Thursday, January 3, 2013

With a balanced hand and no texture ...

Playing a team-match with a pickup partner and against good opponents, I was faced with a bidding decision:
E
Me
A2
A52
K876
A954
The hand is balanced and control-rich, but has no texture.  Playing 15-17 NTs, what would you do? Open this 1NT or 1D? As I was thinking about this, my RHO opened 1D.
So, it's now not a question of what to open, but what to overcall.  What do you do?

I think I was caught a little flat-footed. My best bid now is to pass, but ... this is what happened:
E
Me
S
South
W
West
N
North
1
1NT1
Dbl2
Pass
Pass
RDbl3
Pass
24
Dbl
All Pass
(1) Flatfooted
(2) Got ya (he had a 3-5-2-3 hand with 11 points)
(3) Compounding the error
(4) poor partner

2S doubled went down 3.  I think I could have played 1NT doubled for down 1 or perhaps 2.

With all the discussion on various blogs about bids-out-of-tempo, I have started to get more attuned to partner's hesitations.  The fact that this was a non-regular partner did not exactly help me on this deal from the same match.  I held:
E
East
J72
8543
Q4
10764

The auction to this point:
W
West
N
North
E
Me
S
South
Pass
Pass
1
1
Pass
Pass
1
Pass1
Pass
?
(1) after hesitation

If partner had not bid out of tempo, I would have made a negative double here.  The fact that South has not jumped seems to indicate that partner has a fair number of points. I have four hearts and clubs and a tolerance/fitting-honor for diamonds.  But partner had hesitated, showing extra values, and I now felt bound to pass.  1S made, due to several defensive errors, for a half-dozen IMPs.  What do you think? Could I have still made a negative double?

3 comments:

  1. I think it's a pass. You have nowhere near a clear-cut bid.

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  2. Since I would have passed had partner bid in tempo, surely Pass must be a Logical Alternative call ... and, between Pass and Double, is the LA contra-indicated by partner's Break in Tempo.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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