[CSGibson]

jogs, on 2012-December-27, 19:27, said:

♠ AJx ♥ xx ♦ Qxxx ♣ KJxx

How does one bid this hand after
1♠ - 2♥ - ?

How is this a hard hand? Is there a more obvious bid than 3♥ for this? Why the hell would you want to hide your support for partner? While you might be able to make a theoretical argument that this is a playable treatment to differentiate between 3 & 4 card raises, you get into trouble in the real world where opponents don't cooperate by passing or making bids that don't take up space.

As to the OP, obvious 2N.

Oh, and side note, I accidentally hit reputation instead of reply originally. Please do not take my upvote as agreement, because I definitely do not agree with your post.

[Zelandakh]

Jogs, thank you so much for teaching me about negative doubles. I have clearly been advancing them all wrong these last years. Could you perhaps create similar teaching threads for parts 1 to 7? I would be most grateful. Don't worry about Mike, Phil, Han and co - they clearly have no idea about how to bid properly.

[mycroft]

"In competitive situations, 2NT is not necessarily natural. It is also not necessarily forcing." Partner has a bid, and now knows my hand (no 6th spade, heart stopper, no long minor - but presumably something in the minors because I don't have lots of hearts, and I only have 5 spades). I assume he'll do the right thing - and yes, if passing 2NT is the right thing, it's still going to suck.

[WellSpyder]

PhilKing, on 2012-December-26, 20:45, said:

Rightly or wrongly, some of us play 1♣-1♥-X as denying four spades and 1♦-1♥-X as promising four spades, for example. They are not the same for a couple of reasons.

Phil, would you care to elaborate on the reasons for this? I've never actually noticed anyone making this distinction, perhaps because the two sequences don't tend to come up very often on adjacent or proximate boards.

[PhilKing]

WellSpyder, on 2013-January-15, 11:15, said:

Phil, would you care to elaborate on the reasons for this? I've never actually noticed anyone making this distinction, perhaps because the two sequences don't tend to come up very often on adjacent or proximate boards.

It's fairly common if playing five-card majors with a 2+ club to play play double after 1♣-(1♥) to try and locate a minor suit fit (and denying four spades) - a posh version of "stolen bid" double, if you like. After a natural diamond, that is less important, so we may as well distinguish between four and five spades.

I can't remember the second reason.

[akwoo]

jogs, on 2012-December-27, 19:27, said:

Actually 2NT could be the 'least worst'. At least
we agree all options are 'bad'.
Where I really disagree is which patterns should be
making the negative double. With one spade partner
should pass more often. With zero spades
perhaps double was the wrong call.

♠ AJx ♥ xx ♦ Qxxx ♣ KJxx

How does one bid this hand after
1♠ - 2♥ - ?

Standard where I live is 3♥, which promises 10+ hcp and 3+ spades.

[FrancesHinden]

PhilKing, on 2013-January-15, 11:35, said:

It's fairly common if playing five-card majors with a 2+ club to play play double after 1♣-(1♥) to try and locate a minor suit fit (and denying four spades) - a posh version of "stolen bid" double, if you like. After a natural diamond, that is less important, so we may as well distinguish between four and five spades.

I can't remember the second reason.

You might like to play 1C - 1H - 1NT as a non-forcing club raise (and 2C as diamonds) because opener hasn't promised clubs, but after 1D - 1H you think it more useful to retain a natural 1NT and bid 2m naturally?

[I dunno, I play 1S in both auctions as denying spades]

[PhilKing]

FrancesHinden, on 2013-January-15, 15:59, said:

You might like to play 1C - 1H - 1NT as a non-forcing club raise (and 2C as diamonds) because opener hasn't promised clubs, but after 1D - 1H you think it more useful to retain a natural 1NT and bid 2m naturally?

[I dunno, I play 1S in both auctions as denying spades]

After One Club we just play 1♠ as fewer than 4♠, 1NT as nat and 2♣ as diamonds and 2♦ as clubs. After One Diamond it's mostly the same except 2♦ is limited, often with three-card support. As you probably recall, after 1♦-1♥, 2♥ is a transfer to 6NT down 6 when partner forgets it shows spades.

I guess it's better to swap 1♠ and 1NT in the transfer structure, but I am not changing much for a while.

[Zelandakh]

WellSpyder, on 2013-January-15, 11:15, said:

Phil, would you care to elaborate on the reasons for this? I've never actually noticed anyone making this distinction, perhaps because the two sequences don't tend to come up very often on adjacent or proximate boards.

As a junior I played 1♣ - (1♥) - X as showing diamonds but 1♦ - (1♥) - X as 4 spades. The simple reason being that the latter did not take up any space whereas the former did and we wanted to keep our competitive auctions as similar as possible to the uncontested ones. The modern version of this seems to be X showing spades and 1♠ as a general noise and no obvious bid.

[jallerton]

PhilKing, on 2013-January-15, 11:35, said:

It's fairly common if playing five-card majors with a 2+ club to play play double after 1♣-(1♥) to try and locate a minor suit fit (and denying four spades) - a posh version of "stolen bid" double, if you like. After a natural diamond, that is less important, so we may as well distinguish between four and five spades.

I can't remember the second reason.

After a 2+ 1♣ opening, it can clearly workd out badly to raise to 2♣ with "only" 4-card support, so it can be handy to us double to show a hand with values but no convenient bid.

After a natural 1♦ (or natural 1♣) opening, opener can just raise the minor with 4-card support, and on (depending on style) some hands with 3-card support also. Thus Responder can normally find something to bid, so the "values but no convenient bid" hands are a lot less frequent.

Maybe that's the second reason, or maybe I'm just expressing the first reason in a different way.

PhilKing, on 2013-January-15, 16:26, said:

After One Club we just play 1♠ as fewer than 4♠, 1NT as nat and 2♣ as diamonds and 2♦ as clubs. After One Diamond it's mostly the same except 2♦ is limited, often with three-card support. As you probably recall, after 1♦-1♥, 2♥ is a transfer to 6NT down 6 when partner forgets it shows spades.

This misunderstanding must be quite common. It happened against me a couple of months ago and the opponents ended up in 6NT-8! I never found out what the actual agreement was, but there's does seem to be an obvious advantage to natural methods.

[PhilKing]

jallerton, on 2013-January-16, 17:51, said:

This misunderstanding must be quite common. It happened against me a couple of months ago and the opponents ended up in 6NT-8! I never found out what the actual agreement was, but there's does seem to be an obvious advantage to natural methods.

Er, that was against me. Not that it's relevant, but I was right. The irony is it wasn't my bit of system - it was something I presume CS and GO played, based on the Bocchi notes.

I'm not bitter or anything, since it's not like it was in the last match of the Premier League with us leading by 4vps. -6 was just wishful thinking. But to be fair, 6NT just needed a finesse and a break or two, as I recall.