[humilities]

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Seems like it's between 2D and X. Your agreement here is that double promises 4S. If it is relevant, partner is not overly aggressive with his 1 level overcalls (you think he is a tad conservative).

[Zelandakh]

I will make the normal call when holding a weak NT in sandwich position.

[Winstonm]

I pass. Matchpoints is still bridge.

[ggwhiz]

humilities, on 2013-July-02, 05:30, said:

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Seems like it's between 2D and X.

No it isn't. I think pass then balance (if appropriate) is called for here. We have no clear lead direction and the opps are unlimited to this point but in a forcing auction. Given pards conservative overcalling style, 1nt back to me gets doubled and we might bury them wherever they land.

[BillPatch]

Pass. and unless partner acts, pass on next round. If opener raises ♥ my K there is misplaced. If he rebids 1 NT, both the ♥ and ♣ in my hand are bad. (♣ even split, minor honors under opener, ♥ K short in front of stronger hand, so often offside.) penalty double of 1 NT should show values/length in responder's suit, shortness in opener's. Without double I expect partner will often lead a diamond(I could have made a one level overcall if I had the other pointed suit. I would expect a good score.

Incidently, a normal first round T.O. shows at least 4 cards in each of the two unbid suits.

[fromageGB]

I don't see a downside to 2♦. I am happy to bid a 5 card suit headed by AJ, with useful outside values. Partner is most unlikely to have the absolute nothing hand that would give me a minus 500, and it very usefully cuts out opener's 1♠ or 1NT bids.

[Winstonm]

fromageGB, on 2013-July-04, 05:06, said:

I don't see a downside to 2♦. I am happy to bid a 5 card suit headed by AJ, with useful outside values. Partner is most unlikely to have the absolute nothing hand that would give me a minus 500, and it very usefully cuts out opener's 1♠ or 1NT bids.

-300 is more likely. And it isn't that unlikely.

[MrAce]

Imo 5 votes for 2♦ overcall with 5332, in sandwich position, is still way too many, even in non expert forum.

When one overcalls, he/she should be happy to be raised, happy to find a fit to land on . I would be annoyed at 3 level with this hand even if my pd provides a 4 card fit, let alone the fact that he will raise me with a lot of 3 card support hands.

I don't even understand the goal. Do we badly want a diamond lead ? Are we messing their auction badly ? With 5332, i would think we need extra ordinary strength that we can not pass or extra ordinary suit quality or both and no other better options except than bidding our 5 card suit. Neither AJxxx suit nor 13 hcp justifies it.

I don't know what 2♦ bidders see but BAD position + BAD shape +BAD spots + BAD suit quality is what i see when i look at this hand.

They are not even red, which would rescue bad overcallers now and then due to being focused on vulnerable game bonus more than punishing us.. 2 minor doubled is money maker and people love to defend 2m doubled. It is so awful to bid 2♦ imo that even if overcaller can dodge all of these, he will be still damaging his side by telling opponents where the hcps are while they play their contract.

[nige1]

humilities, on 2013-July-02, 05:30, said:

Seems like it's between 2D and X. Your agreement here is that double promises 4S. If it is relevant, partner is not overly aggressive with his 1 level overcalls (you think he is a tad conservative).

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Given humilities' methods, Pass seems advisable, but if double didn't promise 4 ♠ then,
IMO, Double = 10, Pass = 9, 2♦ = 6. In the sandwich position, action is adventurous, but delay can be dangerous too.

[aguahombre]

nige1, on 2013-July-04, 20:36, said:

In the sandwich position, action is adventurous, but delayed action can be dangerous too.

There is a third choice ---no action. If a 2H raise is passed back to me, I won't let them play peacefully. But, anything else and our side is out of it.

[StevenG]

MrAce, on 2013-July-04, 18:50, said:

I don't know what 2♦ bidders see but BAD position + BAD shape +BAD spots + BAD suit quality is what i see when i look at this hand.

They are not even red, which would rescue bad overcallers now and then due to being focused on vulnerable game bonus more than punishing us.. 2 minor doubled is money maker and people love to defend 2m doubled. It is so awful to bid 2♦ imo that even if overcaller can dodge all of these, he will be still damaging his side by telling opponents where the hcps are while they play their contract.

I see that it's matchpoints. What has game bonus got to do with a part-score hand? Anyway, where I play, people don't have methods to double here for penalties.

[aguahombre]

StevenG, on 2013-July-05, 02:15, said:

Anyway, where I play, people don't have methods to double here for penalties.

The people who will overcall 2D here are exactly why we don't use Support or Snappish doubles after a 2-level sandwich overcall.

[mikeh]

StevenG, on 2013-July-05, 02:15, said:

Anyway, where I play, people don't have methods to double here for penalties.

Are you sure about that?

Where I come from, playing support doubles, I've been able to pass and have partner, who knows we play support, reopen with a double.

Your post is a bit like those who claimed that the advent of the negative double allowed garbage overcalls because responder couldn't wield the axe. It may well be that support doubles slightly reduce the frequency of the penalties, but only incredibly weak players have no penalty methods here.

As for the OP, I hope that he or she tries to internalize the consensus response here. If so, then the question was a good one, in that it may have caused one or more of our members to realize that 'pass' is often a legitimate option even when one has lots of hcp.

[aguahombre]

mikeh, on 2013-July-05, 13:05, said:

Where I come from, playing support doubles, I've been able to pass and have partner, who knows we play support, reopen with a double.

Is partner required to reopen the auction? I did not think so.

[mikeh]

aguahombre, on 2013-July-05, 14:03, said:

Is partner required to reopen the auction? I did not think so.

I don't understand your point. Firstly, nobody requires opener to reopen when playing negative doubles, yet one rarely hears the argument these days that the negative double has greatly reduced low level penalties. The same reasoning applies with support doubles: yes, there is a slight loss in frequency, but I was responding to a post in which the poster asserted that where he plays people simply can't collect penalties at all!

[StevenG]

mikeh, on 2013-July-05, 13:05, said:

Are you sure about that?

Where I come from, playing support doubles, I've been able to pass and have partner, who knows we play support, reopen with a double.

Actually, I am. I don't know anybody who plays support doubles (as far as I know).

This is the thing about MPs. The right bid doesn't depend on "pure" bridge judgement. It depends on where you're playing, what bidding systems are in use amongst the field in general, and who your opponents are.

I answered the poll honestly based on my experiences in English club bridge, and (occasionally) better. If my methods fail elsewhere in the world, well, I wouldn't really know that.

[mikeh]

StevenG, on 2013-July-05, 15:30, said:

Actually, I am. I don't know anybody who plays support doubles (as far as I know).

This is the thing about MPs. The right bid doesn't depend on "pure" bridge judgement. It depends on where you're playing, what bidding systems are in use amongst the field in general, and who your opponents are.

I answered the poll honestly based on my experiences in English club bridge, and (occasionally) better. If my methods fail elsewhere in the world, well, I wouldn't really know that.

I wasn't assuming that you played support doubles...I do myself, but I don't assume that everyone else does

What I was assuming was that opener's direct double meant something other than penalty....since nobody you play against has the methods to penalize an overcall, and I assume you all have a double card in the bidding box, this seemed a fair inference.

Given that inference, my question was and remains how is it that, it seems, it is not possible, in your games, for opener to pass and hope, with some reasonable expectation, that partner may be able to reopen with a double, much as responder will pass a direct overcall when holding a penalty hand but constrained by negative doubles? Obviously it isn't possible, since you have stated that nobody has the methods needed to penalize the overcall.

[StevenG]

Opener's direct double doesn't normally mean penalties. In fact, I don't really know what it does mean, because I rarely see it. (In my own methods it's shape showing. I am aware of one expert who mostly plays these low level doubles as penalty, very successfully, but he's the only person I know of with certainty.) Opener can pass round and pray partner doubles, but you can hardly call that a "method". In practice, people aren't going to risk it being passed out and writing down +90 when they have a partscore of their own.

Clearly we are very unsophisticated. However, I find that at MPs you pick up a huge number of points by bidding partscores accurately, and I prefer to keep my low-level sequences accurate (and, therefore, descriptive). I wouldn't be overcalling on the given hand at IMPs, where disasters are more of a problem, but I'll make a lot of small gains at MPs for the occasional bad board.)

(To sidetrack this discussion, I notice that very few posters here acknowledge the form of scoring when answering these questions. Their answers are nearly always based on IMP scoring. I learnt my bridge playing MPs in quite a decent club, and all my methods and judgements derive from that. Yes, I do tweak my system when playing teams, but teams is MPs tweaked, not vice versa. Whatever, I am quite comfortable with the way my methods hold up against good players when I play in higher-level competitions than I would usually.)

[Free]

I like overcalling in such a situation because opps usually have a hard time to find their best Major fit. Many play some sort of support doubles, but responder with 4-4M doesn't know what to do. However, this suit is too weak, I don't like the distribution of honors, so I think it's a clear pass.

[kael chi]

Partner seems has nothing.
I will choose pass...