[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2024-January-27, 18:00, said:

Ok partner, what is your rebid after 1♦ (P) 1♠ (P) ?

2NT of course, assuming you mean exactly what you say.

My vote given the actual auction was for 3NT, but it depends a lot upon partnership style. I only know one player who would have doubled with the tricky 6 card hand later shown by OP. I would also be disappointed if partner doubling with 4 hearts had decent diamond support.

[Cyberyeti]

 jillybean, on 2024-January-27, 18:00, said:

Ok partner, what is your redbid after 1♦ (P) 1♠ (P) ?

Did you have any interesting calls?

2N playing something standard-ish, playing what I play, the border between a 1N rebid and 2N opener is good/bad 19 and this is maximum for the 1N rebid, we would play 4♥ unopposed, we don't need the world for 2♥ over 1♠ and would probably bid it in the competitive auction.

[mikeh]

Late to the thread

Firstly, I agree 100% with 1D. Opening a 15-17 1N is a very bad bid, imo.

High card points, on the 4321 scale (or any other metric one uses based on notional values assigned to specific cards) is merely an approximation of the trick taking ability of the hand, and must be adjusted and revised (up or down) both before the bidding starts and afterwards.

Before it starts, look at what the honours are, because 4321 undervalues aces and kings and overvalues queens and jacks.

Look where they are…in length…upgrade….shortness…consider downgrading ( but Qx gets downgraded more than does Kx or Ax).

Are any combined? Combined honours should be upgraded…again, something like QJxx isn’t as upgradable as KJxx.

Do we have got texture? Texture is 10s and 9s (to a lesser degree than 10s). Even 8 s can be useful, especially in conjunction wit 10s and 9s.

Consider our diamonds. Give partner, for the sake of illustration, Jx.

Opposite AQ432, Jx helps but not much. We’re never taking 5 tricks and aren’t favourite to even take 4. Change our 4 to the 10…now we have an almost 20% chance of five tricks and will almost always mp take 4.


Give partner 98x…again, our AQ10x is more useful than would be AQ432.

Even in our short suits, the spots matter. Say our clubs were A32 instead of A109. Give partner Jx. Opposite Axx, if the opps attack that suit (bear in mind that we have no idea how the auction will go or that, here, they have spades), we almost never take two tricks (an opp would need to lead low from KQx(x) etc), but when we have A10x, we usually have two stoppers and with A109 we can usually establish two tricks even if they don’t lead the suit.

So while we have ‘17’ hcp, we also have three aces and a king! That alone makes this hand at the extreme upper end of the range even if we were 4333.

Add the fifth diamond…by itself that’s a potential upgrade…make it AQ10xx and it’s a sin not to upgrade out of 1N….and I haven’t yet got to our other great spot cards.

This isn’t a 2N opening bid even if you play 2N as a good 19-21….but it far…far…too strong for 1N.

Second point: what to bid over 3S

3N has some attraction if one doesn’t think too much about the helpful opponents. On this auction there is a high probability that partner has two spades…if he had a stiff, one of the opps might have bid more. If he has three, RHO likely wouldn’t have raised

If he has two…then unless he holds the improbable ace, we need to run 8 winners in the other suits after a spade lead and likely 9 if they don’t lead spades (yes, I now know partner has Qx but that’s against the odds and we can’t assume that when we have to decide over 3S)

Thus 3N is a huge gamble

Otoh , it’s not at all unusual for partner to,hold more than 4 hearts…a 3H bid over 2S is, in practice even if not by agreement, game force.

Plus since we’re assuming a doubleton spade, they’re going to struggle to tap us even in a 4-3 fit.

If I had to bid, it would 100% be 4H.

Do I have to bid?

Yes. With a minimum, I’d happily pass but I have a hand I correctly, imo, valued as 18-19. Yes, the spade holding isn’t worth as much as when I’d opened, but we surely have the high card values for game somewhere, and I can’t expect partner to reopen. I have too much.

How about double? No experienced players use this as penalty. It’s a DSIP bid, which can sometimes backfire spectacularly. It denies any reasonably clear action, and partner is definitely allowed to pass with no decent fit.

Different partnerships will likely have different agreements about what a DSIP double of this 3S would look like. However, I doubt many would think this was an example. Especially since we really want to play the contract from our side…often LHO will lay down the spade ace on this auction.

Thus I bid 4H. Yes, I’m so late that I could be accused of basing my choice on. Knowing that partner held six hearts. I’d actually tried to post a comment similar to this yesterday, but forgot to use my trick of posting ‘test’ then editing….without that I just get an error message and I was too annoyed to rewrite last night��

[jillybean]

Thanks Mike.
When you get the error message you can use the back button to return to your text, cut the text, post 'test' then copy the text back in. Works for me anyway.

[P_Marlowe]

 mr1303, on 2024-January-28, 08:37, said:

---

Partner's hand was something like the above (please ignore pips below 9s - I was making these up). If you double, partner converts to 4H, which is an easy make. 3NT is much harder - it can be done if you play to squish the stiff Jack of hearts, but that was beyond me. Partner passes 3NT, as you may have a hand with long strong diamonds, and he thinks his diamond king fills it in.

I dont think passing 3NT is a sensible auction, you have a 6th heart, you know partners stopper is short.
Passing basically assumes partners stopper is Ax, otherwise the stopper is gone after the attack.

This is not saying 3NT is better than X, only that missing 4H is due to poor judgement by responder.

[Cyberyeti]

 P_Marlowe, on 2024-January-29, 03:36, said:

I dont think passing 3NT is a sensible auction, you have a 6th heart, you know partners stopper is short.
Passing basically assumes partners stopper is Ax, otherwise the stopper is gone after the attack.

This is not saying 3NT is better than X, only that missing 4H is due to poor judgement by responder.

Is partner not allowed to take a flier at 3N with Ax, x, AQJxxxx, Axx once you've shown hearts with the double ?

[DavidKok]

North (systemically) concealed their six card major.
South (systemically) concealed their 18-19 balanced.
And now we're inventing perfect hands for partner where our (losing) action was the only winning move.

In my opinion there was ample opportunity to solve this at the system level, but having failed to do so we are always going to have some amount of guessing to do. Playing partner for 9 quick tricks with our ♦K but also a singleton in hearts seems anti percentage to me, and I would run from 3NT as North. This will sometimes lose, but more often it will not. In particular, partner likely has only two spades and we might struggle to maintain control of the hand in 3NT. Also of course if partner is balanced we'll have a fit in hearts.
That being said I'm impressed by mikeh's 4♥, but I think it falls apart if we don't know the opponents have 9 spades combined. Amateurs and experts alike believe their judgement is far superior to raising to the law protected level (East in particular may well have three spades and a red suit shortage), so who knows how many they might have. Also the overcall on the first round was 1♠, not 2♠, so partner's cheapest heart bid would not have been a de facto game force. This noticeably reduces the chances of finding partner with a suitable hand.

[P_Marlowe]

 Cyberyeti, on 2024-January-29, 04:53, said:

Is partner not allowed to take a flier at 3N with Ax, x, AQJxxxx, Axx once you've shown hearts with the double ?

Will work, ... if responder has the King of diamonds besides the heart stopper, otherwise you need
a sure entry and the king of diamonds doubleton.

Whatever works is fine, I am just saying, that the responder hand is no proof, that X is superior to 3NT,
and my take on the post by the thread opener was, that he was claiming this.
I know I would bid 3NT, I hope / expect my partner to bid 4H with the 6th hearts.

Now in real life I play NFB, responder would have made the 2H freebid, problem solved, ...
but NFB come with their own baggage.

[Cyberyeti]

 P_Marlowe, on 2024-January-29, 05:30, said:

Will work, ... if responder has the King of diamonds besides the heart stopper, otherwise you need
a sure entry and the king of diamonds doubleton.

Whatever works is fine, I am just saying, that the responder hand is no proof, that X is superior to 3NT,
and my take on the post by the thread opener was, that he was claiming this.
I know I would bid 3NT, I hope / expect my partner to bid 4H with the 6th hearts.

Now in real life I play NFB, responder would have made the 2H freebid, problem solved, ...
but NFB come with their own baggage.

Well actually you don't because you probably have 2 spade stops opposite Q/Qx, and he might have ♦10x or 2 entries.

I would make the 2♥ bid even not playing NFB, now I know to pass 3N if partner bids it.

I think x/3N is really close on the actual hand and could live with either