1D is a natural bid, right, not Better Minor? Showing 4+ cards in the suit?
(1) You must bid at least 2D to show diamond support. If partner has 3 hearts, he will mention them on his next bid. Given you have a singleton spade and a doubleton club and four card support for partner I would be strongly tempted to uprate the hand to 3D.
(2) I would plead mechanical error. Then bid 3D. You have no sure side entries to your hearts (maybe a late diamond, maybe the Queen of Clubs) and you have support for partner’s suit. Your simple, not jump, repetition of the hearts indicates (to me) a very weak hand with a 6 card suit, 3 or fewer clubs (if you had 4 you would have mentioned them in response to partner’s double), and not even 3 card support for partner. Partner is probably putting you at something like a 2-6-2-3 distribution. From his bidding, partner has 4 or more diamonds, 3 or more clubs, 2 or fewer hearts, and 3+ spades including the King or Ace or both (possibly 2 if the minors are solid).
Quartz - in two of your previous posts you supported diamonds.
I’m quite happy how I’ve described my hand - having 10 red cards we are still ok. If partner has a singleton heart, then he must have a four card or longer diamond suit. And if he is 2-3 in the reds he will give preference back to hearts.
Rightly or wrongly (and although you’ve never discussed it) both you and partner assume that the Double of One Spade is for penalties, there being only one unbid suit. How do others play it?
Yes. In the first, I was unaware you were playing Better Minor.
That’s a big if. At the point of your first bid, all partner knows is that you have 4+ hearts and 5+ points.
Well yes, but now you’re committing your partnership to trying to make 9 tricks rather than 8. Also, the lead will be going through Dummy’s spades rather than up to them.
I interpreted it as ‘Tell me more about your hand’. The Unassuming Cue Bid of 2S pushes everything to the 3 level which consumes too much bidding space.
I’m guessing in SAYC the double is for penalties, strongly implying 4 spades and 1 heart. I’m not strong enough to leave it in so I bid 2H, almost guaranteeing 6+ cards.
Partner’s 2NT is a little bit weird. I guess he has something like:
KJxx
x
AKxxx
KTx
I figure that the ‘free’ Pass is a way to ask Tell me about your hand. Yes, Pass is one of the possible answers to the free Pass, but Pass is always a possibility — unless opener makes an (uncontested) rebid of 3 Clubs or higher. If Opener intended to rebid 1 Spade himself, Double is the natural descriptive call.
With this approach there’s much overlap between a penalty Double and a 1NT rebid, so maybe this is a bad treatment. But partner and I have a simple style and, again, hadn’t discussed the auction.
14 HCP with a possible minimal response from partner - so points are possible 20-20 - is not a good reason for a penalty double, especially non-vulnerable. The bidder of 1S is showing 5+ spades, remember. For a NT rebid by opener I would like to see a heart honour in partner’s hand if it’s a singleton and would expect two hearts. Remember that a 2H rebid is the weakest of responses. Partner cannot expect any outside entries. If you are expecting the hand you described above, then a 3D rebid is indeed warranted, though I would expect a bid of 2D instead of a double.
The bidding by both sides doesn’t make sense. LHO - who bid spades - can only have 5 spades, else would have repeated the suit with 6, which means that RHO has 3 or 4 spades and should have raised to 2S or 3S respectively. Note that LHO does not have a balanced hand with cover in hearts and diamonds and good points else the bid would have been 1NT. Nor does LHO have poor points and a 6 card spade suit else the bid would have been 2S, a Weak Jump Overcall. Nor has LHO doubled for take-out, possibly indicating shortage in clubs. So perhaps LHO holds something like S:ATxxx H:xxx D:Kxx C:AK.
Well I play support doubles so the bidding wouldn’t go like that. My partner has promised exactly 3 hearts. Assuming you don’t what can his distribution be?
I can’t see how he doesn’t have at least 4 diamonds. And must be semi-balanced
Playing 5 card majors he probably has at most 4 spades, probably at most 2 hearts as you rebid hearts and he took you out. So he’s 4-3 in the minors 4 must be in diamonds as he bid those, put him back into diamonds. Or he has longer diamonds than that so put him in diamonds. If you play 4 card majors then even more likely he has long diamonds
Please cancel the discussion of this 1-6-4-2 hand. (@ Mods: can you just delete the last 14 posts?)
Looking again at the so-called “problem” hand above — my partner’s hand — I now see that it was I who grossly and stupidly misbid. I was uncertain what kind of hand partner was showing and ended up so befuddled I made an indefensible Pass over 3H, an action so wrong it would be too embarrassing to reveal my hand.
Please: Show me mercy and let’s just drop discussion of this hand. :eek: :o
Probably should show a splinter but it’s natural here. So it’s likely a simple preference situation and then pard can take the reins - I bid 4H.
What actually happened was that pard had a mental aberration and actually holds 6 spades, but wanted to reverse to show a strong hand :smack: Now reversing into a longer major suit is obviously a crime against bridge and his partnership privileges are under review, but I was still questioning myself for bidding 4H. Led to an impossible 6H when 6S is cold. I think 3S has to show a beast of a two-suiter so I should just bid my longer major.
Since 2S would already be a strong force, 3S should show a huge hand, probably 5-6 or 5-7. With both outside Aces and some length in both of partner’s suits, your hand is very good. Start with 4D.
I would expect my partner to be at least 5 - 5 in the majors and probably 5-6 if not 6-6 with good points so give preference by bidding 4S. Remember that as responder you show the lower-ranked suit first if the lengths are equal. (The exception is bidding a 4 card spade suit at the 1 level in preference to a 5 card suit at the 2 level.) I know that your partner is not following these rules! Partner knows I don’t have four spades because I did not bid them on my second bid, and his bid indicates he can tolerate that so now is the time to let him know I have three. Partner also knows that I have a bare minimum hand as I simply repeated my suit. Partner can then bid 4N for Blackwood if desired. Could bidding 4D be seen as 4th suit forcing? You have not agreed a suit and you don’t want to end up in 6N.
Then bid 3D. You have no sure side entries to your hearts (maybe a late diamond, maybe the Queen of Clubs) and you have support for partner’s suit. Your simple, not jump, repetition of the hearts indicates (to me) a very weak hand with a 6 card suit, 3 or fewer clubs (if you had 4 you would have mentioned them in response to partner’s double), and not even 3 card support for partner. Partner is probably putting you at something like a 2-6-2-3 distribution. From his bidding, partner has 4 or more diamonds, 3 or more clubs, 2 or fewer hearts, and 3+ spades including the King or Ace or both (possibly 2 if the minors are solid).