[AL78]

Matchpoints, game all.

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1♦ shows at least four. Your call?

[mycroft]

I can see arguments for 1NT, 2♣, 2♦, or 2♥. All I will say is:

Whichever one you choose, do it smoothly if possible. Pick one and go with it.

This is easier if you have been thinking what you were going to do in this auction as soon as you passed. Because you knew this was likely to happen.

[Tramticket]

2♣

[Winstonm]

1nt

[pescetom]

 mycroft, on 2022-January-06, 09:53, said:

I can see arguments for 1NT, 2♣, 2♦, or 2♥.

Me too, but I prefer 1NT by a fair margin.
Spades were not raised and partner has to have decent roundy suits (as we play 4+♦ he might even have 4 card clubs, but I guess that is untrue for OP).

[Cyberyeti]

 pescetom, on 2022-January-06, 10:18, said:

Me too, but I prefer 1NT by a fair margin.
Spades were not raised and partner has to have decent roundy suits (as we play 4+♦ he might even have 4 card clubs, but I guess that is untrue for OP).

Partner could easily be 1444 for us (if we don't have a 5 card suit, and we have 4 diamonds, we open them if not in 1N range), I also prefer 1N

[pescetom]

 Cyberyeti, on 2022-January-06, 11:03, said:

Partner could easily be 1444 for us (if we don't have a 5 card suit, and we have 4 diamonds, we open them if not in 1N range)

For us too, but we also open 2344 out of range as 1♦ which I suspect OP would not.

[mycroft]

Oh I think 1NT for me too. 8-fifth is a stopper, right? And I have enough cards that it won't be a massive disaster if RHO got caught with a strong bad hand (1354 or something, with similar diamonds to my spades), whereas without the clubs, RHO might have a "no green cards left" double.

But I stand by my argument. Any call that is at all reasonable in tempo and without a care in the world will beat the right call after having flashed the "best of bad options" sign to the entire table more often than not.

[mikeh]

There are some serious warning signs here. There is at least some likelihood that partner has a strong hand with no spade stopper, such that 1N may get him too excited. It’s not that we lack the hcp for 1N: having passed over 1S we rate to have 5-7 hcp for 1N but we also rate to have some semblance of a stopper..even 10xxx will sometimes be a stopper. (Ok, it is possible that the 8 grows up, but I sure wouldn’t want to bet on it).

But here, even if partner has say Qx,we almost always have no stopper and we will need to find 3-4 pitches from dummy should partner raise notrump.

Meanwhile, 2C gives us chances and carries no suggestion of strength. If he has 4 clubs, we may well be able to scramble 8 winners and he may, for instance, be something like 1=4=6=2 and will correct to 2D

For me, then, 2C is my preference.I do understand that we may be playing in a mini-moysian (3-3) but even that might scramble well if we avoid a trump lead.

But it’s close…good problem

Btw, in my most serious partnership, 1D is frequently 5+ and so 2D is a live possibility in that partnership but I think I’d still slightly prefer 2C…he could be 1444 or 1=3=4=5 with much better diamonds than clubs (with most 2245 we open 1C and accept a transfer into 1M, although this holding can prove awkward if they overcall 1C)

[Winstonm]

 mikeh, on 2022-January-06, 11:49, said:

There are some serious warning signs here. There is at least some likelihood that partner has a strong hand with no spade stopper, such that 1N may get him too excited. It’s not that we lack the hcp for 1N: having passed over 1S we rate to have 5-7 hcp for 1N but we also rate to have some semblance of a stopper..even 10xxx will sometimes be a stopper. (Ok, it is possible that the 8 grows up, but I sure wouldn’t want to bet on it).

But here, even if partner has say Qx,we almost always have no stopper and we will need to find 3-4 pitches from dummy should partner raise notrump.

Meanwhile, 2C gives us chances and carries no suggestion of strength. If he has 4 clubs, we may well be able to scramble 8 winners and he may, for instance, be something like 1=4=6=2 and will correct to 2D

For me, then, 2C is my preference.I do understand that we may be playing in a mini-moysian (3-3) but even that might scramble well if we avoid a trump lead.

But it’s close…good problem

Btw, in my most serious partnership, 1D is frequently 5+ and so 2D is a live possibility in that partnership but I think I’d still slightly prefer 2C…he could be 1444 or 1=3=4=5 with much better diamonds than clubs (with most 2245 we open 1C and accept a transfer into 1M, although this holding can prove awkward if they overcall 1C)

I see this as the rare exception where 1nt is more a denial bid than a suggestion. With short spades partner has asked us to bid a suit. Partner knows there won’t be 4 hearts with enough to negative double. There was no freely bid 1nt. Partner could not show a modicum of diamond support . 1nt here should not indicate a stop but an inability to make any other intelligent bid. IMHO deferring to the Canuck who has played the Bermuda Bowl.🤔

[AL78]

East was one of my partner's who was playing with someone else here. She decided to penalty pass and was soon writing -560 on the scorecard. The full deal:

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A spade partscore by North was the popular result, most making eight tricks. Only one contract played EW direction, 3♦ going one off for a very good result.

[pescetom]

 AL78, on 2022-January-06, 15:26, said:

A spade partscore by North was the popular result, most making eight tricks. Only one contract played EW direction, 3♦ going one off for a very good result.

The defence has to work at it to let 3♦ go off only 1.

[mikeh]

 Winstonm, on 2022-January-06, 15:10, said:

I see this as the rare exception where 1nt is more a denial bid than a suggestion. With short spades partner has asked us to bid a suit. Partner knows there won’t be 4 hearts with enough to negative double. There was no freely bid 1nt. Partner could not show a modicum of diamond support . 1nt here should not indicate a stop but an inability to make any other intelligent bid. IMHO deferring to the Canuck who has played the Bermuda Bowl.🤔

I understand your argument but playing your style responder is equally stuck holding say Q10x xxx Qxx Kxxx

If opener has a hand entirely consistent with the auction, say, x AJx AKJxxx Axx we are cold for 3N

But opposite our actual hand he will get us too high. Not that 2C ends the nightmare but we should eventually stumble into a diamond partscore

I don’t think that, at imps anyway, it’s practical to play 1N as ambiguous…either around 6 hcp with a spade stopper or the sort of hand we actually had, not showing anything resembling something in spades. Games are so important. At mps, where partner won’t charge off to or towards game at every opportunity it’s a closer call, as I acknowledged in my post. But I still bid 2C😀


As to the actual hand, given that north overcalled vulnerable and we hold the spade Ace, I’d pass it out as opener. The odds of us having a plus on defence v 1S x’d are minuscule since partner is VERY unlikely to have a real penalty pass (I don’t think it’s even close here…the pass was playing for a bottom…successfully) and we have a weak hand…the hand would be far better….as in making the reopening double clear, if it were for example x KJxx AKxxx Qxx

Note that when we have spade values the odds of partner holding a trump stack go down, unless the opponents are nuts, and at the same time the rest of our hand…with which we hope to win tricks…is much weaker.

[johnu]

 mycroft, on 2022-January-06, 11:42, said:

Oh I think 1NT for me too. 8-fifth is a stopper, right?

5th round stoppers are severely underrated.

[Douglas43]

Sorry to see this after the full hand, but 2♦ is the bid most likely to shut partner up. And sometimes it's even right! Give me 10xxxx in spades and I'll bid 1NT

[mycroft]

Penalty passes with just long trumps tend to be a mistake. You need both long trumps (to nullify declarer's length, or to threaten loss of control) and trump *tricks* to set a low-level contract. "We need to hold them to 6 tricks and he has 5 in trump" is a bad start. Being able to just pull all the trump and then play NT is also decent as declarer. That's why I didn't even think of passing.

Now I might have passed with a zero-count, hoping to hold it to -560 (beating -600 and definitely -800), without a redouble it's likely partner has more of "the rest of the points". But only if I'm conceding game. Here I have enough cards that game isn't "obvious to get to" and "obviously making", so "passing, conceding making" is giving up the board, even if it does beat par, or the score I would get if I bid and guessed badly.

[helene_t]

It's either pass or 2♦ for me. I think that 2♦ is our most likely 7-card fit. !NT is reasonable but somehow not my style, I would like to have a spade stopper for that.

2♣ or 2♥ could work but I don't see their advantage over 2♦. But OK, 2♣ at least can be corrected to 2♦ so I suppose 2♥ is the worst bid.

[eagles123]

 AL78, on 2022-January-06, 15:26, said:

East was one of my partner's who was playing with someone else here. She decided to penalty pass and was soon writing -560 on the scorecard. The full deal:

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A spade partscore by North was the popular result, most making eight tricks. Only one contract played EW direction, 3♦ going one off for a very good result.

passing is saying to partner "Please never balance again"

a difficult problem as others have said, but passing is absolutely nuts.