Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Bidding in competition

Everyone at the table is bidding and you have a decision to make after the opponents' 2S:


Partner's 2H shows 6-10 points and only three hearts.  What is your call?  How do you evaluate your hand? Do you have extras? Is it worth bidding at the 3-level red-against-white?

Here's the full hand:
It turns out that partner was also max (with a bit more shape or 1 more point, he'd have bid 2D, a limit raise in hearts). I passed and we got them down 2, but 100 was worth only 7% of match-points. Do you have any gadgets that help in these kinds of situations?

If you bid 3H, good defense should give you only 9 tricks or 140, for 55% of matchpoints. If you doubled 2S, partner would leave it in.  300 is a near top.  88% of matchpoints. If you can get to 3NT (I don't see how), you get 100% of match-points.

But really, my question here is:  how do you handle these competitive situations?

3 comments:

  1. Good question - wish I knew an answer.

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  2. Should your partner double 2S to show maximum defense for the 2H raise? Then your hand, with two spades and quick tricks and no extra heart length, would pass.

    Easy to say when looking at all four hands!

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  3. Assuming that you're playing some sort of two-way doubles (DSIP), then your double of 2S shows extras and relatively short spades (and denies any other distributional bid). The only snag here is that you don't really have extras. If you're playing penalty doubles once you've found a fit as many do, then partner should definitely double IMO. He does have extras and the vulnerability makes the decision to double somewhat less risky. If you have opened with a minimum (or sub-minimum) distributional hand, you can take it out.

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