08.08.10
An Interesting Balancing Issue
Sorry for my long absence but I have been swamped and my health marginal, so I have not had time to write.
The other day, my partner and I had a hand that presented an interesting balancing problem. As a general rule, I don’t let my opponents play suit contracts, at matchpoints, at the 2-level (except I will occasionally allow them to play 2S when we are vulnerable) absent a good reason to leave them alone (such as I am afraid to push them into a makeable game or I have a trump stack and I am happy to let them play the contract there). Friday was no exception.
I passed in first seat holding the following collection of garbage:
S: 8
H: Q10652
D: K98
C: Q1074
The opponents are vulnerable and we are not. My left hand opponent opened 1S and it passes around to me. Now I would not consider overcalling this mediocre club suit in the direct seat at either the 1- or 2-level, as necessary, but I have no problem balancing with 2H over 1S. Left hand opponent bids 2S and again partner and right hand opponent pass. At this vulnerability, I am not letting them play 2S, so I balanced with a double. Partner can pick the suit at this point. She knows I have 5 hearts and probably some values, but less than opening count.
The question becomes what should she do. Her hand was:
S: A964
H: K8
D: Q6
C: J8652
The first question is should she pass and convert my balancing double to a penalty double. The answer is unequivocally no. I cannot be trying to protect a penalty double in her hand because if she doubled 2S, it would be for penalty. It would not be responsive or Rosenkranz or any other conventional double that I know of, absent a specific agreement, because I was balancing as a passed hand, not overcalling in the direct seat. Therefore pass is not an option. Additionally, her hand is not good enough for a low-level double of spades because her spade suit is so bad. She probably has one spade trick, maybe a second if she can trump.
Should she bid 2NT? Absolutely not! I am a passed hand and she has only 10 high card points. That cannot rationally make 2NT absent some miraculous lie of the cards.
So now should she bid her 2-card heart suit, going into a known 5-2 fit, or bid 3C, looking for a better fit? Bidding diamonds simply is not rational with her 3-card suit unless I had bid diamonds. The answer lies in the shape of her hand and the fact that I reopened with a double. For my reopening double, my hand has the following shapes: 2-5-3-3, 1-5-4-3, 1-5-3-4,, or 0-5-4-4. If my hand was 2-5-4-2 or 2-5-2-4, I would have rebid my 4-card minor, as it is lower in rank than my major and my partner, if appropriate, could correct to 3H. I would not reopen with a doubleton as I could end up having my partner play a 3-2 fit, which I can tell you from experience is not a lot of fun. My partner now knows I have one of 4 hand patterns. If partner was 4-2-4-3 or 4-2-3-4, she should bid 3H and take the known 7-card fit rather than risk running into a 6-card 3-3. However, with a 5-card suit, she knows that I have at least 3 cards in her club suit.
At the table, my partner chose to bid 3H over my reopening double of 2S. I went down 3 for -150, which was an average board. Right hand opponent should have raised the opener’s spades, but did not with her 7 HCP and 3-card spade support (yes, opener freely rebid a 5-card spade suit), and half the field played 2S or 3S making 4 for 170 (although a proper defense holds the contract to 3S for 140). One pair played 3C our way, making 3 for 110. That was the top board.
The bottom line is that if partner balances as a passed hand, if you have 2-card support for partner and a 5-card suit of your own, if partner balances a second time, bid your suit as it almost certainly an 8-card fit, and possible a 9-card fit.
