[clayniac]

At the club last night with a good player, the auction below occurred. Is partner showing extras?
1 ♥ on my left-double by partner-pass-1 nt (8-11 and a ♥ stopper)
2 ♥- 3 ♦ by partner
? Does partner's 3 ♦ bid show extras?
I had a ♦ fit with him, so I bid 3 nt. He said he was just competing; I said it showed extras. Some said he should just overcall 2 ♦ on his first turn (which I also said-and with a nice fit will raise), others said he should double again, asking me to bid, showing support for the other suits.
Partner had ♠KQXX ♥ A ♦ ATXXX, ♣ JXX
Thanks,
Patsy

[Walddk]

He did enough when he doubled and can't bid 3♦ now without showing extras. 3♦ shows a hand too good to overcall 2♦, roughly 18-21 hcp. Opposite the 1NT response, this would also be forcing.

You play 1NT as 8-11. I don't think that is mainstream, though. 6-9(10) is more common.

Roland

[helene_t]

Partner certainly shouldn't have overcalled 2♦ - the suit is either too bad or way too bad, depending on vulnerability and scoring. Besides, a 2♦ overcall maty loose a ♠ fit. Double is fine.

I think 3♦ shows extras but that it's non-forcing.

[whereagles]

This is an interesting auction. Most people would take 3♦ as showing extras, but I think it's better played as competitive.

Why? Because with extras you'd have 25 hcp (or close to that) and would consequently bid 2 or 3NT, not 3♦.

[Walddk]

whereagles, on Nov 28 2006, 04:14 PM, said:

Why? Because with extras you'd have 25 hcp (or close to that) and would consequently bid 2 or 3NT, not 3♦.

I don't agree. If he has a strong hand (18+) with say 4-1-6-2 it is not at all certain that NT is the right spot. You could even have a diamond slam on when 3NT fails.

Roland

[gwnn]

This is slight advertisment to Raptor NT :whistles:. Well, not that big of an advertisment, as a T/O X was fine (club tolerance also).

3♦ HAS to show extras (a 'GOSH'=good one suited hand). If he thinks he wants to play a suit contract opposite any 4333 by you, he can double again, suggesting some extras (but there might be people who'd play that double as penalty). With this hand, though, he has to pass.

[whereagles]

Walddk, on Nov 28 2006, 02:18 PM, said:

whereagles, on Nov 28 2006, 04:14 PM, said:

Why? Because with extras you'd have 25 hcp (or close to that) and would consequently bid 2 or 3NT, not 3♦.

I don't agree. If he has a strong hand (18+) with say 4-1-6-2 it is not at all certain that NT is the right spot. You could even have a diamond slam on when 3NT fails.

Roland

With 18 hcp you can make a cue-bid instead of bidding 3♦, no?

The point is there is little need for 3♦ to show a strong hand because strong hands have alternative ways to be bid (cue, 2NT, 3NT, etc). It is the competitive hand that has little options but to bid its suit. And competitive hands come up far more often than slammish hands. Especially if opps opened the bidding.

Of course, you can always 'steal' 2NT and make it artificial and dump all competitive hands into it. However, 2NT as natural is useful here.

[Blofeld]

The problem with making a cue is that you don't mention your suit ...

I'd expect a cue to be a strong hand with something like typical takeout double shape.

[MickyB]

It's certainly gameforcing IMO, but if 1NT is showing 8-11 I think a 4153 16 count should be acceptable (which is nothing like "too good to overcall" by my standards).

[Walddk]

whereagles, on Nov 28 2006, 05:16 PM, said:

Walddk, on Nov 28 2006, 02:18 PM, said:

whereagles, on Nov 28 2006, 04:14 PM, said:

Why? Because with extras you'd have 25 hcp (or close to that) and would consequently bid 2 or 3NT, not 3♦.

I don't agree. If he has a strong hand (18+) with say 4-1-6-2 it is not at all certain that NT is the right spot. You could even have a diamond slam on when 3NT fails.

Roland

With 18 hcp you can make a cue-bid instead of bidding 3♦, no?

Apparently, you prefer to torture partner with an unassuming cue bid when you have a natural bid available.

♠ KQ64
♥ 7
♦ AKJ873
♣ AQ

If I understand you correctly, you now bid 3♥ over RHO's 2♥. How do you expect your partner to know that this shows a strong diamond suit? And what is he supposed to respond with

♠ J52
♥ A108
♦ Q95
♣ 6532

3NT and 6♦ both require ♣K onside (almost 100% on the auction). I am strongly opposed to using unassuming cue bids when you have natural, descriptive bid at hand. And yes, I do play 3♦ on this action as forcing after a constructive 1NT response.

Roland

[whereagles]

Roland, that's fine and you can certainly play it that way. But what if doubler has instead the hand he held? If he's forced to pass 2♥ because "3♦ would show extras", you're going to lose competition.

In my opinion, what you gain by adding precision in strong auctions (1% of the time) does not compensate the loss of competition in the other 99% of the time.

[kenberg]

The first double seems completely clear, I can't imagine bidding 2D with that hand. At his next turn he knows you have 9 points, maybe 11, and he has more shape and more points than he might have had for his double. He has reason to expect that 3D will play well and there should be some way to communicate that fact to you. Bidding 3D seems like a reasonable choice.

in my view, bidding 3D here is totally diffeent from what it would be if your initial response had been, say, 2C. Of course 2C could be nothing more than the need to respond to the double. When you bid 1N you define your hand within a narrow range and your partner should be able to act on that. So, imo, 3D simply means that given the 1N response by you, and the 2H on his right, he thinks 3D is a good place to play the hand. For him to think that to be the case he probably has more than a bare minimum double and probably five diamonds. As he has.

To look at it in a different way, suppose he passes and you have a modest hand (flattish with a 9 or 10 count) for your 1N response. Would you not feel that you have already described your hand and therefore pass it out? I would. Not bidding the same values twice is a fine idea in bridge. So if 3 D is to be reached, he must bid it.

[Walddk]

whereagles, on Nov 28 2006, 06:19 PM, said:

Roland, that's fine and you can certainly play it that way. But what if doubler has instead the hand he held? If he's forced to pass 2♥ because "3♦ would show extras", you're going to lose competition.

In my opinion, what you gain by adding precision in strong auctions (1% of the time) does not compensate the loss of competition in the other 99% of the time.

It's not for doubler to compete. He already showed his hand when he doubled. It was a double within the minimum range, and it's unsound to tell the same story twice.

His partner won't be particularly happy to hear him "compete" when he has a 3-4-2-4 shape. It won't be a devastating shock for him that you have a 14 count with a 4-1-5-3 pattern.

Roland

[whereagles]

Roland: in other words, you're relegating the most important decision of the deal to the weak hand. I guess this is again that old thing we disagree on; that sometimes the strong hand has to do away with the so-called "partnership discipline" bounds and raise to its responsibilities. Kenberg put this in a nice way, by the way.

Anyway, you can play 3♦ as strong if you want, but I pretty much doubt you'll be doing the right thing, statistically speaking.

[HeartA]

I completely agree with Roland on this one. With minimum strength, you doubled and you are done unless pd forces to bid. 5-4-3-1 (short in opp's suit) is one of the typical shape.

[helene_t]

I'm with Whereagles. How often has it happened that you had a minor suit game after one opp opened and partner showed a stop in their suit?

Besides, there are plenty of calls available in the rare event that you want to force to game after partner bid 1NT. You can double 2♥, you can cuebid, or you can bid 3NT either directly or via a scrable 2NT. And a very strong one-suiter without a heart stop may have overcalled 3♥.

If you play ELC, a double of hearts does not guarantee club support. Hence you could have a minimum double with four spades and longer diamonds. This could go via 2NT (which is primarily competivie with both minors). Then a direct 3♦ bid is invitational.

As for 3♣, you can't have it both ways, you must decide if that's invitational or competitive. Unless you give up the scrabling 2NT and play that as good/bad. Then you could play a double as both minors. But I think a double should be somewhat penalty-oriented,

[cherdano]

I strongly disagree with whereagles and Helene. How can you bid a competitive 3♦ with a 5-card suit at the 3-level, AFTER your partner has said most of his values are opposite your singleton? Why play a 5-2 fit at the 3-level?

Anyway, doubling-then-bidding a new suit shows a strong hand, too strong to overcall in the first place. There are obvious exceptions to this (1C-X-P-2C-?-2H), but I don't see how the sequence of this thread can be an exception without special agreements.

[cherdano]

helene_t, on Nov 29 2006, 01:46 AM, said:

I'm with Whereagles. How often has it happened that you had a minor suit game after one opp opened and partner showed a stop in their suit?

Quite often I would say.

[keylime]

3♦ gotta be forcing here showing extras.

[matmat]

i'd tend to think that after you have shown 8-11 with a heart stopper p's 3d bid does show extras and is 100% forcing.