[MickyB]

I've been playing Turbo with Blofeld recently, and we've done pretty well with it - however it feels like there should be problems with it.

Say you set trumps with 4♦
Partner bids 4♠, showing a spade control, denying a heart control

You now need to be able to -

sign off without a heart control
show a heart control with odd/even keycards and a club control/no club control.

There isn't enough room to do all of these things. What's the best way around this?

[Chamaco]

That's what I meant in one previous post where I mentioned that Turbo sometimes leaves you "endplayed" in the bidding ("endplayed" = you'd like to *ask* something but you are forced to *show* something because no room otherwise).

There are 2 possibilities here:

a. more flexible use of 4NT = "Declarative/interrogative", Neapolitan-Club style.
Basically 4NT becomes a sort of "Last Train".
You can find a writeup on this at:
http://www.geocities.com/daniel_neill_2000...ddingToSlam.zip
However this might screw up the rest of the scheme.

b. use 5C as "Last Train" with the agreed odd number of keycards (4NT = even no. of keycards; but you can switch odd vs even if u like)

[Chamaco]

MickyB, on Feb 15 2006, 04:38 PM, said:

I've been playing Turbo with Blofeld recently, and we've done pretty well with it - however it feels like there should be problems with it.

Say you set trumps with 4♦
Partner bids 4♠, showing a spade control, denying a heart control

You now need to be able to -

sign off without a heart control
show a heart control with odd/even keycards and a club control/no club control.

There isn't enough room to do all of these things. What's the best way around this?

Playing Turbo, in most sequences there should be a way to guarantee/deny a club control while setting trumps in diamonds.

Of course this depends on the specific sequence: opps might have stuck into the auction, and then it will be harder, but this (lack of bidding room to check everything due to busy opps) applies also for slam bidding in the major using Turbo or LLTC+seriousNT....

[joshs]

This is a generic problem with cuebidding. From an information theoretic point of view over 4S there are 4 sequences that do not force slam:
5D
5C-5D
4N-5C-5D
4N-5D

So there are at most 4 sets of information that you guys can exchange.


One possibility is:
sequence 1=No Heart Control
sequence 2=heart control and club control but min
sequence 3=heart control, no club control but min
sequence 4= well partner doesn't have clubs either

Another is Turbo with a last train 5C:
Sequence 1=No heart control
Sequence 2=Heart control, odd number, min
Sequence 3=Heart control, even number, min
Sequence 4=Heart control, even number, partner's hand sucks

[awm]

It's a sensible general rule to use the last-suit control bid as asking. This comes up frequently in "stopper-asking" auctions, for example:

1♣-3♣-3♥-3♠

The 3♥ bid shows a game-going hand with a heart control, and denies a diamond control. It makes no sense for 3♠ to show a spade control here. Why? If partner had controls in both pointed suits, he would bid 3NT. If partner has no diamond control, then he knows that we have no diamond control between us, so there's no reason to try to get to 3NT anymore. So it makes sense to interpret 3♠ here as "I have a diamond control but I am concerned about spades."

Similarly in cuebidding auctions like the one you mentioned:

...4♦ - 4♠

Here the 4♠ call shows a spade control and denies a heart control. A 5♣ call here has to guarantee a heart control (without one, we have no slam), so it should be asking for a club control. So I'd recommend:

5♦ = just a signoff, no heart control (no real reason to distinguish keycards here)
5♣ = odd number of keycards, heart control, concerned about clubs
4NT = even number of keycards, heart control, not specific about the club holding

After 4NT, partner's 5♣ would be "do you have a club control?" whereas 5♦ would be a sign off (likely missing 2 keycards).

So the general rules would be: (1) Bidding the trump suit at the lowest level is a signoff, and normally indicates either a missing control, or off two keycards. This bid may not be specific about the parity of keycards (since it's known that there can be no slam). (2) If partner has already indicated a control in one side suit and no control in another, then bidding the third side suit shows a control where partner denied one and asks about partner's holding in the suit bid.

[joshs]

awm, on Feb 15 2006, 01:50 PM, said:

It's a sensible general rule to use the last-suit control bid as asking. This comes up frequently in "stopper-asking" auctions, for example:

1♣-3♣-3♥-3♠

The 3♥ bid shows a game-going hand with a heart control, and denies a diamond control. It makes no sense for 3♠ to show a spade control here. Why? If partner had controls in both pointed suits, he would bid 3NT. If partner has no diamond control, then he knows that we have no diamond control between us, so there's no reason to try to get to 3NT anymore. So it makes sense to interpret 3♠ here as "I have a diamond control but I am concerned about spades."

Similarly in cuebidding auctions like the one you mentioned:

...4♦ - 4♠

Here the 4♠ call shows a spade control and denies a heart control. A 5♣ call here has to guarantee a heart control (without one, we have no slam), so it should be asking for a club control. So I'd recommend:

5♦ = just a signoff, no heart control (no real reason to distinguish keycards here)
5♣ = odd number of keycards, heart control, concerned about clubs
4NT = even number of keycards, heart control, not specific about the club holding

After 4NT, partner's 5♣ would be "do you have a club control?" whereas 5♦ would be a sign off (likely missing 2 keycards).

So the general rules would be: (1) Bidding the trump suit at the lowest level is a signoff, and normally indicates either a missing control, or off two keycards. This bid may not be specific about the parity of keycards (since it's known that there can be no slam). (2) If partner has already indicated a control in one side suit and no control in another, then bidding the third side suit shows a control where partner denied one and asks about partner's holding in the suit bid.

The problem with that scheme is that it forces you to bid slam whenever all the suits are accounted for, even if neither player has much extras.

Usually the last train bid says "I am still interested in slam (or game or 3N...) but can not bid it myself". That logicaly implies a control (or stopper or...) in the bypassed suit (if their was one) but is not completely specific abount a control or lack their-of in the last train suit. It just says "I am still not sure." As usual, when you have a major suit fit, you do have an extra level to sort things out if necessary, but in a minor, its largely just judgement about how good your hands are for slam purposes.

[awm]

Yup, as I understand it "last train" is basically a blame transfer bid. It says any of:

(1) I have a minimum hand, do you really want to be in slam?
(2) I have concern about the 4th suit, do you really want to be in slam?
(3) My next cue is at a really high level, maybe you can cue first?
(4) How about you just decide slam or no slam, and if you get it wrong you lose the post-mortem?

Personally I prefer to shy away from these kinds of bids. I greatly prefer that one hand or the other express values earlier in the auction. Getting to 4♦ in an auction where we have no idea whether we're close to slam values, and then viewing the 4♠ cue as "automatic" is not my idea of good methods. Adding a blame transfer sequence so I can win the post-mortem doesn't make me any happier about the methods.

Honestly I think "blame transfer" is one of the biggest things separating good card players from good bridge players. The goal is to help partner figure out what to do not to make bids that are sufficiently ambiguous that you can win the post-mortem.

Then again I may be out on a limb here.

[Chamaco]

Indeed, thinking again of such sequence, 5C = Last Train does the job.

After pard's 4S, any nonsignoff promises a heart control (since pard denied it, we'd just sign off without one), and implicitly asks pard to keep the bidding open if he has one.

So

4NT= I have a heart control, even keycards, please cue clubs if you have a control otherwise sign off in 5D
5C = I have a heart control, odd keycard, please cuebid above 5D if you've got a club stopper.

[joshs]

awm, on Feb 15 2006, 02:06 PM, said:

Yup, as I understand it "last train" is basically a blame transfer bid. It says any of:

(1) I have a minimum hand, do you really want to be in slam?
(2) I have concern about the 4th suit, do you really want to be in slam?
(3) My next cue is at a really high level, maybe you can cue first?
(4) How about you just decide slam or no slam, and if you get it wrong you lose the post-mortem?

Personally I prefer to shy away from these kinds of bids. I greatly prefer that one hand or the other express values earlier in the auction. Getting to 4♦ in an auction where we have no idea whether we're close to slam values, and then viewing the 4♠ cue as "automatic" is not my idea of good methods. Adding a blame transfer sequence so I can win the post-mortem doesn't make me any happier about the methods.

Honestly I think "blame transfer" is one of the biggest things separating good card players from good bridge players. The goal is to help partner figure out what to do not to make bids that are sufficiently ambiguous that you can win the post-mortem.

Then again I may be out on a limb here.

Well personally,
a. I view no cue-bid at your first oppontunity to cue-bid as automatic. I think cue-bidding shows extras, in light of what you have shown already, for slam purposes. Quite frankly I really don't care about specific controls all that much. In general, I want to know if you like your hand for slam.
b. If your auction up to 4D was really that wideranging you do have a problem
c. In this auction, with no knowledge of how we got to 4D and who knows what, the 5C bidder has either:
1. The Ace of the missing suit and a min for his previous bidding
2. The K of the missing suit, some extras but we are unlikely to have a slam if partner has neither the A or K of clubs


Partner bids slam with:
a. A great hand, with or without a club control
b. A good hand with a club control

Yes you might bid a slam off the AK of a suit. You might after 1N-4N also (although that one you might survive since they may not lead it). But more importantly you will bid slams if and only if your hands have some good play for 12 tricks (assuming they do not cash the first 2). I rather that than be in slams with very little play for 12 tricks, even though we are not in any danger at trick 1.

Any co-operative sequence that involves both players judgements can be viewed as a "blame transfer". Personally I rather have both players use their judgement. If you don't want to use judgement, why not just rkc? That information is pretty reliable.

[han]

I don't share Adam's opinion of Last Train, although I agree that it is often quite ambiguous. Consider for instance the auction 1S-4D-4H. This seems a very useful sequence to play last train, more useful than showing a heart control.

[000002]

Whilom,a famous chineses player ever sum up the achievement of the bridge in the past 100years,he indicated that the main is SF(six factor):
strength/length/shape/quality/control/collocation

then he emphasized:
1)in the six factor,the most important is sequence. it comprise 2 meaning: how to arrange (SF), when to give up (the secondary) .

2)in general,the sequence of SF is:strength--length--shape--quality--control--collocation,but, it's dynamic.