[brown267]

I received the following North hand on an express tournament in BBO a few months ago:

---

I thought that my luck was extremely good (for once) and opened 1♥. East passed and then South raised to 4♥ (I had 7 hearts, so I assumed that his raise was a game raise and not preemptive). I was expecting 4♥ to comfortably make (I had seven tricks in my own hand) when I had a rude shock: West bid 5♦. I sort of panicked after that as I had never seen a high-level overcall before. In the end, I chose to bid 5♥ because I was very worried that West might make 5♦ on his hand alone. What should I actually have done in the situation, bid 5♥ like I did, double for penalties or pass and shove the decision to my partner?

(For those who are interested, the full layout was as follows:

---

As you can see, 5♥ could and should have made, but I made the stupid mistake of trumping West's second-round diamond with a small heart and got overtrumped by East, and so went one down. )

[NickRW]

Not really sure what your complaint is here. You bid 5♥ and can and should have made it by your own admission.

Should you have bid 5♥? Ask yourself what your hand is worth offensively (a lot and much more than your opening suggested). Ask yourself what your hand is worth defensively against a diamond contract, especially with a known good heart fit your way (close to nothing and less than your partner might expect from your opening). The answer becomes kind of obvious, doesn't it?

P.S. One down (against a making 5 diamond contract the other way) could have been worse!

[billw55]

Classic example of a double game swing hand.

5♥ is clearly correct - so much so that even going down in a cold contract still earned a much better result than passing would have (if partner let them play 5♦=). Double would be the worst possible choice.

The key is to realize that almost all of your hand's value is in declaring a heart contract. It is almost worthless defending 5♦. Similar for west, who probably should bid 6♦ over 5♥.

Furthermore, if nonvulnerable east has a reasonable 2♠ call.

[eagles123]

As a point of interest a raise to 4 of a major (i.e) 1♥ pass 4♥ is preemptive for nearly all players because people have a way to show a genuinely strong raise in the major, for example Jacoby 2NT where 1M(major) 2NT shows a game forcing raise in that major and asks partner to further describe his hand.

ps welcome to the forum