[mike777]

edit

I think Lawrence would say 2d since you have a decent 4 card suit to bid.

[Trinidad]

 mikeh, on 2015-January-07, 17:04, said:

Suffice it to say that for most of us a takeout double promises a better hand.

I wonder how much disclosure you make to your opps about your takeout double style? I am sure you are very ethical...that is definitely the impression I have formed from your posts so don't take this as a suggestion that you are being unethical. And maybe where you play this is common to the point of being understood. Where I play, were I to find that my LHO was routinely doubling on shapely 8 counts and that his partner was holding back in the auction due to that possibility, I would be extremely annoyed were there no disclosure, since I would misplace values in the auction and the play.

Our CC says under "takeout doubles, style": "very aggressive with good shape, conservative with poor shape", which I believe is a concise and accurate description of our actual style. At some point we prealerted them like that, but we stopped that since opponents were annoyed about something that obvious to the point that some almost got aggressive and TDs said we should stop.

 mikeh, on 2015-January-07, 17:04, said:

I note that to you your 8 count is an 'obvious double' which suggests that you don't even consider it to be the worst hand you could hold. Axxx Kxxx void xxxxx? How low do you go?

Well, to me it is obvious, but also obviously a minimum. We learned to play bridge in the USA and -at the time, I don't know whether that is still the case- an opening bid could not show less than 8 HCP by agreement. Though a takeout double is not an opening, I suppose we had this subconciously as a bottom for the double. I might double with Axxx KT9x - T9xxx, but not "on every day that ends with 'y'".

 mikeh, on 2015-January-07, 17:04, said:

As an aside, the notion of counting 5 points for the void in your initial assessment is simply a very, very bad idea.

I don't count points in that fashion, but back when I did, I may have added points for length, but the notion of points for shortness BEFORE we have any fit strikes me as silly. It is far better practice to not count anything for shortness initially but then be willing to upgrade, sometimes dramatically, if and when a fit is established. That's the sort of thing that good players mean when they talk about a hand 'growing up' in an auction.

Well, as I said, we learned to play bridge in the USA, with ACBL's Audrey Grant's ♣, ♦, ♥, and ♠ series from an ACBL teacher. Both Grant and our teacher taught us to count 1-3-5 dummy points when making takeout doubles, particularly takeout doubles of 1m. (And, in responding to the double, we were taught that 1NT shows 8-11, the same range as a suit bid with a jump.) So, it is the style that we were taught right from the beginning (right in the heart of your NBO!) and we stuck to it. After all these years, we do not really rely on HCPs and 1-3-5 dummy points anymore, but I still see an ace and a king (1.5 quick tricks) and great shape, or a 7 loser hand.

As to counting points for shortness: Generally speaking I fully agree with you that you should count them only once you have found a fit. However, when you have a 4405 hand, the probability that there will be a fit is very high, so some optimism is warranted. And we are asking partner to pick a suit where he has almost the entire 1 level...

Obviously, we also get aggressive in the auction later with nice hands that passed initially. I guess our range is just about 1-2 HCPs lower than yours.


Rik

[jillybean]

Thanks for the replies to my question.

Now change to a passed hand and is your bid still 1♥ or can we expect partner to have better than a minimum and therefore 1 nt is a good spot?

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[Trinidad]

Well, a 1NT advance would show 8-11 for me. I typically don't open 11 point 4333 hands, so the fact that I am a passed hand makes little difference. But if I would play a kamikaze 9-11 1NT opening, it would certainly make sense to play that the 1NT advance shows 6-8 if made by a passed hand.

Rik

[the hog]

 jillybean, on 2015-January-07, 20:52, said:

Thanks for the replies to my question.

Now change to a passed hand and is your bid still 1♥ or can we expect partner to have better than a minimum and therefore 1 nt is a good spot?

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Still 1H. After all a passed hand can have a 10-11 count, yes?

[mikeh]

 jillybean, on 2015-January-07, 20:52, said:

Thanks for the replies to my question.

Now change to a passed hand and is your bid still 1♥ or can we expect partner to have better than a minimum and therefore 1 nt is a good spot?

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There is no sense in changing the meanings of your action. Being a passed hand doesn't promote the trick-taking power of your hand, as far as I know. And a passed hand can still hold constructive values. This isn't at all the same as, say, bidding 2/1 with 10 hcp as a passed hand, playing 2/1 gf. In that situation, your passed hand status rules out having an opening hand. That reasoning is inapplicable here.

[Mbodell]

 diana_eva, on 2015-January-07, 17:43, said:

What about this one?

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Real hand from today. I was thinking of this thread when it happened. Looks better than the OP, but is it enough for 1NT?

This is quite a bit different than the OP because the suit X was spades and hence the "easy bail out" is at the 2 level instead of the 1♥ call from OP. And the T in QTx of spades is a big card. I think I still bid 2♦ here, but if you make the 7♦ a spade so you have a 6 count with 4=3=3=3 and QT73 of spades I'd now bid 1nt.

[diana_eva]

 Mbodell, on 2015-January-08, 02:40, said:

This is quite a bit different than the OP because the suit X was spades and hence the "easy bail out" is at the 2 level instead of the 1♥ call from OP. And the T in QTx of spades is a big card. I think I still bid 2♦ here, but if you make the 7♦ a spade so you have a 6 count with 4=3=3=3 and QT73 of spades I'd now bid 1nt.

OK. Yes there's no easy way out at the 1st level, unlike the OP. I always played 1NT as constructive and was surprised to see my pd chose 1NT with that. Didn't make much difference for that hand. We landed in 3NT, but we would have gotten there over a 2♦ as well.

Very instructive discussion, thanks eagles.