[ahydra]

♠Kxx ♥K10x ♦Kxx ♣KJxx

MPs, love all. Opps playing 4cM weak NT.

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What do you call as W? Partner's protective style is rather aggressive. 2N would be two places to play.

If you X, it goes (2H) 2S (3H) back to you, now what?

Thanks,

ahydra

[wank]

you could bid 2H if you like the first time. obviously you 're not going to be bidding again.

why would i want to double 2d, to psyche them out of game?

[SteveMoe]

Double 2♦ then double 3♥.
The first double shows values and no clear direction.
I trust partner to have a near opening bid so we own Balance of Power. All of RHO's finesses are losing...

[wank]

do you think rho can't count his points? he's showing a very good hand. he's not expecting to take any finesses, making or otherwise - dummy has shown precisely nothing. as it happens, dummy may well have a singleton diamond and enough trumps to ruff away our king. that takes us down to possibly only 1 trick in our hand.

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for example is perfectly in keeping with the bidding (east's overbidding if anything) and we should pass and hope dummy doesn't raise.

as for double of 2D, that should be penalties. you can bid 2H as a positive noise.

[ahydra]

It's an interesting point as to what X means - I was thinking it should be "values with no clear direction" as SteveMoe suggested, but 2H could also show that. Perhaps 2H should deny 4S and X shows 4S? A penalty double must be pretty rare, seeing as you would often overcall 2D initially if you had a good 5-card suit; and they'll probably just run to 2H anyway. (Perhaps xxx A10x AJ10x Kxx?)

Having a had a look through my copy of Lawrence's book on balancing, I suspect playing 2NT as natural here would be a better system; and if so, 2NT is actually, I think, probably the best description of this hand even though you'd like a touch more.

Anyway, partner held something like ♠AQxx ♥Qx ♦xxx ♣Qxxx and competed all the way to 3S... which opps misdefended slightly to let through. Opener was 2551, and so whilst we could have had 100 or 300 from 3HX, I said to partner that I wasn't going to risk doubling as it might make if declarer did have 6-5 as in wank's theoretical layout. Three people did double 3H though and collected 100, 300 and 500.

ahydra

[wank]

3H by east shouldn't exist with a 55 shape.

when i said double of 2D is penalties, i meant based on a heart suit. you can often double on 2 diamonds here on the assumption that partner's got some.