[dkham]

I would take (1♠)-3♠ as having a long minor and asking for a spade stop to bid 3NT, bound to end in disaster when you then try and bid hearts naturally.

It's true that (1♠)-x might get passed out, but so might (1♠)-2♥ and at least if (1♠)-x is not passed out then you've shown the hand better.

If you're not going to double with this hand, is it even worth having "suited hand too strong to overcall" as one of the meanings for a takeout double?

[billw55]

 JLOGIC, on 2012-May-15, 03:48, said:

I would say I do not walk the dog ever and consider it to basically always be a bad strategy against good players because it is so transparent. I concede it may work well vs bad players but it's still not something I do. Would it be walking the dog to open this 1H, because that's what I'd do also. I don't think anything else is appropriate so I'm bidding the minimum number of hearts and seeing what happens. Starting with 4H is possible but we could easily miss a slam that we might have bid had we given partner a chance to bid, and I feel like the chances of buying it in 4H are very low no matter what course of action I take (indeed some people are just overcalling 5H which I think is lol but it goes to show their feelings on whether we can buy it for 4H very often), so the main gain of direct 4H bids in these kind of spots is very remote with this exact hand.

I wondered if it was lol. On the other hand:

 Phil, on 2012-May-14, 19:57, said:

This was the 1st of our double game swings opf the day. At the other table my hand bid 4♥ and competed to 5. Teammate made a nice push to 5♠ on AKxxx void KTxxx Axx.

This is exactly why I consider 5♥. I want to make it as tough as possible for LHO to communicate their fit. Is this a more frequent need than finding slam? Beats me.

Would a direct 5♥ have shut out your teammate? Hard to say without the full hand, but maybe.

[Phil]

---

I would think against a good partnership, North would x 5♥ and South would pull to 5♠. Hard to say.

[gszes]

there is no defense here---it seems completely misguided to
keep the bidding low either via overcall or double. We certainly
do not ever want p to x anything (and we cannot trust an x if p
does x in a competitive auction). We have a one suited 9(maybe 10) trick hand
there seems to be no reason we cannot bid

5h

which describes our hand almost perfectly at this vulnerability (9 tricks)

having said this the club k gives me enough to try 4s as exclusion blackwood.
If for some inexplicable reason our partnership has agreed to play this as
natural sobeit I fall back on 5h. Too many losers to try regular blackwood.

[aguahombre]

I tried (and failed) to link the vugraph record of Board 60 from the USBF semifinals. It was another example of a lower-level bid giving the opponents more subsequent problems than a higher one would have.

In that instance, Justin advanced pard's preempt to 6♦, giving the opps very little room; and they guessed correctly for 6♠=. At the other table, Hamman tried a fuddy-duddy 5♦ bid, and the rails popped off. With more space to maneuver, the opps found a grand, off a bullet.

[JLOGIC]

lol. You realize that sometimes people just judge hands differently. How can you think that one auction starting 3D X 6D 6S makes RHO less likely to bid 7S than 3D X 5D 5S? Perhaps at one table RHO just decided to bid a grand and at the other table they didn't, given that at the table they didn't bid grand LHO had shown a stronger hand (he had bid 6S) than at the table that LHO had shown a weaker hand.

You really should google "causation" because you do not understand anything at all if you think that them having to guess at a higher level makes it easier for them, especially when your example is one guy misjudging and bidding 7 over a lower preempt than the other guy. But cool story that you got to watch vugraph once *thumbsup*

[aguahombre]

You misunderstood. I was not trying to establish causation, rather musing at serendipitous result. The idea of giving them more rope to hang themselves is not usually a winning strategy, and I certainly was not trying to assess blame.

Will continue to enjoy the top-level pairs on Vugraph, such as yourself. There will continue to be hands where lesser players with simpler methods such as myself would have achieved better results (by accident or on purpose), although not enough of them to have won the match. The fact that none of the pairs with eleven tricks and two singletons could find out whether pard had a bullet or two (on a different board) doesn't change the overriding fact that all those teams would kick our butts, but......

edit: and, as indicated in the post to which you object, I believe your "vote" to bid only 2H on the OP hand might well have led to buying the hand at 5H...where 4H would not.

[han]

How can the word "giving" in this sentence:


It was another example of a lower-level bid giving the opponents more subsequent problems than a higher one would have.


point at anything but a causation?

Phil, I think a good (half of a) partnership would bid 4S immediately over 3S with the north hand. I think north's pass is absurd. I don't think that a good south playing with a good north should pull 5HX to 5S, although I am not sure what auction you are talking about.

[Phil]

 han, on 2012-May-16, 06:59, said:

How can the word "giving" in this sentence:


It was another example of a lower-level bid giving the opponents more subsequent problems than a higher one would have.


point at anything but a causation?

Phil, I think a good (half of a) partnership would bid 4S immediately over 3S with the north hand. I think north's pass is absurd. I don't think that a good south playing with a good north should pull 5HX to 5S, although I am not sure what auction you are talking about.

My opponents passed 3♠. I don't really care what they do.

The auction I was referring to was 1♠ - 5♥ - p - p; x - p - ? since some posters where suggesting that was a sensible call over 1♠.

[Fluffy]

If my opponents bid 5♥ directly it would make me extremelly more compelled to bid 5♠ over it than if they went slower, because someone bidding 5♥ to me means that he doesn't want to hear 5♠.

[han]

Unless it is hrothgar, in which case 5H could be anything.