[jillybean]

---

2♣* gf clubs or balanced

Do you agree with 3♠, what now?

[Phil]

Well bid so far. I like a style where 2♣ can show a hand like this.

I would now double. Partner showed a preference for defense when partner hit 3♣. We have a balanced minimum, and we don't have a nine card spade fit. Partner could have made a lot of different noises like 4♦ or 4♥ or pass over 4♣ to show extras and didn't. As a matter of fact, we might not have been making 4♠ and we are very far away from making 11 tricks.

[BunnyGo]

Phil, on 2012-February-29, 10:52, said:

Well bid so far. I like a style where 2♣ can show a hand like this.

I would now double. Partner showed a preference for defense when partner hit 3♣. We have a balanced minimum, and we don't have a nine card spade fit. Partner could have made a lot of different noises like 4♦ or 4♥ or pass over 4♣ to show extras and didn't. As a matter of fact, we might not have been making 4♠ and we are very far away from making 11 tricks.

Sounds like sound reasoning to me. Further, our Aces are (almost) sure tricks on defense, and the king is rather nice. Besides that, our hand doesn't look to be more "offensive" than "defensive" in that we don't have extreme shape, long suits that would be set up on offense, etc.

[S2000magic]

I can't see anything beyond a double at this point. Your hand isn't unbalanced, partner's hand doesn't sound unbalanced (no ♦ or ♥ bid), so you're better off defending.

[ArtK78]

This hand screams "defend." Double is my choice.

[kayin801]

I would X but something is fishy. They're at the 5 level on this kind of auction with a 9 card fit? Hopefully partner wouldn't X 3♣ with a stiff. I wouldn't be surprised if W had something like x, AKQx, xx, KQJ10xx and partner has the missing pointed honors. I'd stick with X but I think we would have made 4♠.

[P_Marlowe]

X.

Given the bal. nature of the hand, and the honors
distribute across all suits, and the min. HCP count,
I would go with a X, I dont want to encourage p, to
bid 5S or to invite 6S.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[neilkaz]

Balanced hands defend and the 5 level is for them. You've bid your hand allready. Doubling now is clear. This is a FP situation and you should not want PD thinking of 5♠. You have a very minimum hand to GF with only 3 trump and a flattish 12 count, but it is rather prime and you may hope to ruff a ♣. I'd GF also but don't be surprised if PD holds the wrong min and 4♠ is set. However, if we reserve all our GFs for when we think game is almost 100%, we'll miss too many games.

As for 3♠ or 4♠ after PD X their 3♣ that is up for discussion and whether you use "fast arrival" here.

Just my opinion .. neilkaz ..

[HighLow21]

neilkaz, on 2012-February-29, 14:06, said:

Balanced hands defend and the 5 level is for them. You've bid your hand allready. Doubling now is clear. This is a FP situation and you should not want PD thinking of 5♠. You have a very minimum hand to GF with only 3 trump and a flattish 12 count, but it is rather prime and you may hope to ruff a ♣. I'd GF also but don't be surprised if PD holds the wrong min and 4♠ is set. However, if we reserve all our GFs for when we think game is almost 100%, we'll miss too many games.

As for 3♠ or 4♠ after PD X their 3♣ that is up for discussion and whether you use "fast arrival" here.

Just my opinion .. neilkaz ..

Agreed. 5♣ has virtually no chance and there's no reason to think 5♠ will make. In fact, as Phil pointed out, 4♠ wasn't even certain.

I'd estimate 5♣ goes down 95% of the time, usually by 2 tricks or more. I'd estimate 80% for 4♠ and maybe 40% for 5♠.

Nothing in the auction or my hand tells me to declare here. Defend.

[HighLow21]

Oh and as far as your other question, Kathryn; what bid BESIDES 3♠ could you make? I cannot see what's wrong with it or what other bid would have been right, other than maybe 3NT which doesn't make sense to me either.

[jillybean]

I passed. Partner held K9643 AK84 QJ42 V and doubled 5♣ for -3

[wank]

pass is forcing. why do you want to encourage partner to bid again when you've got a balanced minimum?

as for partner's doubling 3♣, that's ridiculous.

as for partner's doubling 5♣ after you forcing pass, that's also ridiculous.

[jillybean]

wank, on 2012-February-29, 23:21, said:

pass is forcing. why do you want to encourage partner to bid again when you've got a balanced minimum?

Yes, I knew we were in a FP situation. I didn't know if 5♣X was the best spot, hence the pass.

[JLOGIC]

I do not understand the balanced comments. We've already shown a balanced hand or a hand with clubs. With a hand with clubs presumably we'd like to double them, so it should be assumed if we pass that we are balanced. It seems like if you're going to pass, 3442 with 2 small or Ax of clubs would be the best time.

Edit: And in case I am misunderstood I am not saying that double is wrong or bad I'm just saying that doubling because we are balanced doesn't make much sense given that we are always balanced if we pass. If you double because we have no hand that makes a lot of sense to me.

[jillybean]

JLOGIC, on 2012-February-29, 23:49, said:

If you double because we have no hand that makes a lot of sense to me.

Justin, I don't understand this part. We have already shown a gf hand, what do you mean
by doubling with no hand?

[nigel_k]

Pretty sure he means we have nothing after subtracting what we have already shown.

What we have shown so far is a balanced game force with three spades. A forcing pass would encourage partner to bid. We need to ask ourselves not whether our looks suitable for bidding on, but whether it is suitable compared to other balanced GF hands with three spades.

In that context, the best thing about the hand is the club holding. It is more offensive than Kx for example, because with Ax we take a trick regardless of who declares but Kx may have value only if they declare. Ax is also more offensive than Axx obviously.

The bad things about the hand are that it is minimum. And the spade holding is defensive compared to something like KJx.

What we should not do is double because our hand is balanced. Partner already knows that.

[neilkaz]

To further explain. My hand is a min GF for what is shown. I am doubling because of that. My hand is balanced and therefore and noting 3 trumps and that we may be in only a 5-3 fit doesn't seem to have any more offense than promised.

I have doubts that 4♠ can make (I expect it to be clear fav) and expect 5♠ to be set a big majority of the time. I definately don't want PD bidding 5♠ unless he has considerably extra offense. I expect 5♣ to be set.

With this being FP, my X tells that to PD.

[phil_20686]

Some thoughts:

What is 4!s over 3C x? Assuming you would float 3cx with natural clubs presumeably bidding at all shows three spades in a balanced hand. For me here 4S would be a minimum GF balanced, and I would have done that, with 3S showing some extras.

If 3S is essentially unlimited, it makes sense that dble/FP should divide up between extras and not extras. Again, I don't think we can have a very offensive shape here having bid this way.