[ahydra]

A few from the club last week - what would you guys do? System is Benji Acol (4cM, weak NT).

1) ATB:

Both vul

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1NT = 12-14, 2H = natural, X = T/O. 2S went 3 off for a second-bottom. Do you blame South for the T/O double instead of pass or 3C, or North for bidding 2S on four cards to the 8 rather than his diamonds? Or both?

2) Your call?

Both vul

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At the table I picked X (T/O), partner passed and picked up 1100, but there's a cold 6S (in fact, semi-lucky 7S) on.

3a) ATB:

EW vul

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I had forgotten we were playing 8+ HCP Michaels, rather than weak-or-strong, so I thought 3S was showing a good hand. The 3D bidder had an 18 count!

Somehow we got a top (-200) for this - but should have been -500 for a bottom. Who's to blame - me for forgetting the system, partner for the vul 3S bid with nothing extra, or both?

3b) Incidentally, when playing Michaels, do you prefer weak/strong (so Michaels/UNT are either 6-10 or 15+, roughly), or just bid it on any hand with the right shape, or some mixture of the two? I'd be interested to see people's opinions on this.

4) Your call (playing weak 2s in the majors)?

None vul

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As you can see, I bid 2S - yes I should have 6 cards, but we're NV and I like the 5-5 including the nice clubs. Partner put down a lovely hand including ♠Kx and the minor-suit aces... but spades broke 6-0! Thankfully we weren't the only ones chalking up -500. Do I hear you say "Bad luck" or "Pass next time"?

Thanks,

ahydra

[ahydra]

Can anyone offer views on this? If I'm only allowed one hand per thread (couldn't see that stickied), then forgive me and ignore everything but part 1.

Thanks,

ahydra

[MickyB]

Bd 1 - 2S by N is auto. Any time south has four spades you'll have done the right thing, and even when south has three spades it might well be ok. I'm sure I'd have doubled at the table as South, but pass would be ok too, partner is still there. Should this really have gone three off?

Bd 2 - Double, no second choice

Bd 3 - I play Michaels as constructive+, the East hand is completely minimum and has no reason bidding again. West should bid a preemptive 3S over 2D.

Bd 4 - It's not my style to open 2S, we're just screwed whenever we belong in clubs. I quite like opening 3M when I have 6M5m with a reasonable major suit, but opening my weaker suit when 5-5 will leave partner unable to evaluate even when we belong in spades.

[Codo]

1 south, I would hate partners who double with this crap, if this is passed out and partner has no bid, we may belong in two heart... After the double 2 Spade is auto. With 4261 I would think about 3 Diamond before bidding 2 Spade. With the given shape, 3 Diamond is no real possibility.

2 X of course, sometimes preempts work.

3 both, forgetting the system is always bad, as is bidding with no extras to show.

I still play the cuebid as weak or strong, despite the tendency that most good players now decline this approach. But in the given vul. it is absolutely senseless to play a cuebid which includes weak optinons and just a 5/5 shape, so your partners hand would be close to a minimum 2 club bid for me.

4 You are allowed to use your brains and creativity during the bidding. But if you do, you are still throwing a bomb and hope that you will not hit your partner. If this fits your style and your partners, this is fine. I would not bid 2 Spade on the given hand.

[Cyberyeti]

1. Would not X with the S hand, and would not need to think before passing. Not impossible we'd play 2♠ in a 3-3 fit here if I double and partner has a 3 4small 33 4 count.

2. X, can we see what partner's pass was please.

3. Would have bid 3♠ with the W hand and that would end our involvement in the auction. Our Michaels is W/S.

4. Would open 2♠ in my sleep with this, but then mine don't need to be this good.

[campboy]

1. I would pass as South. It's the worst possible vulnerability for competing for the partscore, and with that shape you are often not even going to end up in the right partscore. 2♠ by North seems clear; either might be a 7-card fit but spades is a level lower.

2. I would double and hope partner doesn't pass. I see no other way to keep all three suits in the picture.

3. There is no way East should be bidding again. West's 4♠ is reasonable, since if East really did have a sixth spade it would have been -200 even without the misdefence. I would have bid 3♠ straight off as West, though.

You do need some restrictions on strength. I don't have a strong preference between "weak or strong" and "constructive plus".

4. I would not have opened unless I had a two-suited bid available.

[ahydra]

Surely on the first one if you bid diamonds an 8-card fit is guaranteed (double promises 3)? Moreover, you could end up in a 9 or 10 fit whereas with 2S you're pretty much guaranteed at most 8 (partner's not gonna double on 5 spades if he can bid them naturally, unless 5-0-4-4 or something).

The other thing is the crappiness of the spades. If it was J10xx, that suit now plays for two tricks instead of zero, so 2S is more than reasonable - but to get two tricks facing 8xxx, partner pretty much needs three honours. I'm gonna try to do a simulation of this - will be interesting to see what comes out.

The hand went 3 off because diamonds were 4-1 and spades 4-2.

On the 2nd one, the pass of the double was Jxx xxx AQxx Kxx.

The 3rd one - yes I agree with pre-emptive 3S, and East not bidding his hand twice.

The 4th one - fair enough, will reserve 5-card weak 2s only for third seat in future.

ahydra

[Flameous]

I'm quite interested if you manage a good sim of the number 1. Initially I'd say no blame, tight double and 2♠ seems like the norm.

2nd: Only other bid I can think of is 4NT as 3 suited T/O which I think some play. No thx.

3rd: I guess this was pretty much handled already. For Michael's, I prefer two alternative styles. Either constructive+ (You don't want to be showing exact shape with weak hands for declarer to play the hand correctly) or really destructive/strong. Destructive means often (54) shape and very few values. Partner isn't supposed to pre-empt much. This style doesn't help declarer nearly as much so it's actually quite playable. Of course not Vul.

4th: I say bad luck even though I probably wouldn't have done the same myself. I like to open 65 hands 2M and bid 4 if partner raises. I guess you could take the same approach with this but if partner puts you to 4S with Hx and plenty of red values, I don't think you are feeling good at all.
Of course if your style is to often pre-empt 5 card suits, this is automatic but then you wouldn't be asking.

[ahydra]

Attempted a sim of question 1. Using "Deal 3.1.9" I dealt 1000 hands where:

- West is 12-14 balanced
- East has 5+ hearts
- North has the hand shown
- South has 12+ HCP, <=2 hearts, 3-4 spades, 3-5 diamonds and 3-5 clubs (i.e. a T/O double of 2H).

I fed the output into a tacky Ruby script that calculates expected scores for North playing 2S and 3D (assuming no further action by anyone nor any doubles), and writes the number of hands making various numbers of tricks for those suits.

Obviously the "no further action" thing is a bit dodgy, as is the fact that I didn't restrict East's HCP, etc. But it's only a simulation EW can't double, while NS have an unlimited East and can't bid game their way, so hopefully it's fair-ish.

Results are in!
- 2H by E rates to make 95% of the time (on 3 hands, East can make grand in hearts!)
- Both 2S and 3D (by N) expected scores are negative, and 2S makes 34% of the time with 3D making 29% of the time.
- Playing 2S rates to score better than defending 2H on 60% of hands, and playing 3D on 67% of hands.

Spoiler

Hands analysed: 1000

In diamonds, expected score is: -74.29
In spades, expected score is: -92.56
Defending hearts, expected score is: -141.03
Playing 3D beats defending 2H on 668 hands
Playing 2S beats defending 2H on 602 hands
Diamonds by N:
makes 5 tricks - 0.004
makes 6 tricks - 0.052
makes 7 tricks - 0.263
makes 8 tricks - 0.386
makes 9 tricks - 0.227
makes 10 tricks - 0.055
makes 11 tricks - 0.011
makes 12 tricks - 0.002
Spades by N:
makes 1 tricks - 0.001
makes 2 tricks - 0.011
makes 3 tricks - 0.021
makes 4 tricks - 0.045
makes 5 tricks - 0.099
makes 6 tricks - 0.2
makes 7 tricks - 0.288
makes 8 tricks - 0.207
makes 9 tricks - 0.1
makes 10 tricks - 0.022
makes 11 tricks - 0.005
makes 12 tricks - 0.001
Hearts by E:
makes 5 tricks - 0.001
makes 6 tricks - 0.018
makes 7 tricks - 0.035
makes 8 tricks - 0.156
makes 9 tricks - 0.31
makes 10 tricks - 0.301
makes 11 tricks - 0.152
makes 12 tricks - 0.024
makes 13 tricks - 0.003

ahydra

[Cyberyeti]

ahydra, on 2012-January-24, 16:23, said:

Attempted a sim of question 1. Using "Deal 3.1.9" I dealt 1000 hands where:

- West is 12-14 balanced
- East has 5+ hearts
- North has the hand shown
- South has 12+ HCP, <=2 hearts, 3-4 spades, 3-5 diamonds and 3-5 clubs (i.e. a T/O double of 2H).

Isn't anything really big also possible for this double ? Partner can theoretically have a 22 count here, and I suspect he doubles with almost any shape if big enough, but not sure what big enough is here (what would you do with a 3334 17,18,19 ?).

You can also add that W won't have 5 hearts, and in some partnerships won't have 4 (or would raise, equivalent of a transfer break).

[Zelandakh]

On the first hand I think it is close whether to double or not as South. The sim for this hand is useless until East's hand is limited, both in points and also shape (extreme shapes would go directly to 4). E-W will not be making 7♥ after a weak take-out. Once South doubles then 2♠ seems normal.

On hand 2 X would be normal. My second choice would be 5♦ followed by 6♣ should partner bid 5♥. 4NT as a 3-suited take-out is not uncommon after a 4♠ preempt in some circles but (almost) unheard of over 4♦.

West has an easy 3♠ call over a Michaels bid for me. Bid to the limit as quickly as possible. I usually play good/bad and overcall with intermediate hands. I have sometimes thought that constructive 2-suited calls might be better vulnerable, and especially at red. Does anyone play variable 2-suited overcalls?

Hand 4 is an easy 2♠ opening if you have it available as a 2-suiter. If I was playing split-range 2Ms then I would open it 2♦ showing a bad weak 2. Playing standard weak 2s I would pass. Under my local regulations opening this hand 2♠ as a weak 2 would be considered my one allowed psyche for the day.

[ahydra]

I can retry the sim using some better criteria tonight - for instance South has that shape with 12-17 or any shape 18+, and East limited to 10 HCP. The "West won't have 5 hearts" thing is already taken care of because Deal's definition of "balanced" excludes 5M332s.

Zelandakh, where do you play? Considering that hand a psyche for a weak 2 opener is rather harsh! What if you opened 1S on, say, x KJx xxxxx xxxx - does that warrant an instant ban?!

ahydra

[Codo]

In your simulation you should forget the realy big hands for south- with these hands, he may bid again over 2 Spade or 3 Diamond.
And of course you should look for doubles and other subsequent bidding. The opener is limited, so his partner knows how strong the partnership is, they may have a penalty double or a 3 Heart bid avaiable.

And you may produce another sim:
Give West his NT hand, East 0-11 HCPS with 5+ hearts and south his actual hand- I would be surprised if doubling would be the winner... Especially with a partner who bids like the rest of us: 4 card spade suits in front of even strong 5 card suits in a minor....