[mikl_plkcc]

RHO opened 2♣, which was alerted as Acol 2 or a weak 2 in diamonds.

My hand was ♠A9742 ♥85 ♦943 ♣J65. Given my weak hand I suspected that the opener was strong, so I overcalled a risky 2♠, hoping to derail their game seeking, and possibly compete in ♠ if we had a fit.

LHO passed.

Partner raised to 3♠ with 3-card support and 4 queens.

To my surprise, other doubled with xx in trumps, and responder passed with KJ6. I couldn't hold the contract to -2 and I even messed up my play afterwards, and got -6 instead of -4 if I played everything correctly.

After the hand, the opponents told me that I should treat these openings as weak, because partner would think that the opening was weak. It was too difficult for me to understand why I should treat that as weak when it was obvious from my hand that the opener was strong.

Can anyone explain to me why such a weak overcall was bad against a two-way bid, compared to a strong bid, even I knew that the opener was strong in a two-way bid? How should I compete effectively against these two-way bids?

[hrothgar]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-June-06, 18:20, said:

Can anyone explain to me why such a weak overcall was bad against a two-way bid, compared to a strong bid, even I knew that the opener was strong in a two-way bid? How should I compete effectively against these two-way bids?

You say that it was obvious to you that opener had the strong version of their hand.
Is the same going to be true of your partner after an auction like (2♣) - 2♠ - (P)

Adopting a very wide range for your simple overcalls is going to place your partner in a terrible spot

[jillybean]

If we weren't so molly coddled in North America, you'd have experience against this type of opening.

[mike777]

"Can anyone explain to me why such a weak overcall was bad"


At this point in your bridge development
Just never ever make such a weak overcall.

Bid down the middle, for now.
Improve your defense
Improve your declarer play
Bid down the middle...
Bid down the middle overcalls.

[mw64ahw]

Assume its a weak2 preempt and bid accordingly. Do not preempt a preempt. The diamonds will be the most frequent occurrence.

See a potential defence below

http://web2.acbl.org...tabase/mc10.pdf

If it is a strong 2 then you only really want to be competing with a long suit or a 10-card 2-suiter.

[hrothgar]

jillybean, on 2025-June-06, 18:54, said:

If we weren't so molly coddled in North America, you'd have experience against this type of opening.

Might want to rethink this one, given that he is playing in the UK

[jillybean]

hrothgar, on 2025-June-07, 04:41, said:

Might want to rethink this one, given that he is playing in the UK

In that case, you'll have plenty of opportunities to play and defend against it.

[DavidKok]

There are several questions here, and I would unpack them and answer them individually.

• If 2♣ is known to be strong, are you worth an overcall? My answer is 'no'. In general it's a good idea to overcall aggressively over nebulous bids, and the 2♣ is only a moderate exception. However, 2♣ already has a strong self-preempting effect, and regularly the job will have been done for you - they've already preempted themselves. Your hand is balanced, which is bad for preempts, and even among weak 5=2=3=3 hands yours has particularly low ODR. I would not enter the auction with this hand.
  
• On the actual deal, 2♣ wasn't known to be strong. You were able to infer the strength from your own hand. However, you failed to consider that this might not be obvious to partner as well. How was partner supposed to know what was going on? The answer is that, in general, over nebulous openings you gain an edge by having clearly defined shape and strength requirements for entering the auction. This way your partner will be ahead of the opponents by knowing your hand.
  
• Over a 2♣ 'weak diamonds or strong any', what is a good set of agreements? A commonly played and effective approach is to treat such a 2♣ as a transfer preempt for two reasons. 1) The weak option is much more frequent than the strong option. 2) If the opponents are weak, we might well be able to score a game bonus by entering the auction. The actual relative frequencies depend on the opponents' tendencies to open 2♣ with low-HCP-but-high-playing-strength hands, but in general it is easy and effective to assume the weak option until proven otherwise. You even get to 'transfer complete' 2♦ to show a special hand that would be stuck over a natural 2♦ opening.

[AL78]

Even if 2♣ was guaranteed to be strong, overcalling on a very weak 5332 hand with a poor suit and ten losers is asking to go for a large negative score. On the actual layout, I don't like partner raising with three card support and a 4333 shape with unsupported queens. Two bad bids by your side means you got what you deserved IMO. If you are going to play at a very strong club, the opponents are going to regularly punish you for reckless bidding amongst other things. Every so often such bids might work but that still doesn't make them good bids.

[mikeh]

I’ll just add a little to David’s excellent post.

The OP fell into a trap that snares many players. He wanted 2S to be a weak, obstructive bid because he had a weak, obstructive hand. Now, I fully agree with those who say that he had no business bidding even if 2C were known to be a strong hand…the hand is too weak offensively to want to get involved.

But the error is more basic than that. He wanted 2S to be weak so he bid it without giving any apparent thought to poor partner.

Since 2D would be based on a weak hand more often than a strong one (weak hands of say 5-10 hcp are more common than strong hands of 22+ if balanced or 20+ if unbalanced), when the auction (2C) 2S (P) comes around to partner, what is partner supposed to think 2S means?

Surely it has to at least potentially mean ‘I have a hand that would bid 2S over a weak 2D opening’. Indeed, as Davidcargues, this is the only really logical meaning, but we don’t need to conclude that partner will ‘know’ that it shows basically an opening hand with at least 5 spades. All we need do is realize that partner is going to think that it at least might be….and so he’s going to bid on modest values and then disaster ensues.

Meanwhile, if 2C was based on weakness with diamonds, and if partner has a good hand….he can act himself.

I see this all the time in club bridge. A bid means whatever the bidder wants it to mean and to heck with what poor partner will or should think it means.

The way to minimize this requires a thought experiment before making the contemplated bid. Ignore what you actually have….partner doesn’t know what you actually have. Imagine making your bid and ask…if I were partner, not privy to knowing what I want the bid to mean….how would I take it?

This requires avoiding piling on the wishful thinking…some players seem unable to ignore what they want it to mean….but anyone with any hope of becoming a competent player should be able to arrive at an appreciation of the danger posed by partner not being a mind reader.

[WasWinM]

Before getting twisted in a knot over your 2S overcall you would be better served to understand why this is an equally bad 1-level overcall.

[bluenikki]

mikeh, on 2025-June-07, 17:37, said:

I see this all the time in club bridge. A bid means whatever the bidder wants it to mean and to heck with what poor partner will or should think it means.

Sheinwold called this the Humpty Dumpty theory of bidding. But he was referring to Master Solvers, not club players.

"When I use a word", Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less".

"The question is", said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things".

"The question is", said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all"

[Huibertus]

You simply HAVE to assume 2♣ is weak in ♦ by definition, for various reasons.

1. It simply IS in well over 80% of the cases.
2. Your hand MAY hint at it being strong, but you DON'T know. It might hint at it being strong because your PARTNER has the lot.
3. You CAN'T ask of partner he'll be able to correctly guess if you are bidding on the assumption of the opening being strong or weak. How would he know?

Because of this you simply have to treat it as weak by agreement, otherwise your constructive bidding will always be screwed by uncertainty and their preempt works better than on it's own.

Apart from that, "Don't preempt over preempts" is one of the most valuable bridge one liners that exists.

And of course the comments others made about bidding 2♠ even if 2♣ is unilaterally strong are very valid.