[harikannan]

All white at IMPs, you deal and pass with:

AT75
72
7543
632

Your LHO opens 1D and your partner bids 2NT unusual. Your RHO doubles showing values and interest to double in at least one of the suits.

What would redbl, pass, 3m by you mean here? Thanks.

[P_Marlowe]

harikannan, on 2025-November-05, 03:58, said:

All white at IMPs, you deal and pass with:

AT75
72
7543
632

Your LHO opens 1D and your partner bids 2NT unusual. Your RHO doubles showing values and interest to double in at least one of the suits.

What would redbl, pass, 3m by you mean here? Thanks.

Assuming 2NT showes 2 known suit

XX asks p to bid his better suit
bidding either of p know suit is obv. to play / prev.

Pass ... at a lower level it would be an offer to play,
as it is for the specific auction, it is basically similar to XX.

You could use XX as a relay to 3C, to enable the p to the 2NT bidder
to bid his own long suit, but this would be to complicate for me.
And the above schema works in other scenarios as well.

[paulg]

harikannan, on 2025-November-05, 03:58, said:

Your LHO opens 1D and your partner bids 2NT unusual. Your RHO doubles showing values and interest to double in at least one of the suits.

What would redbl, pass, 3m by you mean here? Thanks.

Our rules do not change whether I am a passed hand or not: the frequency of these auctions is not high enough to warrant the memory load of playing differently.

Redouble shows game interest in one of partner's suits: what this really means depends on the strength of your unusual 2NT
Pass shows no preference and does not imply a desire to play in the doubled contract
A cue bid shows stronger than game interest in one of partner's suit
3♣ and 3♥ show preference.

So this hand is an easy 3♣ bid.

[DavidKok]

If we're in a competitive auction and the opponents have expressed some interest in penalizing us I think it is extremely important to not give them more time to coordinate their defence. Therefore almost all bids should be natural, and I'd rather stretch into a natural bid than use an artificial one. Whatever you do, do not pass or redouble with weak hands. That gives them more time. I strongly dislike 'pass shows no preference', for example.

In this situation we are guaranteed, either literally or practically, to have a weak hand. We've passed, the opponents have doubled us at the 2NT level, the opening is on average likely stronger than the jump overcall. This means that I would not mind leaving pass and redouble idle - they're not for weak hands, and we (must) have a weak hand, so they aren't the right bids. Here 3♣ is clear.

[harikannan]

Don't we want pass to say 'no preference' so that partner may choose trumps if he wants to declare(say Kx in a side suit or 6-card minor) or redouble to ask us to declare? Also, since trump quality matters in a possibly doubled contract, if we don't pass and bid a suit, shouldn't it either be of greater length or promise an honour?

[DavidKok]

Great questions. Absolutely not. This is one of the worst ways to hang partner. The competitive considerations are much more important. We should not pass unless it's absolutely the only option. You cannot afford luxuries like resolving suit quality, or hoping for a 6-5. I love playing against the people who will make all sorts of forcing nebulous calls after we announced interest to defend, it makes it so easy to coordinate.

[smerriman]

Can you elaborate as to why it's bad? It seems a commonly taught method, the logic being that we know we're in trouble with the opponents showing most of the points, so all we can hope for is escaping to 3 of our best fit. If our suits are equal, only partner knows what our best fit is and can bid it. If we bid a suit among equals and it's the wrong one, aren't we worse off? While if it's the same one we would have got to by passing, why is that worse?

[mw64ahw]

DavidKok, on 2025-November-05, 13:58, said:

... I think it is extremely important to not give them more time to coordinate their defence. ...

Better to use 3♣ as both minors as this is harder to defend against. 2N can then become ♣s

[DavidKok]

smerriman, on 2025-November-06, 00:55, said:

Can you elaborate as to why it's bad? It seems a commonly taught method, the logic being that we know we're in trouble with the opponents showing most of the points, so all we can hope for is escaping to 3 of our best fit. If our suits are equal, only partner knows what our best fit is and can bid it. If we bid a suit among equals and it's the wrong one, aren't we worse off? While if it's the same one we would have got to by passing, why is that worse?

There are hands opener can have where they would be uncomfortable passing if we bid a contract as an offer to play. Think 6-4 hands, or with a void or singleton in the suit we choose. It is responder who wants to defend here, opener can still have a wide range of hands. Some of these hands can await developments if we pass, getting input from responder. Compare
1♦-(2NT*)-X-(P); P-(3♣)-P/X-(P); ?
with the shorter
1♦-(2NT*)-X-(3♣); ?

By bidding we are putting the opponents under more pressure. By forcing them to make their decisions with less information, they will get them wrong more often, and let us off the hook when they shouldn't, or defend when they have a better contract.
Even if the final contract is the same, the defenders will slip up more often with less information.

By contrast, passing gains rarely. Overcaller does not commonly have extra shape (6-5 is much less common than 5-5, and 6-6 doesn't matter. 7-5 is awkward though). And when overcaller has the extra shape, half the time it will be in the suit advancer (would have) picked. And even then, it is not too rare for both strains to produce the same number of tricks.
Put differently, we already have so much information about partner's hand that requesting additional input has very low marginal returns. For partner's decision to matter it is not sufficient that we are uncertain about our options, we also need partner to have a clear preference.

By passing we are not trading our ability to decide for partner's ability to decide. We are trading the deals where partner knows better than we do for the deals where the opponents will make a mistake under pressure, but not on the slower auction. I think the latter is far more common, and that 'pass' with weak hands has a negative expected value compared to bidding basically always.


P.S.: I feel the same way about auctions with a natural redouble, e.g. (1♥)-X-(XX)-? and now I would bid a 3c♠ ahead of passing, for example.

[P_Marlowe]

harikannan, on 2025-November-05, 23:31, said:

Don't we want pass to say 'no preference' so that partner may choose trumps if he wants to declare(say Kx in a side suit or 6-card minor) or redouble to ask us to declare? Also, since trump quality matters in a possibly doubled contract, if we don't pass and bid a suit, shouldn't it either be of greater length or promise an honour?

A major question is, what shape does the 2NT show / gurantee.
We can make the bid with 54.

If your shape requirements go down, you need a way to find the best fit.

But I agree with DavidKok: Try to settle fast, if you know a reasonable spot go for it,
dont try to find the best spot,
... and if you know, that you are screwed, go fast as well.

[harikannan]

We play atleast 5-5 in two lower suits.

[P_Marlowe]

harikannan, on 2025-November-06, 02:41, said:

We play atleast 5-5 in two lower suits.

The 54 variant is depend on seat and vul., but the important factor is, that you have defined
the min length, and this will influence the need to be able to ask for his better suit.

Also keep in mind, that the freq. 6/5 vs. 5/5 is heavily in favor of 5/5, and if they try to go for
blood, the likelyhood that partner is 6/5, decreases also.