[bilalz]

reasons for the choice please.

MP scoring (regular pairs comp at the local club), you are Vul vs non-Vul Opps.

Playing sayc, you sit in second seat holding KJ743 JT7 KQ6 KJ, bidding goes pass 1S pass 3S pass ?
Do you bid 4s or no? or even 3nt?

[Tramticket]

bilalz, on 2018-May-30, 05:43, said:

reasons for the choice please.

Playing sayc, you sit in second seat holding KJ743 JT7 KQ6 KJ, bidding goes pass 1S pass 3S pass ?
Do you bid 4s or no? or even 3nt?

IMPs or MPs? Vulnerability?

Is 3♠ an invitational raise? Does partner have other ways of inviting?

For me, I am bidding on at IMPs opposite an invitational raise, especially vulnerable. It is closer at MPs, but I probably accept.

[bilalz]

Tramticket, on 2018-May-30, 06:15, said:

IMPs or MPs? Vulnerability?

Is 3♠ an invitational raise? Does partner have other ways of inviting?

For me, I am bidding on at IMPs opposite an invitational raise, especially vulnerable. It is closer at MPs, but I probably accept.

sorry, added the missing info, the raise shows 10+ hcps and spade support.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

I went with 4S, which would be my bid at the table, but playing MP, pass is certainly the better MP
choice.

You have a 13 count, but not a particular good one, at best you will have 25HCP combined, but
you may only have 23, in my opinion, it does not really matter, if 3S showed 4+ support,
but if you may only have a 5-3 fit than this will also weight more in the direction of staying low.

A 3NT in this sequence can be quite useful as a cheap bid to start a cue bidding seq., i.e. for some,
it may not be a bid suggesting to play 3NT.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Stephen Tu]

So my usual metric is pass with a flat 12-13. You have 14, but no aces and a lot of jacks to me make it a downgrade to 13. So I'd be inclined to pass at MP, bid game if vul+IMPS.

[neilkaz]

I bid game since for me, the limit raise shows 4 card support so I have a 9 card fit.

[rmnka447]

I'm bidding 4 ♠.

[sfi]

The first hand I constructed had no play for ten tricks (Qxxx Axxx Axx xx) and was on a finesse for nine. Game looks like it needs a working max, so I pass and hope to go positive.

[ahydra]

sfi, on 2018-May-30, 16:53, said:

The first hand I constructed had no play for ten tricks (Qxxx Axxx Axx xx) and was on a finesse for nine. Game looks like it needs a working max, so I pass and hope to go positive.

Well, one of those small hearts could be the H9 then you're 37.5%, which is all you need for a vul game at IMPs. Or partner could have four clubs and you can get some dummy reversal stuff going.

This being matchpoints however, it's probably best to pass.

ahydra

[bilalz]

The reason I asked was because I made the 3s bid holding QTxx xx AJxxx Qx. (If you think I overbid, please tell me and why, I guess Qx in clubs is not great, but my question remains any way and deals with what P should do when the 3S comes around to him).

Partner passed and we was the only one to find the pass. All other tables went one down in 4S. He is a very good player and told me that he did not have a good hand and had no aces. Despite the top score, I felt a bit uneasy and thought I should share this here so I can get a general guideline. Based on the responses, there is a lack of consensus. I would have bid 4S myself, probably without thinking too much. If I did take the time to pause and assess I dont know what I would have done but given the lack of interest from opps, I might have bid 4S even then. Would I be very wrong is what I guess I wanted to know.

He is a lot more experienced than me so I took his word for it but to me the lack of aces in that hand would not have occurred as a reason. Maybe someone can give a short explanation in general about Aces when bidding (I am guessing they dont matter so much when bidding nt).

[Edit, Ace of diamond not E, Swedish cards eh..]

[Tramticket]

bilalz, on 2018-May-31, 01:59, said:

The reason I asked was because I made the 3s bid holding QTxx xx EJxxx Qx.

Do you mean: ♠QTxx ♥xx ♦AJxxx ♣Qx? I am confused by the E, but guessing its a typo.

For me this is a pretty marginal invitation. The strength needed to invite will depend to some extent on how light your openings might be. We tend to open pretty light and this would not be an invitational hand for us. [We use 2NT as an invitational or better raise and 3♠ as a more preemptive raise - using these criteria I would have made the preemptive 3♠ bid].

[Stephen Tu]

You should use "A" not "E" for the ace here as most English speakers won't be able to figure that out without context.

Anyway, this hand is just a statistical exercise. People answer based on their estimation of success rate based on experience and whatever hand evaluation techniques they have developed. Alternately you can feed parameters to a computer, print out a bunch of possible hands, decide whether you want to be in 4S or not on average. Can also have computer analyze double dummy how often 4S makes. This particular hand is a close decision; I think it is one of those where you should bid it if you could play omnisciently, double-dummy (e.g. always guess the Q opposite ATxx in trumps, always guess the clubs if possible if xxx opposite KJ, always guess the hearts opposite Kx), but practically won't guess so well and probably should not bid it at MP; I agreed with your partner.

About aces: The normal 4321 count for honor points is just an approximation that works kind of OK and is easy to compute. But people have known for ages that this scale underrates aces, and overrates Qs and Js, especially at suit contracts. Computer study suggests 4.5/3/1.5/.75, and .25 for tens, is a better approximation of reality for suit play. So like I said in my first post here I have no aces and lots of jacks, that leads to my downgrade. Aces are important because if held by the opponents, if you don't have void they are just 100% sure losers if they get around to cashing them in time. Lower honors can be finessed away some percentage of the time. Your actual trump suit, 100% spade loser. If one of the outside worthless jacks was instead upgrading the spade K into spade ace, now 45% avoid a spade loser. Turn CK into CA, now only 50% club loser instead of 100%. These things are huge for your success rate. Aces promote the value of lower honors, and sometimes give you timing and control to discard stuff in side suits. Without them your opponents have the sure tricks in the aces and plus the timing to get their other additional tricks. At suits, if A is facing singleton, you often have zero losers given enough ruffs, if you have KQx opposite the stiff, you have a sure loser even though this is 5 pts and more than 4 from the ace, not knowing partner's shape. Ace is almost always worth full value, except in rare cases facing void (and even then sometimes it provides a useful pitch elsewhere, and is a direct trick you don't have to ruff to generate, one less loser), while lower honors sometimes can't be utilized in time and prove worthless in practice.

[sfi]

ahydra, on 2018-May-30, 18:53, said:

Well, one of those small hearts could be the H9 then you're 37.5%, which is all you need for a vul game at IMPs. Or partner could have four clubs and you can get some dummy reversal stuff going.

Even at IMPs we're not gaining in the long run if we bid vulnerable 37.5% games - we're just not losing any more. You are correct that there are hands where game is a better proposition (giving partner a doubleton club is a significant negative, for example), but then I also constructed a hand with three of the best cards in the deck, so my sample hand is not bottom of the range in usefulness.

Whatever we choose, it's clear that 4S will go down a fair percent of the time. So this really boils down to whether game is 50% (the original post is at MPs) and what the rest of the field is doing.