Less Politeness Please

February 21st, 2011  ~  linda  ~  10 Comments 

I am thinking about a rule.  When I am doing a mentoring session that I ask players to stop congratulating each other.  This is what I mean and if you think I am misguided feel free to tell me.  I don’t mind the good luck partner, thank you partner ritual that occurs in online bridge when you put the dummy down.  And no mistake about it, that is what it is a ritual.  It is meaningless.  The only time it might have meaning is if you were so furious with partner that you could not bring yourself to type GLP or TYP.  But of course, that is a bad idea since it does give away information to opponents.  Which brings me back to meaningless.  It is not polite.  It is a ritual.

What irks me more is the “well done partner” or “well done opponents” after a deal.  Now if somebody did something spectacular on defense or on dummy play like a clash squeeze or an incredible shift on defense than I can get it.  But when partner draws trump and takes a finesse for his ten tricks in four spades… give me a break.

I think it is most common among intermediate players.  Maybe because drawing trump and/or taking a finesse is more of a triumph.  But to me it detracts from the seriousness of the game.  If you are playing socially (“pass the jam, well played Martha”) fine but when you are doing a lesson you should be concentrating.

When I say well done than you know you have done something really awesome.  It is worth stopping to admire it.

Am I being to hard on people?  Is being this polite or this nice really a good thing?  Should I encourage people to be seriously competitive?  I guess it depends on your goals.  If I am working with people who want to compete than they should be focused.  Not only that but when I am competing I am not all that happy when somebody does something good against me, great I can admire but good doesn’t make me happy.

So I want to start a new rule with serious students .. no more Ms or Mr Nice Guy.  Just play your cards and save the congratulations for the truly awesome.

Back in the saddle

February 14th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I was back mentoring today with three wonderful women.  What I usually do is play for about an hour.  I don’t discuss the deals unless something very interesting comes up.  Then at the end I go through several of the deals and point out ideas of interest.

Today we had 10 fascinating deals.  I stopped twice during the session to talk about a particular hand.  Because I know the women will read it I think I will discuss a few hands that we didn’t discuss at the table.  Both hands have the possibility of a minor suit fit in a slammish auction.  Modern bidding has worked hard to do away with minor fits!

Do you have a good way of finding out if you have a 4-4 minor suit fit after partner opens 1NT?  Francine and I play forcing and non-forcing Stayman which is actually quite good at this.  Anyway that is what I was thinking about when I got this hand.

Cora opened 1NT in first chair.  What should I do?  I could just bid 3NT or I could try for slam.  I couldn’t think of a good way playing transfers to find out if we had a minor suit fit.  Quite often a suit contract might make when notrump won’t.   I just decided that my spot cards were too good to chicken out and I bid 4NT.  Actually the spot cards were very important (especially the diamonds) and made 6NT quie a nice contract.  Cora bid and made it and we didn’t have any 8-card fit. She held

Cora’s diamonds match up well with my diamond spots and most of the time (and on this deal) she can take three diamond tricks which is all she needs.  So even though we didn’t have a fit all those lovely spots made 6NT a fine place to play.  If my diamonds had been A543 instead things would not have been nearly as nice.  Now here is a deal where Katie and Krista could have found a 4-4 minor fit and didn’t.

I often hear that players want to play 2/1 because of the enhanced slam exploration possibilities.  But this hand illustrates that playing standard you can still explore slam, just don’t jump around.  Katie was not vulnerable against vulnerable and Cora passed in first chair.  Katie has a terrific hand.  It is in my opinion worth about 20 HCP.  The only high card that isn’t working hard is the ♦ J which might be useful if partner has even the 10xx of diamonds.  The ♠ 10 and ♣ 9 are useful spot cards too.  She opened 1♠ and heard partner bid 2♥ .   At this point whatever partner we clearly have enough for game so I am thinking about slam.  I am also not yet certain where to play the hand.  The obvious bid to me is 3♣ which is a game force and shows my second suit.  Katie bid 3NT.  This does show her points but it takes up so much space, loses the club suit and gives partner some tough choices.  Here is the whole deal:

Krista ♠ 52 ♥ AQJ74 ♦ 65 ♣ A872

Katie ♠ AKQ103 ♥ 93 ♦ AJ ♣ KQ95

Krista might have pressed on I suppose because she does have a good eleven but that is a big push opposite 18 or 19 and I think pass is the normal call.  How good is 6♣ ?  If clubs break then you are a favorite to make the deal.  Even when clubs are 4-1 you still are have decent chances and those good club spots might come into play.  I think I would be pleased to get there.  As the cards lie you can make seven since the clubs break and the heart finesse is onside.  Standard bidding with a tiny bit of tarting up is quite good at getting to slams.  But you have to bid slowly when you have a good hand.  If you do jump to 3NT after a 2/1 you might want to agree that if you opened a major you are 5-3-3-2 exactly and if you opened a minor 4-3-3-3 since otherwise you always have a better bid.  The only time I think you have a problem is when you have a raise of responder’s suit.

Here 1♠ -2♥ -?  If you want to raise hearts and want to explore for slam you have an awkward bid and might have to make up a bid (bidding a 3 card minor for example).  Some people might chose to play 1♠ -2♥ -3♥ is forcing.  That means that when you have a heart fit you might wind up in game on less than 26 HCP but at imps that isn’t really so bad.  There are other choices as well.  (This problem is solved by playing 2/1 Game Forcing).

You can encounter some similiar problems when playing 2/1.  For example you need a way to handle auctions where responder has delayed support.  An example in both systems is

1♦ -1♥ -2♦ -?  Responder can’t easily raise diamonds and force to game.  I use a gadget here where a jump shift by responder shows support and is game forcing and usually shows a card in the jump shift suit.

1♦ -1♥ – 2♦ -3♠ Artificial diamond support, game forcing, normally a spade card.   Whether you play standard or 2/1 you have to sort out how to force in some sequences.

A Lovely Penpal

February 11th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Well I am back from sunny Florida.  This time we went to a resort on Captiva.  My sister Judy with Mark and Ray and I took the long drive down the causeway to the very end of the island.  We kept debating if we loved it or not.  The resort was gorgeous especially the main pool and the beach.  The tennis was good and we even did some sea shelling.  But somehow we kept leaving the island to shop or go to  which took rather a long time.  But in the end we decided that Sanibel-Captiva was a bit of paradise, especially during Snowmeggadon.  So during the whole trip I hardly thought about bridge.  Just at bedtime I would start thinking about system notes or something equally silly.  I did check email and I got a rather wonderful review of my adaptation of Love, Bridge Squeezes from a really bridge book expert.  So that made me feel really good.  I just have to include an excerpt:

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Last week while browsing a Borders book store at 100 Broadway, New York, NY, I went to the games section and checked out the bridge books on the shelf.. I am a big collector of bridge books because I love the game and enjoy the reading/entertainment side.  After playing bridge for over 35 years, you can imagine the number of books I have amassed in my collection (275 books at my last count).  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the title, Bridge Squeezes Complete, 2nd edition, by Clyde E. Love.   When I arrived home, I started reading the book and realized that this was indeed a terrific, exciting and marvelous revised book. I went to my library and found my copy of Clyde E. Love’s Bridge Squeezes Complete – NYC – Dover publications, $2.75 US; 1968 edition.  What surprised me the most about your edition (with Julian Pottage) was the lucidity, clarity and “teaching” modus operandi. It is such a delight to read an advanced bridge book with such ease and wonderful organization. Even the glossary at the end of the book is great (my choice would have been to place it toward the front of the book so that the reader learns the terms before starting to learn about squeezes). This is just my preference.

It is obvious that you and your great team have put a lot of effort, hard work and thoughtfulness in recreating a classical bridge book. I applaud and commend you and your team for a delightful book. Your book should be voted as one of the best bridge books of 2010.

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Now the author of this lovely email then sent me back to the book when he found an error in the analysis of one of the deals.  Thank you, Willie Fuchs, for both the congratulatory email and for pointing out the mistake.  It will be fixed in the ebook version and in the next printed edition.

I find that I feel jet lagged after arriving back home today.  I am trying to decide if it was doing all the laundry, playing bridge against the robots on BBO, or the enormous change in temperature.  I have promised myself that next year I will go down south during the winter for more than just two one week trips.  I love Florida.  I love the palm trees, the beaches, the warm sun, Disney, shopping.  Now if we can just find a way to manage Master Point Press from there.

Give the girls a break will ya’

January 23rd, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Ray joined me in another practice session with Krista and Katie, my wonderful young mentees.  And he did it again!  Last week he pysched and this week he squeezed them in a lovely trump squeeze.  I saw it coming from the dummy.  Here is this wonderful deal.  (Sorry ladies).  I have rotated the deal.  We were not vulnerable against vulnerable and

Dealer: Vul:	Linda ♠ AQ73 ♥ QJ7 ♦ K10 ♣ AK82
Krista ♠ 9 ♥ 65 ♦ AQJ6 ♣ QJ9643		Katie ♠ 1065 ♥ AK10982 ♦ 93 ♣ 75
	Ray ♠ KJ842 ♥ 43 ♦ 87542 ♣ 10

Katie opened the West hand with 2♥ and this was passed to me.  I was (I thought) a bit to0 good for 2NT so I doubled.  Ray chocked out 2♠ and I decided it was game or nothing and bid 4♠ .  So now my darling husband had to make it.  (He did whine a bit).  Krista led a heart and Katie led a diamond back to Krista’s ♦ A for another heart through.  Ray ruffed the third heart high.  This is the position with a lot to think about.

Dealer: Vul:	Linda ♠ AQ73 ♥ – ♦ K ♣ AK82
Krista ♠ 9 ♥ – ♦ QJ6 ♣ QJ964		Katie ♠ 1065 ♥ 1098 ♦ 3 ♣ 75
	Ray ♠ J842 ♥ – ♦ 8754 ♣ 10

If trump split then you have the rest of the tricks, no problem.  You will be able to ruff two clubs in hand and dummy will be high.  So the question is what to do when trumps are 3-1.  Forcing you to ruff a heart with an honor was not helpful to your cause and now with the 10 and 9 missing you could promote a trump trick.  One choice is to still try to ruff two clubs in dummy.  You cash the top club and then ruff a club in hand.  Cross to dummy on the ♦ K and ruff the last club hoping that  no overruff or promotion happens.  Now you are home.  And on the lie of the cards that would have worked.  But Ray decided it was better to draw trump.  If they split then nobody was going to ruff his winners and if they were 3-1 well there were still chances.  So he played a spade to dummy’s ♠ A.  And then noting the drop of the ♠ 9 in Krista’s hand he cashed dummy’s ♠ Q to keep a position over Katie.  When Krista showed out Ray was still in excellent shape.  He knew that Katie had three minor suit cards and the play to the earlier tricks did not suggest she was now void in diamonds.  (if she had a diamond void she really should cash the second heart and THEN lead a diamond back).  This meant that Katie had both minors guarded.  Now Ray had the answer.  He cashed dummy’s ♦ K and played the third round of trump drawing Katie’s last spade and squeezing Krista in the minors.

Dealer: Vul:	Linda ♠ 7 ♥ – ♦ – ♣ AK82
Krista ♠ – ♥ – ♦ QJ ♣ QJ9		Katie irrelevant
	Ray ♠ 8 ♥ – ♦ 875 ♣ 10

If she threw a diamond he could ruff a diamond in dummy and his diamonds would be good.  If she threw a club then dummy’s clubs were high.  Trump squeezes are very sweet and it has been quite a while since I have seen one at the table.

Well girls, shall we kick him out of our game!  (No way, I love squeezes).

Sorry…

January 22nd, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

It has been a rather dreadful week in the office.  The service which hosts most of our websites was down.  Before the outage we signed up with another provider and we were actually in the act of moving our websites but then CRASH.  Not only were the servers down but for days we couldn’t even get at our files.  Luise has been working very hard to get us back up and running.  Finally the service is up.  We have never had this long an outage before.

We can now finish the job of moving to a new and much more reliable provider.  I believe only bridge blogging still remains to truck across.

I don’t know about you but I really missed bridge blogging when it wasn’t around.  I would think I must blog this and there was no place to blog.  No beautiful blogs from Judy, Aces on bridge and the rest to read each morning.  We had so many emails and questions.

We apologize to all of our readers and bloggers and we hope we can make it up to some of you in a small way.  If you have any desire to buy an ebook now is the time.  We sent out this email to our ebookbridge customers.

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In appreciation of all of our customers and as an apology for this extended down time, we are pleased to offer all of you a free $10.00 discount coupon with the purchase of $25 or more ebooks. To take advantage of this limited time offer, use the following discount coupon code at stage 2 of the check-out process:

Discount Coupon Code: eBooksBridgeIsBACK

This discount-coupon will expire on February 15th, 2011

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You will have to register and when you are buying the book just insert the Discount Code during checkout.  When you buy a book on ebooksbridge.com you can get both the PDF and the epub files where available (there is no extra fee).  The PDF version can be printed.  It will run on the Kindle as a PDF.  You just load it on.  Either the PDF or the epub file will run on Itunes.  There are instructions on the site for other readers.

Luise was so upset one day that she just came up with this plan.  She wanted to make it up to everyone.  I will try to think of some other cool things for bridgeblogging in the next while too.  Right now I am just grateful the service is back.

So thanks for your patience and understanding.  If you have any thoughts about gifts, goodies or other thank you’s just email me.

I am happy to be back.  I have stories to tell.  Hands to write up.

Playing a little more slowly

January 17th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

An odd thing happened on BBO today.  I was playing with Francine.  When we play weekday mornings there are a lot of distractions for both of us.  In my case I am working in the offices of Master Point Press and people come into my office.  They asked questions.  They tell me exciting things like look at the wonderful cover for our new book.  Ray worries at me.  “The snow storm in England delayed the shipment of books to the U.K. warehouse.”  Not to mention my phone rings or my daughter calls me on Skype.  Today there were only two or three small interruptions and I had decided to try hard to concentrate.  I made sure I didn’t add my own distractions (like the financial news on my office TV).  I noticed I was thinking more and playing a bit slower.  I also noticed that I was playing better.

Then one of our opponents who was a good player and seemed friendly asked me why we were playing so slowly.  “Was our Internet slow?”  I responded; “We think.”  Ray says I should have responded “Cognito Ergo Lente” (I think therefore slow).   We had an interesting hand today that I think shows playing two-way stayman over strong notrump at its best with a big assist from Francine.  Maybe you can get there with transfers but this made it easier.

Linda ♠ 64 ♥ KJ65 ♦ AJ10 ♣ AK86

Francine ♠ KQ972 ♥ A107 ♦ K ♣ Q1074

On our auction Francine’s 2♠ bid showed five and I had shown four hearts and four or five clubs.  Francine made a great decision when she splintered in diamonds and with excellent controls I could bid the slam.  I suppose that playing transfers Francine could transfer to spades and then bid clubs.  if I know raise clubs we will probably get there.  Still I liked our auction.  Today we had quite a few killer defenses too.  I particularly like this one.

Dealer: Vul:	Linda ♠ Q732 ♥ A963 ♦ 94 ♣ 985
West ♠ J105 ♥ K752 ♦ J863 ♣ 72		East ♠ K64 ♥ QJ10 ♦ AQ7 ♣ KQ64
	Francine ♠ A98 ♥ 84 ♦ K1052 ♣ AJ103

East opened 1NT after I passed and we played there.  Francine led her fourth best diamond and my nine forced the queen.  Now declarer led hearts and I won the third round Francine throwing a discouraging ♠9.  I switched to the ♣ 9 which was covered with the ♣ Q and ♣ A.  Francine returned the ♣ J which was ducked (and I carefully held onto my 8).  Now Francine made a good play.   If I had four clubs then she could return any club and it wouldn’t matter.  But if I had 98x she had to return a small one so she did.   I played the ♣ 8 forcing declarer’s last club honor.  Declarer pitching a diamond from dummy.  Declarer throw Francine in on the last club throwing a diamond from dummy.  Francine got out with the ♠ A and another spade my queen forcing declarer’s ace.  At this point my ♠ 7 is the master spade and declarer could only come to two more tricks the ♠ K and the ♦ A for one down.

Anyway, lente, lente is my BBO motto from now on.

Forcing with a pass

January 14th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

I don’t know who invented the concept of a forcing pass.  But I do know that Eddie Kantar wrote a book about it (I have a treasured copy) and Eric Kokish provides Canadians teams with guideline and lots of complex ideas.

The basic idea is that when you think its your hand and the opponents are all over your auction the player in the direct chair doesn’t have to make the decision about whether to bid on or double the opponents all by themselves.

It is a fairly simple principle in the simple case.  Here is an example from play yesterday.  Francine opened 2♣.  Right away that says our side has the balance of strength.

We were white against red opponents (who did suicide on this hand).

My double is systemic and shows less than two controls.  When 5D came back to me we were in a forcing pass situation.  We had bid a power game and the opponents bid over us.  We are now committed to bid on or double them.  No namby pamby middle course.  My pass says that I have a willingess to go on within the constraints of my previous bid.  I did have four trump and some scattered values.  Francine knowing I have at most one king just doubled them.

Linda ♠ 8762 ♥ J105 ♦ K92 ♣ Q98

Francine ♠ AKQJ105 ♥ AQ ♦ 3 ♣ AJ103

It all seemed so simple.  However on a previous occasion Francine made what she though was a forcing pass and I didn’t.

But when you see the rules that I have read about what is and is not a forcing pass it is quite complex.  So in the interest of not destroying my brain and forgetting something critical during an important event we have created relatively simple rules.

A pass is forcing when:

• The partnership is in a game-forcing auction.
• An invitational bid has been accepted but only by the strong hand.  A direct double by the weak hand shows defensive values a pass is neutral.
• A bid is forcing to a particular level not yet reached.  This applies to Namyats.
• A strong two-bid has been opened by our side (however, a 2NT bid, because it is limited does not create a force).
• VUL vs NV our side has bid game after a pre-empt except if responder has never shown strength and could have.
• The sound of bidding makes it so:  the opponents are willing to play a partscore and finally bid a game after we have voluntarily bid a game.

The last one has got me in trouble a few times.  (What’s the odd doubled overtrick).

The deal we previously were confused on is covered in the second point which says that after an invitational auction to game the weak player cannot issue a forcing pass (since presumably they have already fully bid their hand).

I am interested in anyone’s thoughts on the subject.  Can it be this simple?

For Labrat and Discotap

January 9th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

I have some new mentees.  They are two young and up and coming women bridge players who go by the BBO names of Labrat77 and Discotap77.  Today Ray, the birthday boy, and I played against them for an hour.  They did very well.  The women are good card players but not surprisingly since they are fairly new to serious bridge, they have to learn more about bidding.

My charming husband who I won’t criticize (grr) because its his birthday decided to pysche against them on one hand.

Let me tell you about the deal from the point of view of the ladies.

This is how the auction started from Labrat’s point of view.  She passed.  I opened 1♠ .  Discotap doubled and Ray bid 2♥ .  What should she do?  What do you play in this situation?  What is double?  Is it the right bid?  Could the hearts be 5-5-3-0 with her partner having three and me having a void?  Without discussion I think double should be for penalties.  Partner has announced hearts and a good hand.  But is this the right bid on her hand.   Perhaps she should lie in wait and see what happens.  She does after all only have 6HCP.  She passed and as expected I bid 2♠ .

Now over to Discotap.

Wow.  She has a monster even with hearts having bid over her.  But what is the right bid now.  A double from her is not for penalty.  3♦ just doesn’t seem enough.  But if partner has nothing and the hearts are all over her maybe this hand is not going to play well.  But, she has 20 HCP.  What does 3♠ mean here?  That might work out or she could double.  If partner bids clubs she can retreat to diamonds so that isn’t much of a risk.  She finally chose the low road and bid 3♦.  Ray bid 4♠ which was passed back to her.  Is 3♥ sounding a bit suspicious?  She doubled 4♠ and there we played it.

Dealer:  Labrat Vul: Both	Ray ♠ K2 ♥ KJ965 ♦ J842 ♣ J3
Discotap ♠ – ♥ AQ962 ♦ AKQJ2 ♣ KJ2		Labrat ♠ 10 ♥ KJ1075 ♦ 984 ♣ Q975
	Linda ♠ AK653 ♥ 8 ♦ 1076 ♣ A1064

In all the years I have played with Ray (none recently) he has to my memory never pysched with me.  What got into him!  I know – it was birthday fever.  It did work brilliantly but still …

Dealer:  Labrat Vul: Both	Ray ♠ QJ98742 ♥ 43 ♦ 53 ♣ 83
Discotap ♠ – ♥ AQ962 ♦ AKQJ2 ♣ KJ2		Labrat ♠ 10 ♥ KJ1075 ♦ 984 ♣ Q975
	Linda ♠ AK653 ♥ 8 ♦ 1076 ♣ A1064

They had some good moments.  They bid 6NT in four bids and they bid to 4♠ just as economically on this deal.  Simple bidding at its best.

Dealer:  Labrat Vul: Both	Ray ♠ K2 ♥ KJ965 ♦ J842 ♣ J3
Discotap ♠ A ♥ AQ1073 ♦ 1097 ♣ Q1076		Labrat ♠ QJ98763 ♥ 8 ♦ AQ5 ♣ A5
	Linda ♠ 1054 ♥ 42 ♦ K63 ♣ K9852

So welcome aboard the bridge express, ladies.  Forgive Ray his transgressions.

The Donut and not the hole

January 8th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Usually when I play I focus on all my mistakes (the hole) and tend to ignore the good things that happen (the donut).  I made a few mistakes today but we did some very good things too.  I am a naturally brooder (Ray says I would worry about the baggage collection system in Heathrow.)  But I do see the good things too.

Here is a sugary deal.

In second chair with nobody vulnerable I opened 2NT.  Francine but 3♥ and I super-accepted with 4♣.  3♥ here would be a retranfer but Francine thought she had enough to try for a slam opposite and cuebid here ♦K.  I bid 4NT (not usually from the notrump bidder) and Francine showed her 0 keycards.  When I asked about anything extra she decided that while she hadn’t shown here stiff heart 6♥ might be misconstrued and she wanted the strong hand to play the slam so she bid 5NT.  A nice bid really.  I bid 6S which would have played well from either side.  Here is my hand.

Lee ♠ K1063 ♥ A10 ♦ AQJ4 ♣ AK8

Francine ♠ QJ842 ♥ 2 ♦ K5 ♣ Q9762

Francine’s diamond bid was huge for my hand.  Very few pairs reached slam.  Actually most of the match was pretty good and every time we play we find some new things to talk about.

I wonder if we will eventually arrive at a point where we have discussed everything and nothing new comes up in most sessions.  Maybe, not.

Please give me nice opponents, please

January 7th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Francine and I played a couple of sessions on BBO in the last while.  In the first session an interesting auction came up which featured the theme forcing passes.  I will save that for another blog.  In the second session today the main theme was how irritating it is when opponents fool around in the auction and then fight about it.  I even had a kibbitzer complain to me.   The hand that really irked his partner was this one.  East the victim held

East ♠ Q6 ♥ 976 ♦ A872 ♣ Q842

They were not vulnerable against vulnerable, a time when these things happen most often.  Francine in first chair opened 1♥ and West, the perp bid 1NT.  I doubled for penalty.  East thought he had enough to redouble and we played it there.  On a heart lead the hand was down 3.  Even at favorable vulnerability that is a big score redoubled, an even 1000 and about 13 and a half imps.

Now one might expect an explosion from East who did well to keep quiet during the play and saved his anger for the post mortem which now ensued.  But West was non-repentant.  He thought that East’s redoubled was too aggressive.  Ha!  This is West’s hand:

West ♠ A1098 ♥ A4 ♦ Q643 ♣ 1095

East ♠ Q6 ♥ 976 ♦ A872 ♣ Q842

I understand the vulnerability but perhaps it would be better if West had a place to go rather than toughing it out in 1NT redoubled.

Earlier on West had made this bid.  What do you think of it?

With everybody white West in third chair chose to open 3♠ .  It seems okay to me opposite a passed partner.  I passed and Francine reopened with a double.  When I bid 4♥ our hero? bid 4♠ .  That kind of second guessing (maybe we can make 4♥) is just wrong.  He put pressure on us and he has to hope it worked and we ended in the wrong spot.  I doubled 4♠ which went down two when we managed a trump promotion (I scored two tricks from the K10x) and 4♥ is off 4 top tricks.

Here is a lesson hands for Cora, my student, who I know was watching.

This is a hand you don’t balance on.  I held

You are in fourth chair white on red.  The auction starts off 1♠ pass pass to you.  You are in the perfect position to pass.  At this vulnerability East has certainly not pysched spades.  That being the case partner who is known to be short in the suit could not overcall.  This is a lovely spot, just get them a 100 a trick.  Mind you I would have bid on the East hand over 1♠ .

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ AK982 ♥ KJ98 ♦ 4 ♣ J73
West ♠ 7 ♥ 7652 ♦ Q875 ♣ A1094		East ♠ Q10543 ♥ A ♦ AK62 ♣ Q86
	South ♠ J6 ♥ Q1043 ♦ J1093 ♣ K52

As it turned out declarer had a fair number or tricks and played it pretty well so the hand went one down as it should.  If I balance and I have no idea what I would bid but say 1NT and we find our best spot of 2♥ , the opposition can get a plus score by bidding diamonds.  So this is an illustration of the rule about the importance of the number of cards you have in opener’s suit when decided to balance.  This is an extreme example I admit.