[han]

Scoring: IMP

1D-(3S)-4H-pass

---

You have agreed to play switch here, so 4H by partner shows clubs and 4C would have shown hearts. However, this is a very recent agreement and partner has been known to forget this gadget. Looking at your hearts and clubs this might be one of those times. What is your call?

What do you usually do in such situations?

[000002]

4N

[P_Marlowe]

Always assume, that partner did the
right thing unless its 100% obvious,
he did not.

Marlowe

[mike777]

Cuebid or x must always be the winning answer to difficult bridge problems. .

[inquiry]

The problem with the cue-bid is if your partner bid correctly, you have just exposed your SPADE KING to the opening lead, wrong siding the contract when your partner corrects to 5♣. 6♣ may very well be cold from YOUR SIDE OF THE TABLE. PArtner is forcing you to the five level vul when you have a lot of undisclosed extra values and a positional (vulnerable) stopper in the suit bid by your opponents.

So while it is nice to cater to the possibility that partner has forgotten a run of the mill agreement that you have, you will disadvantage yourself if you bid this way. On the other hand, whatever partner has in hearts might be exposed, but a curious thing has happened. West has a alot of spades for his 3♠ bid and partner will not have 4♥ here, and you have only two. Why no double? It looks like in addition to his clubs, partner has strong holding in hearts (maybe AKQ, AQJ, KQJ).... otherwise EAST who is marked with long hearts would clearly have doubled.

If you assume your partner could bid wrong, this is a real problem (that would explalin the lack of the double). But I think a 6NT bid seems just about right, hopeful for 6♣ 5♦ and the heart ace. If partner has hearts, hope he has really good ones. :-) However, this could go for a ton if RHO doubles, gets heart to ace and leads a spade through you. Other option is to bid 6D, as that should be nearly as safe as 6NT, and does not risk down a ton on the above scenaro. I would jsut bid 6C and hpe partner knows what he is doing.

[Flame]

I always guess wrong in these situations, and i guess its better to guess wrong when partner made a mistake then guess wrong when he didnt, so better trust partner.
another helpfull tool is to have some signs like always switch hands when you use the switches.

[MickyB]

If I bid assuming partner has misbid, I do so with the intention to get rid of this agreement as soon as we've played this hand. Otherwise, who is to say that he won't ignore the agreement next time, hoping that you'll either forget yourself or assume that he has?

[Walddk]

I think it's unsound to base one's action based on the possibility that partner has forgotten the system. I'll bid 4♠, cue bid agreeing clubs, no heart cue bid. 5♥ from partner next won't change my mind. He has told me that he has clubs, and I believe him.

If it turns out that he hasn't, it's about time that we dump that agreement.

Roland

[Chamaco]

Walddk, on Nov 15 2005, 01:02 PM, said:

I think it's unsound to base one's action based on the possibility that partner has forgotten the system. I'll bid 4♠, cue bid agreeing clubs, no heart cue bid. 5♥ from partner next won't change my mind. He has told me that he has clubs, and I believe him.

If it turns out that he hasn't, it's about time that we dump that agreement.

Roland

Ditto.

[hrothgar]

Hannie, on Nov 15 2005, 09:32 AM, said:

Scoring: IMP

1D-(3S)-4H-pass

---

You have agreed to play switch here, so 4H by partner shows clubs and 4C would have shown hearts. However, this is a very recent agreement and partner has been known to forget this gadget. Looking at your hearts and clubs this might be one of those times. What is your call?

What do you usually do in such situations?

An agreement is an agreement:

Assume the following:

Your partner did indeed forget that you are playing "Switch". You bid under the assumption that partner is playing "Switch"...

What do you explain to your opponents if they ask you about your agreements? Anything that you say is going to create a severe ethical problem.

I think that you are obligated to bid you hand according to your actual agreements, regardless of whether or not you beleive that partner has forgotten. You are likely to get a bad score because of it. Hopefully this will either encourgae partner to remember your agreements better or suggest that you switch to a less complex structure.

[Echognome]

Seeing as I was the perpetrator of 4♥, I will only say that I wouldn't give up on a convention because partner forgets it once.

When we first started playing a variable NT structure, my partner and I forgot it quite often, especially as it varied by the seat and vulnerability. Now, I hardly think twice about it. It doesn't mean it's a bad convention because partner forgets, it just means you need to spend some time on it, and what better place to practice than the internet?

Now, what you do have to judge is that if partner forgets it a lot and you are playing a lot, then you might want to cut down on artificial parts of the system. Like with all aspects of learning though, it takes time.

[Walddk]

I don't by this. 1♦ (3♠) comes up so rarely that it is not worth playing Switch if partner forgets it just once. He may never get another chance to get it right. Next time it does, in perhaps 6 months, 11 days and 4 hours, he is likely to forget again.

Bye bye to the gadget will be my conclusion.

Roland

[FrancesHinden]

hrothgar, on Nov 15 2005, 08:49 AM, said:

I think that you are obligated to bid you hand according to your actual agreements, regardless of whether or not you beleive that partner has forgotten. You are likely to get a bad score because of it. Hopefully this will either encourgae partner to remember your agreements better or suggest that you switch to a less complex structure.

I don't believe you are legally obligated to bid your hand in that way. If you have unauthorised information that partner has forgotten (from partner's alert/failure to alert or explanations) you are effectively obliged to until you have pretty damning evidence otherwise from the auction.

In this case we have no UI (though partner will have from our alert of 4H).

Anyway, I generally believe that for a long term partnership you should not assume partner has forgotten, so here I shall play partner to have clubs.

As for what the right bid is, that depends on what strength partner has shown. I would like to bid 4NT showing a good 5C bid, but that will wrong-side the final contract, so I shall bid 4S and pray partner can also work out that 4NT 'transfer' to clubs will be a good call with a minimum.

[000002]

4nt then ♦ if partner bid ♣

[Echognome]

Walddk, on Nov 15 2005, 02:23 PM, said:

I don't by this. 1♦ (3♠) comes up so rarely that it is not worth playing Switch if partner forgets it just once. He may never get another chance to get it right. Next time it does, in perhaps 6 months, 11 days and 4 hours, he is likely to forget again.

Bye bye to the gadget will be my conclusion.

Roland

Yes 1♦ - (3♠) might not come up, but switch applies over any black suit overcall. That will come up often enough.

[luis]

Your first question can't be answered here, is a problem of your partnership. If you think your pd may have forgotten "switch" then why are you playing it?

I bid 4♠ here showing a good hand for clubs.

Luis

[han]

I really like the responses in this thread, and I agree that it is probably best to assume that partner has clubs. I think that Ben's point is very good too: a club contract is likely to play better from our side, so the 4S-cue is flawed.

This hand came up at a friendly and not very serious BBO team match. I thought about it for quite a while, and finally decided to bid 6NT. It seemed to me that this could be right regardless of what Matt had, and that I would likely have to be declarer to protect the spade king. The good news was that 6NT was right. The bad news was that Matt bid 7NT and they took their ace at trick one, Matt had 7 solid hearts and something in clubs too. The other table was in 5H from the wrong side, making.

I think that switch is great, and this was actually a very good hand for it. We play it after 1S, 2C, 2S, 3C, 3S and 4C overcalls (another way to think about it: switch is on if the two unbid suits are at the same level). I agree with Roland that it would not be worth to play a gadget that is only on after 3S overcalls.

[kfgauss]

In these situations, I think it's best to trust partner, potentially with an exception for important events (for which you'll hopefully have ironed out your agreements, however) in which, if you really believe partner is more likely to have forgotten, you should perhaps just do what's most likely to win. Of course, if you play partner to have hearts in such a situation and are wrong, partner won't be very happy.

In any case, in any online play I would always trust partner.

This is of course much less of a problem now that I'm not worried about partner having hearts. My hand is so good I'm just going to check on keycards (note that 5C is 1 or 4, which I pass) and bid 6NT or 7NT accordingly (6NT could be better than 6C if partner has !Sxxx and there's a spade ruff; 6C is better opposite xx AQx xxx KQxxx or some such, which makes 6C on a spade lead, if clubs are 2-2 [pitch 2 spades on a non-spade lead and use the extra trump entry to ruff twice in dummy] or !HK onside on a non-heart lead, but only makes 6N on a spade lead or if !HK is onside... tough decision). Of course, this decision isn't horrible even opposite hearts as it turns out. I guess if you have a close decision -- like 6NT or 6C here, it doesn't hurt to choose the one which is better when partner has hearts.

As for lacking the heart control, I guess I'm choosing to payout when partner has A QJx xx KQxxxxx and similar in order to reach the grand confidently when it's there. Anyways, are people really stopping if partner bids 5!C over 4!S?

Andy