| Board 11 South Deals None Vul |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NS 5♥; NS 5♦; W 2N; E 1N; EW 2♣; EW 1♠; Par +450
| West | North | East | South |
| Pass | |||
| 1 ♠ | 2 ♣ | Pass | 2 ♥ |
| Pass | 2 NT | Pass | Pass |
| Pass |
| 2 NT by North |
| Lead: ♠ 5 |
| Down 3 — NS −150 |
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
North doesn't have an ideal bid. X is possibly better than 2C
ReplyDeleteSo you won't think much of my 1NT overall then. Luckily partner takes it out to hearts. Jack leads AS and comments sarcastically on my spade stoppers being a bit thin as I laid down dummy.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't double with only two hearts and this shape. If you imagine a fairly likely auction it will go 1S X P 2H; P ? And you have to bid. You have too few hearts and too many points to pass. But if you bid - and a forcing 2S is the only thing I can think of - then you are more or less forcing to the three level without a guarantee of a fit. I was taught this sort of cue-bid shows around 19+. The good 18 we have here is ok but the inconvenience of the likely high response of 2H makes it unattractive.
ReplyDeleteI have had extremely rare hands where I have been tempted to overcall a four card suit at the two-level. So 2C is possible. Although again it doesn't really get your strength across.
I like Alistair's 1NT and its probably what I would bid at the table. Who needs a stopper? No don't tell anyone I said that. But 10xxx may will be a stopper any time partner has a spade honour. And the odds are better than you might think. For a ball park calculation assume partner has two spades. Then that is 2/9 for the sA and if not the sA then 2/8 for the sK, similarly 2/7 for the sQ and 2/6 for the spade jack. That is the chance of no spade honour is 7/9 * 6/8 * 5/7 * 4/6 = 5/18 = 28%. So around 72% of the time partner will have a spade honour. The exact calculation is much more complex but nevertheless I think it is much higher than we would intuit.
And the news isn't all bad when partner has no spade honour:
1. We may play in 1NT and the opponents can take only five spade tricks so we might still be in our best scoring spot.
2. Partner might take out to some other contract.
3. The opponents might take out to some other contract.
4. Something else good might happen - no spade lead; the spades are blocked ...