[CSGibson]

Pass is forcing, as this is an obvious sacrifice situation. I pass, trusting partner.

[han]

4S by partner was stronger than 3S would have been, so a very good hand. Since it is obvious that in this auction 4S is bid to make and 5D is a sac, I think pass is forcing. We didn't discuss this.

I passed and pulled partner's double to 5S. Maybe an overbid. But the auction wasn't over. Partner now came to life with 6C! What do you expect partner to have and what is your call?

[lilboyman]

No expert here. I would expect partner to have at least 9 tricks in hand and possibly 10 or 11 with a self-sustaining Spade suit. Holding 2 cover cards I would raise to 5 Spades, with 1 I would double and with none I would pass. Hence, for me pass would be non-forcing. In the hand given I would bid 5 Spades.

[fred]

jdonn, on Aug 8 2008, 06:42 AM, said:

I would bet Fred takes the problem auction as forcing.

Correct. In my system notes it says that when a passed hand raises a preempt to game and we have DBLed or overcalled, Pass is forcing.

Don't know if this should be considered part of "expert standard" or not. In other words, if I was playing with an expert and we had not discussed such sequences, whether or not I decided to play Pass as forcing would depend at least to some extent on the identity (and nationality?) of my expert partner.

I am guessing that Josh is right that, at least in America, most of the leading players would consider Pass to be forcing in these circumstances. Note also that most of the leading American players do not consider very many Passes to be forcing these days.

This is the sort of thing that serious any expert partnership would have discussed.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

han, on Aug 8 2008, 09:56 AM, said:

4S by partner was stronger than 3S would have been, so a very good hand. Since it is obvious that in this auction 4S is bid to make and 5D is a sac, I think pass is forcing. We didn't discuss this.

I passed and pulled partner's double to 5S. Maybe an overbid. But the auction wasn't over. Partner now came to life with 6C! What do you expect partner to have and what is your call?

Not sure exactly what partner is up to, but I feel it's too likely we are off a spade honor for me to do anything encouraging, plus I feel like I have already bid pretty strongly. To put it another way, if we have made a slam try and partner has solid spades and all the aces, I think he can bid 7 on his own.

[han]

Yeah that's probably right Josh. I thought I could have made a stronger slam try last round by pulling to 5H instead, and I really liked my KQxxx of clubs now that partner had shown the ace. I decided I was worth 6H now. Partner bid 7S with AKQxxx A Axx Axx.

So 7S wasn't a great grand, you need spades to split 3-2 and a little bit more (if clubs don't split you have good squeeze chances). But it made so all was well.

For those who are wondering, 5D would not have made.

[fred]

han, on Aug 8 2008, 02:56 PM, said:

4S by partner was stronger than 3S would have been, so a very good hand.

Not sure I agree with this.

I would use the word "different" rather than "stronger" to compare hands for 3S with hands for 4S. In my partnerships 4S would tend be "stronger" in terms of playing strength, but 3S would tend to be "stronger" in terms of high cards.

For me a typical 4S overcall might look something like this:

AQJ10xxxx
x
x
KQx

while 3S would look more like:

AQJ10xx
Ax
x
KQxx

With a hand like the one you presented later in the thread:

AKQxxx
A
Axx
Axx

I would either start with DBL or cuebid 3D (which in my partnerships means that I have a 1-suiter at least close in strength to a 2C opening - not "standard" but very sensible IMO).

The choice between DBL and 3D would depend largely on my distribution in the other suits. For example, with the hand above I would bid 3D but if you switch the heart and diamond holdings I would DBL instead.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

Wow you made a slam try in support of spades, and partner had that and knew you had short diamonds and didn't just bid the grand??