[helene_t]

(2♦)-x-3♥-x*

is, if I understand correctly, played as 2-way: t/o if opener passes but showing hearts if opener corrects to spades. At least, that seems to be expert standard in the Netherlands.

Proponents of this method claim that opener can't afford to psyche a pass.

I wonder if this is really true. Suppose he has spades but passes smoothly. If partner has four hearts, we will be defending 3♥X with some 9 hearts between us which is of course yummy. But if opener has 6♠3♥ he knows that that isn't happening: he can count at least 6 hearts between himself and his partner so he knows that if our double shows hearts (4+ or maybe 5+, not sure), our partner can't have more than three hearts and is thus going to take it out.

So I must be misunderstanding something. Maybe the argument is that IF opps can safely psyche then we have at most 7 hearts between us so they can't psyche us out of a hearts fit?

If we have hearts and opps have hearts too, partner must have a void in hearts. In that case we probably don't belong in 3NT anyway. Partner will probably rarely jump to 4♠ on a 4-card suit so I suppose we will land on our feet most of the time.

So what's up with this 2-way double: does it happen that we confuse ourselves? Do opps sometimes psyche the pass? And do we land on our feed in those cases?

Anyone who has experience with it?

[Zelandakh]

David Burn tells a great story of a well-known pair that ended up playing in a 1-1 fit using this method. It works well enough most of the time but against savvy opps it is exploitable and therefore has mostly disappeared from top-level play.

[dokoko]

What about a mixing strategy by opener?

Say he passes all heart hands and some spade hands. Knowing that, responder might even save him by redoubling when the double is passed and he gets some vibes from the opps.

[Tramticket]

helene_t, on 2020-July-04, 03:09, said:

Anyone who has experience with it?

This is our partnership agreement - but in practice, it doesn't come up often and we are still at the "I hope that partner will remember" stage with it. We have no experience of declarer gaming it.