a heart stopper ask available and partner shows no heart stopper. What contract do you wish to play?
More generally, if you're using an asking bid you need to have a bidding plan for any answer. Without an answer to the above question we may as well always go for 3NT. So which contract is it? 4♣ or 4♦ partscore (and can we get there after a stopper ask?), 4♠ in at best a Moysian, or 5m?

Fair point. I think you and I have discussed in the past my unreasonable paranoia about lacking stoppers. I might actually pass the given hand rather than gambling on 3NT or raising diamonds, but I'm often too conservative.

[nullve]

pescetom, on 2024-November-24, 09:49, said:

IMPs

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Playing 2/1 with strong 1NT, partner decides to torture you with 3♦.
What is your agreement for 3♥ here and would you bid it with this hand?

I've never had any agreement about 3♥ here, but I'd expect

1♦-1♠; 3♦-?:

(...)
3♥ = 5 spades (or looking for 3c spade support), FG
3♠ = 6+ S (or looking for doubleton support), FG
(...)

. I would personally never jump to 3♦ (as Opener) here with 6+D4H, although there are conceivably hands with 6+D4H that are too strong for a 2♦ rebid yet too weak for a reverse, the way some (most?) people like to play these bids.

Here I share the hunch that Pass is best (and definitely what I'd choose at MPs and non-VUL at IMPs), but since we're VUL at IMPs I'll try 3♥, hoping partner doesn't have 3c spade support and therefore will become declarer in 3N.

[bluenikki]

pescetom, on 2024-November-24, 09:49, said:

IMPs

---

Playing 2/1 with strong 1NT, partner decides to torture you with 3♦ (good 15-17, well honoured suit).
What is your agreement for 3♥ here and would you bid it with this hand?

3♥ _should_ mean ♥ stopper, no ♣ stopper. With ♣ stopper, no ♥ stopper, you should be able to bid 3♠.

But this presumes a stronger 3♦ than you probably play, and also that opener would have a different sequence if they were interested in hearing about ♠ length.

[mikeh]

At mps I’d have sympathy for a pass. In fact, while I’m not sure I could bring myself to pass at the table, I suspect it would be the winning call more than half the time. But we’re not playing mps. We’re vulnerable at imps with a 10 count and that valuable diamond king.

It’s vanishingly unlikely that anyone will double 3N so we can discount fear of multiple doubled undertricks even on a bad day. So, while down 2 is possible, we’re looking at something close to the prototypical imp odds calculation….say 3D makes…heck let it make 10 tricks. Pass gets us 130. Bidding 3N gives us either 600 or -100….sometimes 200. Say -130 on average, for the sake of some symmetry, lol. If we make, we win 10 imps opposite a 3D contract at the other table. If we fail, we lose, on average, 260 or 7 imps.

So we don’t need to have a 50% chance of making for 3N to be, over an infinite number of plausible hands, the right call.

Also, I’m willing to bet that the great majority of good imp players bid here.

As for what….I don’t think it playable to rebid 4S as some kind of stall…either 6 spades, presumably looking for a raise, or 4 spades, no heart stopper. Opener will often have the ‘hoped for’ partial fit….is he supposed to bid a slow 3N with hearts stopped and 2 or 3 spades? And a fast 3N with no fit but a heart stopper? /sarcasm

Also, being somewhat old-fashioned, I’d play 3H as hearts. While I don’t think that opener can hold 4 hearts…..I used to, many years ago, when I believed in ‘strong’ reverses (anyone who’s read the primer on reverses pinned on this site will see that I described strong and weak reverses and, at that time, was a strong reverser). These days, if the hand is 4=6 and strong enough to bid 3D, I’ll bid 2H. Having said that, in my main partnership we have a completely non-standard 1D structure, which I’ll ignore for the purpose of this post. How would we bid QJxxx KJxxx x Ax?

In that partnership we have the explicit agreement that a bid of the 4th suit below 3N asks for a stopper, but we don’t have that when it’s the third suit. So I’m stuck with 3N.

Note that once in a while xxx will provide the heart ‘stopper’ that we need….so Ax xxx AQJxxx Ax gives us a chance. As for the diamond king being stiff, obviously we’d prefer Kx but I think fears of lack of communication are a bit overblown. Partner has 8-10 hcp outside of diamonds so rates to have entries. Plus even if his diamonds aren’t coming home, maybe our clubs will. xx AQx AJ10xxx Ax gives us lots of ways to make. And so on.

Of course, making up specific hands in order to assess odds is a fool’s game and I’m not pretending that I can make up more ‘good’ hands than bad. That’s neither my intent nor the point. The point is that there are many layouts on which 3N is anywhere from unlikely but worth bidding (due to the cost benefit analysis above) to basically cold…..xx Ax AQJ109x Axx and we simply can’t tell.

So….what does your gut tell you, given that your gut feeling is simply your unconscious mind telling you how your cumulative experience evaluates this situation, influenced by whether you’re innately a pessimist or an optimist? I’m a pessimist by nature, but I’m aware of that failing so I grit my teeth and bid 3N. Bridge, especially imps when vulnerable, is almost always won by optimists.

Edit: my main partner likes to say…you can die quickly or die slowly…..always opt for the quick death. He means, in situations like this, go for the aggressive move. You die, usually quickly as they run hearts….too bad. But if you hem and haw and eventually pass, you’ll die slowly when partner takes his 10 tricks and yiu see that 3N made.

Last edit: I reread Bridge Worlds periodically. A few months back I read a report on one of the big team championships…Spingold or Vanderbilt iirc. Both teams reached a vulnerable game. Both went -300. The commentator observed that 50 years ago the board would also likely be a push….passed out at both tables. When I rode motorcycles we had a saying. There are old bikers. There are bold bikers. There are no old, bold bikers. The converse is true in bridge….there are conservative bidders. There are winning bidders. There are no winning, conservative bidders.

[mike777]

Agree with JB
3NT wtp
Why torture partner
Vul imps
Our expert/wc opponents will bid game, protection.
Next board.

Edit
I will only add our expert opponents are silent at fav vul??? Be happy 😊

[pescetom]

mike777, on 2024-November-24, 13:10, said:

Agree with JB
3NT wtp
Why torture partner
Vul imps
Our expert/wc opponents will bid game, protection.
Next board.

Opponents are expert but not near wc, we are nowhere near expert
"wtp"?
I agree with DavidKok about not seeing any better target at this vulnerability and scoring, but in that case it might even be better to play 3♥ as transfer to 3NT... I do think it is a problem that we wrongside 3NT. But then natural has it's problems, and this one is infrequent and not necessarily fatal.

mike777, on 2024-November-24, 13:10, said:

I will only add our expert opponents are silent at fav vul??? Be happy ��

Bidding with silly boxes and trays rather than electronic, there are divergent memories on this... I seem to remember North bid X, but partner is convinced he passed. It was the last of 48 boards, so I may well be wrong or influenced by seeing the diagram and my own tendencies.

[pescetom]

Thanks to all who replied so far, an interesting discussion of a tricky problem.

West is not a regular partner but I know him well and was certain that he would take 3♥ as showing a stopper and suggesting doubt about clubs, which is what we were both taught.
I bid 3NT from the wrong side which as it happened worked out, but I wondered if 3♥ should really retain that meaning here.
Our Team Captain (much more experienced) felt strongly that it should show interest in 3NT and cast doubt on one of clubs and hearts, which intrigued me but I was not convinced is really playable, even if it has the merit of probably transferring to 3NT.

[pescetom]

jdiana, on 2024-November-24, 10:45, said:

Maybe a dumb comment, since I've never played Last Train so am not fluent with it, but this seems like a similar problem in that there is no way to show a club stopper below 3NT. I wonder if anyone has tried to adapt Last Train principles to this situation.

So, in this example, 3♥ might show interest in 3NT, maybe show a club stopper and say nothing about hearts? Of course, then I don't know how you would show a heart stopper. Just a thought (obviously half-baked).

I had a similar reflection about the possibility of 3♥ showing a club stopper and saying nothing about hearts, starting from Belladonna's control-bid squeeze rather than Last Train. But yes it is obviously half-baked
I suspect there is however room for a convention between an expert pair interested in marginal gains.
Say 3♥ promises a stopper in one of clubs and hearts, then 3♠ shows a stopper in clubs and 3NT shows a stopper in hearts... 4♣ from either side offers interesting nuances.

[apollo1201]

 DavidKok, on 2024-November-24, 10:08, said:

This is the first time I m hearing of this treatment. Are you sure this meaning is included, rebidding a four card suit that may also be a six card suit?

Yes, at least where I live and when I played a lot - it might have changed since because it gets slippery very fast. But big renowned internationals advocate it.

When the bidding is 1C - 1M - 3C, you have more space obviously, 3D to show D stop and lack of oM and vice versa.

This diamonds issue happens as well on 1M-2D-3D auctions where you are stuck and have to bid 3M w/o values in the other M while 3 oM pinpoints the C hole. Given it could be a forcing fit with slam ambitions, the ambiguity can actually be worse.

TBH, the last time I had the case I closed my eye and bjd 3NT, please dear LHO, find the lead. Actually I feared that partner would not remember this rare treatment (and I was right). She had what I needed anyway so we played the same contract as anyone else. But some purists bid it more scientifically than us. And if it were Kx on dummy insteaf of Axx I had wrong sided it.