[fuburules3]

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Playing in a swiss team at a club you pick up the following monster. What is your plan for bidding this hand? What about if E passes?

Finally, what about if it is matchpoints instead of IMPS?

[BunnyGo]

I'll double and bid diamonds. If they bid to 4♥ before I can show my diamonds I'll double. I have two cashing spades, at least one cashing diamond, and hopefully a club. In addition I know trump are splitting badly. The vulnerability does matter. I might consider 5♦ red.

If east passes, I'll just start with 1♦. I (probably) don't have game if partner can't bid anything over that.

[whereagles]

3♥, asking for a stopper. Then:

- pass pard's 3NT (high risk that RHO has AK♣)
- else follow up with 4NT blackwood. Having no heart stop, if pard comes up with an ace that will be clubs and it's a good shot RHO has ♣K.

If I'm not playing 3♥ as stop ask, I'll be in real trouble... probably will end up bidding a simple 5♣.

If RHO passes instead of opening, just open 2♣ or whatever your forcing opening is.

[jdeegan]

I really don't like to double, but what else can I do? I guess my plan is to bid the right number of ♦. If RHO had passed, I would open 2♣ with the plan of bidding the right number of ♦.

[ArtK78]

10 tricks in hand? I will start with a double and make sure that I make a forcing call at my next turn to bid.

If RHO passes, I open 2♣. Aside from the risk of 1♦ being passed out (which is small), if I open 1♦ I am never going to get the strength of my hand across to partner. It is going to be difficult enough to find out what I need to know anyway.

Matchpoints? I guess the question is whether I will ask partner to bid 3NT if he has a heart stopper. No. I don't need too much for 6♦ - a club honor and another trick, and a way to get to it. I would rather try to determine if 6♦ is there and, if not, settle for 5♦. I am not going to settle for a partial under any circumstances.

[jdeegan]

I like the idea of bidding 3♥ as (one hopes) a prelude to 3NT, but on this hand there are so many ♥ missing as to suggest that the bidding will go higher. Still, it's not a bad way to start.

[Cyberyeti]

4♥ ? 3 ace exclusion ? If 3N makes and 5♦ doesn't I've got this wrong, but given where the opener is, I'm happy to play 6♦ opposite the A♣ and will get to 7 opposite ♣AK.

[Phil]

Cyberyeti, on 2011-June-21, 16:41, said:

4♥ ? 3 ace exclusion ? If 3N makes and 5♦ doesn't I've got this wrong, but given where the opener is, I'm happy to play 6♦ opposite the A♣ and will get to 7 opposite ♣AK.

I play 4♥ as natural

[JLOGIC]

Not bidding 3H is extremely bizarre to me

[fuburules3]

Thanks everyone for the responses.

I bid 3♥ holding this hand and then passed partner's 3NT. I was just curious what people thought since I felt a little wimpy bidding like this. Maybe I'm playing with the GIB's too much, but my thinking was even if I can get an auction where I can find out about what partner has in clubs something disastrous could happen over my 5/6♦ bid.

It turns out partner has K10x(x) of clubs and opener had AJ of clubs, so slam is a lucky make, but we gained a few imps against 5♦

[Phil]

fuburules3, on 2011-June-21, 21:13, said:

Thanks everyone for the responses.

I bid 3♥ holding this hand and then passed partner's 3NT. I was just curious what people thought since I felt a little wimpy bidding like this. Maybe I'm playing with the GIB's too much, but my thinking was even if I can get an auction where I can find out about what partner has in clubs something disastrous could happen over my 5/6♦ bid.

It turns out partner has K10x(x) of clubs and opener had AJ of clubs, so slam is a lucky make, but we gained a few imps against 5♦

There is no way that I would pass 3N with a hand this strong. We could have one fewer diamond and one fewer spade honor. What were pard's spades / hearts and diamond spot(s)? Did slam really depend on such a favorable club position?

[whereagles]

Phil, pard has heart honors, RHO opened and you have 19 hcp.

Pard is not going to have fitting club honors very often and if he hasn't got much besides his heart stop, the 5 level may be in jeapordy.

[Phil]

whereagles, on 2011-June-21, 22:44, said:

Phil, pard has heart honors, RHO opened and you have 19 hcp.

Pard is not going to have fitting club honors very often and if he hasn't got much besides his heart stop, the 5 level may be in jeapordy.

Thanks Nuno. All of this is really great to know.

What do I need for slam? The ♣A? Perhaps when partner doesn't bid 3N, I'll accept the 'jeopardy' of the five level, hoping we can make an intelligent stab at 6 on the way to 5♦.

When did I ever even imply I was getting this to the five level if partner did bid 3N? If partner has a heart stop as advertised, 4N should be safe.

I guess he could have the ♥Q and nothing else, and it would suck to get my hand squeezed. Then again, 3N is going down as well.

[han]

I agree with what Phil has written, passing 3NT does not look right.

Bunny, doubling 4H on your second round is not a good idea.

[whereagles]

Phil, on 2011-June-21, 23:03, said:

What do I need for slam? The ♣A? Perhaps when partner doesn't bid 3N, I'll accept the 'jeopardy' of the five level, hoping we can make an intelligent stab at 6 on the way to 5♦.

When did I ever even imply I was getting this to the five level if partner did bid 3N? If partner has a heart stop as advertised, 4N should be safe.

Obviously, ♥K + ♣A make it next to a pretty cold slam. But how often is pard going to have that? That's the magic hand - pard never has it.

Sure, 4NT should be safe (opener can have 4 top tricks, but that's not likely). But how are you going to stop there if pard doesn't cooperate?

- Are you 100% sure pard will bid 4NT over 4♦ without a club cue? He may simply raise you to 5 which looks a lot more riskier than 4NT.
- Are you 100% sure pard will only bid 5♣ with the club ace? Will he bid 4NT on xxx KQxx xxx Kxx 100% of the time?
- What if he has, say, xxx Axxx xxx xxx and bids 4♥. Are you sure pard will now take 4NT by you as RKCB? And are you sure you want to make that bid?

Some of these things may be pretty obvious to you, but will they be equally obvious to pard? You gotta think of this, otherwise you might end up on a runaway train to a hopeless slam.

I certainly understand trying for slam here, and certainly wouldn't blame pard if he tried, but unless I'm bloody well sure that

A. I have the tools to figure out pard's key cards AND
B. have a way to put the breaks if he doesn't have them

I just prefer to go for the sure plus and pass 3NT. It's not being lazy or pessimistic, it's being practical.

Han can no longer say I overbid big hands, eheh... actually, he's the one doing it now, HA!

[han]

whereagles, on 2011-June-22, 05:32, said:

Han can no longer say I overbid big hands, eheh... actually, he's the one doing it now, HA!

Look at me, I bid to the 4-level holding 10 top tricks!

Maybe partner has something like xxxx J10xx x J10x. I'd overbid to a making contract while the misbidders go down in 3NT.

[whereagles]

Not to be picky, but I'm not sure I'd bid 3NT on that

But if I did want to get picky I could say your example has 12 cards