[kenrexford]

 CSGibson, on 2014-January-22, 13:15, said:

South needs to bid game, south has a moose in context, and the heart finesse has a much better chance of being on if needed after the negative double. This is true at both teams and matchpoints, but doubly so at teams. North bid the value of the hand.

While I sympathize with Ken Rexford's idea of 3♣ asking for a club control for NT, I personally have the agreement that when they have two bid suits and I could cue either one, I cue what I have, not what I need, which would be unavailable here; I would also bid 3♠, and hope that partner realized that they needed stops in both to try 3N - which would be a great bid in context.

FWIW, I would suggest to you that your approach on cuebidding stoppers has a major problem, which this deal illustrates.

The ideal contract here is 3NT. However, if you cuebid stoppers, you have no bid, as you mentioned.

If, however, you cuebid holes, you have no problem. 3♣ suggests 3NT without a club control. If partner has clubs and hearts controlled, he bids 3NT. If not, he can try back by bidding 3♥.

Hence, contextually the heart hole is not a problem, but only if you cue holes and only because the space is available to ask both questions.

[Jinksy]

If the H gap is not a problem, couldn't you cue 3H?

[kenrexford]

 Jinksy, on 2014-January-22, 15:58, said:

If the H gap is not a problem, couldn't you cue 3H?

Huh?

There are three possible problems. No club stop, no heart stop, or neither stop. Both stops no problem. If 3H says no club stop, you have no way to say neither (below 3S). Unless 3C says no heart stop without saying anything about club stop, with Advancer bidding 3H as covering that but not clubs, which works out but is weird.

[CSGibson]

 kenrexford, on 2014-January-22, 14:39, said:

FWIW, I would suggest to you that your approach on cuebidding stoppers has a major problem, which this deal illustrates.

The ideal contract here is 3NT. However, if you cuebid stoppers, you have no bid, as you mentioned.

If, however, you cuebid holes, you have no problem. 3♣ suggests 3NT without a club control. If partner has clubs and hearts controlled, he bids 3NT. If not, he can try back by bidding 3♥.

Hence, contextually the heart hole is not a problem, but only if you cue holes and only because the space is available to ask both questions.

I've found the advantages of bidding where you have values in constructive bidding to be fairly pronounced - I've actually tried both, and was unable to make "bid what you need" work for me. The bid holes theory works similarly for finding 3N, but your partner doesn't know whether the hole is 3 small, 1 small, or what. Bidding what you have implies some length in the suit, and helps partner evaluate a fit in either a suit or NT contract.

Now, that being said, I'm not really a system wonk, so its possible that there is a way-too-complicated solution that I just wasn't up for working out, but a lot of these general rules are meant, for me, to simplify bidding situations, so any additional mechanism tacked on to them are definitely significant negatives in my mind.

[gszes]

 Cyberyeti, on 2014-January-22, 13:11, said:

Some people won't have 8 tricks ever as they'd have started with a double. Opps appear to have something like 12 opposite 6 so K♥ is 2:1 to be offside modified slightly by the other hand being longer in hearts, so I don't see where you get 2 likely tricks from, 1.5 at most.

During the bidding we do not now which player holds the heart K. Using the 12 6 above partner will have 14 and since we have no way

to determine relative heart length (both lho and p have long suits) there is no reason to assume p cannot have the heart K (looking

at both hands makes it harder since we KNOW the heart K is missing not so during the bidding). Using ony HCP the opps are favored

to hold the heart K 18 to 14. If p has the heart K we have 2 tricks for sure and not unreasonably 3 or even 5 14 times out of 32. Using the

HCP logic alone and not considering distribution factors lho favors to hold the heart K 12 times and rho 6 so we have an overall shot

of lho holding the heart K 12 out of 32 hands and either p or rho holding the heart K 20 out of 32 hands. Whatever adjustment we make for

rho having more hearts will only increase the probability of our hand being worth at least 2 tricks.

Low level doubles with hands that are extremely offensive can be scary since once in a while p converts one of those x to penalty and we

suffer hugely as a result. An overcall at least keeps us on the positive side limiting damage under those circumstances (just a thought).