[AL78]

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MPs love all.

In case it is relevant, this is an inexperienced pair who didn't seem to know what they were doing some of the time. Do you bid?

[LBengtsson]

I would have opened 2♦ weak, but I guess you did not have that bid available. Do I bid now given the explanation of the 2♠ bid? I personally would not. It looks like the opps. have a 9 card ♥ fit and you are going to be outbid anyway. You are weak imo to respond 3♦ to the TOX without intervention. With the 2♠ bid announced as strong, even if it is not as strong as given, I would steer clear of bidding here.

[mikeh]

First of all, who described 2S as strong? In FTF bridge, it would/should have been opener. We have good reason to suspect that south intended 2S as weak (if I had to guess, I’d say something like 6=3=3=1 but (a) I don’t need to guess and (b) it doesn’t really matter, lol).

If I pass, north is forced to bid. Were north to explain 2S as strong, then pass, and South was weak….I’d hope for a competent director since such as heck the director is going to be called.

But north’s likely action will, sooner or later, most commonly lead to 3H or even 4H, each of which may make or be a good ‘save’ against our contract. Plus I do NOT want to be faced with 1H x 2S P 3H P P to me. Yes, I’d bid 4D but I’d be very uncomfortable and partner would be guessing what I have.

So I’m not inclined to go for what a director may view (possibly correctly) as a ‘double shot’, wherein I decline to bid my hand in the hope that they’ve had and will continue to have a costly misunderstanding, aiming for a ruling in my favour…if they get to a bad spot, I accept it and if they get to a good spot, I call the director. I’d like to think that’s not how I play bridge

So I take my normal action.

I suspect that for this partnership, 2N isn’t available as a form of lebensohl. The hand is borderline for that anyway since it’s pretty good. I read, many many years ago, that when deciding what to do after partner’s takeout double of 1x, assume he has 4441, stiff in the doubled suit, with Axxx x Axxx Axxx

Obviously he won’t usually have that, but it’s proven to be a useful guide.

Opposite that, with the diamond likely onside, we’re making 5D if diamonds are splitting. That, in and of itself, shows how dangerous it is to pass. It’s not that I expect to reach 5D if I bid 3D now…although partner should appreciate the value of his shape and aces….but he might have an even better hand. Axxx x Axxx AJxx gives us a play for slam!

If I had lebensohl available, such that I could bid 2N and correct the ‘almost forced’ 3C to 3D, I’d briefly consider it. However, this hand is too strong, imo. Make my club K the Queen and I’d do it. As it is, I think I have a comfortable 3D call.

[AL78]

The analysis of MikeH is excellent and I confess I didn't get anywhere that level of thought at the table. I asked about the strength of the 2♠ and was told it was strong which made me think there are an awful lot of HCP in this pack. In this situation I trusted partner to have his bid and I bid 3♦ in an attempt to show some values and length in the suit although I can see the case for bidding 4♦. LHO bid 3♥ raised to 4♥ and they played there. This is the full deal:

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Partner for some reason underled his ♦A and 4♥ made for a complete bottom for us. 5♦ is theoretically an excellent sac but if they leave us there we get the same bottom when the field is in 5♥ and 4/5♠ going off, so maybe I should have been a bit more enthusiastic. We can salvage one matchpoint by getting it one down.

I was the director and I did question the agreement of the 2♠ bid when it clearly wasn't strong. The response from South was she thought it was strong, evidently thinking strength covers hands with a high offense to defence ratio in addition to hands with HCP power, so I classed it as one of those things and didn't bother taking it any further.

[sfi]

 AL78, on 2023-January-13, 13:55, said:

I was the director and I did question the agreement of the 2♠ bid when it clearly wasn't strong. The response from South was she thought it was strong, evidently thinking strength covers hands with a high offense to defence ratio in addition to hands with HCP power, so I classed it as one of those things and didn't bother taking it any further.

As director you have the right to tell them to explain their bid more accurately, and to discuss how best to do so with them. I think you also have the obligation to do so.

[thepossum]

I was wondering if I can intrude. If you know the points in 3 hands then you could guess what 2S was, which remarkably is what it was

Back to the subject I would likely have bid 3D anyway - it can't possibly go that wrong can it?

I suppose you could pass and hope they get to slam

According to DD Solve you should have doubled or somebody should - but recommendations from DD can be risky

[dokoko]

 sfi, on 2023-January-13, 16:36, said:

As director you have the right to tell them to explain their bid more accurately, and to discuss how best to do so with them. I think you also have the obligation to do so.

If North agrees that the South hand is "strong" in their methods, they should modify their explanation. Otherwise everything is ok and South just misbid.

[dokoko]

 thepossum, on 2023-January-14, 00:53, said:

I was wondering if I can intrude. If you know the points in 3 hands then you could guess what 2S was, which remarkably is what it was

Back to the subject I would likely have bid 3D anyway - it can't possibly go that wrong can it?

I suppose you could pass and hope they get to slam

According to DD Solve you should have doubled or somebody should - but recommendations from DD can be risky

If East leads ♦A (quite normal IMO) and continues with ♥Q (also quite normal) or a small spade, the contract should go down.

As often, the board wasn't lost in the bidding but in the play (here: defense).

[Douglas43]

Should East raise to 4D?

[thepossum]

 dokoko, on 2023-January-14, 01:41, said:

If East leads ♦A (quite normal IMO) and continues with ♥Q (also quite normal) or a small spade, the contract should go down.

As often, the board wasn't lost in the bidding but in the play (here: defense).

I was just thinking of trying to get it down by more tricks. You know what their hand is like but maybe opener doesn't

[AL78]

 thepossum, on 2023-January-14, 04:35, said:

I was just thinking of trying to get it down by more tricks. You know what their hand is like but maybe opener doesn't

One down is the best EW can do.

[AL78]

 dokoko, on 2023-January-14, 01:32, said:

If North agrees that the South hand is "strong" in their methods, they should modify their explanation. Otherwise everything is ok and South just misbid.

I asked North what she understood by the 2♠ bid and she said "strong", although that was inconsistent with my hand and partner's double. It turned out South had a misunderstanding of what "strong" means in this context so that's the end of it. This is what can happen when you play against beginners/improvers, it can be like playing against a pair that psyches on every other board. It didn't make any difference to the overall result.

[thepossum]

 AL78, on 2023-January-14, 05:49, said:

One down is the best EW can do.

Not if opener pushes it higher- 5 or even 6 😊

You and your partner know the hand. The only person who doesn't is opener

[AL78]

 thepossum, on 2023-January-14, 06:46, said:

Not if opener pushes it higher- 5 or even 6 😊

You and your partner know the hand. The only person who doesn't is opener

True, I suspect that is what happened at some other tables. We'll never know what our opponents would have done over 5♦.

[bluenikki]

 LBengtsson, on 2023-January-13, 10:01, said:

You are weak imo to respond 3♦ to the TOX without intervention.

Why?

In my bible, Kaplan's "competitive bidding." this values at 12 points for advancing a double! (He counted both shortness and length.)
So 3♦ would be an underbid.

[pescetom]

 AL78, on 2023-January-14, 05:54, said:

I asked North what she understood by the 2♠ bid and she said "strong", although that was inconsistent with my hand and partner's double. It turned out South had a misunderstanding of what "strong" means in this context so that's the end of it. This is what can happen when you play against beginners/improvers, it can be like playing against a pair that psyches on every other board. It didn't make any difference to the overall result.

I think that the comment to the 2♠ bid in OP diagram should make clear that there was no alert.
No idea what EBU policy says here, but in WBFland I don't think that their agreement after double (unless really bizarre) requires an alert.