An in between hand

[wackojack]

In  a Spurs Team match opps at our table had these hands:  South:  A,  Q76,  K1094,  AQ975......... North  Q652,  AK10,  AQ8,  K86.

South opened 1 , reversed into 2 opposite partner's 1  response and thereafter had no difficulty in getting to 6NT.  At the other table South opened 1  and rebid 2    opposite partner's 1 .  North then bid 3N which was the final contract. 

I don't want to comment too much on North's 3NT bid and can see that had she bid the 4th suit 2  , there was a chance that with good partnership agreements, they could have got to 6NT. 

I am just interested in South's bidding.  This is an awkward in between hand too weak to reverse, out of range for a 1NT rebid (and singleton spade makes it slightly unsuitable), and a rebid of 2  does not really describe the hand well.  Worst of all imo is to distort the shape by opening 1 and rebidding 2  .  This practice seems to be more prevalent on the other side of the pond from me.
 I could be wrong but I do not think an expert over here would bid this way. 

fwiiw I give the following marks:

[wackojack]

Sorry accident with the keys:
10 ..................... 1NT    Down grade to 14 and singleton A  is worth a doubleton if partner chooses to repeat spades.
6......................... 2    Leaves more options open if partner has an invitational hand
3.......................... 2  .  You may get lucky slightly overstating your hand
2..........................  1  followed by 2    Deceiving you partner about the minor suit length is not good.
           

[Masse24]

The title of your post says it all. It's "an in between hand."

I agree with your assessment about this not being worthy of a reverse. And I do not think it to be close. This time the "reverser" got lucky; his partner had a big hand, so it all worked out. But reversing on a hand such as this, in my opinion, loses in the long run.

I probably lean slightly toward opening 1 and rebidding the , but I could live with the 1NT rebid.

[Added] I used to open hands with four and five that were not strong enough for a reverse with 1 . That is what I learned. The logic behind it made sense--at the time. But I have since gone to opening 1 with these hands--usually. But not always. The decision comes down to the honor placement and suit texture. With, for example, the following hand: A Qxx AKJT Txxxx, I would choose to open 1 .

Also, on this hand, opening 1 should not be so readily dismissed. The reason being that by opening 1 and rebidding 2 you don't pigeonhole your range quite as much as:

• a 1m open followed by 1NT rebid, or
  
• a 2 rebid when opening 1 .

Because the range for a 1 open followed by 2 rebid is quite large--up to 17 or even an ugly 18--it can sometimes entice a weakish responder to bid one more time to keep the bidding open. With 15, like with this hand, that is not a bad thing.

You could also consider opening this hand 1NT. I can count on one hand the number of times I've done so with a singleton (with fingers left over). I really hate doing it, but this may be another time to do so.

Actually, after further consideration, that is the route I take. OPEN 1NT.

Good hand.

[Masse24]

I just created a ranked choice poll on Bridgewinners for this hand. Never done one before so hope I did not screw it up.

Should get some decent (good) feedback soon. I'm guessing opening 1NT is the top choice with the reverse being last.

[jcreech]

Raising my hand as the guilty South.  I did give some thought to both opening the off-shape 1NT, as well as the overbid of 1 followed reversing, and the underbid and overpromise of length of 1 - 2 .  To tell the truth, I did not like any of the options, and decided that what I did was the least lie.  Given partner's hand, 1NT would have been the least lie.

While we did not have the tools to get to 6NT given my choice of opening bid, this is a hand where I think a Soloway jump shift (something I play in my more experienced partnerships) works nicely to show the strength and nature of partner's hand.  It might be a hair on the light side, but a jump shift followed by NT would effectively be the minimum for the North hand, and I can push on to slam from my side.

I agree it is a good hand, and plan to bring it into my mentoring class in the future.

[kenberg]

I'm not in favor of a jump shift into a four card suit. Karen Walker has a summary of Soloway Jump Shifts at
http://kwbridge.com/js.htm
Item 3 is:  (17 to 19 pts.) with a good 5-card suit.
That's the way I see it as well.
The Bridge Encyclopedia does not specify the length for a jump sift followed be a NT rebid from responder.
I was surprised to see that Bobby Goldman, in Aces Scientific, the three types of hand for the jump shift were: I) Solid suit, by which he meant solid, II) A good hand with a good five card suit with a fit in pard's suit and, III) For the hand intending a second bid in NT, that responder needs stoppers in the unbid suits (of course) and a six card suit missing one top honor. I think the Aces are where the Soloway Jump Shift began, but of course it has evolved. With me at least, it hasn't evolved to a four card holding.

Now what would I actually have done with that hand? I dunno. Probably just about everyone agrees that no call is all that great. I would not open 1 , that's out. And I also think that it's just too light for a reverse. If I am to do this on a 15 count then, well, I wouldn't, but if I did I would have almost all my values in my two suits. But really I think it's too light. So for me the options are 1NT, or 1 and rebid 1NT, or 1 and rebid 2 . Probably I go with 1NT but ....  It could go very wrong.

I do not think it is clear at all. It will not always be the case that when you open 1 that partner will respond 1 . He might respond 1 and then maybe your RHO is the one with the and he comes in with 1 , after which you get to make a support double. That would be nice. I think if I did open 1 and if partner responds 1 , I would probably rebid 1NT. I'm a point or so heavy for this, but the 1 did not improve my hand at all. 1NT might be a fine contract.

[Masse24]

84 votes in. Results roughly as expected?

Opening 1NT (currently 40 votes) the clear leader. But . . . opening 1 , with either a 2 rebid (16 votes) or a 1NT rebid (11 votes) also garnered a fair number of 1st place votes. Because this was a ranked-choice poll, not everyone chose to vote for all five choices.

Unsurprisingly, the reverse was widely panned.

The poll, which will continue, is here: https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/preference-on-how-to-treat-this-hand/