[AL78]

MPs

---

I took partner's heart raise as pre-emptive/shapely, and didn't see any point in raising to game. Unfortunately 11 tricks are there (thanks to a very lucky diamond layout requiring running the ten and ducking if covered, else take a double finesse to set up a third diamond for a club discard), and this was worth 36% as most people found it. It is somewhat unusual in that North has a seven loser hand, South has an eight loser hand, so nine tricks should be the limit on the basis of the losing trick count, but 11 are there (because of the diamond layout and the ♥Q drops).

Here is what she said to me about it:

"If I have an opening hand I will cue bid 2S. If holding 6-12 pts I will now count my losers and bid accordingly.

8 losers = 2H
7 losers = 3H
6 losers = game. Here I would cue bid or bid Jacoby

I held an 8 loser hand but upped my bid to 3H with 11 points and holding 4H. You can now count your losers (7) and bid 4H.

If I am competing and not vulnerable I bid to the level of the fit."

I don't think she quite has this right, as I would take a minimum raise as a nine or ten loser hand, an invitational or weak shapely raise as eight losers, and a game force or bidding straight to game having seven losers or less. Thus my hand was not worth game. What do you think?

[Tramticket]

How do you value the South hand - and particularly the spade holding?

It looks to me like a holding that is far more useful in defence than playing the hand. This South hand does not look like an invitational hand to me.

I also think that the double dummy prediction of 11 tricks is very optimistic in real life play.

[hrothgar]

I would have thought that IF your partner had an opening hand, she would have opened, so I have no idea where this "cue bid 2!S" nonsense is coming from...

I think that you'll find that most strong players treat 3!H as a preemptive raise

A standard raise structure might look like the following

3!♥ = preemptive raise
3!D = fit showing
3!C = fit showing
2N = mixed raise
2!S = limit raise

[smerriman]

 AL78, on 2020-June-22, 15:13, said:

Here is what she said to me about it:

"If I have an opening hand I will cue bid 2S."

If 2♠ promises an opening hand, despite having passed originally, she's not going to be bidding 2♠ very often..

[AL78]

 Tramticket, on 2020-June-22, 16:11, said:

How do you value the South hand - and particularly the spade holding?

It looks to me like a holding that is far more useful in defence than playing the hand. This South hand does not look like an invitational hand to me.

I also think that the double dummy prediction of 11 tricks is very optimistic in real life play.

Myself and five others did make 11 tricks. Five others stopped in a partscore (not the same five), and one East played in 3♠ undoubled going four off (which is the same score as making 3♥+2).

[Stephen Tu]

-I'd stop using LTC as an evaluation method. Especially unadjusted, its quite crude. E.g. for the South hand LTC doesn't distinguish between South holding only HQ and CQ instead of HA and CK, which makes a tremendous difference. Now one can make a ton of adjustments to raw LTC make this more realistic, but at that point IMO you might as well just use adjusted HCP (HCP + distributional values for good shape, tweak a little for good honor location or bad honor location).


-As a passed hand, she can't have an opening hand anymore, so it doesn't make any sense to reserve the cue bid for that. Now were she unpassed, it is not totally unheard of to reserve cue bid for GF, and retain the jump raise as an invitational bid, but this has fallen to a rather miniscule portion of players. The vast majority of players play the jump raise as weak (or perhaps mixed), requiring one to lower standards for the cue bid to merely invitational or better. (If opener bids 3M over the inv, with GF obviously one can bid on).


- Her notion of always bidding to the level of fit, but retaining 3H as essentially invitational, are basically incompatible with each other. It leaves 3H with too wide a range if she is bidding it with both this hand and something with say just HA + CQ. If whe wants to bid 3H with weak hands just to preempt with 4 trumps, you need to slide stronger hands into 2S (and/or 2nt if playing it as a conventional raise in competition).

[DavidKok]

My partner keeps telling me to bid more aggressively. With that in mind, I would judge:

The North hand has 7 losers (one spade, two hears, two diamonds, two clubs). However, the two aces (instead of kings) and lack of queens, plus the ten of hearts, make this hand stronger than a regular 7-loser hand. I am a fan of certain 'new' losing trick count schemes for splitting close decisions, and at the end of the day I'd say North is worth about 6 losers.

In the same spirit, the South hand counts to 8 loses (two in each suit), and also 8 'new' losers. There are no particularly discerning features either way - no abundance of aces over queens or vice-versa, about average spot cards, no honour combinations. Therefore South is worth a limit raise after 1♥-1♠, and in my opinion 3♥ is a poor bid showing a far weaker hand. I would luck out on this hand, because in my system 2NT here would show a limit raise or stronger with 4 or more trumps (and 2♠ shows a limit raise or stronger with exactly 3 trumps). So 2NT is the right bid.

After 1♥-(1♠)-2NT*-(P)-? North has an easy 4♥ bid, if you are willing to believe my '6 losers' call from earlier. No slam aspirations, but enough to go to game. If you think this is too optimistic it is also worth noting that KJTxx improves considerably opposite 4 trumps instead of 3.

Then for the play, I would just make 10 boring tricks, losing one each in spades, diamonds and clubs. The double dummy approach in diamonds seems impossible to find at the table, at least to me.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the question would be, what does your partner do with 3 card support and inv. values,
however you decide to calculate this LTC / HCP?
In the end you disagree, about the meaning of direct raises, which you need to sort out.

A common simple agreement set, is direct raises are weak (whatever this means (*)), good
raises go via the cue.
See your other post, ... I dont think it sound policy to hop around red with nothing, but your
mileage may vary, but I my opinion was not supported by the majority, although it was not the lone
voice in the desert either.

There are methods, that allow to differ between 3card / 4 card support, and also have weak raises in the
mix, they use xfer Methods (in addition to raises via 2NT).

#1 Fit Level is certainly a nice / helpful concept, but the law is usually used to decide 3 over
3, and not a tool used for constructive bidding.

#2 An opening showes is usually assumed to be 7 loosers, i.e. a 8 looser hand is inv., meaning a
simple raise is not enough.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[maverick23]

 AL78, on 2020-June-22, 15:13, said:

MPs

---

I took partner's heart raise as pre-emptive/shapely, and didn't see any point in raising to game. Unfortunately 11 tricks are there (thanks to a very lucky diamond layout requiring running the ten and ducking if covered, else take a double finesse to set up a third diamond for a club discard), and this was worth 36% as most people found it. It is somewhat unusual in that North has a seven loser hand, South has an eight loser hand, so nine tricks should be the limit on the basis of the losing trick count, but 11 are there (because of the diamond layout and the ♥Q drops).

Here is what she said to me about it:

"If I have an opening hand I will cue bid 2S. If holding 6-12 pts I will now count my losers and bid accordingly.

8 losers = 2H
7 losers = 3H
6 losers = game. Here I would cue bid or bid Jacoby

I held an 8 loser hand but upped my bid to 3H with 11 points and holding 4H. You can now count your losers (7) and bid 4H.

If I am competing and not vulnerable I bid to the level of the fit."

I don't think she quite has this right, as I would take a minimum raise as a nine or ten loser hand, an invitational or weak shapely raise as eight losers, and a game force or bidding straight to game having seven losers or less. Thus my hand was not worth game. What do you think?

Drury users can bid 2C here to show invitational values and heart support. The advantage compared to cue bidding 2S is that the pair is able to stop at the 2 level, via opener's rebid of 2H (please stop) if the hand was opened light in 3rd seat.

[hrothgar]

 maverick23, on 2020-June-23, 09:20, said:

Drury users can bid 2C here to show invitational values and heart support. The advantage compared to cue bidding 2S is that the pair is able to stop at the 2 level, via opener's rebid of 2H (please stop) if the hand was opened light in 3rd seat.

Drury is not normally used in competition

[Douglas43]

 DavidKok, on 2020-June-22, 16:43, said:

My partner keeps telling me to bid more aggressively. With that in mind, I would judge:

The North hand has 7 losers (one spade, two hears, two diamonds, two clubs). However, the two aces (instead of kings) and lack of queens, plus the ten of hearts, make this hand stronger than a regular 7-loser hand. I am a fan of certain 'new' losing trick count schemes for splitting close decisions, and at the end of the day I'd say North is worth about 6 losers.

In the same spirit, the South hand counts to 8 loses (two in each suit), and also 8 'new' losers. There are no particularly discerning features either way - no abundance of aces over queens or vice-versa, about average spot cards, no honour combinations. Therefore South is worth a limit raise after 1♥-1♠, and in my opinion 3♥ is a poor bid showing a far weaker hand. I would luck out on this hand, because in my system 2NT here would show a limit raise or stronger with 4 or more trumps (and 2♠ shows a limit raise or stronger with exactly 3 trumps). So 2NT is the right bid.

After 1♥-(1♠)-2NT*-(P)-? North has an easy 4♥ bid, if you are willing to believe my '6 losers' call from earlier. No slam aspirations, but enough to go to game. If you think this is too optimistic it is also worth noting that KJTxx improves considerably opposite 4 trumps instead of 3.

Then for the play, I would just make 10 boring tricks, losing one each in spades, diamonds and clubs. The double dummy approach in diamonds seems impossible to find at the table, at least to me.

Agree about the opener being worth 6 losers

[nige1]

AL78 'MPs. Bidding judgement question'
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IMO, LTC is a helpful rule of thumb. But see quote below
I use the (almost equivalent) WTC:
- North has 6 winners (♠singlleton=2, ♥K=1, ♦A=1.5, ♣A =1.5)
- South has 4 winners (♠Q=0.5, ♥A=1.5, ♦doubleton=1, ♣K=1.
- Total winners = 11 (counting an extra winner for trump control).
Agree with Stephen Tu that South is worth a cue-bid -- or 2NT if that shows a 4-card raise. (with any more she might open the bidding). And North is worth a raise of 3♥. The game is worth bidding.

---

Kieran Dyke quoted by Cherdano said:

The easiest way to count losers is to line up the people who talk about loser count, and count them.

[P_Marlowe]

 hrothgar, on 2020-June-23, 10:07, said:

Drury is not normally used in competition

I agree, but
https://www.bridgebum.com/bromad.php

The question is, if BROMAD can also be used in the given seq., and maybe the 2C
response can be though of as Drury.

[dsLawsd]

Clearly, the hand is worth an invitation. 2♠ or 2NT if that is in your system- or perhaps as said above 2♣ or even 2♦as a 1 round force.

I might just bid 4♥with her hand (and the opponents might just bid on so a double comes to play)- depends on our system structure.

[FelicityR]

 AL78, on 2020-June-22, 15:13, said:

Here is what she said to me about it:

"If I have an opening hand I will cue bid 2S. If holding 6-12 pts I will now count my losers and bid accordingly.

All I have to say is that you need to discuss with your partner what 2♠ means here when she has passed in first seat, too, otherwise you are losing a bid completely. A 3♥ raise looks overtly pre-emptive once the opposition have mentioned ♠s.

[KingCovert]

Seems like your partner has weird ideas about what her various raises mean here. More concerning though is that her ideas are ideas that she can't reasonably expect anyone else to play without discussion. And yet....

Nowadays, standard treatment in these situations is that jumps are preemptive, simple raises are constructive or show some defensive values, and cue-bids are invitational or better.

I feel like this entire situation really just boils down to the fact that bridge is a partnership game. It's more important to have ANY understanding than it is to have a GOOD understanding. Obviously, a good understanding is better though. Your partner can have her methods, but, it's silly and losing bridge to make bids intending meanings that you are certain your partner cannot possibly accurately interpret.

[miamijd]

You just need to agree with your partner how you raise opener's suit after a non-jump overcall. "Standard expert" in the USA is that a cue bid is a limit raise or better, whereas the jump to 3 of opener's suit is preemptive. Obviously, your partner didn't see it that way. She thought her bid was a limit raise, even in competition. You can play that way, but it's very old-fashioned.

If you'd have been on the same wavelength, you would have had little problem reaching 4H. Your hand is obviously worth game opposite a limit raise.

[hrothgar]

 P_Marlowe, on 2020-June-23, 14:00, said:

I agree, but
https://www.bridgebum.com/bromad.php

The question is, if BROMAD can also be used in the given seq., and maybe the 2C
response can be though of as Drury.

If you vocabulary is flexible enough that a 1!S overcall is described as a "double", then surely calling a BROMAD 2♣ bid "Drury" can't be far behind

[msjennifer]

Sir,
there are some facts to be considered.
1)Responder does not know how many spades opener holds.4H can easily go down right away with the defence collecting SAK and a spade ruff if opener has three cards in spades.or may be a trump promotion if he has xx in spades.
2)Nothing is known about the quality of the openers heart suit.
3)The QJxx of spades will be useful better in a NT contract.It is worthwhile to consider these 3HCP as zero,. 3HCP as SK would serve better in a heart contract.
4)The less said about the number of losers in a third seat opening the better.
5)It is well nigh difficult to EXACTLY convey this hand to partner.Although we do play 2C as reverse Drury in this exact auction (with interference at 1 level) this hand is unfit for the same with the very doubtful value of SQJ in a suit contract.Had it been SKxxx we would certainly bid 2C as reverse DRURY.
6) The number of losers in spade suit must be taken as 3 with the impending ruff.
7)Just (taking into consideration the spade overcall) take away the SQJ and consider your response(in light of the spade overcall) Is it not just 2heart ?Had the RHO passed then most certainly the LTC has to be given consideration.But then who knows a NT contract may play better with some other holding with opener.
8)In light of all that I have quoted above I feel that the present armoury is just not capable of doing justice.We are a bit aggressive bidders and shall use 2C response unmindful of the consequences.
THANKS for posting a very interesting problem.

[hamish32]

Quite a few things with the methods you describe in your post that dont really add up:

1: given partner passed in the opening seat surely a cue bid now would describe this hand. Max pass and 4 trumps no splinter.

2: the structure your partner describes to you says with 7 losers she would bid 3!H. But with 7 losers she has enough for game if you you must use LTC. So that is not compatible with the idea of a pre-empt.

Your hand is worth 15 you have the perfect singleton given the bidding. So you should want to bid game any time partner has 4 trump and close to max pass values. It seems like neither of you really knows what 3!H means with any accuracy.

For example in my partnership 3H is 4-7 HCP 4 trump. If you range is narrow - what ever it happens to be - you wont miss game.

You have many possible actions here you need a meaning for each:

Suggestions

2H - 5-8 3 card support
3H - 5-8 4 card support
2S - 9-10 3 card support
1NT - 8-10 spade holds
2NT - 4 card support 9-10
2C/D - 5+ cards 9-10 (possibly intending to support H next with 3 H)
X 8-11 both minors no fit