[jmcw]

ALL RED IMPS

---

Playing with a casual KISS partner, I considered 4 bids.

1. 3♥
2. 4♦
3. 4♥
4. 4♠


I wasn't sure if 3♥ was forcing so I rejected that call.
4♦ might be right if P held good ♠ and a stiff or ♦ control!
4♥ seems ok, though it might be to our advantage if the lead was up to partner's hand.
Eventually I settled on 4♠.

Did I make the best bid?

[MrAce]

For me AKQxxxx is the trump. I'd bid 4♥.

[mike777]

MrAce, on 2011-September-01, 22:55, said:

For me AKQxxxx is the trump. I'd bid 4♥.

ditto

[jillybean]

MrAce, on 2011-September-01, 22:55, said:

For me AKQxxxx is the trump. I'd bid 4♥.

mike777, on 2011-September-01, 23:41, said:

ditto

Make that 3

[JLOGIC]

If you are just going to jump to game and give up on slam, why would you choose your Kx of partner's suit over your AKQxxxx? AKQ seventh is a good trump suit opposite any holding, and your hand is so strong I'd expect it to always make. 4S might be in trouble on something like 5-1 spades or dummy getting killed.

[gnasher]

JLOGIC, on 2011-September-02, 01:15, said:

4S might be in trouble on something like 5-1 spades or dummy getting killed.

5-1? I'm glad to hear that your partnership isn't hidebound by the traditional requirements for a vulnerable weak jump overcall.

[jdeegan]

4♥. Am I a favorite to make 4♥? Yes. Might 4♥ go down? With a bad ♥ split or no ♠ ace, yeah. What about a 3♥ bid? Maybe, but it's anti-percentage. How about supporting ♠? See JLOGIC comment.

[han]

gnasher, on 2011-September-02, 03:38, said:

5-1? I'm glad to hear that your partnership isn't hidebound by the traditional requirements for a vulnerable weak jump overcall.

[JLOGIC]

Meh meant 4-1 obviously, losing 2 spade tricks and 2 whatever would suck. the CA and heart getting knocked out from our hand would suck. I am not sure why gnashers post was upvoted by han and cherdano, it is pretty obvious that I meant 4-1 and that the 5 and 4 keys are next to each other on a laptop. Great post, it added a lot to the discussion thx.

Andy do you ever post what you would bid or play in any thread now or do you simply nitpick everyone's posts instead while making non committal comments?

[gnasher]

JLOGIC, on 2011-September-02, 10:17, said:

Meh meant 4-1 obviously, losing 2 spade tricks and 2 whatever would suck. the CA and heart getting knocked out from our hand would suck. I am not sure why gnashers post was upvoted by han and cherdano, it is pretty obvious that I meant 4-1 and that the 5 and 4 keys are next to each other on a laptop. Great post, it added a lot to the discussion thx.

Andy do you ever post what you would bid or play in any thread now or do you simply nitpick everyone's posts instead while making non committal comments?

Sorry if you didn't find my joke funny. I'll bear that in mind.

I generally only post if I have something to say that nobody has already said, or if I disagree with the majority. In a thread like this, I can't see much point in announcing that I too would bid 4♥.

[VM1973]

jmcw, on 2011-September-01, 21:35, said:

ALL RED IMPS

---

Playing with a casual KISS partner, I considered 4 bids.

1. 3♥
2. 4♦
3. 4♥
4. 4♠


I wasn't sure if 3♥ was forcing so I rejected that call.
4♦ might be right if P held good ♠ and a stiff or ♦ control!
4♥ seems ok, though it might be to our advantage if the lead was up to partner's hand.
Eventually I settled on 4♠.

Did I make the best bid?

I think 4♠ is a good bid. However, I would have probably bid 4♥.

[whereagles]

Lets KISS. 4♥. After all, since I'll be playing it, it's the simplest and best chance for a plus for our side

[gnasher]

JLOGIC, on 2011-September-02, 10:17, said:

Meh meant 4-1 obviously, losing 2 spade tricks and 2 whatever would suck. the CA and heart getting knocked out from our hand would suck.

Now that I've thought about it some more, I don't think that concerns about a 4-1 break suggest bidding 4♥. If anything, they argue in favour of 4♠.

Suppose, for example, that partner has AQJxxx x xxx xxx. In 4♠, we can cope with either or both suits breaking 4-1 (on three rounds of diamonds we discard a club from dummy). In 4♥ we can cope with 4-1 spades, but probably not with 4-1 hearts - they cash two diamonds and switch to a club, and we'll need the long trump to have three spades.

Another example: QJ10xxx x xxx Kxx. 4♥ is down on either 4-1 break, but 4♠ survives a 4-1 spade break.

The difference is that in hearts we can see we're probably missing the secondary honours that would allow us to cope with a bad break. In spades partner may have them, and probably does have them because he's vulnerable.

This is a complex decision, becase we have to consider partner's style, responder's failure to make a negative double, and the possibility that they'll compete to 5♦. If they're going to save, it's much better to have bid 4♥ so that we can involve partner in the decision.

[MrAce]

gnasher, on 2011-September-03, 04:05, said:

Now that I've thought about it some more, I don't think that concerns about a 4-1 break suggest bidding 4♥. If anything, they argue in favour of 4♠.

Suppose, for example, that partner has AQJxxx x xxx xxx. In 4♠, we can cope with either or both suits breaking 4-1 (on three rounds of diamonds we discard a club from dummy). In 4♥ we can cope with 4-1 spades, but probably not with 4-1 hearts - they cash two diamonds and switch to a club, and we'll need the long trump to have three spades.

Another example: QJ10xxx x xxx Kxx. 4♥ is down on either 4-1 break, but 4♠ survives a 4-1 spade break.

The difference is that in hearts we can see we're probably missing the secondary honours that would allow us to cope with a bad break. In spades partner may have them, and probably does have them because he's vulnerable.

This is a complex decision, becase we have to consider partner's style, responder's failure to make a negative double, and the possibility that they'll compete to 5♦. If they're going to save, it's much better to have bid 4♥ so that we can involve partner in the decision.

In addition to this, about 4♠ vs 4♥ decision, i think in situations where we may need a little help from defense, this will be more likely when our hand is declaring than when this hand is tabled.

[Siegmund]

There is an old nursery rhyme about making the weak hand's long suit be trump; the strong hand's aces and kings will still take tricks.

Maybe AKQ-7 is enough to ignore that. But I think there are quite a few hands were e.g. 4-1 spade break might doom 4H just as surely as it does 4S, and we do have at least 8 good trumps in spades where we may have only seven in hearts, if we are worried about 4-X breaks in trump suits.

Put me down for 4S with a casual partner, and something more scientific with a regular one.

[JLOGIC]

gnasher, on 2011-September-03, 04:05, said:

Suppose, for example, that partner has AQJxxx x xxx xxx. In 4♠, we can cope with either or both suits breaking 4-1 (on three rounds of diamonds we discard a club from dummy). In 4♥ we can cope with 4-1 spades, but probably not with 4-1 hearts - they cash two diamonds and switch to a club, and we'll need the long trump to have three spades.

We only need the long trump to have 2 spades. 4S is better but it would be unlucky for it to matter.

Quote

Now that I've thought about it some more, I don't think that concerns about a 4-1 break suggest bidding 4♥. If anything, they argue in favour of 4♠.

I just really disagree with this conclusion. Yes, if partner has no SA and the CK and all the middle spades and a singleton heart, 4S will be better. There are definitely examples of 4S being better. That said I think they are far less likely than hand types where 4H are better. Hands like, partner having AJ9xxx of spades,or partner having AQ of spades and a doubleton heart, etc. They are not very hard to construct.