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Should South accept partner's invite for game?

Round Robin of the 1995 Woman's World Championship Teams (contesting the Venice Cup). Australia plays Venezuela. Both teams are still in the race to qualify for the quarter finals.
Bourke (Australia) picks up as South:

W/All 
10 9 7 6 4 3 
A 6 4 
A K 7 
J 

WestNorthEastSouth
HirschautBeechSmithBourke
1passpass1
231pass??

1 Spade fit, inviting to game

Bourke reviews her hand. True, she has honour cards in the side suits, but the quality of her spade suit is miserable. She can't come to a decision and hands you her cards. What would you bid?

Solution

In practice Bourke bid 3, so she rejected the invitation to game. A very passive bid.
Let's take a closer look at that.
Reopening fourth in hand, which is what South did here, can be done on quite a weak hand. The reason is that partner North may have been in a fix after West's opening. After all, she may have been forced to pass, despite having a reasonably strong hand. For instance if her hand is unsuitable for either an overcall (in a suit or 1NT) or take-out double: say 14 HCP and a balanced hand. By reopening on modest values South protects his partner.
So in our problem, as South could be pretty weak, and North still invited for game, the latter therefore had to have a decent hand!
But South had in fact a lot to spare for her 1 reopening bid: a sixth spade (true, the six-card suit is weak, but the extra spade is worth a trick) and on the side she has a massive ace-ace-king and a singleton.
Furthermore: NS are vulnerable. If you bid and make a vulnerable game (+620), you win 450 points compared to not bidding it and making ten tricks as well (+170). If you bid it and go down (−100), you will lose 240 compared to not bidding it and making nine tricks as well (+140). So bidding a vulnerable game is already justified if it has only a 40% chance of success.
In short, Bridgevaria.com thinks South definitely should have bid game. And so it proved, since ten tricks were easy.

W/AllK J 8 
 K 5 2
5 2
K 9 7 5 4
AwindroosQ 5 2
Q 8J 10 9 7 3
Q 9 8 4 3J 10 6
A Q 10 8 36 2
 10 9 7 6 4 3 
A 6 4
A K 7
J

Declarer was unlucky to lose two trump tricks (grrr, the Q with East, who is very weak) but even that presented no problem. All South had to do was to play the J from hand early on. West won with the A and later South's heart loser disappeared on the established K (dummy could ruff South's diamond loser). Declarer thus lost only the AQ and the A. Ten tricks.
Australia lost 10 IMPs since the Venezuelan South at the other table did indeed raise to game (and made it) in a similar auction (North bid an invitational 3 instead of 3).
To press our point home even further: it was remarkable that both North players invited for game with this hand, while their partners could be very weak. Probably North could have settled for a single raise to 2. In our opinion South then should have tried for game with 3 (!). North would then certainly have bid game.
This makes Bourke's passive 3 bid even more remarkable: her partner had made an overbid and still Bourke didn't bid game.

 

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