[AL78]

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The 3♣ bid by North was described as natural. I disapproved of the 2NT bid on a 5-4 shape. Partner's reasoning was she felt she was too strong to pass and wanted to bid something. I thought 2♦ would be better if she had to bid something. I explained that her hand has defence as well as offense and as such I could be lured into a phantom sacrifice.

As it happens the opponents are cold for game and North failed to find the heart switch when they were in. Once I got back in the hand looked like one of those BridgeMaster elimination and throw in hands (there was one almost exactly like the hand here) so I drew trumps, ruffed clubs back to hand noting South was out, ruffed my last spade in dummy and played a heart to hand covering North's card cheaply. South wins and is endplayed into giving me the king of hearts or a ruff and discard. One down for a 50% board. Could have been better but two NS pairs only managed nine tricks in the spade game.

[pescetom]

I'm struggling to see why N thought it wise to bid a natural 3C. Might the opening bid be 4 cards?

[AL78]

pescetom, on 2023-February-19, 07:43, said:

I'm struggling to see why N thought it wise to bid a natural 3C. Might the opening bid be 4 cards?

Yes.

[thepossum]

AL78, on 2023-February-19, 06:55, said:

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... I disapproved of the 2NT bid on a 5-4 shape. ....

Oh dear. That's the kind of thing I would do

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

#1 the 5-4 shape is not an issue, if you have agreed, that a 2-suited overcall can be
made on 54

#2 More problematic is the in between strength, ..., again not a big issue, if you have
agreed to bid 2-suited hands using continious strength style, instead of the classic weak
or strong

If you did not discuss this before hand, ..., the result will be random.

My main issue with 2NT vs. 2D, besides bidding an undiscussed 2NT, is: the heart suit gets lost.

If you bid 2D, and 2S comes back to you, you can make a T/O, bringing hearts in the picture,
telling partner your strength, and having shown your 5 card suit.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[thepossum]

Does everyone really never deviate by a single card or a single point on their bidding.

Is that on your card?

Mine will explicitly state the flexibility and discretion will be used to pick what I feel is the best bid at the time

If you have to do it for every single bid its going to be a very busy card

But the Unusual 2NT and Michaels bids are my favorites in that particular regard

[P_Marlowe]

thepossum, on 2023-February-21, 20:44, said:

Does everyone really never deviate by a single card or a single point on their bidding.

Is that on your card?

Mine will explicitly state the flexibility and discretion will be used to pick what I feel is the best bid at the time

If you have to do it for every single bid its going to be a very busy card

But the Unusual 2NT and Michaels bids are my favorites in that particular regard

If I face a partner, who did not have yet the chance to make a bid, I will make the agreed book bid.
We also play highly agressive preempts, deviation makes the whole thing unworkable.
It is important to know in lots of situation to know, who the joker is.

[AL78]

thepossum, on 2023-February-21, 20:44, said:

Does everyone really never deviate by a single card or a single point on their bidding.

Is that on your card?

Mine will explicitly state the flexibility and discretion will be used to pick what I feel is the best bid at the time

If you have to do it for every single bid its going to be a very busy card

But the Unusual 2NT and Michaels bids are my favorites in that particular regard

Yes, but in this situation I think it is unwise. There is a difference between 5-5 and 5-4 shape in terms of offence to defence ratio, especially one holding aces and kings, and when partner holds equal length in both suits (playing in a 4-3 fit with a 5-3 fit on the side is not fun). The issue is you have a partner that is going to take action on the assumption you have a distributional hand, which could easily be a phantom sac or a failure to extract a penalty because they weren't expecting so much defence opposite. The only thing I cans see in favour of overcalling 2NT is that the values are concentrated in the minor suits.

In a situation like Landy it is not a problem to be 5-4 in the majors because there exists an intervening bid (2D) to enquire about partner's best suit, that doesn't exist here.

[pescetom]

AL78, on 2023-February-22, 07:04, said:

Yes, but in this situation I think it is unwise. There is a difference between 5-5 and 5-4 shape in terms of offence to defence ratio, especially one holding aces and kings, and when partner holds equal length in both suits (playing in a 4-3 fit with a 5-3 fit on the side is not fun). The issue is you have a partner that is going to take action on the assumption you have a distributional hand, which could easily be a phantom sac or a failure to extract a penalty because they weren't expecting so much defence opposite. The only thing I cans see in favour of overcalling 2NT is that the values are concentrated in the minor suits.

In a situation like Landy it is not a problem to be 5-4 in the majors because there exists an intervening bid (2D) to enquire about partner's best suit, that doesn't exist here.

The other issue with Unusual is that you really want to win the contract, otherwise you painted a picture for Declarer, and being 5-4 or wide ranged is not a good start towards winning the contract. Even I learned to play it truly 5-5.

Much the same is true for Michaels too, but you are a level lower and can risk 5-4 which increases frequency significantly (fourfold IIRC).

Landy is different not just because it has an ask, at least over strong NT: your chances of making game are very low and so it's more a destructive move than anything else, I have no compunction about bidding 4-4 (agreement honestly disclosed) with the right hand at favourable vulnerability (although I'm not sure what systems experts would have to say about that, most sources suggest 5-4).

[helene_t]

thepossum, on 2023-February-21, 20:44, said:

Does everyone really never deviate by a single card or a single point on their bidding.

Probably most of us would occasionally have a card less in one suit than we show. I might consider an unusual 2NT overcall on something like xx-xx-KJxxx-AKQJ. Since double would show 3+ in the unbid major and 2♦ would show a better suit, there's no good alternative.

But this particular hand doesn't give any reason to bid 2NT. West has a fairly normal double, and also 2♦ is better than 2NT.