[Hanoi5]

---

Teams

[the hog]

East. In view of West's 2S bid here, 3H shows a good hand and a good H suit. Now, West has 3 card support and 2 Aces. This is definitely worth a 4H bid.Mind you, the game is not cold by any means, however I would want to be in it at IMPs.

[mcphee]

East. I am not that fond of the 2S bid with this E hand, the suit is not a great one facing short trumps. E also has some defensive hopes. As the auction went failing to bid 4H just seems kind of cowardly.

[mcphee]

East. I am not that fond of the 2S bid with this E hand, the suit is not a great one facing short trumps. E also has some defensive hopes. As the auction went failing to bid 4H just seems kind of cowardly.

[ArtK78]

I assume that a 2♥ response to 1♠ would have been game forcing.

It is clear that East was to blame for not reaching game, The question really is should East bid game? Blaming East is easy - West can't bid game by himself, so if there is blame for not reaching game, it belongs to East.

The reason that I say that it is not clear for East to bid game is that he expects partner to have zero or 1 spade on this auction. He could also be much weaker - West could have long hearts with extremely short spades, and he made the decision that the partnership will fare better in hearts than in spades based on the auction so far. In no way does 3♥ ABSOLUTELY show a constructive hand. What should West do holding --- QJT9xxx JTx T9x? It is easy to say that he should pass 2♠, but is that really where you want to play the hand?

The fact that West has VERY strong hearts AND 2 spades, combined with a perfect holding in the minors - shortness opposite East's AJx and length opposite East's singleton Ace - makes 4♥ a good contract.

Maybe the rules not allowing the partners to exchange hands prior to bidding are the real culprit here.

BTW, in my opinion, the 2♠ rebid is absolutely clear and I would be surprised to find anyone not rebidding 2♠ on the East hand.

[Fluffy]

I disagree with Art, 3♥ is invitational, its true that west might push a little with some 9 counts, but in no way is he bidding it with 4 HCP. When you know there is no game a 6-0 at the 2 level is a perfectly playable spot.

With 6 losers opposite a vul vs not 1+2 opening in second position west is very close to bidding game himself, I think I would duplicate this auction though.

[aguahombre]

ArtK78, on 2013-November-10, 08:06, said:

BTW, in my opinion, the 2♠ rebid is absolutely clear and I would be surprised to find anyone not rebidding 2♠ on the East hand.

This is the part of Art's post with which I 100% concur. Partner has responded with a forcing NT and East planned to rebid 2♠; The overcall didn't prevent it. 2C would have taken East off the hook if he held any 5332 minimum, but should not stop a natural rebid.

Gonzalo covers the rest. 3H is not a fright-induced runout, it is a game invite with long hearts. East either accepts or doesn't; East is the one with the decision for which he gets 100% blame or 100% credit ---depending on the success of his choice.

This is a continuation of my rant about ATB. If it meant "assess the bidding", I think East's choice to pass 3H is very close. If means "Attribute the blame", it is all on East. When I make a bid which is considered by the entire World to be clearcut, I might still be the only one to take the charge for a bad result.

[RSClyde]

I'd bid 4♥ even is 3♥ wasn't invitational. Even with that crappy hand that Are came up with 4♥ is a good game. What suit do you think their taking tricks in? With the club bid, and partner's stiff spade and one heart loser, aren't we rating to take 10 tricks?

If 3♥ is invitational, then east is definitely to blame. And yes, I mean blame. Passing 3♥ is horrendous hand evaluation. I took the liberty of dealmastering this and opposite a 10 count with 6 hearts, 4♥ was an 87% game, and west could be a little better than that but not much worse.

If 3♥ isn't invitational then I'm still blaming east. But now I'll blame west too. No one has mentioned this but west made an unnecessarily bad bid. If 3♥ isn't invitational then a hand like x AKJxxx Jxxx xx is kind of awkward because you'd like to invite game with it. However that wasn't west's hand at all. With the hand he held, 3♠ was clearly invitational. You don't really know which suit will play better, if it makes an difference at all. Hearts probably rates to be better, but we can't be sure, so isn't the bid which clearly shows game interest better than the one that doesn't?

[Vampyr]

Nobody seems to be questioning the forcing 1NT. I realise that abominations are forced upon players as the price of playing 2/1 GF, but is the West hand really less than a game force? It seems far less than optimal to me that 2/1 GF players are using an opening style that forces responder bid 1NT, the same as he would have with xx, KJxx, Qxxx, Qxx. But I don't play the methods, so what do I know.

[Trinidad]

I don't fully agree with the previous posts. I think that both players are to blame.

East should at IMPs simply bid 4♥... basically because it might make, even if West has a relatively weak hand.

But West is also guilty. After East's voluntary 2♠ West should want to be in game. He knows of an eight card spade fit. West's problem is that he wants to bid 4M, 4 spearts or 4 hades. Unfortunately, those bids are not in the bidding box, so he needs to come up with something else. The one thing that West should not do is make a bid below game that East can pass. No matter how you look at it, 3♥ is absolutely not forcing. If East would have had a 6133 hand (move 2 small hearts into the diamond suit), a pass by East would be 100% correct.

In short: both players should have bid differently.

Rik

[RSClyde]

If west cue bid 3♣ and then pulled 3nt to 4♥ it probably should show a choice of games between the majors.

[HighLow21]

More East than West, but some West for this reason: East opened the bidding and West has an independent heart suit and 7 losers. East should have 7 losers for his opening bid, and even with a singleton heart there may be a chance spades can be set up for discards from his perspective.

The vulnerability is red-on-white and game shouldn't be missed. Both players should have bid 4♥ at his final turn. And if 4♥ gets doubled, West can at least give thought to running to 4♠.... and then NOT run, because the hearts are fine.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2013-November-10, 09:11, said:

This is a continuation of my rant about ATB. If it meant "assess the bidding", I think East's choice to pass 3H is very close. If means "Attribute the blame", it is all on East.

I have not seen the beginning of your rant, but I wonder why ATB would suddenly mean "assess the bidding" instead of what it has always stood for, ie "assign the blame"? And what would ATB be an acronym for when the problem is on defense?

[Fluffy]

When ATB started to show up I though it stood for something like "analyze the board"