[HardVector]

So, I've been on this crusade for people to be more disciplined in their bidding for awhile now. Disciplined does not mean conservative, timid or imply you should underbid your hands. Simply put, if you make a bid that has a certain value to it, then your hand should live up to that valuation through overall strength or through distribution.

---

So now you have this hand. What is 3c? Normally, it should show something like 16-18 with 6+ clubs and be invitational to game. With the interference, however, a lot of people like to play this as just "competitive", which to a number of people is synonymous with minimal (I hate defending). You know you are going to bid spades, but 3 or 4? 4 would tend to kill the auction destroying any chance of getting to a slam, but is 3 forcing? Without the interference, how many would play 3s as forcing?

I was asked about this hand and I suggested the auction above, which is what they did, was correct. 3c should show a quality hand. Maybe not the 16 count needed without the interference, but might be shaded with heart shortness. I got the response of, "Well, we actually just play it as competitive, but I didn't know what to do with it". Their partner then bid 3s, which they both agree was weak. East didn't want to overbid in case partner was a minimum, and west didn't want to bury a partner with 4 points. 3s making 5.

8 out of 18 who played this failed to reach the easy 4s game.

---

Now, some NS pairs may have bid 1h-3h, I'm not sure how that changed things. Even with the preempt, it shouldn't be too difficult to get to 4s. The whole point of this, is that the lack of disciple in bidding has caused all these questions on how good hands are that bid at higher levels. I admit that if the opponents execute a preempt, you may be forced into guessing how high to go. These kind of scenarios should be easy, however. You just have to have the discipline to pass the 2h bid with minimal hands. Once partner knows that you have a good hand, it gets easy. Then on the flip side, the 3s bid should be forcing and forward going. You need the discipline to pass 3c with 6(or 7) spades and a lousy hand. Yes, it may actually make 3s and be the superior contract. I think it's better to have a constructive meaning to the bid than force partner to guess what in the world you have.

See you when I spot my next windmill.

[Stephen Tu]

• A lot of experts play some variant of good-bad 2nt to distinguish shapely club hands that want to bid 3c on distribution from strongish 3c that have extra high card values as well
• 3S though not necessarily forcing if 3c is just competitive should be invitational/forward-going at least, as a weak hand with long spades is normally weak jump shifting at first opportunity, not bidding 1s
• I think 1s on the first round is a bit absurd, why would you not just bid 4s?
• I think 3s on the 2nd round is also absurd.

[HardVector]

Stephen Tu, on 2019-September-07, 18:17, said:

• A lot of experts play some variant of good-bad 2nt to distinguish shapely club hands that want to bid 3c on distribution from strongish 3c that have extra high card values as well
• 3S though not necessarily forcing if 3c is just competitive should be invitational/forward-going at least, as a weak hand with long spades is normally weak jump shifting at first opportunity, not bidding 1s
• I think 1s on the first round is a bit absurd, why would you not just bid 4s?
• I think 3s on the 2nd round is also absurd.

I don't think 3s is absurd if you are proceeding under the assumption that it is forcing. I agree that having a good/bad 2n bid in your pocket is nice, this is a club game. I think not having a good/bad bid available, you should pass with the bad, not make partner guess.

Most of this auction isn't high quality, I admit. Almost 50% of the field didn't find 4s, however, so I don't think this is isolated. I was astonished that one pair actually played in 2s!

[Stephen Tu]

Without good/bad, I think you pass with the absolute bottom of your bad range, but IMO you absolutely have to drop your standards substantially below an uncontested jump 3c rebid or a "good" 3c rebid playing good/bad. Selling out meekly to 2H too often is just losing bridge, you can't count on partner to reopen all the time when a lot of your passes are weak NT hands with no good place to go, likely 5cd clubs only.

No matter what you play, there are going to be hands where partner has to guess a bit. Good/bad can alleviate the problem a bit but not completely. Competition takes away bidding room, less bidding room = more guessing/less accuracy, it's unavoidable.

[HardVector]

I kind of disagree with this. For me, the hand in question is the bottom of the range I would bid 3c with. Give me A xx xxxx AKQTxx and I would pass 2h. Yes, I can see that defending 2h is probably a bad idea, but partner is still there. What are they going to pass with? I always like to stress that you should be disciplined in the direct seat and aggressive when balancing. Passing tends to keep the auction in the range that you can deal with. If you can bid 3c with strong hands as well as hands that are not strong, but don't have a great deal of defense, then partner is always going to be guessing what you can make.

On those occasions where partner can't balance, one of two things have occurred. Either we have missed out on a part score we could have made, or they have failed to drive to the game they could make. I can deal with the first occurrence if it will enhance the auctions where I don't pass.

[FelicityR]

I try to look on distributional hands like this as "bid backwards". What would you open with the East hand vulnerable? 4♠ seems the obvious choice.

Partner's already indicated an opening hand, maybe a little bit more than extras here with the 3♣ bid, but has that bid helped your hand? Not really, except if he/she has an exceptional fit and key cards.

On that basis I'll just bid 4♠ and congratulate those where 6♠ can be bid and made through scientific bidding. I believe the Americanism "Landing on a Dime" applies here. Just bid what the hand feels is the right bid.

[mikeh]

I pretty much agree with Stephen.

It is an error, IMO, to conflate a competitive 3C call with a jump to 3C had S passed over 1S. This has nothing to do with discipline. It has to do with the realities of bridge. In competition, the low end of a constructive action is, generally, lower than it would be absent the interference, and the high end is compressed as well, generally speaking.

To require that opener pass 2H with, say, A xx xxxx AKQxxx is losing bridge, be it mps or imps. Look at that hand and picture partnervwith something like Jxxxx Kx Axx xx and he has no action over 2H when it is passed back to him. After all, you might hold Kx Jxx Qxx AQxxx, but when you have the A xx xxxx AKQxxx now you’re defending 2H when 3N is a great contract. Sure, a diamond lead would be unfortunate but in the real world everyone leads a heart.

As for what east should bid, to bid 3S is frankly silly. You know where you want to play, so tell partner about your hand. Bid 4S. He will know you have long, self-sufficient spades since his 3C did not imply support. 3S isn’t ‘disciplined’. It is fundamentally misleading.

As for slam, what is it about the east hand, with no Aces and xx in hearts, that suggests a slam?

Give partner Ax x Axxx AKxxxx and now slam is fine, but an expert partner, seeing the 4S bid, might well take another call over 4S. Meanwhile, partner’s almost never have magic cards, plus the auction suggests he doesn’t have a stiff heart.

[nekthen]

"8 out of 18 who played this failed to reach the easy 4s game"

Poll the 10 who bid to 4♠. I bet at least 9 bid 4♠ on the first round.

Playing 2N as a lebensohl style puppet to 3c certainly helps, a strong hand with a good heart stop can double 2♥, partner will not leave it in.

It is a interesting topic but let down by a bad example hand

[nullve]

mikeh, on 2019-September-07, 22:45, said:

Jxxxx Kx Axx xx

12 cards.

[maartenxq]

What about 1♣- 1 ♥- 4 ♠?

Bid what you think you can make as old English acol told us.

Maarten Baltussen

[Lovera]

Why don't bid 2♥ by E planning for a (further extension of the UCB) subsequent 3♠ over any partner's bid ?

[amre_man]

I, as well, look and advocate for disciplined bidding. This is required for an open game at club. But seems to be rarely found in casual BBO games.

With my face to face partners, 3♣ requires a 5 loser hand.

4♠ on 1st round suggests a weak hand. While true that East has only 8 hcp, the 5 losers makes this hand anything but weak.

East has an 8 card ♠ suit, a 5 loser hand, and his partner opened. East knows that he will bid 4♠ at some point. As 1♠ is forcing, East has time.

I would not assume 3♠ as forcing. So after West rebids 3♣ confirming his strength, I bid 4♠ showing mine. Mostly a drop dead bid but still showing something extra.

[HardVector]

mikeh, on 2019-September-07, 22:45, said:

As for what east should bid, to bid 3S is frankly silly. You know where you want to play, so tell partner about your hand. Bid 4S. He will know you have long, self-sufficient spades since his 3C did not imply support. 3S isn’t ‘disciplined’. It is fundamentally misleading.

I'm not talking about discipline with the 3s hand. I agree that bidding a 3s bid that you know partner can pass is silly. My problem with this whole thing is having the agreement that 3s can be passed to begin with. With that agreement in place, you are basically acknowledging that you made an error in bidding 3c to begin with because partner was going to balance with 2s (or 3s). Now, after messing up the auction with 3c, you have to figure out the situation. So you say, in that case, 3s must always be passed. So now they have to bid 4s, but now 4s doesn't show THIS hand, it just shows any hand with GF values that has 6 spades. 2 of the people not in 4s were in 5c. I'm willing to bet the auction was similar to this one, got a 4s bid, and their partner bid 5c. Either they did that as a slam try, or were unsure of partner's spades. Either one of these views caused the bottoms they got.

The title of this is what bridge has become. It has become less of a constructive conversation with your partner to determine what we can make, and more of a get your bid in fast and we'll figure it out later.

[Stephen Tu]

Lovera, on 2019-September-08, 08:00, said:

What don't bid 2♥ by E planning for a (further extension of the UCB) subsequent 3♠ over any partner's bid ?(Lovera)

For nearly everyone, a direct 2♥ by East shows club support and absolutely denies a long spade suit, shows 3 card spades max. Any good hand with spades would start with 1S or negative double, besides perhaps a few 4xx7 freaks.

The 3 spade bid preceded by the 2♥ bid would be interpreted as a stopper looking for 3nt or an advanced cue looking for spades, partner is not going to let you play in spades after starting with a cue, a minor raise denying spades. 4S will also be a cue bid.

It's better to just bid 4S directly which shows something approximating this hand and gives partner a reasonable idea what to do if he happens to have a very good hand or if opps compete to 5H.

[Stephen Tu]

HardVector, on 2019-September-08, 09:31, said:

I'm not talking about discipline with the 3s hand. I agree that bidding a 3s bid that you know partner can pass is silly. My problem with this whole thing is having the agreement that 3s can be passed to begin with. With that agreement in place, you are basically acknowledging that you made an error in bidding 3c to begin with because partner was going to balance with 2s (or 3s).

That's not logical. When you bid 3c you are simply describing your hand. You don't know how strong partner is at that point in time, and whether or not he has a hand to balance with. Maybe he stuck in 1 spade with a weak balanced 7-8 count, because he was only at the 1 level, and laying claim to the boss suit is a very valuable thing, in case you have a fit there. But he has only a one bid hand, coming back in after you've denied fit is just too much. 3C when you have the shape/suit quality for it takes pressure off him balancing on rather daft hands. If he has to balance with crap then your side plays a lot of bad 2S/2nt/3c contracts that drift two off vul. And you can't pass the double with some hands that want to saw off 2H if partner has extras (doesn't happen a lot but I've had good scores here, opps being in a 7 cd fit for some reason or just the 4-1 break being enough). If he doesn't balance, you lose too many double partial swings to make up for your slightly increased accuracy holding the "good" 3c bids. If he balances with hands that you were supposed to defend with to cater to all these offensive hands you are declining to bid without your required huge extras, you can also turn plus positions against 2H into minus positions declaring.

Having 3S forcing does make life easier when both opener and responder have strong hands and slam is in view, but how often does that happen with both opps bidding, vs hands that are partial competitions or game is max?

Quote

Now, after messing up the auction with 3c, you have to figure out the situation. So you say, in that case, 3s must always be passed.

Uh, no. 3S is invitational, opener will often accept. He can pass with a control poor min mostly club hand. He should accept with the given hand.

Quote

So now they have to bid 4s, but now 4s doesn't show THIS hand, it just shows any hand with GF values that has 6 spades.

Of course they should have bid 4S the first round to show this hand. With some random GF with 6 cd spades that aren't self-sufficient for 4S or too strong for 4S, there is always 3D/3H to probe.
It's not like your proposed sequence of 1S ... 3S ... 4S shows this hand any more clearly than a 2nd round jump to 4S does!

Quote

The title of this is what bridge has become. It has become less of a constructive conversation with your partner to determine what we can make, and more of a get your bid in fast and we'll figure it out later.

In competition, you have to describe your hands quickly these days, because the opps will often be raising/preempting you out of being able to show your hands slowly. If opener is passing a lot of 3C hands that other people are bidding, you are missing a ton of good partials or partner balances on crap and you play bad partials. Or overcaller bids 3H and you miss out on 4c/3nt since responder never finds out about opener's good club suit.

You have to cater your ranges to handle the hands that come up most frequently. On this hand, what advantage did bidding 1S ... 3S ... 4S gain you vs the people who just responded 4S the first round?

[Lovera]

Stephen Tu, on 2019-September-08, 10:09, said:

For nearly everyone, a direct 2♥ by East shows club support and absolutely denies a long spade suit, shows 3 card spades max. Any good hand with spades would start with 1S or negative double, besides perhaps a few 4xx7 freaks.

The 3 spade bid preceded by the 2♥ bid would be interpreted as a stopper looking for 3nt or an advanced cue looking for spades, partner is not going to let you play in spades after starting with a cue, a minor raise denying spades. 4S will also be a cue bid.

It's better to just bid 4S directly which shows something approximating this hand and gives partner a reasonable idea what to do if he happens to have a very good hand or if opps compete to 5H.

I don' t think so. You can read about it here, clicking on the url:https://www.bridgeba...post__p__887390 and then at the bottom of page.In this way is showed a long spade suit (fourthemore at lower level).

[pescetom]

HardVector, on 2019-September-08, 09:31, said:

The title of this is what bridge has become. It has become less of a constructive conversation with your partner to determine what we can make, and more of a get your bid in fast and we'll figure it out later.

As nekthen said, that is a fascinating topic but the example is so poor that it's hindering discussion. Maybe try again with a different example (clearly undisciplined and not too system specific) or none at all.

[mikeh]

Lovera, on 2019-September-08, 11:32, said:

I don' t think so. You can read about it here, clicking on the url:https://www.bridgeba...post__p__887390 and then at the bottom of page.In this way is showed a long spade suit (fourthemore at lower level).

In standard, 2H shows clubs. It is possible to agree to play other methods. For example, in my two serious partnerships, we play that 2H shows 6+ spades with invitational or better values, and use 2S as the limit or better club raise. However, this is far from standard. When one confuses agreements such as this for ‘standard’, your bidding will become impossible for partner to understand (absent an explicit agreement)

On the larger topic of disciplined v undisciplined bidding, I tend to be on the disciplined side, but it is important to distinguish between discipline and conservative. In competitive auctions, one should err on the side of aggression rather than conservatism. Aggressive bidding need not be and should not be undisciplined bidding. Watch high-level expert bridge and you will see a lot of aggressive bidding but, unless the match has become lop-sided, very little undisciplined bidding. An aggressive bid is undisciplined if it is based on a holding that partner will not cater to, because it is outside of the bounds of partnership style/agreements


For me, passing over 2H with A xx xxxx AKQ10xx, as the OP suggests, would be undisciplined (in the opposite direction than the OP complains about) since partner will never play me for this hand.

[Lovera]

mikeh, on 2019-September-08, 12:15, said:

In standard, 2H shows clubs. It is possible to agree to play other methods. For example, in my two serious partnerships, we play that 2H shows 6+ spades with invitational or better values, and use 2S as the limit or better club raise. However, this is far from standard. When one confuses agreements such as this for 'standard', your bidding will become impossible for partner to understand (absent an explicit agreement)

It's implicit to have an agreement on this extension that can not be usual. It needs to think also that partner can have not the Ace/- as support.

[Stephen Tu]

Lovera, on 2019-September-08, 11:32, said:

I don' t think so. You can read about it here, clicking on the url:https://www.bridgeba...post__p__887390 and then at the bottom of page.In this way is showed a long spade suit (fourthemore at lower level).

No. You are confusing entirely different auctions.
1. By the *opening* side, standard methods.1X-(overcall)-(cue bid overcalled suit).Here, the cue bid 100% promises support and denies in principle unbid major. Why? Because you have available forcing bid (new suit, on this post's auction 1S) and negative doubles to show unbid major. There is no need to overload cue bid to show forcing hands with unbid major because you can simply bid the other major, new suit played as forcing (when not playing "negative free bids"). In subsequent rounds you can then cue bid on some hands to continue to force at lower levels, with your initial bid having indicated long unbid major as the reason to force. This makes it unambiguous between GF hands with other major from GF hands with support for partner only and not the other major.
2. By *overcalling* side, some methods.1X-(overcall)-p-(cue bid of opening suit)Here, the problems are different. This is because in standard methods for most, new suits by advancer are *NON-FORCING* after partner's overcall, as opposed to being standard as forcing by responder after an opening 1 suit bid. This is because the opening bid and partner's lower min for an overcall makes game less likely, and people prioritize bidding on weaker hands catering to getting to the best partial over having lots of forcing calls available to get to game. So auctions like (1S)-2c-(p)-2H are usually played as NF. So therefore when you get a rare forcing heart call, you need to do something stronger than 2H. There are multiple ways to do this. *Some*, but not all people put the forcing call into the cue bid, so then the cue bid does not promise support. After this start they would attempt bid 2S then 3H to show forcing with hearts. But this makes it awkward for partner to say bid 3nt when he wants to if 2S cue bid promised a good club raise. So other people instead use a jump to 3H (1s-2c-p-3h) as the forcing bid with hearts (giving up possible meanings like weak with hearts, or fit showing with hearts), so that they don't have to stuff non-raise hands into the cue bid. Also on some auctions some people use transfer bids (1c-1s-p-2d!) schemes to create ways to take possibly multiple bids with a new suit and a strong hand. (Search web for "Rubens advances" or "transfer advances of overcalls").

It is also possible to agree new suit by advancer of overcall as forcing one round, possibly only at certain levels. But that reduces some of the hands you can safely try to bid on since you will be forcing up a level.