[Chamaco]

Hi all,
this is a question to all those who know/use Fred Gitelman style of cuebidding.

In the remainder of this post, I
- will refer ONLY to major suit slam,
- will assume throughout that we have found a fit in a GF auction at the 3 level
- will assume opps are silent.

As described in his articles on Improving 2/1, the main points are:

- cuebids in own suit show a good suit (2 of top 3 honors)
- cuebids of pd suit show at leat Q
- 3NT is "serious" slam interest, whilst bypassing 3NT, a 4-level cuebid shows a minimum hand in the context of what previously shown
- bidding the suit below 4 of the major is "Last Train to Clarksville" (see Fred's articles for description)
- bidding 5 of the agreed major is "Lackwood" (see Fred's articles for description)

FINALLY THE 3 POINTS THAT LEAVE ME IN DOUBT
- cuebids for small slam are made only below game level
- 5-level bids arte Exclusion RKCB (EKB)
- when fit is in hearts, 4S is "Puppet to Blackwood"

Given these last 3 points, here are my doubts:

Question 1: The meaning of 5-level bids



If cuebidding for small slam is on below 4 of a major (bidding 4 spades when we have heart fit is supposed to be “Puppet to Blackwood”, but this exception is dealt in Question 2), then I suppose that a NON-JUMP bid above 4-of-a-major is looking for the GRAND SLAM ?

This would mean that EKB is on only if it's a jump-bid at 5 level ?

Assuming tjhat a NON JUMP is NOT EKB, what scheme do you suggest/prefer for these Grand-Slam looking auctions ?
In other words, what does a 5-level NON JUMP mean ?
I suppose one could simply use cuebids, or control asking bids, or “Specific Honors Ask” , or even EKB nevertheless?
What do you prefer ?

If you prefer cuebids, what should a cuebid show in a suit where:
- you have previously showed a control (could be 1st/2nd) and pard denied control
- you have showed a control and pard too
- you denied control and pard has shown control.
Similarly, what does it mean when you DENY a cuebid in a suit, bypassing the cue at 5 level ?

Question 2: Exclusion Blackwood and Transfer to BW



Fred in his article refers to Exclusion KC BW (EKB) as a 5 level bid when a major fit is found. He does not refer to jumps.
Moreover, he adds that when hearts are trumps, 4S is "Puppet to BW"

The question is: how do you play EKB when Hearts are trumps and you have a spade void ? Bidding 5 spades cannot be reasonable, as it commits to slam regardless of pard’s keycard; bidding 4 spades is xfer to Blackwood, so maybe I am missing some “trick” to use when I want to use EKB with a spade void ?
Maybe bidding 4NT is EKB for spades ?
It can be useful, ON THE RIGHT HANDS, but you lose the option of a genuine RKCB ask by yourself: when YOU have the hand that would like to genuinely bid Blackwood, then you are forced to have pard ask for Aces, and you transfer the control of the bidding to pard when YOU would like to have it.

[Fluffy]

I am not familiar with Fred´s methods, but think I can help a bit on question 1.

When you are looking to play slams, you aren´t willing to though the 4NT level noramlly, sincec bidding slams without using blackwood is normally dangerous.

Bidding throug that level is a proper bid only once: when you don´t want to know aces, and that is when you have a void somewhere, nothing to do with grand slam purposes I think.

[fred]

Hi Mauro,

The articles you refer to are at least 10 years old and, since that time, I have come to believe that there is a time and a place for cuebidding at the 5-level (when Blackwood will not tell you what you need to know - ie when you know that missing keycards are not a problem, but you want partner to invoke his/her judgment).

There are other things in that are mentioned in the articles that I don't believe anymore. For example, cuebidding a King that could be facing shortness has worked out poorly for me. Then again, your countrymen (who seem to do very well in these auctions) have no such qualms.

Nowadays I strongly recommend that, except perhaps in a few well-defined situations, that for a call to be Exclusion Blackwood it has to be a jump.

One day I will write a series of "improving 2/1 GF revisited" articles, but hopefully you agree that improving BBO is a better way for me spending my time right now

Hope this helps.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[whereagles]

Hi mr. Gittelman,

Just thought I might ask you a question on your 2/1 articles. I find the requirements for a picture bid far to stringent. They're even stringer than those of a fit-bid, which only comes out once every 1000 or so hands.

My question is, after 10 years, do you think picture bidding is still the way to go, or have you found better ways of using sequences such as

1H 2C
2D 4H

Thank you

[fred]

First please call me "Fred". Only telemarketers use "Mr. Gitelman" - and most of them pronounce it as badly as you spelled it

Yes, I still believe in the "picture jump concept", but my notion of what the "picture" looks like is not quite as strict as it once was.

The prototypical hand for the sequence you describe something like:

xx
AQxx
xx
AKxxx

I still believe the bid should describe a hand with good hearts, good clubs, and no side suit singleton or Ace. Nowadays, however, I am comfortable making this call with a 5332 or 6322 hand with the same characteristics (ie it doesn't have to be 5422) and I could see myself making this call with a hand that contains a side-suit King (though I don't recall ever making this call with such a hand in real life).

The basic idea that an unnecessary jump in a forcing auction should describe a specific type of hand is very sound in my view. However, if your definition for what constitutes that specific hand is too narrow, you don't get to use the bid in question enough and you end up "overloading" other sequences.

Fred

[whereagles]

Ooops sorry for misspelling your name

Anyway, thanks for the update on 2/1.

[Chamaco]

Fred, thanks a lot !

[cherdano]

Dear Fred,

fred, on Oct 3 2004, 02:48 PM, said:

One day I will write a series of "improving 2/1 GF revisited" articles, but hopefully you agree that improving BBO is a better way for me spending my time right now

Well...we are certainly looking forward to all improvements on BBO (the vuegraph changes to 3.8.7 sound exciting)! But don't underestimate the impact your articles on 2/1 slam bidding have had. I would claim they have become a reference, and most serious 2/1 partnerships I know are aware of them.

So once you need a break from coding... Your comments in this thread are helpful, too.

Arend

[pclayton]

Hi Fred and all:

You might be surprised how many pairs out there are playing your methods EXACTLY as prescribed on the website, even though they are 10 years old or so .

We play the 5 level non-jump as EKCB; but may be revising our thoughts based on the Oracle's latest post.

Fred - since you are looking at this thread:

1. Have you altered your view about cue bidding singletons? It seems communicating a 2nd round control to partner might be what the partnership needs to launch key card.

2. I sent you an email a few years ago suggesting when hearts are trump that 3♠ could be used as Serious 3N. 3N OTOH would be a spade cue, when "Serious 3♠" is used. Currently, a 3♠ cue bid (below 3N) does not convey any slam interest; it is a bit vague, which flies in the face of the whole theory: cue bid when you aren't that interested in slam (but in case partner is), bid Serious 3N when you are. I'll post the suggestion for the others in another thread. You liked the idea; any more thoughts about this?

3. Many pairs have switched to a "Frivilous 3N" instead of a Serious 3N, i.e, cue bid when you are interested; bid 3N when you aren't, in case partner is. What are you currently playing with Brad and others?

4. Another thought I'm working on is a Serious 2N (or 2♠) in auctions like 1M - 2x - 2y - 2M, where 2M is a slam try (and 3M and 4M are both picture jumps). More on this later.

Thanks for the input.

[fred]

Hi Paul,

To answer your questions:

1) Not really

2) Yes I do like the idea, but not for the reason you mention. When 3S says nothing about serious/non-serious it is not so bad because partner still has room to deliver that message about his hand. Someone once tried to convince me that Serious 3S made for better use of bidding space than Serious 3NT. I was not really convinced by his argument, but he could be right. The main reason I prefer serious 3S has to do with my answer to 3).

3) Frivolous 3NT has definite tactical advantages over Serious 3NT because, using this method, cuebids are only made if at least one partner has slam interest. Thus, if both partners have minimums (ie game may be in jeopardy) you don't give the defenders any helpful information. Now, back to question 2), Frivolous 3S is better than 3S being a cuebid, because you don't have to tell the opps whether or not you have a spade control when you have a minimum.

4) I am not sure I like your idea, but I will have to give it some more thought. The cuebidding style we are talking about works a lot better when one partner has a good idea of the shape of the other partner's hand. The 2S and 2NT bids are useful for getting additional distributional information. I don't think there is any need to start cuebidding at the 3-level.

My regular partner (Brad Moss) and I use Serious 3NT and Last Train, but in a much less structured way than the description of these conventions in the article in question. This has nothing to do with any strong conviction that our methods in this area (or lack thereof) are "best" (in fact, from reading the above you will know that I think they are not best). For us it is just a matter of comfort. We have played the way we do for a while and understand each other when we bid this way.

Comfort with your methods is FAR FAR FAR more important than using the "best possible methods".

Fred

[1eyedjack]

fred, on Oct 3 2004, 11:51 AM, said:

Only telemarketers use "Mr. Gitelman" - and most of them pronounce it as badly as you spelled it

Er, just out of interest, how should it be pronounced? I know it is difficult to explain by way of a typed response :-)
I had a mental picture the same as the telemarketers.

[gabika73]

In my partnership, when hearts are agreed as trump, all NT and spade bids reverse their meanings.
3♠ will be serious, 3nt shows spade stopper.
4♠ will be (Kickback)RKCB, 4nt is voidwood with spade void.

And yes, cuebidding stops at 4level, all 5level bids are voidwoods (J or NJ), and we bid specific kings up the line when asked to.

[luke warm]

that's how i prefer it also, 4S rkc for hearts, 4nt xrkc in spades with hearts as trump..

[fred]

In theory Luke is clearly right:

When hearts is trump, 4S is a more effective Keycard ask than 4NT (and not only because it gives you exclusion RKCB for spades).

But...

1) In practice I have seen even excellent players in practiced partnerships screw up both the 4S and 4NT bids more than once

2) hands where this method gains are rare

Conversely, hands that are in the slam zone but unsuitable for RKCB are not rare. These are hand for which partner's answer to RKCB won't tell you where you belong. Sometimes you need to know if partner has trump quality and/or secondary holdings/extra length in a key suit (or suits). Blackwood doesn't answer these questions.

In a perfect bidding system you would already know the answers to these questions (or not care) by the time the bidding got to the 4NT level, but in reality there are hands for which RKCB won't get the job done.

How can you bid such hands?

Cuebid at the 5-level

Advantages of cuebidding at the 5-level:

1) Exchange information when you have a hand such that RKCB won't give you the information you need
2) Partner knows you, being a player who loves to bid RKCB, didn't do so for a reason. He might figure out the reason and be able to place the contract. If he is not sure he can pass the decision back to you via a cuebid of his own. Maybe then you will know what to do.

RKCB assumes captaincy and some hands are not suitable for doing that. Cuebidding at the 5-level keeps partner in the game.

I will admit that being good at cuebidding at the 5-level is hard.

Bottom line:

1) exclusion is overrated
2) cuebidding at the 5-level is underrated

I guess I've changed my mind - sorry for the misleading articles

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[gabika73]

Fred,

I am totally mislead, then...;-)

But I still think that
- cuebidding below level 4 (With either serious or frivolous 3nt/3♠)
- appropriate version of RKBlackwood (Kickback, Voidwood, Lackwood)
- some defined continuation (specific kings, or spiral scan)
can place you where you belong most of the time.

Furthermore, as you said, it is difficult to reach such a partnership understanding as to be able to bid those hands with 5th level cuebids.
For an 'advancing' partnership, the more orthodox line described above leads to much less misunderstandings or wrong contracts.

I am ready to accept that for players at your level, cues can work better, though...

[luke warm]

the articles weren't misleading, to me... they helped a lot of us bid more accurately in the slam zone... the fact that your thoughts evolved doesn't detract from that

just remember, some of us evolve at a slower rate

[Flame]

It is a great article, I read it and learn from it, but i also anylized it and desided to play non serious 3nt, and cue bids at the 5 level (unless jumped). Its good to see that fred now believe in it too.