[dickiegera]

One of my partners plays transfers after 1 NT opener. So 2 Spades showed Clubs and was alerted[/hv]

I chose to pass the double of 2♠ to show that I wasn't happy about bidding 3♣.
I thought partner would bid 3♣ on his own or redouble to get me to bid 3♣.

Wrong. Partner passed and down 4. Could have been only down 2.

Opinions and comments. The double of 2♠ was lead directing and I thought it would play better in
partners hand.

---

[Bbradley62]

Are the hands inverted?

[jjbrr]

I think either pass saying "I wouldn't hate playing 2S" or pass saying "not great support and/or you should declare" is fine, as long as you have an agreement that allows you to avoid playing doubled 3-2 fits.

In general for transfer auctions, I play pass says I don't have a good fit, and partner is expected to do something smart.

(I assume the N hand is actually the S hand and vice versa)

[wank]

i would expect passing the double to be offering the dummy in 2♠ without agreement.

as for your actual hand, i think you've got a pretty good hand for supporting clubs (good enough to be worried about missing game in fact) so i don't get the reluctance, whatever pass might show.

[the hog]

wank, on 2011-August-04, 17:31, said:

i would expect passing the double to be offering the dummy in 2♠ without agreement.

as for your actual hand, i think you've got a pretty good hand for supporting clubs (good enough to be worried about missing game in fact) so i don't get the reluctance, whatever pass might show.

I agree with this. I don't agree with the transfer method which I think gives the opponents far too many options - like transfer pre empts.

[dickiegera]

dickiegera, on 2011-August-04, 15:13, said:

One of my partners plays transfers after 1 NT opener. So 2 Spades showed Clubs and was alerted[/hv]

I chose to pass the double of 2♠ to show that I wasn't happy about bidding 3♣.
I thought partner would bid 3♣ on his own or redouble to get me to bid 3♣.

Wrong. Partner passed and down 4. Could have been only down 2.

Opinions and comments. The double of 2♠ was lead directing and I thought it would play better in
partners hand.

---

Yes I had North and South reversed
Sorry

[Yu18772]

I would think that rdbl would suggest to play ♠ and pass show nothing special, like
1NT-P-2♦-Dbl
Rdbl-suggests good diamonds
2♥- 3+ cards
Pass- doubleton hearts

[Phil]

Transfers are OK. I see a lot of good pairs play them, although I'd much rather play Woolsey / ML.

Like the others, IMO pass suggests playing 2♠.

[wyman]

Interesting. XX would be to play imo, so I don't think pass of X needs to be. Without agreement, I think playing 2Sx seems like a high-variance option, so I'd bid 3C as south.

I guess I'd suggest 3C as a positive with a spade card, 2N as positive without, and pass as negative. If you're playing 3C and north doesn't have a spade card, you probably want to play it from the south, so that the lead-director is himself on lead. And I guess a XX by S, after a pass by N is a retransfer.

Mostly I'd suggest not taking swingy actions in undiscussed auctions.

[Phil]

wyman, on 2011-August-05, 08:12, said:

Interesting. XX would be to play imo, so I don't think pass of X needs to be. Without agreement, I think playing 2Sx seems like a high-variance option, so I'd bid 3C as south.

You don't think 8♠ is a high variance option?

Why is the only way we can play 2♠ is rewound? RHO has a few spades and LHO is advertising some spades. This could be a complete misfit and spades happens to be our best spot.

[wyman]

Phil, on 2011-August-05, 08:20, said:

You don't think 8♠ is a high variance option?

Why is the only way we can play 2♠ is rewound? RHO has a few spades and LHO is advertising some spades. This could be a complete misfit and spades happens to be our best spot.

Ok.

What I feel more strongly about is that only one of pass and XX is to play. I chose XX to play and pass to suggest a negative response to the club transfer. We certainly could invert this, and you're right that 2Sx is lower variance than 2Sxx, so that makes some sense. Your meta-agreements will probably dictate which treatment makes the most sense.

[JLOGIC]

Wyman surely you can see that it violates common sense to play XX as to play, and pass as not to play, rather than vice versa. If I have xxxxxx xxx xxx x, I am happy to offer 2S X as a spot if partner wants to sit it out, but I obviously don't want to play it redoubled... I am just trying to find the cheapest minus. There is a huge gain to this. However, there is not much gain at all to playing XXed instead of Xed, and how high frequency will it be.. one opp has opened 1N, one opp has doubled, and your partner has shown enough strength to force to the 3 level. It is extremely unlikely you will ever have a hand to XX with to begin with, and even if you do you will be fine playing it merely doubled!

If you were to only play one of them as natural, surely it would be pass.

[mycroft]

Transfers vs strong NT, to my mind, have two advantages:
1. We overcall on crap, and the auction 1NT-2D!-p-p "what does that mean?" "his diamonds are better than my hearts" is not unheard of.
2. When 1. doesn't happen (which is, one admits, almost all the time), the described hand is on the table, and (more importantly), the strong NTer is on lead. This assumes, of course, that transfers are only on in direct.

Other slight advantages are that most of the time, one can show a good hand by transferring and bidding, and that unlike Woolsey, it's GCC legal in the ACBL.

Having said all of that, and especially having said 1., is it surprising that I agree with Justin on which of p and xx should be "interest in playing"?

[Quantumcat]

You've passed already so surely you don't want to be playing 2♠ redoubled. If you did, you should have opened 1♠ or 2♠+.

I would say Redouble = unless your suit is very good, let's try and play in a red suit.
And Pass = Don't really want to play in 3♣, but one of my red suits isn't acceptable, so if you don't want to bid 3♣ then let's try and stick it out in 2♠.

E.g. hands
Redouble
♠J6
♥K764
♦Q8762
♣54

Pass
♠KJ762
♥Q4
♦9652
♣4

[phil_20686]

There are lots of intelligent structures you could use here, ideally you would like to be able to offer a place to play in any of the other suits. Or ask if partner is two suited. In this particular case you even have a 2N bid available, so you could play something like:

Pass= to play in spades
XX= to play in hearts.
2N= offering diamonds
3C= to play.

In other transfer auctions, where they dble and there is no extra bid available below the suit, I think giving up the chance to play in the suit they doubled should be the first to go. Afterall, if they are trying to play there, why should we want to?

So after (1N)-2H-(x) with hearts a transfer to spades, you could play Pass=clubs, XX=diamonds,2S=to play