[jillybean]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     Pass  Pass   ?

Hi, I opened this 1♥ and ended up playing in 3♥, making 5.
Should I have opened 4♥?

tyia,
jillybean2

[luke warm]

1H isn't a bad bid, but with a passed partner i might shoot 4H

[pbleighton]

4H is preferable, 1H is not terrible.

Peter

[Walddk]

1♥ is a bid I would have chosen in 1st or 2nd seat. In 3rd things are a bit different. You are unlikely to have missed a slam if you open 4♥ because partner is a passed hand.

Secondly, 4♥ will make life much more difficult for your LHO if he has a good hand. He must bid a minor at the 5-level or introduce 4NT for both minors. If your partner doubles 5 of the minor, you have nothing to be ashamed of after your 3rd seat pre-empt, but if you open 1♥ your partner will play you for more on defence.

4♥ is really where you want to be with these cards, so my suggestion is that you bid it right away. No guarantee of making of course, but as little as ♠KJ is enough to make it virtually cold.

Roland

[cherdano]

I also prefer 4♥, but I don't think 1♥ is bad. However, if partner gives any response, I wouldn't stop short of game with this hand. Maybe you could show the later auction, possibly s.th. went wrong later?

Arend

[the hog]

Burgess' Law
Open 7-4 shapes at the 4 level.

[jillybean]

Here is the complete auction, it gets worse

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     Pass  Pass  1♥
 1♠    Pass  Pass  2♥
 Pass  3♣    Pass  3♥
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

[whereagles]

I would open that hand 4H regardless of seat. There is some risk of missing a slam if pard hasn't passed, but I'm willing to take that chance in exchange for making opps life harder.

If pard has passed, that risk is much smaller, so 4H is clear and virtually riskless. You can even double 4S if LHO takes action.

[Walddk]

jillybean2, on Mar 18 2005, 09:19 PM, said:

Here is the complete auction, it gets worse

North should have made a negative double over the 1♠ overcall, and South underbid with 2♥ and 3♥. When you look at the NS hands, game is by no means a good one, but it is quite normal to get there, and it's not totally hopeless.

West will probably cash 2 top spades and continue with a 3rd, ruffed by East. Then you "just" need the club finesse for the contract, unless East started with 5 hearts to the jack. Then there is no hope.

You wrote earlier that 3♥ made 11 tricks. I can't quite see how, unless East had Jx in spades and that West didn't lead a 3rd round of the suit. Looking at the trump suit in isolation there is a reasonable chance to play that combination for no loser:

Suit 3-3, Jx or J singleton in either hand.

To sum up (bidding): South should have bid 4♥ on his/her first opportunity, or at least on his/her next turn. Over 1♥ - 1♠ North should have doubled, and finally, South should have leapt to game when 1♠ came back to him/her. He/she even got a 3rd chance to bid the game.

As to the play: The contract is likely to go down if West switches to a diamond at trick 2. Now declarer needs a lot of luck in the club suit in order to get rid of the spade losers. KJ or KJx (double finesse) on side needed in most cases. Also, trumps must behave (the jack must drop), and trumps must be pulled before playing clubs.

I will refrain from explaining that there may be a show up squeeze. This is probably not the right forum (beginners/intermediates).

Roland

[jillybean]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     Pass  Pass  1♥
 1♠    Pass  Pass  2♥
 Pass  3♣    Pass  3♥
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

SA S2 S7 S3
D7 D3 DQ H2
HA H3 D4 H4
HK H5 C3 H7
HQ HJ C6 H8
C5 CJ CQ C2
D9 DK H6 D2
C8 CK CA C4
C9 C7 S6 S5
CT D6 ST S9
DT DA HT D5
H9 SJ S8 S4
SQ SK DJ D8



Thanks Roland,
I doubled checked, 11 tricks is correct. Can I clarify you are saying I should open 4♥ (best) or jump to 4♥ on my second bid - I understand the jump after a bid from my partner is this also true if my partner passes?

You could try us on the squeezes, we have had some excellent help on them here
tyia

[Walddk]

jillybean2, on Mar 19 2005, 02:22 AM, said:

Dealer: North Vul: NS Scoring: IMP

♠ 82 ♥   ♦ JT943 ♣ AQT963 ♠ AKJ95 ♥ J53 ♦ 752 ♣ KJ ♠ 74 ♥ 874 ♦ AKQ86 ♣ 742 ♠ QT63 ♥ AKQT962 ♦   ♣ 85

West  North East  South

-    Pass  Pass  1♥
1♠    Pass  Pass  2♥
Pass  3♣    Pass  3♥
Pass  Pass  Pass 

SA S2 S7 S3
D7 D3 DQ H2
HA H3 D4 H4
HK H5 C3 H7
HQ HJ C6 H8
C5 CJ CQ C2
D9 DK H6 D2
C8 CK CA C4
C9 C7 S6 S5
CT D6 ST S9
DT DA HT D5
H9 SJ S8 S4
SQ SK DJ D8



Thanks Roland,
I doubled checked, 11 tricks is correct. Can I clarify you are saying I should open 4♥ (best) or jump to 4♥ on my second bid - I understand the jump after a bid from my partner is this also true if my partner passes?

You could try us on the squeezes, we have had some excellent help on them here   
tyia

In my first post I explained why I would have opened 4♥. In my second post I wrote that South should have done more after he/she chose to open 1♥.

The defence could have held declarer to 10 tricks by taking their spade ruff. After the diamond switch at trick 2, declarer makes the rest: 7 hearts and 5 clubs. In theory you have 13 tricks now if it hadn't been for the fact that the defence already had 1.

Why declarer didn't cash one more good club, pitching ♠Q is a mystery. I can see that two club winners were discarded from dummy instead of the useless diamonds. Throwing one club is ok, but you need the 5th club in order to get rid of your last spade.

In my previous post I wrote that declarer needs a lot of luck in the club suit for the contract to make. KJ or KJx on side, I said. That was exactly what he/she found.

The contract (4♥ I mean) is unbeatable on any defence. The only options the opponents have are whether they want 1, 2 or 3 tricks.

Roland

This post has been edited by Gerardo: 2005-March-19, 14:04

[Walddk]

I now notice that I am a complete coumputer genius after all. I managed to make the layout completely unreadable

Roland

[Gerardo]

Fixed it. Not sure why that happened. Just reposted to fix it. BTW, that was the HTML definition of the hand diagram.

[jillybean]

I guess thats a yes