[Walddk]

I have got two bidding problems for you, well at least I think that one has a problem.

1.
♠ KJ3
♥ Q8
♦ Q862
♣ 10964

Fourth in hand, the opponents are vulnerable, you are not. LHO opens 4♥, double by partner (take-out), pass to you. What is your bid?

----

2.
♠ void
♥ AKQ863
♦ K987
♣ 1097

Third in hand this time; again opps are vul and you are not. Your partner opens a natural 1♣, 4♠ from RHO. Now it's you. Very annoying when they pre-empt, but that's what pre-empts are for. Good luck!

Roland

[jdeegan]

On both hands I think I am not that clever, just a simple country fellow. Fear dominates over greed on both.

On the first I have to try 4♠ and hope the putative 4-3 fit works out because of my relatively robust high card holding.

On the second, I do not have any spades, so I am going to try to play the hand at 5♥.

If you have any clever solutions, I would love to hear them. Hands like these give me gas.

[han]

Perhaps the first problem is not hard, but certainly unpleasant. I would also try 4S.


I like the second hand so much that I will give it a 4NT followed by 4H. This shows a better hand than 4H directly. 4NT ostensibly shows the red suits, but partner will know what's going on when I pull to 5H.

[the hog]

In the days of my callow youth I would have bid 4S on the first hand. These bids work out better in theory than in practice. Now I think 4NT is best.

Hand 2 is a 5H bid.

[Walddk]

Jlall, on Sep 11 2005, 06:37 AM, said:

Takeout should not be taken too literally. Partner would double with any balanced strong NT or better.

I agree Justin, but I need to point out that it's take-out since many do not play take-out doubles this high. Some play it through 2♠, others through 3♠, and for them double of 4♥ would be for business.

Roland

[EricK]

Pass on the first - 4 tricks are easier than 11.

5♥ on the second. I don't think I am quite strong enough for 4NT followed by 5♥. I don't like xxx in partner's suit, and the ♥ are not solid enough in the face of likely bad breaks with no guarantee of support from partner. Call me a coward if you must!

Eric

[whereagles]

1. Pass.
2. 5H.

[Walddk]

EricK, on Sep 11 2005, 08:47 AM, said:

Pass on the first - 4 tricks are easier than 11.

Indeed or really(?) as you please. Remind me not to double 4♥ with

AQxx
void
KJxxx
KQJx

or similar as I will lose a double game swing.

Roland

[kfgauss]

Jlall, on Sep 11 2005, 05:51 AM, said:

I think 4N is either:

diamonds and clubs (with at least 2 more diamonds)
diamonds and hearts
good 5H bid.

Why not clubs & hearts?

Also, I don't know how to run real simulations, but I put the first hand into Jack and asked it to "Analyze this position" (it generates 1000 possible hands and double dummy analyzes them I think) and it spat out: (annoyingly enough it computes "expected total points")

4S = -354
5D = -502
5C = -542

(by opps, presumably their expected score:)
4H = 209 [ie our expected score is -209, I think]
5H = -285
6H = -958

It presumably assumes your contracts will be doubled when they fail by several tricks (and hopefully always uses 4Hx? more on this below). I don't think this is so accurate, though -- e.g. its displayed definition of partner's double was "hcp=14+" (perhaps it uses a more accurate definition internally for the calculations). (If you care, its displayed definition of 4H was 7-9 playing tricks, 7+ hearts, 3-13 hcp.)

I worry, though, that it's correcting afterwards for 4H being doubled or something: its conclusion from this analysis was "Jack's intention: 4S" even though pass seems indicated by the numbers. One should also of course note that something like "the better of 5C and 5D" should be calculated -- Jack can apparently take such things into consideration when coming up with its "intention" but I don't know whether it knows about a 4NT bid.

Does anyone have suggestions for better simulators (e.g. which give more than "expected total points" and allow user definitions -- and which preferably could deal with "5C or 5D" type questions)?

Andy

(For what it's worth, I'm probably a passer on the first hand and a 5H bidder on the second.)

[the hog]

Passing the first hand is very poor. Not only may 4H well make, this sort of thing destroys partnership confidence. Xs are for takeout!

[EricK]

The_Hog, on Sep 11 2005, 09:33 AM, said:

Passing the first hand is very poor. Not only may 4H well make, this sort of thing destroys partnership confidence. Xs are for takeout!

It only destroys partnership confidence if partner doesn't expect you to pass on hands like this.

If he does, and you bid and you go down at the 5 level when 4H was going down then there is a danger you will destroy partnership confidence!

Eric

[P_Marlowe]

1) Pass, what else?

2) 4NT Good Bad, intendeing to big 5H, to show that I am not
strectching

With kind regards
Marlowe

[han]

I don't double 4H with any 15-17 balanced hand. I don't double with xx AKJx AJx Kxxx. For me, the take-out double is take-out, even though it includes a larger variety of hands than a double of 1H.

I play this double quite differently than the double of 4S, which also doesn't show a trump stack but there partner is only expected to pull with a lot of shape.

Since the second hand plays well in slam opposite many suitable minimum hands (xxx xxx Ax AQJxx), I think that 4NT is the correct call. Partner can be much better than this.

[mikeh]

Pass stands out on the first hand: I agree entirely with Justin. I strongly suspect that this hand would not make it into, for example, a Bridge World Master Solvers because pass would be virtually unanimous. Will bidding sometimes be right? Of course. Will it usually be right? No. And even if bidding is right, you still have to get to the winning spot. See for instance those who would venture a 4♠ call (aiming for the 3-3 fit opposite a high-level preempt deserves a medal for bravery but will not inspire your teammates). Those who bid 4N will likely reach their best suit: a 4-4 fit at the 5-level. Kudos to them, but I would prefer, frankly, to be the teammates of the ones who went -790.... the 15 imps I lose on this hand will come back on others in the long term.

As for partnership confidence, if it is shaken by your pass, you are in the wrong partnership anyway

On the second hand, my first reaction was to blast 6♥. Going through 4N first may be technically superior, but partner will be looking at poor majors.
Qxx Jx Axx AJxxx gives me a great play for slam and he will never bid over 5♥ with that.

The vulnerability cuts both ways. If we were red v white, 6♥ has the extra edge that my LHO may well bid 6♠ even when 6♥ was failing. As it is, we can be comfortable that RHO almost certainly has great ♠. This reduces the deck to 30-32 hcp, of which we hold 12 and partner likely holds 12-14. Give partner almost any hand with 12-13 points outside of ♠ and 6♥ will have a play unless trump are foul, in which case 5♥, bid the slow way, will likely also fail.

BTW, we can be aggresive here because any minor suit squeeze (a real possibility on many layouts) will probably work.

I am going to stick to my first instinct: 6♥.

.

[mr1303]

Last time I bid 6H with a hand similar to the second variety after a similar auction. Partner put down a heart void and an 8 card diamond suit (he actually opened 1D). 6D was cold, 6H 3 off