[oojah]

Dealer: East Vul: NS Scoring: IMP

♠ J8 ♥ Q4 ♦ AK8642 ♣ AQJ

West North East South

 -     -     Pass  1♦
 1♠    2♥    Dbl   3♦
 Pass  3♠    Pass  4♥
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

Here I am as south, we are not playing NFB.
Comments on the bidding please.

[hanp]

I would bid 2S instead of 3D. The hand has so much extra that I want to force to game. 4H over 3S was a good bid, you have already denied 3 hearts so with Qx support it is absolutely right to show it.

[jdonn]

Agree with all han said here.

[quiddity]

A few questions: What is East's double? Would redouble be support? If not, wouldn't 2S promise heart support?

[hanp]

I didn't pay attention to the double by east. I think it should show 5 clubs and a doubleton spade.

I think your comment about 2S showing support because rdbl is available for hands without support is very good.

[Cascade]

I was going to say that we bid 4♥ with hands like this but then realized that for us on this auction a negative free bid pretty much promises six hearts. We double with four or five hearts and then raise freely with three.

So the answer depends on your negative free bid style. If this only shows five hearts then you need to do something else.

I am not convinced that 3♦ shows your strength but again it might. However you are under more pressure to correct from 2♥ if this could be just a moderate five-card suit.

We also play the style where if we have a strength showing redouble (or double) then a cue-bid promises support for partner's suit but usually is more distributional than this since without distribution we already have two simple raises (3♥ and 4♥) available.

[jdonn]

Cascade, on Jun 4 2009, 06:56 PM, said:

So the answer depends on your negative free bid style.

I believe the style in use here is no negative freebids.

[hanp]

Inconceivable.

[oojah]

Like it or lump it we were not playing negative free bids, opps double was "support".
2♠ for us would show a good hand with hearts. If you are using it as forcing bid, good hand how would you show a hand with heart support?
Redouble we havent discussed, could be best use here.

[oojah]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     -     Pass  1♦
 1♠    2♥    Dbl   3♦
 Pass  3♠    Pass  4♥
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

[Cascade]

jdonn, on Jun 5 2009, 12:18 PM, said:

Cascade, on Jun 4 2009, 06:56 PM, said:

So the answer depends on your negative free bid style.

I believe the style in use here is no negative freebids.

hmmm i must have misread that in the opening post - sorry.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

3D is NF, at least usually, snce 2H is only RF.
hence 3D is not enough, asking for a stopper
via 2S is most likely your only option, since
it also creates a game forcing seq..

With kind regars
Marlowe

[P_Marlowe]

oojah, on Jun 5 2009, 01:38 PM, said:

Like it or lump it we were not playing negative free bids, opps double was "support".
2♠ for us would show a good hand with hearts. If you are using it as forcing bid, good hand how would you show a hand with heart support?
Redouble we havent discussed, could be best use here.

Hi,

playing 2S as fit is ok, but than you need also a bid, which
showes add. strength, the natural bid is XX.
The XX sould than suggest going for penalty, since you have
Qx in hearts, you also dont mnd 2Hxx.

The only downside is, that you have alos to XX, in case you
are void in hearts.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[oojah]

P_Marlowe, on Jun 7 2009, 01:49 AM, said:

playing 2S as fit is ok, but than you need also a bid, which
showes add. strength, the natural bid is XX.
The XX sould than suggest going for penalty, since you have
Qx in hearts, you also dont mnd 2Hxx.

The only downside is, that you have alos to XX, in case you
are void in hearts.

With kind regards
Marlowe

If XX can be penalty or asking for another bid then my partner is under pressure to make the right choice. Lacking expert hand evaluation skills we try to define doubles and redoubles as one or the other although this is creating its own set of problems, bridge hands dont fit nicely into just one category. We have started to remove the contraints on our X's and expect take a few bottoms while we improve our hand evaluations skills.