Julian Pottage
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If you reach 2NT after an artificial opening and artificial response, you should treat the 2NT bid the same as if it is an opening bid, simply taking account of the slightly different point count shown – responder can use (5-card) Stayman, transfers etc
Adding one point to the East hand for the good 5-card diamond suit seems reasonable. If West also adds a point for the good 5-card club suit, that would give you effectively 23 facing 10 and you would bid the slam. Playing matchpoints you do not want to be in 6C rather than 6NT, particularly if that means West declares, as would be the case in your methods.
I usually play that for a positive response at the three level you need a six-card suit headed by two of the top three honours – but if your methods allow a five-card suit headed by two of the top three honours then the West hand would qualify.
You have said that you took the ace of hearts at trick one – I infer from this that South led a heart, you played the nine or ten from dummy and North produced the jack. If North did have the king-jack of hearts and South the king of spades, you can only make 13 tricks with the help from the defenders. If the auction gave no clue that East-West were in the slam zone (2NT-3Nt perhaps), South might have led a fourth highest spade.
The reason why using a 2D response as a waiting bid rather than as a negative is that the strong opening hand normally has far more features worth showing than the weak responding hand has. The 2D response keeps the bidding as low as possible and facilitates that.
Many pairs therefore use positive responses to convey a specific message, such as a 5-card or 6-card suit headed by two of the top three honours. The strong opening hand will often have the missing top honour and knowledge of the source of tricks can help a lot on deciding whether to go for a slam.
If an opponent has bid, the norm is to have a stopper in the opposing suit. Possibly on a sequence like 1H-P-P-1NT and you have a balanced 13 points without 4 spades then you might not have a sensible alternative. I do not think you would ever bid 2NT without a stopper in the opposing suit.
Firstly please can I explain a point of terminology. Teams and matchpoints are both forms of duplicate bridge. I assume you intended part a to refer to matchpoints.
I do not think the scoring method really affects your answer. If you are playing 5-card majors or if you are playing 4-card majors but sometimes open the minor on hands with two 4-card suits then you should definitely respond 1H.
If you are playing 4-card majors and always open the major if you have two 4-card suits then you do not need to respond 1H to find a heart fit. Partner, if balanced, will not have four hearts. Partner, if unbalanced, will rebid 1H (or 2H if very strong) over a 1D response. Either way, you will not miss a heart fit by responding 1D, which is the book response in this situation.
Leading up to weakness certainly applies at suit contracts as well as NT. Leading through strength is less attractive than leading up to weakness but if anything applies more in a suit contract than in NT – you are unlikely to establish long cards in a suit in which an opponent is strong.
Yes it is certainly a good idea to agree with partner what the 2NT and 3NT rebids mean. Traditionally a 3NT rebid is stronger than a 2NT rebid, and I believe that is what many still play, but if you are playing 2NT as forcing anyway then the principle of fast arrival suggests 3NT should be weaker. With all my weak no-trump partners, 3NT shows 15-17 and only 4 cards in the major.
With the East hand I would open 2NT and my second choice is 1D. Your singleton spade is an honour and 2NT does get the strength across. The reason I prefer 1D to 1H is that after 1D you can reverse (forcing) to 2H over the anticipated 1S response. Partner will expect you to have 5 diamonds but they are 4 very good ones and it is better to lie about a major than a minor.
On your actual sequence you could easily have been playing in a 4-3 heart fit (if partner had raised with three) when 3NT or 5 of a minor was better.
2C-2D-3D uses a lot of space, which is why I do not want to do that. 2C-2D-2S indicates a 5-card spade suit – I did not consider doing that – I would rather open 1D than lie about how many spades I have.
If you were playing weak jump shifts then your bidding would be correct. Playing strong jump shifts, you should bid 2S on the first round. You have 16 HCP and a good 6-card suit – there is no point playing strong jump shifts if you do not make one on this hand. You and your partner need to agree on whether jump shifts are strong or weak – in Acol the default is strong. Playing strong jump shifts, responding 1S and rebidding 3S is invitational and partner can pass with a minimum.
You have 23 HCP. While the singleton king might not be worth a full 3 points, the good 5-card diamond suit is worth more than 5 points (and the spades are good too), so the hand is too good for a 20-22 2NT opening. I would open 2C planning to rebid 2NT. It is not perfect but nothing is with this hand.
With your second example responding hand, you can double no problem. If partner bids D or S, you bid NT next.
Sorry I meant to say Kelvin, not Kevin – you should be able to find the post from the title anyway.
I do not think you can pass 3D with 11 points. Partner surely has 15-16 points or so to jump, giving the partnership a combined 26-27. Even with the misfit, you would want to be in game with these values.
Most pairs would not have discussed whether double followed by 3H shows a hand too weak for an initial 2H bid or, as you actually held, a hand with 5 hearts and 4 spades. Partner’s 3S continuation suggests that your partnership was on the same wavelength. You correctly diagnosed that 3NT might play better from partner’s hand and did your best to make this possible.
I play (and recommend) an immediate 3C cue bid as showing diamond support, so that would not be an option. It would be an overbid anyway with a misfitting 11 points. You cannot bid 3C on the second round when partner has already bid 3D, much as you would like to!
The opposing overcall made life for your side difficult, which is part of the reason why it is a good idea to overcall. Sometimes there is no perfect solution.
Most of your questions I have answered very recently in the post entitled “2 level response over an overcall” posted by Kevin Platt. I shall answer those specific to your hand and auction shortly.
You have 16 high card points and, adding one for the 5-card suit, the hand is still in range for a strong 1NT opening. It would also be possible to open 1S with the intention of raising a 1NT response to 2NT. Because your doubleton is hearts, you risk playing in a 2-5 heart fit when you have 5-3 spade fit if you open 1NT. Opening 1NT would be more attractive if you were happy for partner to transfer into hearts. So, although I play 5-card Stayman when I am playing a strong no-trump, I would open 1S on this particular hand.
