The hand is a high card point too strong for Flannery… but I might have been tempted to bid it anyway.
Flannery not in the armamentarium, I am afraid, agree it would have been nice to have here.
It’s not actually a common convention this side of the pond. 2/1 is slowly consigning Acol to the dustbin of history, but few pairs play a Flannery 2D IME - the multi is way more common, which I believe has some restrictions on it in the US.
Seems a polarising convention - I know some world class pairs play it, but others seem to absolutely hate it.
It can only be used in National events where you play at least 6 boards against each opponent. And you have to have two copies of a written defense to give to your opponents.
You should shoot your partner for not showing a 5 card spade suit at the 1 level.
Either 4H or (if you want to make this a very strong hand), double and then rebid 4H.
At least with my partnership agreements, that is a stronger bid than simply bidding 4H directly.
You wouldn’t do it if there were a serious risk of partner passing the double for penalty, but here, there isn’t one as you yourself hold ATxx of spades behind the 1S opener.
I see no particular reason to try to get cute on this hand, in a not-very-revealing auction I will trust my partner’s overcall and not my opponents’ bidding, not that they’ve shown anything in particular either except maybe a running club suit in East who was thinking that if they had all the Aces (and apparently they are missing two of them) he could take 12 tricks. (Which is one of the obvious reasons to bid like that - not that that is definitely what he’s got.)
I’d lead a low spade from Txx and we’ll see what happens.
Yeah, this was very surprising. With four heart support maybe a fit-showing jump would be in order, but assuming new suit bids by advancer of overcaller are forcing at the 1 level, he’s got nothing to lose, you’ll end up in 2H in the worst case (and if you hit partner with a double fit, cha-ching).
Yeah, this is a bit of a magic lead situation, I think.
The only way I could see North leading a diamond is if South didn’t overcall 1S, and the E-W auction went: 1C-1S, 2H-3NT, 4C-4H, 4NT-All Pass.
Now with West’s first bid suit being spades and East showing a reverse in clubs and hearts, I’d lead a diamond (duh).
But in second seat, with 5251 and pretty decent suits (about 6.5 losers if you find a fit with partner), it’s pretty hard not to overcall 1S at matchpoints.
I would lead the Ten of Spades. It’s partner’s suit and it’s unblocking. Declarer undoubtedly has a stopper so the sooner that stopper gets cleared the better. Then I can put partner back in after winning my Ace of Clubs.
BTW I was under the impression that Gerber could not be used if Clubs had been bid by your side.
Agreed. I like to insist with any partner that a change of suit is ALWAYS forcing for one round. Handy at the lower levels where you’re not sure of a game.
Well, not if you’re a passed hand, or at the 2 level, where I believe it’s standard for that to be “constructive/NF” and you’d need to have an agreement with partner about it being forcing.
I think even Standard American treats new suits by advancer as forcing for one round at the ONE level, though.
That would be a partnership agreement perhaps but certainly not a rule. I’d certainly play 1C 1S 2N 4C as Gerber. Or if you played weak NT so that 1C 1S 1NT showed 15-17, I’d say 4C was Gerber.
I’ve known partnerships when any 4C bid as a jump over NT (except the Jacoby 2NT) is Gerber.
I had a major blunder last week. I picked up S:x H:AKQJT9xxx D:KJ C:x. LHO opened a weak 2D and partner doubled. I got carried away and bid 4H and partner raised to 6. Partner had S:AKQxx H:x D:AQxx C:AQJ and 7N was cold. I should, of course, have bid 3D. But I don’t like my partner’s double.
It’s an ugly double, but whether it was wrong depends on what 3D, 3S or 2NT would mean in your system.
The downside of “all strong hands start with a double” systems is the the double can be made on any distribution and so tells partner nothing except “enough strength to bid it”.
Also your opponent got lucky when he decided to open 2D first-in-hand on a 4-count (max) with a suit to the Ten. Another day he’ll hit partner with the big hand and swiftly end in 5D doubled.
Change the Ace of Hearts to a small club, and you’d still jump to 4H. For that matter, change the KQ of Hearts to two little clubs, and you’d still jump to 4H, maybe.
Yet, despite that your hand is so much better than you’ve shown, partner jumps to 6H for a make! Without even trying to figure out what anybody’s showing (or objecting to partner’s bidding which seems quite wrong to me), maybe you’re bidding a grand slam on the actual auction is clear-cut.
Hmm, I count 17 tricks off the top - think even I could make 7N with that lot :). What a freakish deal. Bidding it, of course, is another matter. The way I bid, I would interpret the double as an ordinary double for take-out (not being familiar with any system over weak 2s), so would expect partner to have 12+ points and be short in diamonds. Opposite my hand obviously my first priority is to make sure we’re at least in game. Given I might have opened 5H first in hand with my holding, it’s tempting to just bid that anyway, but obviously now partner has shown some strength there must be a slam on. So, take it relatively easy - how about 3H, jumping to show strength and changing suit to force partner to bid again. Worst-case, they go 4H and then I can bid on to show slam interest, I only really use Blackwood which happens to be fine in this case as once I know they have the other 3 Aces I can bid 7N directly with complete confidence. On the actual deal, I’d expect partner to bid 3S over my 3H. Then I think we risk getting in a bit of a muddle because of the unusual distribution, because if I press on with hearts, partner might see that as weak and we end up stopping in 4H. So kind of the opposite of what happened to you, Quartz. Alternatively, if I launch straight into Blackwood, partner will assume I have agreed spades as trumps. Again though, this probably works out, as I will still get the opportunity to bid 7N comfortably.
I’m not posting all this to show any great insight - rather, to remind you experts of how us novices think, should you ever have to partner us in a pick-up game :).
It’s a nice bidding problem - after 2D - Dbl - P - 3D (game force), doubler can see a slam with his rock-crusher, but I’m still not sure how you get to seven after 3S - 4H.
4S could be passed, 4NT agrees Hearts (and doubler doesn’t know partner’s suit is solid), 5S uses all the bidding space.
Maybe make up a 5C bid planning to go 6NT over partner’s 6C? But then after 6H you still only get to 6NT.
It’s one of those hands where old-style Blackwood works better than RKCB.
After [2D] - Dble - 3D, 3S - 4NT, the player in Quartz’s position can then set the contract at 7NT, 6H or 5H depending on the number of Aces opposite. But if partner is counting KS as an Ace, you’re on a guess unless he shows all four.
The responder to the Double has only three messages to convey: Hearts, Hearts and Hearts. Using up bidding space with 3D is counterproductive, particularly if he’s forced to bid a non-jump 4H on the next round.
If the immediate 4H doesn’t appeal, how about 5H? I don’t know what such a 5-bid means in general, but on this auction I think it should mean “Don’t worry about hearts.”
I agree you should bid 3D to create the game force. I don’t think your partner has any reasonable option other than double. He is too strong for 2S and doesn’t have enough spades for 3 or 4S, and cannot bid 3NT with a singleton heart. So you pretty much have to double and hope partner doesn’t give you too big a problem with his bid.
I don’t like the 6H bid. You could be in a 5-1 heart fit with 2 or more heart losers. I think 6NT is a better shot.
With 9 tricks in your hand, you might raise 6H to 7H. Partner must have a very big hand to bid slam holding no trump honours and 4 hearts at most. But it is tough to bid a grand in a club game when you have not established that you hold all the key cards.
Not if partner held that particular big hand. You would rapidly get to 6D via RKCB and it is an excellent contract.