[Swammerdam]

A lot of "interesting" hands have turned up lately. I've written "hand(S)" in case I want to ask about some others.

"Pass" is an underused word in BBO bidding. Overcalling Ten-fifth just because it's your turn is not my style.
On the other hand, if you have a hand with a REASON to bid, bid the H**l out of it. Holding the East hand below and hearing partner overcall One Spade, just jump to Four Spades at once.
No reason to hesitate except for ETHICS: Don't tell everyone how obvious the Four Spade raise is.

---

The West hand is TREMENDOUS. Only 15 pts, but 4 QT and barely 4 losers. If the suit were a major, is opening 2♣ clear-cut?

But opening is not an option. You hear "1♦" -- your best suit -- and a response on your right. What now? Is there a prescription for letting partner know ♦ is MY suit?

1♠ shows five minimum when I bid it (though some BBO'ers do it with Qxxx). But this is a very good 4-bagger and I'm at a loss what else to do.

Against 3♠, play was club ruffed, diamond ruff, spade, diamond ruff, spade with either 11 or 12 tricks cold depending on K♥.

I welcome criticism of my bidding. Should I have been more aggressive? Foresee that 4♠ making Six is likely?

I will comment on the others' bids.
I open most 12's but might pass this mediocre 4-3-3-3. I would certainly PASS over 1♠. Pass -- "I have a minimum" -- is the most descriptive call.

It is the EAST player (self-described "Advanced" SAYC) whose actions are most deplorable. A void is 5 "dummy points" in the ancient textbooks and competition makes a 4♠ bid MORE compellimg, despite the worthless(?) Queens.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

it is common to play 2H in your position as natural, 2D is usually still reserved for artificial use.
The standard way to show, that they have bid your suit, is to wait 1 round and make the bid, that was
artificial the round before.

2S from your p is meek, ..., I think 3D as some kind of splinter is min, ..., but depending what "social"
means, it may not be clear, how a given bid is received on the opposite side of the table, i.e. his guess
is as good as mine.
Regardless, your p should have woken up after the firework you created and should have raised 3S to 4S.

You on other hand did a lot, last time I checked 1S showed 5+, 2S showed only 3+, ...
i.e. as far as I see it, you never had the information, that you had a 8+ card fit in spades,
I may have passed 3C.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mw64ahw]

As East I'm showing my 2-suiter, which without too much imagination can lead West into slam territory.

[akwoo]

It's not clear how good any of the players are, or what agreements they have or assume.

Standard in North America is for North to double at their second turn, showing 3 hearts.

Without good agreements, I think East should bid 4♠ at their second turn. With regular partners, I would bid 3♦, showing a mixed raise.

The 3♣ bid from South is crazy, stepping to the 3 level with a likely misfit and quite possibly less than half the points.

I would take 3♦ to be a generic-ish game try. Good agreements over 3♥ would be for East to bid 3♠ to definitively reject the try, 4♠ to definitively accept, and pass to punt. Punting seems right. But if you don't have that agreement...

Yes, 1♠ is absolutely right. And it's one of the right kinds of hand to play in a 4-3 fit, so as West I wouldn't worry too much about being in 4♠ on a 4-3 fit.

Bridge is hard enough with agreements. When you have none, it's a bit of a crapshoot.

[jillybean]

I like North’s opening bid,East’s first pass, every thing else is suspect.

[bluenikki]

Swammerdam, on 2026-May-22, 10:26, said:

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The West hand is TREMENDOUS. Only 15 pts, but 4 QT and barely 4 losers. If the suit were a major, is opening 2♣ clear-cut?

But opening is not an option. You hear "1♦" -- your best suit -- and a response on your right. What now? Is there a prescription for letting partner know ♦ is MY suit?

2♦ over 1♥ would show diamonds, just as 2♥ would show hearts.

[akwoo]

bluenikki, on 2026-May-22, 19:37, said:

2♦ over 1♥ would show diamonds, just as 2♥ would show hearts.

Opposite a hypothetical good player in my area with whom I have not discussed, 2♦ shows the black suits and 2♥ shows hearts.

[bluenikki]

akwoo, on 2026-May-23, 11:23, said:

Opposite a hypothetical good player in my area with whom I have not discussed, 2♦ shows the black suits and 2♥ shows hearts.

Check Bridge World Standard and Bridge Bulletin Standard polls.

Why do you need three different calls to describe the same two suits?

[mycroft]

"Standard" has been for ever "they bid two suits, our bids are natural". Whether you play double as sole takeout or both double and 1NT Sandwich for different kinds of black suits is up to you.

There are those who do other things - there's a fad here for "Skewed cuebids", so double is strength T/o, probably 4=4, 1NT is shapely takeout not necessarily with strength, 2♦ promises longer clubs and 2♥ longer spades. No comment, but players of that system are people I would actively hunt out for teammates, so I will assume there's something that has been thought out clearly there.

Traditionally for "Standard" (and I'm talking *older than me*), the issues are:

• ♦: might be our suit, on a 4-1 break. With the rise of 5cM, could easily be 3-2. Playing it the same as over 1♣, which always could have been 3-2, is easy on the brain.
  
• ♥: might be our suit, responder could easily have a 3=1=5=4 4 count. But psyching has been so demonised in the last 50 years that nobody knows *how*, and protecting against even baby psyches like this one is not worth it if there's a better meaning.
  
• NT: In the Ancient Times, Opener was Goren strength (some might have a great 12 count!) and responder guaranteed 6 actual Miltons (perhaps even with 1/2 a QT) - unless, as above, he's psyching. So, you can waste a bid to differentiate your takeouts. Now, 1♦ is all 11s (frequent upgrade of 10s, and if they're playing SMP drop a point from both) and 1♥ could be very weak, too (especially if 1♦ is limited, or otherwise won't include 18 balanced). Not having a way to say "Partner, there's a good chance we have the balance of power" with a Natural 1NT overcall is more dangerous now than it was for many years, more so as the level of opponents goes up.

I happen to like "Traditional", with 1NT Natural in Sandwich position, but I'll play what partner wants. They don't come up often, but when you have a "no, the suit they bid is *my suit*" hand, you have a clean auction and everyone else flounders. They gain fractionally on other hands where they can describe their hands with more nuance, but I trust my partnership ability to effectively compete the partscore on those hands (using other meta-agreements and mantras, and reading the opponents' auction well).

But I don't really think any set of responses is actively bad, especially if you're not in the "always Flight A, always Division 1 teams" world. There will just be hands that are better for a different system.