[rbforster]

Tough IMPs game, uncontested auction. You open 1♦ and partner responds 1♠. What's your rebid?

♠KTx
♥KQ9
♦AKT9xx
♣x

Discussion welcome. I made my choice and subsequently wondered if I could have chosen better.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the problem with 2S is, you would make this with a king less,
if you hit a fit, your hand is close to a gf.
2H is ok, I dont like it, but if you hit a fit, you have a spade fit,
but convincing partner that the 53 is better than the 44 will be hard.

Hence I go with 3D.
The given hand is an example, why there are conventions to describe this
kind of hand.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[gszes]

There is a LOT of potential with this hand and it seems a bit scary to underbid to cater to the small number of misfit hands. IMHO 2h has the best chance of landing us in the right strain/level. 2h will never get us to hearts since we can always convert any heart bid to spades but it accomplishes a LOT when responder has at least 5 spades since we have easy follow up bids. over:
3h bid 4s (edited useless 2h 2s sequence since we are continuing bidding OVER 2h) hand improves significantly when responder is at least 54 majors
2s bid 3s
2n bid 3d
3n pass
any jumps in the majors by responder should have us strongly considering slam.

The main problem i have with a simple 2d is that there are far too many spade games that will be missed due to responder being near min and having a dia fragment. Axxxx Jx Qx xxx is a great example. That hand also will not move over 3d. 3d takes up too much space and severely limits our ability to explore various contracts. Always look for the fake reverse when you can "safely" correct to a higher strain if partner suddenly goes bananas. I dislike 2s even more than 2d since we might not have a fit and may be giving responder too much false hope.

[Winstonm]

There have been variations of this hand in bidding problems for decades, and it still gets no easier. It is one thing to jump shift into a false minor to create a force - raise at your own risk - but to reverse into a 3-card major creates a situation that is nearly impossible to undo.

I bid the pedestrian 3D in full knowledge that partner may hold a perfect hand to make 4S, with he unable to bid again over 3D, and me in the post mortem vowing to look into a better bidding system.

[Tramticket]

gszes, on 2018-May-13, 08:15, said:

There is a LOT of potential with this hand and it seems a bit scary to underbid to cater to the small number of misfit hands. IMHO 2h has the best chance of landing us in the right strain/level. 2h will never get us to hearts since we can always convert any heart bid to spades but it accomplishes a LOT when responder has at least 5 spades since we have easy follow up bids. over:
2h bid 2s
2s bid 3s
2n bid 3d
3n pass
any jumps in the majors by responder should have us strongly considering slam.

The main problem i have with a simple 2d is that there are far too many spade games that will be missed due to responder being near min and having a dia fragment. Axxxx Jx Qx xxx is a great example. That hand also will not move over 3d. 3d takes up too much space and severely limits our ability to explore various contracts. Always look for the fake reverse when you can "safely" correct to a higher strain if partner suddenly goes bananas. I dislike 2s even more than 2d since we might not have a fit and may be giving responder too much false hope.

I agree with much of this. I would prefer another couple of HCP to reverse (its not so easy over 2NT, Leb), but it feels like the most practical bid.

[nullve]

Not opening 1N was a big mistake. Now it's either 2N or losing bridge.

[apollo1201]

A bit light (to me) for a reverse, but make one of those major K an A or strengthen the D and it will probably be the best description of the hand (and will keep us at a low level to continue bidding).
3D is the textbook bid but is extremely space consuming (the famous « diamond problem »), even so more when we have 3-cd support.
Other alternative bids decribe much weaker hands (2D/S) or a weaker D suit, or overstate my values / wrongside NTs (2NT).
So 3D for me too, hoping that partner will bid again. It is IMPs after all.

[rmnka447]

I'm bidding 3 ♦.

No bid is perfect. But with reasonably strong ♦, I think 3 ♦ is the most descriptive bid in terms of strength and disposition of the hand. 3 ♦ doesn't deny 3 ♠.

[steve2005]

This is the bridge world hand of death.
Either you have a bid that covers this exact hand or whatever you bid could turn out wrong.

[MrAce]

I am a simple guy.
Minor rebids of opener can be up to 16 and that is what I will do.
Too strong for 2♠, too weak for 3♦.
2♥ lies both in number of ♥ cards and strength so it would not even occur to me.

[Stephen Tu]

I don't really understand anyone who prefers 3d to 2H. I feel like these should be same strength range at the bottom, given that you are forcing to the same level, 2H is cheaper than 3d, if I can bid 3d NF I should be able to bid 2h than 3d NF also if partner is weak. If I have GF hand instead I can bid 2h then something else (3c) with GF, or game in spades.

I also don't understand what disaster will unfold by "lying" about heart length. Partner with 4+ cd hearts also has 5+ spades. As long as he has ever heard of the concept of a reverse into a fragment to solve bidding problems such as these, he won't keep correcting your correction to spades back into hearts at a higher level. If he doesn't raise hearts then there's also no problem. It's also not a lie about strength if your partner is also of the view that it's OK to make light reverses with intermediate hands like these and that you aren't waiting for GF hands to reverse.

It does get too high opposite a weak misfit. So 2d is going to win vs reversing some of the time. But 2d will also miss some light games that make in spades and 3nt.

[Winstonm]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-May-13, 12:41, said:

I don't really understand anyone who prefers 3d to 2H. I feel like these should be same strength range at the bottom, given that you are forcing to the same level, 2H is cheaper than 3d, if I can bid 3d NF I should be able to bid 2h than 3d NF also if partner is weak. If I have GF hand instead I can bid 2h then something else (3c) with GF, or game in spades.

I also don't understand what disaster will unfold by "lying" about heart length. Partner with 4+ cd hearts also has 5+ spades. As long as he has ever heard of the concept of a reverse into a fragment to solve bidding problems such as these, he won't keep correcting your correction to spades back into hearts at a higher level. If he doesn't raise hearts then there's also no problem. It's also not a lie about strength if your partner is also of the view that it's OK to make light reverses with intermediate hands like these and that you aren't waiting for GF hands to reverse.

It does get too high opposite a weak misfit. So 2d is going to win vs reversing some of the time. But 2d will also miss some light games that make in spades and 3nt.

One problem with the reverse is that partner will overvalue this: H 9872 while undervaluing this D QJ.

[Stephen Tu]

Winstonm, on 2018-May-13, 12:57, said:

One problem with the reverse is that partner will overvalue this: H 9872 while undervaluing this D QJ.

??? If partner opens 1d and reverses, holding DQJ I am very very happy. Reverse promise long diamonds and QJ are very helpful.

Also what's so great about H9872? There are no covers there. Responder will only be happy that he has major fit and will raise H directly or indirectly. Then we correct to spades and he realizes the fit is in spades not hearts.

[Winstonm]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-May-13, 13:15, said:

??? If partner opens 1d and reverses, holding DQJ I am very very happy. Reverse promise long diamonds and QJ are very helpful.

Also what's so great about H9872? There are no covers there. Responder will only be happy that he has major fit and will raise H directly or indirectly. Then we correct to spades and he realizes the fit is in spades not hearts.

First, he promises 5 diamonds only. QJ is helpful opposite a 5-card suit but not the gold mine it is when partner shows a "good" 6-card suit. This is not arguable. Second, at this second-round stage of the bidding we are still searching for a fit. It is not about cover cards, When you lie about your heart length, partner will think you have an 8-card fit with his 9xxx, Jxxx, Axxx, Qxxx, whatever you want to give him. The issue is, he will always be confused in the auction about your heart length.

As for him understanding that you lied about your heart length when you bid spades, I am doubtful. My experience tells me partners are more likely to think you are cue-bidding spades and there is a very real possibility you will corrected to your "known" 4-4 heart fit one level too high.

[ahydra]

3D. When partner follows with 3S that is forcing so we can support then.

This is one reason I like clubs or balanced / split-range balanced systems, so 2NT is freed up to show the good 3-6 hand.

ahydra

[MrAce]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-May-13, 12:41, said:

I don't really understand anyone who prefers 3d to 2H. ...

I don't understand anyone who prefers 2♥ over 3♦ once they decided to overbid this hand. Both are overbid, 2♥ lies about the number of ♥ cards. 3♦ does not.
But if I decided to choose to be aggressive, I would go with 3♠.

[Stephen Tu]

Winstonm, on 2018-May-13, 13:32, said:

First, he promises 5 diamonds only. QJ is helpful opposite a 5-card suit but not the gold mine it is when partner shows a "good" 6-card suit. This is not arguable.

Either way they are a gold mine, and they are cards partner doesn't have for his strength showing bid so he has more useful cards elsewhere. I really fail to see how the extremely minor difference here is going to make responder make some magical evaluation bump that leads to a better contract after a 3d bid that he will not after a reverse sequence. Post an example hand?

Quote

As for him understanding that you lied about your heart length when you bid spades, I am doubtful. My experience tells me partners are more likely to think you are cue-bidding spades and there is a very real possibility you will corrected to your "known" 4-4 heart fit one level too high.

Maybe I am playing higher average level of partners, they have all seen concept of reversing on fragments in the bridge literature and don't make this sort of error.

MrAce, on 2018-May-13, 15:05, said:

I don't understand anyone who prefers 2♥ over 3♦ once they decided to overbid this hand. Both are overbid, 2♥ lies about the number of ♥ cards. 3♦ does not.
But if I decided to choose to be aggressive, I would go with 3♠.

(1) about hearts, it's not a lie if partner knows it's a possibility
(2) even if you consider it a lie, it's inconsequential as you can correct hearts to spades. It's only a problem if partner is an inexperienced bidder who has never seen this sort of strategy and will interpret every spade correction as cue bid/kickback etc.
(3) 2H guarantees you will not miss 5-3 spade fit. 3D does not. Over 3d partner on some borderline hands can't move because he doesn't know whether his QJxxx spades is facing 3 cd support or stiff/void. So some of these hands will play in diamonds missing spades. Also some hands will bid 3nt over 3d, despite having 5 spades, this may or not work better. I think partner will make better decisions knowing shortness is in clubs not hearts.
(4) 3♠ is a worse lie than hearts, because now you will play many 4-3 spade fits in some number of spades when belong in NT/diamonds. If you lie about hearts, wrong strain won't happen as long as partner is aware what is happening when you correct heart raises to spades.
(5) overbid or not is to some extent eye of beholder and partnership agreement. Obviously reverse/3d will get too high sometimes, 2d bid more likely to guarantee plus. But when you also opening 11 count spade misfit, if choosing same bid with 15 hcp and spade fit, you are going to miss games by bid 2d only. Which is the net winner probably takes a lot of simulations.

To me, 3d bidders are taking on the disadvantages of the reverse (getting too high, maybe 2d was the limit), without any compensating advantages (of finding 5-3 spade fits reliably). Is 1m-1M-3m-3M supposed to show any 5, or only good 5 or 6+? If it's going to be any 5 because opener can have AKx/AQx you will be less happy when unsure about 3nt and have a good 5/6 and want opener to raise on say Qx. 2D/2S bidders at least have the chance to stay low, but will also be underbid sometimes. 3S to me is just unnecessary distortion with no advantages whatsoever. 2H only hurts against a partner who never heard of 3 cd reverse and woodenly corrects spades to hearts over and over, or if it just drives too high.

[gszes]

MrAce, on 2018-May-13, 15:05, said:

I don't understand anyone who prefers 2♥ over 3♦ once they decided to overbid this hand. Both are overbid, 2♥ lies about the number of ♥ cards. 3♦ does not.
But if I decided to choose to be aggressive, I would go with 3♠.

I think the point here is that lying about heart length is a "free" lie. If p has a heart fit then there is also a spade fit and opener can belatedly convert ANY level heart bid to spades to clarify things and i doubt KQx will be a disappointment to responder when they play a spade contract with a heart fit.

[xbabarx]

2D is my bid

[tritonium]

The majority selected 3!d. However, I would take that as a weak preempt.