[1eyedjack]

IMP

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Comments?
In particular, what is your expectation of a 3C bid in this position, and is West middle of the road for such a bid?

[Hanoi5]

The suit looks a little ugly for 3♣ but then again it's a 7-carder. What I hate the most is the 4♥ bid. Or the Pass to 4♥X by East, but I guess that's second. Forget I said that, East could never know he was supported with 2 very small cards.

[Fluffy]

the big mistake is 3♠, 3♣ is not strong, only competitive

[1eyedjack]

Fluffy, on 2011-October-23, 12:27, said:

the big mistake is 3♠, 3♣ is not strong, only competitive

I wondered about that. What to do with a strong hand? X without Spades? 2N with inadequate guard? 3D with inadequate fit for p?

[Fluffy]

double then 3♣ if you happen to not play support double, or to play a variant that lets you double with strong hands without 3 cards.

Otherwise you have to bid a very maximum 3♣ or overbid 3♦. The point is, you don't have this kind of hand that often when everyone is bidding as oposed to a good competitive hand.

[aguahombre]

1eyedjack, on 2011-October-23, 12:30, said:

I wondered about that. What to do with a strong hand? X without Spades? 2N with inadequate guard? 3D with inadequate fit for p?

If you agree that when they have shown a fit at the two-level your 2NT is not natural, then you can use 2NT "good-bad" for the competitive hands and 3C in the given situation as strong.

Good-bad is a cousin of Lebensohl. Those who like to keep 2NT natural cannot do this. We find very infrequent need for a natural 2NT when the opps have an 8-9 card fit ---and it is much more frequent to want to distinguish between strong and competitive.

[1eyedjack]

aguahombre, on 2011-October-23, 13:07, said:

If you agree that when they have shown a fit at the two-level your 2NT is not natural, then you can use 2NT "good-bad" for the competitive hands and 3C in the given situation as strong.

Good-bad is a cousin of Lebensohl. Those who like to keep 2NT natural cannot do this. We find very infrequent need for a natural 2NT when the opps have an 8-9 card fit ---and it is much more frequent to want to distinguish between strong and competitive.

Thanks. The players concerned were playing a weak 1N opener. Does that change things? Possibly it increases the desire to have available a natural 2N?

[aguahombre]

don't know about weak nt...been so long since I played it. But doubles replace natural nt bids for us in this situation. The reduced need for natural nt would seem to still apply.

And, perhaps pass would, by inference be a balanced hand with no direction, thus a strong NT playing wk nt.

[ahydra]

The auction loooks pretty sane until West bids 4H. Not sure why he did that - 3NT looks clear (though seems to do worse than 4H ).

Double for me would show a strong NT type without a stop in ♦. A wild-shape 2NT bid might work here. If playing good/bad 2NT, what would one plan to do with this hand?

ahydra

[Zelandakh]

There are lots of options on how to handle this. I/A standard is for 3C to be competitive and double followed by 3C to be stronger. I generally believe that it is easier for B/I to reverse this allowing 3C to retain its normal meaning and using the double with a weaker hand. The more advanced version is to use an artificial 2NT. There are a couple of different versions of this around and agua already described the most common. In a weak NT context double after a 1 over 1 sequence and 2 level overcall is commonly played as a "strong NT double". Rather than making a natural 2NT more desirable it actually makes an artificial 2NT highly attractive as you have even more competitive hand types to describe.

[mcphee]

3NT is a non consideration as W and bidding 4H with 2 pips a little wishful. 3C was ok after all we do hold 7. The real problem was how good was 3C and until the partnership defines that things like this will happen. I am not a person who would ever overcall 1D with the N hand playing imps, (not a winner most days)but this player found the right time for it.

[xxhong]

This distribution is a little bit unlucky.
I play good bad 2NT here. So good offensive hands bid 2NT and weak offensive hands bid 3C. I'll probably just bid 3C here to show an offensive hand in the weak range. After that, responder should still move on to bid 3S probably. Then the opener would bid 4C to show 7 or very good 6, which can be passed or raised by partner and later get doubled.

1eyedjack, on 2011-October-23, 10:22, said:

IMP

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Comments?
In particular, what is your expectation of a 3C bid in this position, and is West middle of the road for such a bid?

[Cyberyeti]

EW are cruising for an ugly result, but 3N-some undoubled is better than 4♥X, I'd have bid the 3N that E was clearly angling for with the 3♠ bid. Any reason partner doesn't have Qxxx, AQxxx, xx, Kx or similar ?

[whereagles]

Fluffy, on 2011-October-23, 12:27, said:

(...) 3♣ is not strong, only competitive

That depends. Not playing good-bad 2NT you have to make-do with what you have. But as you know, some like it strong

[jdeegan]

With 7+ playing tricks and three aces one can hardly characterize W free 3♣ bid as inappropriate. E with a decent 11 HCP and ♣10x bid a normal 3♠ angling for 3NT. At this point W had an easy 3NT bid. Instead he made a 4♥ call based on reasoning I cannot even begin to fathom. Instead of a pedestrian 3NT down 2 undoubled, he went for a telephone number. Are you sure these guys aren't novices?