[pclayton]

Please assign the blame for the worse call in the following auction:

1♦ - 1♥
2 ♣ - 2 ♠
3 ♠ - 4 ♦
4 ♥ - 6 ♦
AP

---

[Cascade]

I voted for 6♦

All of opener's bids are semi-normal.

I do not like opening 1♦ with only four diamonds and five clubs.

And perhaps 2NT would be better than a raise to 3♠.

Nevertheless opener has reasonably good cards for the bidding and 6♦ is hopeless. So responder has seriously overbid.

[Free]

Look, what's missing? ♦Q or an Ace. I don't know what 4♦ means, but I'm used to minorwood, and then you know below 5♦ weither you have or have not an Ace and/or ♦Q missing. 4♥ wouldn't be the answer

I am also no fan of opening 1♦ with 4-5 ♦-♣, but it's a matter of style. So this is not to blame.

3♠ shows the hand, 3 card ♠, so nothing wrong there. Perhaps 2NT might be a slightly better bid, but I like such picture. With Kxx and a stiff Ace, you don't want to play NT imo...

Other bids through 4♥ are good, and then a weirdo jump using no space whatever. If you skip an entire level to gather more info and you end up in a failing slam, then that jumper is 100% wrong.

100% to the 6♦ bidder!

[mishovnbg]

4♦&6♦=blame
Misho

[whereagles]

Well, I think the 2♠ bid served no purpose. Science is nice, but it's second to common-sense. I would just bid 3NT instead.

[Fluffy]

1)6♦

the 3♠ bid is kinda nice since it pictures the singleton ♥, ♠K10x is maybe not the suposed holding but you can live with that.

East had a chance to stop in 3NT, but istead used 2♠, nothing wrong with it, since partner may be quite strong.

East had another chancec to stop in 3NT, but judged his ♥ holding to be superb, ir may be a bit dubious, but I Agree with that.

East had a final chance to stop after 4♥, bidding 5♦ or even 5♣, didn´t want to and that is the real mistake, making a lot of forcing bids with 12 balanced HCP is not the right thing to do.

[inquiry]

I am not overly fond of several of the bids...

1♦ - I like

1♥ - I don't like. Even if partner has 4♥, the nand may play better in 3NT

2♣ - I like

2♠ - I don't like. After 2♣, were are you going? 3NT seems right. 2♠ will find out about ♠ stoppers, but you are know worried about your ♥ stopper.

3♠ - Yuck. Minimum and a spade stopper. Rebid 2NT.

4♦ - well, your partner has ♠/♦/♣, you ahve finally diagnosed the ♥ weakness. How much better this would be if you could rebid 3♦ (over 2NT) rather than bypassing 3NT.

4♥ - Yes, this can be a cue-bid, which is ok, or this could be answer to minorwood. As cue-bid it is right, as minorwood it is wrong. Minorwood response here would be two keycards, no trump queen (which would stop you in 5♦.

6♦ 0 A tad aggressive.

Worst bid, 3♠, very very close to worse bid is 1♥

[luis]

You probably know my answer:
1♥, yet again bidding a xxxx suit over 1m leads to disaster.
2NT would have been really better with a balanced 12 counter, yes denying a 4 card major.

Every single responder bid is attrocius, and the bids after 1♥ are probably even worst than 1♥ but I'm going to assign the blame to the bid that started this madness.

Luis

[pclayton]

Thanks all for the responses.

Here's my opinion about each of the calls:

1♦ - I don't care for. If the diamonds were substantially stronger than the clubs, maybe 1♦ is indicated. I understand this is largely a style issue, but I know Edgar Kaplan agrees with me.

1♥ - This is totally normal, and I will take issue with anyone that disagrees. The hand isn't exactly balanced, and there is no reason to think that 4♥ isn't a possible contract. 2N (or an inverted raise) is really taking a position here. Hopefully your partnership has the tools to ferret out a 3 card raise later in the auction.

2♣ - Normal, but of course foisted by the 1♦ opening.

2♠ - I think this is pretty normal too. I don't care for rushing into NT with a single stop in the 4th suit, and NT is positionally wrong from responder's side. I won't argue too much with a 3♦ call at this point, but this hand is looking a lot better holding the ♦K and the ♣ AQ.

3♠ - This is where I think things got a little off track. Look at the honor dispersion of Opener's hand. The stiff ace should be a big red-flag and a signal toward moving to 3N. Contrast the hand to a holding like: ♠Axx, ♥x, ♦AQxx, ♣Kxxxx. This minimum gives you a play for 6♦ and any extra card, say the J♣, makes 6♦ excellent. 3♠ added a lot of 'momentum' to this auction, where caution perhaps was warranted. For these reasons, I cast my vote as this as a tie for the worst call, along with 6♦. The partnership can't recover once responder bids 6♦.

4♦ - Steering clear of the 3N trap with the poor suit opposite the known shortness. Perhaps the best call of the auction

4♥ - This was not an answer to minorwood, although minorwood would have likely kept us out of the unplayable slam. Its hard to gauge the effect this cue bid had on the rest of the auction, but it caused responder to take a different view of Opener's hand.

6♦ - A little presumptuous perhaps, but a hand like: ♠ Axx, ♥void, ♦Qxxxxx, ♣Kxxx (sub-minimum; and not good enough for a 2♣ rebid) gives us a slam on a hook. I think 5♣ is a better call at this point, which at least consults Opener on the decision.

At IMPs, 5♦ is superior to 3N, although with the J♣ dropping and hearts 4-4, 3N was the winner.

[luis]

pclayton, on Jul 14 2004, 06:21 PM, said:

1♥ - This is totally normal, and I will take issue with anyone that disagrees. The hand isn't exactly balanced, and there is no reason to think that 4♥ isn't a possible contract. 2N (or an inverted raise) is really taking a position here. Hopefully your partnership has the tools to ferret out a 3 card raise later in the auction.
dropping and hearts 4-4, 3N was the winner.

I do disagree.
You Ron and the others come one by one :-)
I strongly believe that bidding xxxx as a suit is wrong but since many fabulous players believe it is not let's just agree to disagree on that subject.

[hrothgar]

Here is my take on the auction: I think that 6♦ was the worst bid.

I often open 1♦ holding 4 Diamonds and 5 Clubs if I lack enough strength to reverse. With this said and done, this is not one of the hands that requires this treatment. If partner responds 1H, then I am content to rebid 1NT, treating the stiff ace as xx. With the hand in question, a 1♠ response also looks reasonable.

1♥ is perfectly reasonable. As I have noted before, there is no notion of biddable suits playing 2/1.

Having chosen to open 1♦, the 2♣ rebid is perfectly reasonable. The 2♠ rebid is also reasonable. I also like the 3♠ raise. Angling for a Moysian 4-3 spade fit could work very well.

Suggested auction

1♣ - 1♥
1N - 3N

[whereagles]

Well.. as to bidding 1♥ or not, I think it's a matter of style, not of technique.. Luis might have bid it easily then:

1♦ 3NT
pass

[luke warm]

1D is good, 1H is fine, 2C is good, and now i think 3NT... why ask pard to bid nt when it's probably better if we do?

[Fluffy]

luis, on Jul 14 2004, 06:28 PM, said:

pclayton, on Jul 14 2004, 06:21 PM, said:

1♥ - This is totally normal, and I will take issue with anyone that disagrees. The hand isn't exactly balanced, and there is no reason to think that 4♥ isn't a possible contract. 2N (or an inverted raise) is really taking a position here. Hopefully your partnership has the tools to ferret out a 3 card raise later in the auction.
dropping and hearts 4-4, 3N was the winner.

I do disagree.
You Ron and the others come one by one :-)
I strongly believe that bidding xxxx as a suit is wrong but since many fabulous players believe it is not let's just agree to disagree on that subject.

Let me be first

1m-1M is often a 3 carder when you have minor support and don´t play inverted minors, so can´t find a reason why not to show any 4 card suit.

That is another reason why opener should never ever raise directly with 3 cards.

[pbleighton]

"1m-1M is often a 3 carder when you have minor support and don´t play inverted minors, so can´t find a reason why not to show any 4 card suit.

That is another reason why opener should never ever raise directly with 3 cards."

No, it's another reason to play inverted minors

Peter

[Cascade]

I don't play inverted minors and I don't find the need to bid a three-card major in response to 1minor and I do raise 1m 1M freely with three card support.

Well actually I do play inverted minors in that 3minor is a weaker raise that 2minor but the ranges I use are 0-6 for 3minor and 6-9 for 2minor.

However my point is that there are alternative ways to make a forcing raise in a minor that do not give up on the valuable in my opinion simple raise. Perhaps a simple raise is more valuable for me since I prefer to play four-card minor suits so want to raise more often.

A simple method for forcing raises is criss-cross where 2♦ is a forcing raise of clubs and 3♣ is a forcing raise of diamonds.

[gabika73]

Cascade, on Jul 15 2004, 05:55 AM, said:

A simple method for forcing raises is criss-cross where 2♦ is a forcing raise of clubs and 3♣ is a forcing raise of diamonds.

I use these reaises the other way around.
3 of a minor being pre-empt (0-6),
Criss-cross being mixed (7-9),
and simple raise being INV+ (10+).

On the principle of bigger the hand lower the bid.

[Cascade]

gabika73, on Jul 15 2004, 05:37 AM, said:

I use these reaises the other way around.
3 of a minor being pre-empt (0-6),
Criss-cross being mixed (7-9),
and simple raise being INV+ (10+).

On the principle of bigger the hand lower the bid.

I am sure that this works well on most hands.

However there are some hands that are just worth a simple raise - no more no less.

[Flame]

The one who hold this hand :
QJx
♥ 96xx
♦ KTxx
♣ AQ

had a weak hand which is barly enough for a game vs his partner opning bid, but for some resson he thought he got more and did 3 slam bids, 3sp, 4d, and 6d, all these 3 are wrong and show bad hand evaluation.

[inquiry]

Flame, on Jul 15 2004, 08:24 AM, said:

The one who hold this hand :
QJx
♥ 96xx
♦ KTxx
♣ AQ

had a weak hand which is barly enough for a game vs his partner opning bid, but for some resson he thought he got more and did 3 slam bids, 3sp, 4d, and 6d, all these 3 are wrong and show bad hand evaluation.

I think this is very harsh judgement of "poor hand evalaution." Leave opener with the same hand stregnth and distribution, but change the ♥A to the ♠A and 6♦ is golden. In fact, even with the two hands shown, there is a shot at a Devil's coupe to make 12 tricks if the trump suit nornors are split and a little other luck.

I think this "minimum" hand, with fitting cards and NOTHING wasted in ♥ is on the right track to be worth a slam try. Too bad 4l♦ wasn't minorwood.

Ben