[Lord Molyb]

Fourth chair, all vulnerable, match points, passed to you

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[Antrax]

1♦? Not really seeing the issue. Did it AP on you?

[Cascade]

1♦ for me too. I don't like the second choice, although I concede it might be possible to construct a hand where partner has the ♦Q and little else and it goes pass pass pass.

[Fluffy]

meeh i hate 5-7s, I would open 1♠ at first, but here there is probably not going to be a strong agression, so 1♦ could do the trick.

[dboxley]

1♦, what else?

[Bbradley62]

No consideration of opening 2♣ with 10 tricks? I know 2suiters are hard, but still... I might even consider opening 6♦ if I don't think my available tools are good enough to intelligently determine whether 5, 6 or 7 is the correct final contract.

[rmnka447]

With partner holding as little as ♦ Qxx and a doubleton ♠, your just about gin for making 6 ♦.

Sorry, but when I hold a monster 2 loser player like this, I open 2 ♣.

But I could see a problem doing so if your bidding agreements include the negative 2 ♥ response. The problem is how do you force partner to bid again after responding 2 ♥, so you can describe your hand.

Playing 2 ♦ waiting/cheapest suit 2nd negative, partner with a bad hand would respond 2 ♦, then bid 3 ♥ over your 3 ♦ rebid. That allows you to bid 3 ♠ followed by 4 ♠ to give partner a choice where to play.

If you do open 1 ♦, you follow it up with a jump in ♠ next round and a second ♠ bid after that.

[gszes]

Strong 2 suited hands are very tough when the best suit is a minor using
most standard methods. Since this hand does not really have 11 winners
unless p has a fit it is probably bet to just open 1d and try to make up
for lost ground. surviving the first round of bidding happens more than we
would like to admit.

1d

[MrAce]

Bbradley62, on 2014-March-29, 11:25, said:

No consideration of opening 2♣ with 10 tricks? I know 2suiters are hard, but still... I might even consider opening 6♦ if I don't think my available tools are good enough to intelligently determine whether 5, 6 or 7 is the correct final contract.

Jesus!

[Bbradley62]

MrAce, on 2014-March-29, 14:30, said:

Jesus!

Maybe I play with GIB too much.

[ggwhiz]

I have to consult my black magic specialist.... brb

[MrAce]

Bbradley62, on 2014-March-29, 14:42, said:

Maybe I play with GIB too much.

Yea, they do that. (GIB)

My problem is that we do not know exactly how many tricks we can take. You assume 3 losers in ♦ and rest is concrete, which is flawed imo. Rest is not concrete and how many losers we have in ♦ suit depends on pd's and opponent's holdings. When AQT is out it will not surprise me a bit if they easily produce 4th trick via trump promotion or simply a ruff. On the other hand we may belong to spades. We maybe cold for slam spade and go down in 5 ♦.

Lets say we have 10 tricks and pd has AKQ ♣ KQ ♥, and x ♦. Looks like at least 4 tricks to me. We will be lucky to make any game with combined 31 hcp. We need fit and we need it desperately when our 7 card suit is not even remotely solid. We know w/o a fit we will have severe entry problems.

Opening 2♣ and bidding 3♦ in second turn will consume too much space by the time we also show our 5-6 5-7 shape.

And please do not forget, this is if (a very big IF,) the opponents remain silent, when you have this shape and only 17 hcp. 2♣ openings are like drawing blood into a shark tank. They usually will not need an adequate hand to bid, jump, support each other etc. I mean if you open 2♣ you may find yourself having to bid at 5 level on your next turn and have not shown any of your suits yet. But their likelihood of having their bid increases when your hand is about 5-6 hcps less than expected. Pd will believe you, not them. Or he will judge correctly to punish them but you will not have much confident about your hand in defense. And i can not blame you for that.

God forbid if one of them is short in spades, your defensive aspects are pretty much reduced to 2 tricks, which will frequently lead pd to misjudge his hand and probably other hands too in the future when you really have legit 2♣ values.

[Lord Molyb]

Part 2:

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[mike777]

2s no problem yet.

[the hog]

Open 1♦ and rebid 1♠ which is forcing for me. If I were forced into playing a system where 1S was not forcing, then I guess I would have to bid 2S.

[Antrax]

2♠ for me is a natural as though there was no double (be warned, for GIB it might be a cue bid) so no problem yet. Why not just fast-forward to the hard part of the auction?

[Cascade]

Bbradley62, on 2014-March-29, 14:42, said:

Maybe I play with GIB too much.

Unless its improved opening 6♦ is problematic even with GIB. I once did that and GIB promptly converted to 6NT with eleven solid I tried 7♦ which GIB removed to 7NT on some balanced rubbish that might have made 6♦ but went off several in no trumps.

[Cascade]

Agree 2♠ natural now is normal unless 1♠ is forcing.

[mike777]

Is 1s F1 the norm now in the xpert universe?

[the hog]

mike777, on 2014-March-29, 22:54, said:

Is 1s F1 the norm now in the xpert universe?

Depends on what you agree with partner, doesn't it?