[aguahombre]

mike777, on 2011-February-03, 13:15, said:

1s but pass is certainly acceptable.

Perfect answer for a normal forum poll/discussion. I agree. It is simply a matter of style. I suspect one choice or the other worked out a whole lot better this time, with real matchpoint results. As many have said before, a particular action's success or failure on a particular hand is not proof of anything. Anxious to see how big the disaster was after my 1S overcall this time.

[Free]

aguahombre, on 2011-February-03, 17:52, said:

mike777, on 2011-February-03, 13:15, said:

1s but pass is certainly acceptable.

Perfect answer for a normal forum poll/discussion. I agree. It is simply a matter of style. I suspect one choice or the other worked out a whole lot better this time, with real matchpoint results. As many have said before, a particular action's success or failure on a particular hand is not proof of anything. Anxious to see how big the disaster was after my 1S overcall this time.

This isn't a classic poll or discussion, it's a darts game where whereagles tells us afterwards which square gets which amount of points.

[whereagles]

Full hand:

---

This one is more of a judgement issue than a style one, I think. The long hearts make it likely pard has some spade support and we'll be ruffing in the short hand. All that, plus the lead indicator, makes 1♠ an attactive bid, despite the 4 card suit.

In practice overcalling will lead to either 2♠ by NS, making, or pushing EW to a 3-level contract that goes down. In either case the overcall makes you go plus, so it gets the higher score.

[han]

edited

[cherdano]

Meanwhile, I neither understand why passing leads to a minus score, nor why bidding leads to a plus score.
If the auction goes 1H 1S 1N, then either a spade lead and diamond switch, or a diamond lead, means that we get 7 tricks before they do.
On the other hand, how exactly are we going to make 2♠? Say a heart lead and a trump switch. Whenever you duck a diamond, they will play a club.

[Phil]

cherdano, on 2011-February-10, 10:50, said:

On the other hand, how exactly are we going to make 2♠? Say a heart lead and a trump switch. Whenever you duck a diamond, they will play a club.

Why would I duck a diamond - don't I have 8 tricks?

In general -

- heart lead, trump shift won
- ♣A, ♣ruff
- ♦A, ♦K, ♣ ruff
- ♥ruff....and trump K.

[mtvesuvius]

Even if you duck a diamond, as long as you score one club ruff, LHO will eventually have to give you another trump trick. Without the club ruff I don't think it can be done, but I could be wrong.

In any case, I think this is a win for a 1♠ overcall

[kayin801]

If I passed I would get to a diamond contract which should make a bunch of tricks in practice (10 often! both hands have natural heart leads and unattractive trump leads after 1H-P-1S-P-,1NT-P-P-X-,P-2D-etc, though in my partnership N has an easy 1NT after 1H-P-1S which does the same thing). Shouldn't we take that into consideration?

EDIT: I guess the odds of us competing to 4♦ aren't hot, though I have no idea what they're going to compete in at the 3 level.

[mtvesuvius]

To make 4 in 2♦ requires double-dummy play IMO. You cannot cash the ♠K early, and you need to ruff all the hearts in dummy, reading the hand perfectly to exit with a spade in the endgame.
The hand played out:
2D

[rduran1216]

I think all these problems are style related. Not only can I pass now and dbl after 1H p 1NT p 2C...but maybe it goes 1H 1NT 2D 2H x by partner and we pick up 300