[Liversidge]

Tonight RHO opened 1♠, I passed, LHO bid 2♠. Partner had 6 clubs, 5 hearts and 17 points. His hearts were better than his clubs but he had honours in both. What should partner have bid? We wondered afterwards if he should have doubled, and settled at 3♥ if I bid diamonds.

I had 4 points. Partner couldn't expect much more given the bidding.

[mike777]

Partner might start with 3c his longest suit.

[P_Marlowe]

Your idea, starting with double, correcting diamonds to clubs is ok,
it is not the way more experienced player would do it, but it
will work quite often, and you will find your most likely game, if
game is on for your side.

The advanced way: Use conventions to show a 2-suiter, see
Michaels Cue / Unusual 2NT.
The seq. you have given it is common to use 2NT as an arbitary
2-suiter, but my suggestion is, to first look up Miachels Cue /
Unusual 2NT.

[Mbodell]

When you are strong it often means you will feel comfortable bidding your length naturally. You bid 3♣ because you are strong enough (likely) to bid 4♥ next if opponents compete to 3♠. This assuming his hand is really good, which 6-5 and 17 hcp probably is (unless your 17 was already counting points for length/shortness). Something like A KQxxx x AKJxxx is a 17 hcp 6-5 hand. If you have as little as xxx xxx xxxx xxx (that is a flat 0 count), partner still has play for 4♥ or 5♣.

[wank]

i presume you wouldn't have known what 2nt was, but what about 3s? that's obviously not natural. he was most likely too strong for 3c (it often ends the bidding and you miss 4h)

[MrAce]

If this 17 hcp does not have too many wasted values, I'd 100 % start with 3♠. Shows my bicolor strong hand. If I try to bid the naturally I will get to 4 level anyway and may still not express my hand well in the case they bid 4♠ before us. But this is an advanced suggestion.


This is N/B forum. If the meaning of cue at this level is not a frequent use, and if the meanings of it can be ambiguous for the players of this level, not discussed, which I expect it to be so, then he has to start with 3♣ or DBL. It may be even better for a N/B player to have to go through this kind of experience and learn how hard it is to express your hand naturally and effectively and why people use artificial bids now and then, instead of teaching them Micheals or similar other artificial bids- cues -doubles before they understand why they may need them.


If you start 3♣ try to bid hearts on next turn. Simply keep in mind, in general "IF they have a fit (which they do obviously) then your side has a fit too. But keep in mind if they are not jumping to 4♠ immediately and going slow, this is a very good indication that pd has a stack of their trumps and their hand may not play well.


If you start DBL and see pd bidding diamonds, then you now bid clubs (or hearts if you think it is better for whatever reason) to show pd that you did not start DBL because you have all other 3 suits, but started DBL because you are stronger than simple overcall limits. For higher level players, 17 is not over the limit of normal overcall limits btw.

[ggwhiz]

What should partner have bid?

That depends on the exact hand which is more about tricks than points in that shape. ie. any hand that contains a stiff K is not good enough for game and 3♣ is safer than 3♥ if you are forced to ruff a spade at tricks 1 or 2. Length, not strength is important in that scenario.

Meanwhile many pure hands (not just honours in the 2 suits) ie ♥AKJTx and ♣AKQxxx are a clear game force opposite nothing but a trump fit somewhere and should start with 3♠ and convert a diamond bid to 4♥ hoping partner gets the memo, pulling to clubs when it is right.

In between hands double and bid hearts over diamonds to strongly invite (seems like your partner may have that with better hearts than clubs). I'm lucky to have a partner that is exceptionally good at raising me on bupkas and/or removing to clubs when it is right and have no idea how she learned to do that.

So for me this is hardly an easy question to answer.

[gszes]

The first step is to recognize that not all 17hcp 5h 6c hands are created equal. Take these two extreme examples:
K KQJ43 K KQ5432 and void KQJT2 AK KJT932

The first hand needs to exercise a fair amount of caution. The two stiff kings are both of dubious value for either offense r defense and the length in the rounded suits means not much defense there either. That means x is a very poor idea with the first hand since we would hate for partner to convert our x to a penalty. I will admit that since 4h is our most likely game and 3h is a much better lead director I would start hand 1 with 3h over 2s and be ready to flee to 4c if 3hx.

The second hand has vastly superior suit quality and should be willing to bid all the way to 5c expecting to make with very little help. This would also be a poor hand to x with because there is too much offensive potential. Having a system in place where 4c = clubs and hearts would be great here since deciding to bid 3c or 3h is a bad underbid. Even having 3s as michaels
would be a benefit. If no special bid is available I would be much more tempted to start with 4h and almost be happy to flee to 5c if x (instead of fearing a huge negative score like I would with hand 1).

While not everyone would agree with the way I would bid the point is there is a vast number of hand types where different bids would be appropriate always show the complete hand not just a generic description for better answers.