[jillybean]

This is a hand I played at 5:30am with random BBO players, frivolous but I am interested how others would proceed in a regular game.
In usual BBO fashion, 3♦ shows a good suit, decent hand, it is not preemptive.

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[Douglas43]

Bid 3H and cross my fingers?

[jillybean]

Douglas43, on 2024-January-23, 10:06, said:

Bid 3H and cross my fingers?

Forcing?

[P_Marlowe]

Hi

3H is forcing, new suit on the 3 level is gf.

3H is your best bet, it is an overbid, but what else can you do?
If partner bids 3S, you repeat your suit, if he jumps to 4S you pass.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[pescetom]

jillybean, on 2024-January-23, 10:25, said:

Forcing?

For us it is forcing 1 round and so looks a standout choice here.

[jillybean]

Yes, I play 3H as forcing.
As 3H is forcing,edit (and you will bid 4H over 3S), why not an immediate 4H?

[shyams]

jillybean, on 2024-January-23, 13:06, said:

Yes, I play 3H as forcing.
As 3H is forcing, why not an immediate 4H?

It depends on your agreements with this specific partner.

If I were playing with an occasional partner (a good player, but not an expert), I would expect him to jump over an opponent's preempt only with a very good hand. The kind where if opener is stronger than normal, then opener can dare to explore slam. With this South hand, if opener is encouraged to search for slam, we may well land up at a precarious 5-level contract.

Bt the way, P_Marlowe's post describes what I would do too.

[jillybean]

One of us has this backwards 🤣
I am thinking 3H is more encouraging than an immediate 4H

[apollo1201]

3H and pray to guess if partner has 5 or 6 spades when 3S comes back to you

I am definitely not Xing and pass with 2 aces a void in opp s suit and a 7-cd suit is just too much to ask

It is a bidder s game, isn t it?

[smerriman]

shyams, on 2024-January-23, 13:15, said:

If I were playing with an occasional partner (a good player, but not an expert), I would expect him to jump over an opponent's preempt only with a very good hand.

Me too, but the OP specifically states 3♦ isn't preemptive, so that's not applicable here. Then again, with BBO opponents, hardly anything is applicable.

[P_Marlowe]

jillybean, on 2024-January-23, 13:06, said:

Yes, I play 3H as forcing.
As 3H is forcing,edit (and you will bid 4H over 3S), why not an immediate 4H?

Undiscussed jumping around is a sure way of generating disaster.

In my regular partnership, I cant bid 3H, it would be inv.+ with spade support,
due to this I would need to make the 4H bid.
If you have 3H av., than some may play 4H as fit bid, or ....

[shyams]

smerriman, on 2024-January-23, 13:27, said:

Me too, but the OP specifically states 3♦ isn't preemptive, so that's not applicable here. Then again, with BBO opponents, hardly anything is applicable.

Oops, overlooked that.

However, I still would not jump to convey the weaker of the two. Perhaps it is right to extrapolate my partnership agreement over weak interferences to also include intermediate-strength interferences.

Worth noting that we all think 3♥ is forcing on opener. So why complicate life with a not-so-strong hand using a jump bid?

[akwoo]

Practically, playing 4H as weaker, the difference between 3H and 4H is that I would expect 3H to establish a forcing pass and 4H to not establish a forcing pass.

[DavidKok]

I play switch at the 4-level, but this is thankfully neither relevant nor important on this example hand. For me 4♥ is to play (not a fitbid) and the difference between 3♥-then-4♥ and the direct 4♥ is the degree of flexibility. If we are open to a possible slam investigation, and/or can handle partner suggesting a differnt strain, we bid 3♥. If we only want to play game in hearts we just bid it. On the example hand I think it's close either way (goes to show how little help that nugget of wisdom is) but I lean towards bidding 3♥ only. For me 3♥ is forcing to game.

I agree with akwoo's point about forcing pass, and indeed the nuance in the two meanings is so slim that we should probably just make that the definition (it certainly is practical, to define a bid by its desired continuations).