[daveharty]

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First prize to those who passed 1CX, since declarer will be held to his four trump tricks. I was East and just about fell out of my chair when my partner passed 2C, but it did save us some matchpoints since it seems to be just about the only making contract for EW, although 2NT makes I suppose. At the table my thinking was similar to ArtK78's; I could understand passing 1CX (hoping for the least bad result) but passing the cuebid seemed a breach of discipline. Now I'm not so sure.

[jillybean]

I am not sure that I like the double. What do you do when partner bids 1♥ or worse, jumps in ♥'s?

[kayin801]

I don't understand this stuff about breaching partnership trust and discipline and whatnot. Maybe this has something to do with playing with people you don't play with that often and wanting to continue playing with them, but if Josh (sohcahtoa, reg partner of 5 years) passed 2C thinking it was the percentage move then I would be perfectly okay with that, even if he was wrong this time. Obviously it could work out poorly, partner is unlimited and has said not all that much about his hand, but crazy moves work out sometimes too. Best case it's a cool story, even if it's an anti-percentage play. Worst case, lose 10, next board. If he decided to bid 2♥ and pass was correct I wouldn't get pissed either. I admit if partner was consistently passing forcing cuebids it would be aggravating, but this seems to be the exception, not the rule?

(Too much bromance? Sorry )

Jilly: anything but X seriously understates the value of your hand and risks missing a good game. Yes, you expect partner to bid hearts but 2♦ is a huge underbid. I don't mind 2♣ here after the X, hoping partner can bid something else, or 2NT which is a lie but the club opening might not have that much to it (plus the 2NT call might dissuade a club lead)

[jillybean]

kayin801; I would be quite happy bidding diamonds then spades with this hand, it is a perfect description of my hand.

[daveharty]

jillybean, on 2012-May-19, 10:25, said:

I would be quite happy bidding diamonds then spades with this hand, it is a perfect description of my hand.

If this is the approach you take with this hand, you must realize that a huge percentage of the time you won't get a second bite at the apple. You will get passed out in 1D when partner has xxxxx xxxx xx xx, or xx JTxxx Qx xxxx, or xxx KJxxx xxx xx, or any of a thousand other hands where game is excellent or cold but where partner wouldn't dream of acting over a simple overcall. This isn't one of those wild distributional hands where you can count on the opponents to keep the auction open even if your partner doesn't; this is a semi-balanced prime 23 count. I favor heavier simple overcalls than most, but this is way too strong. Or maybe you are suggesting strong jump overcalls; I have no experience with them, that wasn't an option. As for "what do you do when partner bids 1H", you see what my plan was; in the (extremely remote) event that partner jumped in hearts, how bad can that be? Partner's hearts can't be all that good, so he would presumably have something outside for the jump; if it's a club stopper we will probably play 3NT, if it's something in diamonds we'll play in diamonds, and if he has extra heart length we'll play 4H.

[cloa513]

daveharty, on 2012-May-19, 11:18, said:

If this is the approach you take with this hand, you must realize that a huge percentage of the time you won't get a second bite at the apple. You will get passed out in 1D when partner has xxxxx xxxx xx xx, or xx JTxxx Qx xxxx, or xxx KJxxx xxx xx, or any of a thousand other hands where game is excellent or cold but where partner wouldn't dream of acting over a simple overcall. This isn't one of those wild distributional hands where you can count on the opponents to keep the auction open even if your partner doesn't; this is a semi-balanced prime 23 count. I favor heavier simple overcalls than most, but this is way too strong. Or maybe you are suggesting strong jump overcalls; I have no experience with them, that wasn't an option. As for "what do you do when partner bids 1H", you see what my plan was; in the (extremely remote) event that partner jumped in hearts, how bad can that be? Partner's hearts can't be all that good, so he would presumably have something outside for the jump; if it's a club stopper we will probably play 3NT, if it's something in diamonds we'll play in diamonds, and if he has extra heart length we'll play 4H.

Then better is to allow partner to bid 1D in response to 1CX or 1H in response to 1DX with all sort of crap hands, then a two level bid is needed to force.

[jillybean]

I hear what you are saying Dave. I certainly wouldn't put money on my bidding but when everyone is opening, overcalling and responding aggressively 1♣ 1♦ swish is not a major concern and so I don't double with 1&2 suited hands.

[FrancesHinden]

This is another thread talking about 'breach of discipline'. The problem is not whether or not partner can cope with you passing a forcing bid (which of course he should be able to), the problem is that I can't think of any hand that bids on the first round and then passes a cue-bid. It's not so much 'breach of discipline' but inconsistency. If we're passing now, we should have passed last round.

FWIW I would have passed last round. If they run and partner doubles at the 1-level, I would pull to 2C.

[daveharty]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-May-20, 04:16, said:

It's not so much 'breach of discipline' but inconsistency.

I made the same argument after the fact, but just to play devil's advocate, assuming you have an upper limit on your single-suited overcalls, surely you want to make some noise as advancer to allow partner to show a strong one-suited hand? And once partner has denied that type of hand by not bidding/jumping in her suit, passing the cuebid is not necessarily inconsistent.

[Statto]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-May-20, 04:16, said:

If we're passing now, we should have passed last round.

Last round we did not know partner had a good hand. This round we do.

[aguahombre]

Statto, on 2012-May-20, 16:11, said:

Last round we did not know partner had a good hand. This round we do.

Last round we didn't care, and should have passed. This round we know more about the nature of his hand, confirming that we misjudged on the previous round. We were at least given one green card in the box.