Pass or Respond?
In Tuesday morning’s club matchpoint game, partner and I were twice faced with the decision whether to pass or respond to partner’s opening bid, when holding a marginal hand. Both times we were vulnerable.
Board 12. You are vulnerable in fourth chair. Partner opens 1♣ and you?
Board 15. You are vulnerable in third chair. Partner opens 1♦ and you?
What do you prefer?
On Board 12, I sat South and passed. That did not work well.
West smartly passed and our side missed a better score by playing hearts, where up to eleven tricks are possible.
On Board 15, partner sat North and responded 1♠. That also did not work well. The remainder of our aucton was, uh, weird, but we were definitely in the -200 or worse territory.
I strongly suspect that a Pass would have produced a 1♥ balance by East, and we would be off the big negative hook.
I favor pass with each hand, when we are vulnerable. If not vulnerable, I slightly favor responding 1M with each hand. Not sure if those are best, or even popular choices, but I do respect colors at duplicate.
With the growing popularity of systems where many balanced hands are opened 1♣ (even when owning only two clubs) and all one level responses are transfers – a system which I believe is not allowed in games that are restricted to General Convention Chart, unless authorized by the event sponsor – I wonder if responding becomes more attractive. My general understanding of such systems is that opener completes the transfer with three cards in the suit shown by the transfer and bids to a higher level of the transferred suit when holding four cards in the suit shown by the transfer. This would mean that, after responder passes the completion of the transfer, North would be playing some number of hearts on Board 12 (either 3♥ or 4♥) and South would be playing 1♠ on Board 15 (or, perhaps, EW would be playing the hand).
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I agree on both counts. On hand 12 north had one of the few hands where passing would work badly. Hand 15 is closer but the location of the two honors (not in partner’s suit or the bid suit) is probably the difference.
As an aside, would you raise a 2NT opening with hand 12S or would you downgrade due to the quacks and flatness?
Slar, if partner opened a 20-21 2NT, I would raise to 3NT holding the South hand on Board 12. I have such good intermediate cards that I actually expect to make 3NT. Even if my intermediates were a little poorer, I would probably raise just because I feel the field would raise, and I do not feel strongly enough about Pass being right to bet the board on that decision. I admit that I would not have Staymaned, even realizing that East will be on lead and 3NT will suffer a quick death (even if my partner North actually held the DJ to count to 20 HCP). Sadly, even after five rounds of diamonds, North could not yet claim the rest. Next board.
On board 12, you have an automatic pass. Maybe I’m a fuddy duddy, but I don’t think it’s close. On the other, I could go either way, but would probably wheeze out 1S.