[microcap]

As many of you know, Rex and I operate in separate universes, which one could argue is not optimal for a bridge partnership.


We bungled this collection:

---

Rex opened 1♣, 1♥,1♠,2♦ by me [fsf], 3♣, 3♠, 4♣, 4♠, 5♦, 5♠ by me, pass out.

First question: direct 4♠ on my second bid or 4th suit forcing?
Second question: After direct 4♠ response, are you going on?
Third question: What are your comments on the actual auction? I will return later to post what we were "thinking" in the last couple of rounds....

Thanks as always !

[straube]

I don't like 1C-1H, 1S-4S because it ought to be a "picture" bid showing good hearts and spades, a minimum (which you have), but not much outside. Your spades are terrible and (as a side point) if the auction had gone 1C-1H, 1S-2D, 3C-3S, 3N I would have passed (this assumes that you don't play serious 3N in this situation).

At 1C-1H, 1S-2D, 3C-3S you have only created a game force and shown a fit and have not made a slam try. 4C ought to be a slam try and I think you are obliged to do something. The least you could do is cue bid something (4D if your partnership cue bids up the line or 4H if your partnership bids first round controls first). Your partner must have been very frustrated that you refused two opportunities to do so.

This seems a bit difficult hand in that your trump are so awful. OTOH, you have controls in every outside suit (which partner seems to want) and you have Kx of his club suit. You stand a great chance of endplaying yourself in the bidding trying to show all of these controls while worrying about the trump suit. Time to take charge I think and RKC (immediately after 4C) and see if you have bad news in that department. Partner did make a slam try after all. The rest is easy.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

microcap, on 2010-October-24, 06:19, said:

As many of you know, Rex and I operate in separate universes, which one could argue is not optimal for a bridge partnership.


We bungled this collection:

---

Rex opened 1♣, 1♥,1♠,2♦ by me [fsf], 3♣, 3♠, 4♣, 4♠, 5♦, 5♠ by me, pass out.

First question: direct 4♠ on my second bid or 4th suit forcing?
Second question: After direct 4♠ response, are you going on?
Third question: What are your comments on the actual auction? I will return later to post what we were "thinking" in the last couple of rounds....

Thanks as always !

Using the same system as in your other post for a 1H Response and GF values for Opener (http://www.bridgebas...x-and-jay-5743/).
This is "too cute":
1C - 1H
2S! (GF, may be artificial) - 2NT! (asks for clarification)
??
   3C! = long Cl, no 4s, no 3h
  3D! = ( 3-of-other-minor ) = 4s, longer Cl, no 3h
  3H! = 3h, no 4s, 5+c
  3S! = 4s AND 3h

After:
3D! - 3S
4C (cue) - 4D (cue)
4H (last train) - 4NT (RKC)
5C (0 or 3) - 5D ( sQ-ask; does not guarantee all key cards)
5NT (sQ but no outside K) - 6S

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Now to address your auction.

1C - 1H
1S - 2D!
3C - 3S
4C - 4S
5D - 5S
p

Responder uses 4th suit GF ( which is fine ) but doesn't know about Opener's strength ( until later). Thus, Responder is hesitant about cooperating with a 4D-cue ( over 4C ) because of his poor trumps. And, as we have all seen here, 4NT RKC is practically shunned in favor of cuebidding past 4NT.... without the cuebidder having "enough" trump honors.

I feel cuebidding PAST 4NT is ONLY justified when the cuebidder has the TOP 2 trump honors -- Edit: Cubic Cuebids.. I think it is called that in Romania ).

At anyrate, in your auction, Responder, knowing that Opener has at least the A and K of Sp, you should now cue 5H over 5D .... and that gets you to slam.

[Fluffy]

All the bids are reasonable except your 5♠ bid, you already showed a minimum with 4♠, partner is crying for a ♥ control and you cannot deny it anymore.

4♠ or 2♦? You have extras because ♣Kx is BIG so 2♦ is fine, 4♠ is close, but if you bid 4♠ partner would probably pass and that's all.

[straube]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2010-October-24, 08:51, said:

Now to address your auction.

1C - 1H
1S - 2D!
3C - 3S
4C - 4S
5D - 5S
p

Responder uses 4th suit GF ( which is fine ) but doesn't know about Opener's strength ( until later). Thus, Responder is hesitant about cooperating with a 4D-cue ( over 4C ) because of his poor trumps. And, as we have all seen here, 4NT RKC is practically shunned in favor of cuebidding past 4NT.... without the cuebidder having "enough" trump honors.

I feel cuebidding PAST 4NT is ONLY justified when the cuebidder has the TOP 2 trump honors -- Rubic Cuebids.. I think it is called that in Romania ).

At anyrate, in your auction, Responder, knowing that Opener has at least the A and K of Sp, you should now cue 5H over 5D .... and that gets you to slam.

I don't think this treatment can be right. Occasionally one is dealt extra strength outside of the trump suit while partner is weak but has good trumps. Ideally you have the mechanism to sort this out before the 5-level. If you don't have such a mechanism, you will occasionally need to venture into the 5-level or miss good slams.

[gwnn]

strongly dislike the 4♠ bid, why are you not show your controls? You have a nice hand, 14 even, so what if you don't have so much in spades?

immensely, emphatically, passionately hate the 5♠ bid. Your partner tried for slam twice and you have the king of clubs and a heart control!

[rhm]

gwnn, on 2010-October-24, 14:28, said:

strongly dislike the 4♠ bid, why are you not show your controls? You have a nice hand, 14 even, so what if you don't have so much in spades?

immensely, emphatically, passionately hate the 5♠ bid. Your partner tried for slam twice and you have the king of clubs and a heart control!

Really?

Having forced to game and opener has shown only interest in his suits, do you have a "nice" hand with just 3 points in opener's suits? I would call this "nice" looking 14 hand awful.

If opener has ♠KQxx ♥Jx ♦A ♣AQxxxx how do you avoid getting to 6♠? (Yes, I know a number of slams are playable but none is good with my example hand)

A lot of people seem to believe automatic cue-bidding will always lead to good slams and avoid bad ones and besides it displays, they are experts. This always works on paper but little could be further from truth. Life at the table tells a very different story. I am not against cue bidding, but I believe good hand evaluation and judgment rules and this means sometimes you simply should take charge.

With ♠AKQJ in trumps, North can anticipate that he will get little cooperation from an intelligent partner.
North should either bid slam directly after having received game forcing values from partner or preferably use key-card Blackwood.
When the one, who uses Blackwood has shown a long side suit I like to play it with 2 key suits, in this case ♣ and ♠. (After all if somebody takes charge with Blackwood, he must know, from where his tricks will be coming from)
When South shows two key-cards: Bingo! (Yes, I know you could be off the first two tricks in ♥, but that seems remote given the previous bidding and I happen to care much more about the ♣king)
If he would have shown 3 key-cards I'd bid the grand, with one I stop in my shoes.
With the North hand I would never stop below slam, when partner forces to game in ♠, unless a negative reply to Blackwood (not cue-bidding!) would give me an unexpected surprise.

Rainer Herrmann

[microcap]

You also have to know, i wasn't 100% sure 5♦ wasn't ekcb. So part of my 5♠ bid was showing 1 keycard in support of spades! LOL

I know it wasn't a jump but I really thought after the 4♣ bid that Rex held something like:

????♠ xx ♥ AQJxxxx ♣ which makes my KQ♦ worth a lot less and of course I have no idea if we have 2 trump losers. So that's why I bid 5♠.

And as RHM points out, why didnt Rex just bid 4NT? That led me also to think he might be void in diamonds. I know in hindsight he is worried about being off 2 ♥ tricks, but a) I bid them, I did show a very good hand, and c) even so they may not lead them and we can sneak off with 12 tricks anyway.

[gwnn]

Hi rhm,

Could you tone down on your attitude in future posts, thank you. I know I'm not supposed to take everything personally but it looks like your post makes me an expert wannabe who is not an intelligent partner. In a previous post you made a few similar insults, albeit not directly to me, but in a post that was a response to my post (something along the lines of "these advanced arguments are probably wasted on most people").

Opposite that hand, opener would bid 4♠ as a reply to 4♦ (the 4♦ bid did not make his hand all that better) and responder doesn't need to carry to slam. His 4♠ does not deny a heart control. I'm not saying that responder must cuebid all the time (which impression you appear to have formed about me) - if all opener needs for slam is a heart control, he should bid over 4♠.

As I see it for good features, responder has:

-the club King, which will help opener a lot
-the heart Ace, aces are never bad for slams
-no jacks at all
-if partner has the ace of diamonds the KQ will be helpful, if not, at least they're stopping the suit no matter which side the ace is (obviously not worth 5 points in this case though)

I think 4♦ is a nice and helpful bid because it tells partner that you have at least a little slam interest and it shows a control. It is by no means a statement that "partner, if we're not off two keycards we should bid slam". It is a very cheap bid with a relatively low cost. There is still room for quantitative auctions, like the aforementioned ... 4♣-4♦; 4♠-pass. Opener showed a minimal slam interest type hand and responder showed 1 sign of life but then stopped. I don't think this simple philosophy of bidding is clearly as bad as you make it out to be. Sigh.

edit: let me add that I now think that the "strongly dislike the 4♠ bid" part was an overbid. I don't think 4♠ was so bad, but I don't like it.

[Zelandakh]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2010-October-24, 08:26, said:

1C - 1H
2S! (GF, may be artificial) - 2NT! (asks for clarification)

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2010-October-24, 08:51, said:

Now to address your auction.

1C - 1H
1S -

It seems strange to me that Opener's hand should be a GF in your first auction and not in the second. If you treat it as GF then the auction simplifies to
1C - 1H
2S - 3S
followed by some cues and stuff. So perhaps the comparison should be if you treat Opener's hand as a non-GF. If that is unimaginable then the original 1S rebid was wrong.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Zel....

My 2S! is not your ordinary SJS.

[rhm]

gwnn, on 2010-October-27, 11:55, said:

Hi rhm,

Could you tone down on your attitude in future posts, thank you. I know I'm not supposed to take everything personally but it looks like your post makes me an expert wannabe who is not an intelligent partner. In a previous post you made a few similar insults, albeit not directly to me, but in a post that was a response to my post (something along the lines of "these advanced arguments are probably wasted on most people").

Opposite that hand, opener would bid 4♠ as a reply to 4♦ (the 4♦ bid did not make his hand all that better) and responder doesn't need to carry to slam. His 4♠ does not deny a heart control. I'm not saying that responder must cuebid all the time (which impression you appear to have formed about me) - if all opener needs for slam is a heart control, he should bid over 4♠.

As I see it for good features, responder has:

-the club King, which will help opener a lot
-the heart Ace, aces are never bad for slams
-no jacks at all
-if partner has the ace of diamonds the KQ will be helpful, if not, at least they're stopping the suit no matter which side the ace is (obviously not worth 5 points in this case though)

I think 4♦ is a nice and helpful bid because it tells partner that you have at least a little slam interest and it shows a control. It is by no means a statement that "partner, if we're not off two keycards we should bid slam". It is a very cheap bid with a relatively low cost. There is still room for quantitative auctions, like the aforementioned ... 4♣-4♦; 4♠-pass. Opener showed a minimal slam interest type hand and responder showed 1 sign of life but then stopped. I don't think this simple philosophy of bidding is clearly as bad as you make it out to be. Sigh.

edit: let me add that I now think that the "strongly dislike the 4♠ bid" part was an overbid. I don't think 4♠ was so bad, but I don't like it.

Hi Qwnn,

I have reread my original post and I do not really understand what upsets you. I have quoted you, but I have not addressed you personally. If you still take it personally that was not my intention, neither did I want to offend you.
You said: "strongly dislike the 4♠ bid, why are you not showing your controls? You have a nice hand 14 even , so what if you don't have so much in spades."
I happen to believe 4♠ was a good bid and I explained why.
There is no question that for slam purposes the ♣ King and the ♥ ace are useful cards.
We agree so far. But South has already forced to game and the rest of the South hand is of very dubious value and he has unusually weak trumps. I believe it is a sound principle that you do not bid the same values twice and if your hand has gone down in value you do not encourage your partner any further.

Fact is none of the other honors in South hand contribute to the trick taking potential of North South and South should know this at the time when North cue-bid 4♣.
For slam only these two key-cards are relevant.
If my partner invites cue-bidding I believe my first duty is to check, whether my hand looks suitable for slam in the light of what I have already disclosed about my hand. Trump quality (hard to detect by cue-bidding) as well as trick taking potential and honor location are main criteria for accepting. You did ask, why is South not showing his controls. I do not bent over backwards not to cue-bid when invited, but this hand simply does poorly on all these criteria. Saying that this hand, given the previous bidding, "doesn't have so much in spades" is a nice understatement if you are evaluating for slam.
Now would you force to game opposite an opening bid with just the king of ♣ and the ace of ♥? Why should North have any problems to bid the slam if this is all he needs, when South has forced to game?

More general: I do not like to contribute, when 10 people before me have already given a very similar view, because I consider this "me too" is not very enlightening, hardly very original.
This may give you the impression, that I disagree with your view often, which I do not. In fact I like and respect your opinion and I agree mostly with it.
In this threat the poster asks: What are your comments on the actual auction?
Almost all blamed South and you gave one of the strongest comments, why you think South bidding was nuts.
I happen to disagree here and therefor I quoted you and I stand my ground.

And to my knowledge I never said "these advanced arguments are probably wasted on most people"
What I said in a different threat was : Not that I expect many to understand these arguments in advanced hand evaluation.
This was made in the context, whether to open ♠xx/♥KQJxx/♦xx/♣KQJx all red at IMPs and I would bet at least 95% of all posters would open this hand 1♥.

I admit this is provocative, nothing wrong with that in a discussion forum. But it is not an abuse.

Nevertheless, if I offended you I feel sorry
It was not my intention.
If you do not like my views, just ignore them, but I hope not.

Rainer Herrmann

[Fluffy]

I guess many of the problems in this hand can be solved by serious/non serious 3NT.

I never played this convention though so I move with some cuebidding metalaguage, if you cuebid you are showing a bit extras, if you stop cuebidding bidding game on our fit that doesn't mean you don't have an avaible cuebid, but rather maybe that you just don't wanna cooperate more. Very important is that with bad trumps you should try to avoid moving to the 5 level.

[Cyberyeti]

gwnn, on 2010-October-24, 14:28, said:

strongly dislike the 4♠ bid, why are you not show your controls? You have a nice hand, 14 even, so what if you don't have so much in spades?

immensely, emphatically, passionately hate the 5♠ bid. Your partner tried for slam twice and you have the king of clubs and a heart control!

Yup, the 5♠ bid really sucks, 5♦ practically says bid 6 with a heart control, with A♥ and K♣ it's ridiculous not to. You almost deserve partner to have AKQ10, xx, A, AQxxxx and to have given up on a slam because you're off 2 hearts when you've actually got a good grand on.

[P_Marlowe]

#1 2D is certainly reasonable, you keept the bidding low, and you allow p to describe his hand
#2 Going on after 4S is most likely a matter of agreement, if 3C showed 6-4, than you have to
go on, partner showed some live with 4C, you have control in both red suits, and the king of
clubs will be valuable

With kind regards
Marlowe

[microcap]

Interestingly, Rex and I are having a vicious argument over my 2♦ FSF bid instead of direct 4♠ raise over 1♠.

Rex feels that he was never sure I had 4 card support for spades as I went through FSF first, and he feels that my auction actually should show a slight better slam interest hand than I had. Here is some of the argument, apologies to Rex if it isn't the whole thing or out of context.

"Re do you have four S go back to my example hand: xxx AKQxx xxx Kx.
After 1C-1H-1S-2D-3C-? what is the right call? 3H shows six. On this
hand you could say that is the best lie. But if my hand was different
this could be very wrong. Change the example to Axx KQxxx xxx Kx and
now 3S must be the best lie IMO.

BTW I do not agree that the jump to 4S takes up too much room IF you are
not making a slam try. If you feel you have a trick more than minimum
than FSF is the best we're got. But to run all GF hands with four
spades through FSF makes it impossible to tell if R has slam interest or
is just forcing to game.

Since I feel this hand is possible then after 1C-1H-1S-2D-3C-3S-4C-?
what call do you make if you had to lie with 3 spades but 4S? With the
slam try S raise with real 4 card support you can cue bid to make it
clear why you bid FSF. NOTE this does mean that O has to consider both
possible hand types. Bidding 3NT with a partial D stop or 4S with a
hand without extras for slam seem the weak calls. But the other calls
are not clear as 4H may be a suggestion to play a 5-2 fit and 4C may be
7+C. Only 4D seems clearly forward going with no other meanings as
offering to play 4-3 D fits when 4-3 S are available does not seem
logical.

I will add that not bidding 4S over the 1S rebid violates basic bidding:
on their second bid each partner should make a limit bid if possible.
O's "limit" bid in this sequence is 1S though it only says that a GF is
not held. R can make a limit bid for game only using 3NT (please do not
tell me that takes up too much room), 4H (strong suit not much more) or
4S (balanced 12+ to 15 as 4C and 4D can be used as splinters). If the
hand is too strong (my guide is a trick more than needed to GF) then a
slam try is needed and FSF must be used.

Note the splinter described above could be stronger as unlike 4S they
can not be passed."

[Fluffy]

FSF then raise partner's suit sets up trumps and starts finding slam, 3♠ cannot be 3 cards, you can raise clubs with ♣Kx or suggest hearts again as strain with powerful 5. Some people will proably also play some gadget with 3♦ but I think standard meaning is that 3♦ now is natural.

Whatever you do, do not raise partner into a 4-3 fit, there is no recovery after that.

[gwnn]

You did not offend me, and as I said, I did not take it personally. I just asked you to make your tone a little bit more respectful.

In this case you quoted my post and then said

Quote

A lot of people seem to believe automatic cue-bidding will always lead to good slams and avoid bad ones and besides it displays, they are experts. This always works on paper but little could be further from truth.

Of course you did not address this specifically to me but it's not a very friendly comment to anyone.

My name does not have a 'q' in it, but that's another topic.

[P_Marlowe]

microcap, on 2010-October-28, 06:04, said:

Interestingly, Rex and I are having a vicious argument over my 2♦ FSF bid instead of direct 4♠ raise over 1♠.

Rex feels that he was never sure I had 4 card support for spades as I went through FSF first, and he feels that my auction actually should show a slight better slam interest hand than I had. Here is some of the argument, apologies to Rex if it isn't the whole thing or out of context.

"Re do you have four S go back to my example hand: xxx AKQxx xxx Kx.
After 1C-1H-1S-2D-3C-? what is the right call? 3H shows six. On this
hand you could say that is the best lie. But if my hand was different
this could be very wrong. Change the example to Axx KQxxx xxx Kx and
now 3S must be the best lie IMO.

BTW I do not agree that the jump to 4S takes up too much room IF you are
not making a slam try. If you feel you have a trick more than minimum
than FSF is the best we're got. But to run all GF hands with four
spades through FSF makes it impossible to tell if R has slam interest or
is just forcing to game.
<snip>

#1 With

Axx KQxxx xxx Kx

I would bid 3D in the auction you gave, for us bdding diamonds a 2nd time is still FSF

#2 This is a matter of agreement, how strong a hand needs to be, go via FSF instead of
direct bidding game, and what is the difference in strength between 4S instead of 3S
in the original auction.

With kind regards
Marlowe