[jdonn]

---

East opened 1♠, south bid 3♠, west bid 4♠.

1. Is pass by north forcing?
2. What should north do?
3. If north passes what should south do?
4. In reality north passed and south bid 5♣. ATB?

The actual hand was mps but that doesn't particularly concern me. I'm more interested in imps if anything, but answer however you want.

[whereagles]

1. No, of course not.
2. Nothing!
3. Dbl, to show extras.
4. 4NT. Opposite extras, this might make.

[Jlall]

Yeah south has an obv double of 4S. He has very good defense in context. Pass is not forcing, and north has a pass.

[Phil]

Agree with the others. For such a strange auction, I think the calls are pretty obvious.

[hanp]

Since Josh posted this hand there is about an 98% chance that Josh was south and GIB was north. Surely south has the best hand.

5C Jdown?

[jdonn]

I still do not think all the calls are so obvious, but it wouldn't be the first boat I had missed.

[helene_t]

Agree with Nuno. I might be resulting but it seems pretty clear.

[mtvesuvius]

hanp, on Jun 5 2009, 11:11 PM, said:

Since Josh posted this hand there is about an 98% chance that Josh was south and GIB was north. Surely south has the best hand.

5C Jdown?

Hi, I am GIB North.

Jdown.

[Winstonm]

3S asked partner to bid 3N with a spade stopper - he can no longer bid 3N so this cannot be a forcing auction.

The South hand is big enough to balance with a double, after which North may well bid 4N.

[y66]

If north passes what should south do?

I see why others like double. But disciplined, actuarially fine tuned bids like that are beyond me, esp. at the table. No way am I blaming 5C.

[gnasher]

Given the sort of hands people bid 3♠ on nowadays, I don't think pass can be forcing. The answer might have been different 20 years ago.

I think it's easier to bid pass-dbl-4NT when you can see both hands. In particular, it seems reasonable for North to pass South's double, because he's not really expecting South to have ten top tricks.

5♣ by South is superficially attractive, because you need so little for game. However, that same little will probably be enough to get a 500 penalty from 4♠.

[kenrexford]

If South bids 3♠ and then doubles 4♠, how is this not making 4NT?

[gnasher]

kenrexford, on Jun 6 2009, 07:19 PM, said:

If South bids 3♠ and then doubles 4♠, how is this not making 4NT?

Wouldn't South bid like that with x Ax KQx AKQJxxx or x Axx AKx AKQJxx?

[kenrexford]

It's not solely a question, IMO, of whether partner would double 4♠ with certain hands. It's a question of whether partner would be able to double this specific contract, meaning whether partner can have that good of a hand and yet the opponents still keep bidding to this level.

I believe that the fact of any bid of 4♠, followed by a double from partner, suggests strongly that partner has a lot of defense. That's unexpected unless the opponents have a lot of shape. So, whereas a hand might be constructed, I don't think it occurs often enough.

[jdonn]

Actually I think the dangerous assumption here is that we will get 4♠ for 500 if we are making 5♣. The opponents probably have a lot of shape here. Yes I do confess to being the 5♣ bidder, and perhaps I can be convinced it's wrong but not by a bunch of "dbl obv" type of answers. I mean if partner has one honor, is it more likely to be in spades or a red suit?

[kenrexford]

jdonn, on Jun 7 2009, 01:21 PM, said:

...I mean if partner has one honor, is it more likely to be in spades or a red suit?

Won't partner know?

[jdonn]

kenrexford, on Jun 7 2009, 02:14 PM, said:

jdonn, on Jun 7 2009, 01:21 PM, said:

...I mean if partner has one honor, is it more likely to be in spades or a red suit?

Won't partner know?

Partner knows to pull with the heart queen but not the diamond queen? Your partners are better than mine I suppose...

[gnasher]

kenrexford, on Jun 7 2009, 01:29 PM, said:

It's not solely a question, IMO, of whether partner would double 4♠ with certain hands. It's a question of whether partner would be able to double this specific contract, meaning whether partner can have that good of a hand and yet the opponents still keep bidding to this level.

I believe that the fact of any bid of 4♠, followed by a double from partner, suggests strongly that partner has a lot of defense. That's unexpected unless the opponents have a lot of shape. So, whereas a hand might be constructed, I don't think it occurs often enough.

Are you saying that the fact that the opponents have the shape to make up for their limited high cards makes it more likely that partner has ten winners than that he has nine?

[gnasher]

jdonn, on Jun 7 2009, 07:21 PM, said:

Actually I think the dangerous assumption here is that we will get 4♠ for 500 if we are making 5♣. The opponents probably have a lot of shape here. Yes I do confess to being the 5♣ bidder, and perhaps I can be convinced it's wrong but not by a bunch of "dbl obv" type of answers. I mean if partner has one honor, is it more likely to be in spades or a red suit?

We'll get only 200 instead of 600 if partner has ♥Q, and we get only three tricks from hearts and clubs, and we don't have two diamond tricks, and partner doesn't have a spade trick. That's quite a lot of conditions.

A strong argument in favour of doubling is that partner might have ♦Q, which is likely to be useless in 5♣ but worth an extra trick in defence.

[helene_t]

gnasher, on Jun 7 2009, 10:28 PM, said:

A strong argument in favour of doubling is that partner might have ♦Q, which is likely to be useless in 5♣ but worth an extra trick in defence.

Why is ♦Q likely useless? Diamonds will then be on a finesse over opener (assuming p has an entry) for zero losers.

In defense, if p has no entry, declarer might be able to pitch diamonds on hearts and only lose one diamond regardless.

Anyway, I might be thinking to primitively about this but for me double would be automatic because it shows this hand. I am not claiming p will always make the right decision then, but he has a chance of doing so. 5♣ is what I would bid without ♥K and with a club more.