[pclayton]

Well I think its closer than everyone thinks. Don't even suggest making a call at IMPs on this. But MPs is interesting.

If they make 1N, -90 rates to suck. If they are going down, then +50 vs. our partscore doesn't look too appetizing. If they are going -2, then -100 isn't too nice either. Hard to see a lot of upside to a pass, except to avoid a # our way.

The worse our hand is, the better pard's hand is. This is especially true when a double by pard can mean just about anything but a penalty.

If you have a phobia about balancing with this drek, then add two kings. Has the hand gotten better? I would argue that it has gotten worse, since our honors are sitting under the strong NT bidder.

Still, the honor structure of this hand sucks, and there is a logical limit to what we rate to hold in this position, and this doesn't quite pass muster.

[awm]

pclayton, on Nov 28 2005, 02:25 PM, said:

If they make 1N, -90 rates to suck. If they are going down, then +50 vs. our partscore doesn't look too appetizing. If they are going -2, then -100 isn't too nice either. Hard to see a lot of upside to a pass, except to avoid a # our way.

I've seen a lot of people reason like this. But it seems like there is a strong assumption here that we can make something. The other side of the reasoning would seem to be:

If we bid and go down two (or down one doubled) then our -200 is a sure bottom. If we go one down, then -100 is worse than -90, so a lot of the time we would do badly.

On this hand there's no particular reason to think we are making anything, since our hand is pretty flat, partner's hand is probably pretty flat (he didn't bid over 1NT either), and we seem to have somewhere between 17 and 19 hcp.

I've noticed a lot of people who bid like lunatics over the opponents notrump. Perhaps these people are bad defenders. I've noticed that I generally get pretty good scores defending 1NT, as it is one of the hardest contracts to declare.

[han]

Phil, you must have missed that our partner passed in first seat. I would pass even if partner wasn't a passed hand, but now surely no case can be made for bidding. It is quite unlikely that we can make anything.

[beatrix45]

Thirteen cards and an unbalanced mind. Is it my bid now????