[OleBerg]

Would have passed the first time. That "can be a doubleton" 1♦ is generally a weak spot for them, but occasionally it bothers the opponents. I take my medicine.

For once, I disagree with Gnasher; X of 1♦ and a subsequent X of 2♠, should show a hand to strong for anything but X on the first round, and now take-out of spades. Really, do you need to be able to show "about three spades"? When you know partner has "about two spades"?

[Mbodell]

I play 2♦ is natural over the 2+ 1♦, and I'd bid it on this hand. It is an underbid, but 2♦ and likely follow up of 3♣ over 2♠ advance will help with the proper strain.

[Poky]

mtvesuvius, on 2011-July-08, 17:11, said:

Playing with an expert partner in Bracket 1 of a Sectional KO, I held:

---

IMPs, See alerts for the explanations.

1. What do you do over 1♦?
2. If you double, as I did, the auction will continue as above -- Agree with the second double?
3. What do you do over 3♣?

1. Clear pass
2. Do not like it, but I don't have any better bid.
3. Bid 3♦ as cue for clubs.

[Free]

I wouldn't Dbl 1♦, I'd probably overcall a natural 2♦ here and show my strength and true shape later on if I get the chance.

[xxhong]

If you play 2NT to show weaker hands, then 3C shows some values and you should bid more. Here, 3D looks quite nice, which allow partner to bid 3NT with suitable hands.
The first double is OK, since you tend to bid NT over partner's spade bid, which is probably the only sensible line when they are white. Pass is also acceptable.

[mike gill]

Little late to the party, but this is a clear pass the first time, as others have said. 1♦ is sort of semiforcing
in precision anyway so you run very little risk of it passing out. Even if it does, they're red and it's not like you were guaranteed a game anyway. I'm hoping for 1♦ 1♠ 1N so I can light it up.

I think this would be a hard problem if they were white, but I still think I would pass - LHO will probably bid something if he has nothing trying to steal. I still don't like double with a singleton spade when there's a reasonable alternative. I don't agree with the logic that just because partner won't bid 4♠ at his first call (which I think he still could btw) that he can't hurt us.

[benlessard]

Passing 1D is clearcut for me. Sometimes youre going to need to have to guess later but there is huge +EV equity in them going wrong/having no fit when they are red. Here its very unlucky they have a 9 card fit & partner has a perfecto. I can surely see something like

(1D)-(1S)-(1NT)-X (strong hand rather than H+C) and even if they have a s fit they may go -500 against a partscore, if they have no fit it can be in the -800, -1100 range. For the other options my preference is

X>2D>1nt but pass is way ahead.

[ArtK78]

mtvesuvius, on 2011-July-09, 23:05, said:

OK so people are all over the place here.

I thought this was definitely way too strong for a 1NT overcall, and so that was out of the question. We did not have a natural 2♦ available, but even if we did, it looks like an underbid.

Partner is never bidding 4♠ if we double, there simply isn't enough values left, and if they somehow do have a 4♠ call, more power to them. Given that we are unlikely to hear a bunch of spades from partner, I figured that Double was a reasonable start.

Once I chose to double and the auction came back to me, I felt fairly pleased to be able to double again. I think this should be a stronger-than 1N type hand, or just general purpose extras. This seemed like the perfect description, and I was happy with whatever partner chose to do.

Over 3♣ I wasn't happy about it, but I chose to pass. It seemed unlikely that partner had a perfecto to make 5m or 3N, given that they couldn't take a call over 1♥.

I think at MPs, passing this hand is reasonable over 1♦, but at IMPs, it is simply asking for trouble. If I had passed, it would have gone 1♠ by LHO, and 2♠ by RHO. Now if I double, 2N by partner probably should be scrambling (or is at least standard that way), so when partner bids 3♣, I'm still just as bad off, and perhaps worse: I feel like I have underbid by a lot now.

So the full deal was:

---

Partner took 10 tricks... Of course 3N is gin with the perfecto that partner had, but I thought it was a very interesting bidding problem even if unsolvable.

Unsolvable? I advocated pass over 1♦, double over 2♠ and 3♠ over partner's 3♣ call. Partner should bid 3NT. (If partner is too chicken to bid 3NT on his QTx of spades, we will get to 4♣, which is not a problem)

[Cyberyeti]

ArtK78, on 2011-July-12, 12:28, said:

Unsolvable? I advocated pass over 1♦, double over 2♠ and 3♠ over partner's 3♣ call. Partner should bid 3NT. (If partner is too chicken to bid 3NT on his QTx of spades, we will get to 4♣, which is not a problem)

Yeah, fine if he has the hand he actually has, not sure it looks so good opposite the xxx, xxx, xxx, xxxx he might have for 4♣x-2 or worse, it really plays badly on 2 rounds of spades if partner can't stop the 3rd round (and I don't even want to think about what's going to happen if they have a 4-4 spade fit and pard is 4333, all small).

[benlessard]

Cyberyeti, on 2011-July-12, 15:05, said:

Yeah, fine if he has the hand he actually has, not sure it looks so good opposite the xxx, xxx, xxx, xxxx he might have for 4♣x-2 or worse, it really plays badly on 2 rounds of spades if partner can't stop the 3rd round (and I don't even want to think about what's going to happen if they have a 4-4 spade fit and pard is 4333, all small).

+200 for us is a likeky result if partner is broke with 4333 shape

(my mistake its only possible after a X of 1D not a pass of 1D)