[frouu]

Scoring: IMP

Pass - 1♣ - 3 ♠ - ???

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I doubled, and partner passed, 3S down 2. But better results were available. What would you bid here?



(hidden below) Partner had :

Spoiler

K4 - 9 - KQJ6 - KQ9432

[cherdano]

I would double.

(hidden)

Spoiler

Partner should not have passed, this is not close. He should bid 4♣ or 4♦.

[vang]

4♥. followed by double over 4♠.
i don't have great quality in hearts, but i don't see how an initial double will help me to get my 6-3/6-2 fit.

nothing hidden ;-)

[gwnn]

There is a very important point here: those people who say "I play negative doubles til 2♠" or 3♥ or some such are a little behind on bidding theory, never listen to them. Negative doubles apply to any interference, it's just that opener will pass with less defensive hands also as the level increases. Your partner shouldn't even pass 4♠X, actually, bidding 4NT instead.

[Codo]

I think that 4 ♥ is the best bid in this situation. Unluckily it is not very successful in this particular hand.
If you double, I agree that pds pass was not sensible, he should have bid a suit.

[han]

I would bid 4H, I think double only complicates matters.

[FrancesHinden]

Jlall, on Sep 12 2007, 04:36 PM, said:

I admit I would have bid 4H without thinking about it, but the more I think about it double has a lot of appeal. I still bid 4H though, partner will never believe I have 6 hearts otherwise.

me too.

Double works a treat on the actual hand (as long as partner doesn't do anything silly like pass). In fact, if you could force partner to bid unless he has a mountainous spade holding, I would double and bid 4H over 4m to show a strong flexible hand.

I dunno. I thought 4H was obvious at first, but then I started trying to write hands down where 4H gains over double and it's quite tough, if you assume partner only passes the double on a weak NT or with real spade stuff.

[1eyedjack]

vang, on Sep 12 2007, 09:35 AM, said:

4♥. followed by double over 4♠.
i don't have great quality in hearts, but i don't see how an initial double will help me to get my 6-3/6-2 fit.

nothing hidden ;-)

4H isn't going to get you into 6C where double might. Double might also find 3S Doubled (when partner has an appropriate hand for passing, which he does not on this occasion, notwithstanding the action taken) when 4H certainly will not.

All that said and done, I also go with 4H.

[han]

Just the other week I posted a hand where I doubled first and then bid 4H over partner's 4C. There I had 5 hearts (AJ9xx) and club support. If I double with this hand too then partner will pull 4H too often.

[pclayton]

4♥ looks normal.

I think MisIry has some ideas a few years ago for this type of hand in this auction.

[jdonn]

To me the perfect double-then-4♥ hand is something like this

x AQJxx Kxxx Axx

I admit I'm pulling this out of my rear end, it just feels appropriate to me. That is actually not so different from the problem hand so I don't really mind double, though I would have bid 4♥.

[mikeh]

This post raises an interesting question. Just how good a hand can we hold for 4♥?

What if we held x AKJxxx KQx Kxx?

We can hardly drive to slam... opposite xxx x AJx AQJxxx we want to be in clubs, while opposite xxx Qxx AJx AQxx, we want to be in 6♥ and opposite KJx x AJx QJxxxx we don't want to be in slam at all.

If we bid 4♥ on this big 1=6=3=3, and on even better hands, what do we bid on xx KQJ10xxx x Axx? Wouldn't we all bid 4♥ here?

So maybe we need the double followed by 4♥ to be about more than distinguishing between a 5 card suit for the double and a longer suit for the direct bid?

How we deal with this while avoiding problems when partner's logical call, after a double, is pass is beyond my immediate understanding.

[cherdano]

I still like the double. Some of the gains of double are obvious, partner might surprise us by showing extras with 6 clubs where he would have to pass over 4H (to me, double implies more strength than a direct 4H, and double followed by 4H even more so), we might get to the right strain when partner is short in hearts, etc.

Partner won't play us for 6 hearts but I don't think that is much of a problem. If partner has two hearts and 5 clubs and corrects 4H to 5C, this is probably ok, as we avoid the 3rd round heart loser. (If he has ♥Kx he will probably pass anyway.) AQJxxx of hearts would be a completely different story.

[helene_t]

I have a vague idea that Han and Arend used to invert 4di and 4he (or something like that) in this situation, is that right?

[cherdano]

helene_t, on Sep 17 2007, 12:26 PM, said:

I have a vague idea that Han and Arend used to invert 4di and 4he (or something like that) in this situation, is that right?

Wow, my memory of that is very vague, too! I don't think it helps on this hand, anyway.

[han]

We definitely used to play that, but we quit because of Arend's vague memory .

We recently discussed going back to some of the transfers we used to play, but we decided not to. Since then we have messed up transfers over negative doubles twice (each once) so maybe we were wise not to play more of them.

While I think that some transfers in competition are sound, I have a hard time remembering any victories that we clearly gained through these transfers. We still play them in a fair number of auctions and we must have played thousands of hands together in the last 6 months. The only transfers that I consider clear winners are after their takeout double, also because they come up frequently and we would never forget these.

I have mixed feelings about Rubens advances. Sometimes natural NF bids just time out better, and you also have more steps available over a cuebid than over a transfer-raise.