Before the bridge game last night, Joel and I were debating about what to do with the following hand:
♠xxx, ♥ Jx, ♦KTxx, AJxx.
Partner opens 1H and you bid 1NT as a passed hand, semi-forcing, and opener rebids 2♣. What's your call? There are clearly 3 options: pass, 2♥, and 3♣. If you weren't a passed hand and 1NT was forcing, I think 2♥ is clear because if offers the most flexibility and opener often has only 3 clubs. 3♣ is kind of al ight invitation because you have 2♠ available as a good invitation in clubs. When the 1NT response is semi-forcing or non-forcing, the likelihood of partner having only 3 clubs is now pretty much 0, so raising clubs looks more attractive. He could easily have some 16 or 17-count so that 3NT or 5♣ or 4♥ cold, so you have to keep it open, but is it really a good enough to make a forward-going bid like 3♣?
This hand came up at the Columbia sectional a couple of weeks ago. In that case I was a passed hand and raised to 3♣. I felt slightly shady doing it, in light of partner's long hesitation before bidding 2♣, but I knew the opponents were weak, and partner well could have been thinking about passing, which would make 3♣ less attractive. Partner's next bid was 3♥ and I had an easy raise to 4. He was 1-6-2-4 with 16 hcp, I think.
Last night, Joel and I had a similar auction: 1♥-1♠-2♦-3♦-3♥-4♦-6♦. I held:
♠Axxx, ♥x, ♦KT9x, ♣Jxxx, so I had a very minimal raise to 3D. There are just too many hands where game is cold opposite a hand partner would rebid 2D on. It was actually a good slam that happened to go down because my LHO overruffed hearts twice. Joel's hand:
♠x, ♥AQJxxx, ♦A8xxx, ♣A
Middle Georgia people don't bid 23 point slams so needless to say, down 1 was a zero.
Yes, I wonder how good a board 5D would be, given that 3NT is pretty poor. It sucks to be in slam down one when most pairs are in partscores.
ReplyDeleteYep. Well 5D making 5 would have been just average. It looks like half the field played a diamond partial and half played 4H making.
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