[maris oren]

what should north's bid be?

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[Trinidad]

Raises with silent opponents are different from raises when the opponents are bidding.

When the opponents are quiet, we do not want to raise partner higher than we can afford. This means that we always allow for partner to be minimum for his bid. If partner opens 1♥, we will keep in mind that he may have only 12 points. If we have 6 points and support, we can afford a raise to 2♥. If partner has an absolute minimum hand, he should still have a reasonable chance of making 2♥. This works very nicely: With 6-9, we bid to 2♥. Opener can continue to 3♥ (inviting game) if he can make that opposite my minimum of 6 points. And he will bid game if he can make that opposite my 6 points. If I have 10-11 points, I can bid to 3♥: My 10, together with partner's minimum of 12 points will make sure that we can make at the 3 level.

All this changes when the opponents come in and certainly when they start to preempt. You have less bidding room available and you will have to "bend" things a little. Instead of acting towards the minimum that partner has or what partner promised, you start to act based on what you reasonably can expect from partner. For his 1♥ opening, South has promised 12 points. But, of course, he can have more. It is reasonable to expect about 14-15 points of him: If he really has only 12, that would be unlucky. This means that instead of requiring 11 points for a bid at the 3 level, you require only 8. Of course, the opener needs to be aware that you are bidding based on the assumption that he has a little bit more than a minimum.

So, North should bid 3♥ and South should know that this doesn't promise a limit raise but, as some people call it, a bid of 2.5 hearts.

You will understand from this that if North would have had a decent limit raise, he should simply bid game.

Rik

[KingCovert]

This is an easy 3♥ bid. Don't overthink it. Your diamond suit is an asset, you have great intermediates in the black suits, and obviously, you have support in hearts. This hand is too good to pass, so, what are you bidding? Well, you don't have enough to invite or force game. So, raise to 3♥.

If you had more, you could consider bidding a minor as some sort of game try. Let's say you had KQx♥ and KQJxx♦. I'd be bidding 3♦ on that hand, which I'd consider semi-forcing due to your prior pass. Some might disagree though. In this auction, you'd be protected by your previous pass, as a new suit at the 3-level would necessarily have to have length or heart tolerance. For game-forcing sequences (let's say you'd never passed), you could cue-bid spades, or simply shove game after bidding a new suit (forcing without a pass now IMO). You could also raise 4♥ with a weaker more distributional hand with long heart support.

[mikeh]

Paraphrasing Trinidad, one way to look at these space-consuming auctions is to lower, slightly,the minimum required for 3H, had your opponent passed, or bid at the one level. So you pass, rather than raising hearts, with a hand that would be a at age or worse for 2H, and bid with a hand that would be a solid 2H raise.

When you lower the minimum, logic suggests that you also lower the maximum, so as to preserve a reasonable range. After all, opener will often want to think about bidding game. If your range for 3H has become too wide, opener is going to guess wrong, by passing irby iddong, too often. That in turn means that you will bid game,rather than 3H, a little more often (or cuebid asa forcing raise).

However, being a passed hand opposite a 3rd seat opener, you rarely have to worry about this. OTOH, had you not already passed, you might well have a better hand.

On the actual hand, at match points I think it close between bidding 3H and passing. You have the worst possible spade holding, short trump, sterile shape and no aces.

Also, depending on who you are playing, west does not need to be all that weak. His partner is also a passed hand. I, fore ample, might well hold something like QJxxxx x xxx AJx. Or KQJxxx xx xx AQx

In mps, overbidding to a dubious game is not a long-term recipe for success.

At imps, if not vulnerable, much the same arithmetic applies. However, vulnerable at imps one stretches tobid games,due to the ratio of imps won/lost.

Here, if responder passes opener doubles and now north can be sure opener has a decent to good hand, with shortish spades, and can now choose, if he wants, to bid game. However, since game requires a trump break and the club Ace onside (see my point about knowing the style of your opponents), this is not a game where one should feel badly about missing it.

Finally, of course we see that game Isco,d on the actual hand. But allowing that to influence the analysis is a very common bu5 bad mistake.