[vuroth]

barmar, on Mar 24 2009, 11:08 PM, said:

In #4, the 2NT bidder shouldn't have good ♥. If he did, he could have doubled the transfer bid to show them.

Agree, but this doesn't preclude a mediocre 4 card or even a poor 5 card suit, right?

[Gerben42]

Quote

The rule of 15 seems very conservative to me. An average hand has 10 points and 3.25 spades, so considering that partner's 2nd seat pass probably has a slightly higher average HCPs+spades than opps' 1st/3rd seat passes. So I would expect "rule of 13" to optimize the chance of opening when the par is positive and not when it is negative.

FYI, the average hand in 4th seat has about 15 HCP, perhaps slightly less if you include the effect of opening preempts by the first three seats.

http://www.geocities...e/hcpstats.html

[P_Marlowe]

#1 penalty, if you want to ask partner to describe his hand
further, bud 4NT
#2 majors, at least 4-4 with inv. values, you may change
majors to 2 places to play
#3 unusal, 5-4 / 4-4 shape possible / most likely depending on
the specific vulnerability
#4 yes
#5 1D, I may only consider pass, if we play a light opening
style
#6 dont understand the question, but it is common to agree,
that your duiscard is suit preference, low for diamonds,
high for spades, but attidude makes still some sense

With kind regards
Marlowe

[y66]

6. Woolsey discusses a similar situation in Partnership Defense:

West opens 1H.
North overcalls 2D. South bids 3C.
North 4C. South 5C.
all pass.

---

Quote

West leads the ace of hearts. What do you play?

Obviously, you desperately want partner to shift to a spade. If you consider the normal rules to be in effect (attitude), you would play the four of hearts, showing disinterest in hearts, and interest in the logical shift, spades. On the other hand, if you conclude that both you and your partner can work out that a heart continuation can not be correct, it would be more logical for your signal to be a suit-preference signal, in which case you play the ten.

When this problem was presented to an expert panel, 24 voted for the four, 23 for the ten. At least half a dozen well known partnerships disagreed on their answers to this problem.

My own feelings are that the four is correct. It may not be easy for partner to know that a heart continuation can't be right, since he doesn't know your trump holding. Also, a diamond shift doesn't make much sense so there is no need for a suit-preference signal. But when so many experts disagree, this kind of problem is certainly worth thinking about.

If you decide that suit preference applies exclusively when dummy has a singleton, you can't encourage a continuation of hearts when you are worried that partner will blow a trick if he shifts to the obvious suit or when you want partner to force dummy to ruff, for example, when dummy has xx of trumps and you have Kxx.

[barmar]

vuroth, on Mar 25 2009, 07:21 AM, said:

barmar, on Mar 24 2009, 11:08 PM, said:

In #4, the 2NT bidder shouldn't have good ♥.  If he did, he could have doubled the transfer bid to show them.

Agree, but this doesn't preclude a mediocre 4 card or even a poor 5 card suit, right?

Yes, that was my point. His 2-suiter may include ♥, but if it does he probably has at most one top honor in the suit.