[Fluffy]

Imagine that you are playing a JEC match with an expert forum partner of your choice, you have your system notes, but obviously you didn't cover this situation, here is the hand:

♠J
♥KQJ109876
♦42
♣J6


nobody vul, RHO deals and opens 1♥, std 5 card major. This hand in question was MPs, but you can think it is IMPs if you want.

[aguahombre]

gonzalo is screwing with the guardians.

[kayin801]

Pass. I have no agreement with any partner as to what 4♥ would be here. 2 or 3 ♥ wouldn't show something close to this hand.

[frank0]

pass

[JLOGIC]

It seems like I could probably beat 1H so I'd double it.

[Zelandakh]

Let's see, 2♥ would be Michaels; 3♥ asks for a stopper; 4♥ shows 6 spades and a minor. What alternatives are you thinking of Fluffy? I think the Expert consensus on this hand is the same as the B/I one, at least on the first round.

[PhilKing]

1♠ - I hope partner splinters.

[Trinidad]

PhilKing, on 2013-February-04, 06:04, said:

1♠ - I hope partner splinters.

But what if one of the opponents comes up with a Fredin double?



Rik

[dake50]

Wouldn't this be handled by any weasel by looking at LHO
and asking "Does 1H REALLY show hearts?" "How many can he have?"
Or even non-weasel taken aback showing "I have hearts" = the same thing?

[Fluffy]

Several pairs of various levels solved this by bidding 4♥, it had to work since partner had ♠AK109xxxx himself. Even then they couldn't forbid partner from bidding 4♠ and some ended up pretty high.

I found it outrageus that I couldn't ever bid my KQJ109876 suit being on second position, becuase the only ever meaning I have ever though about 1♥-4♥ is more or less what Zel said.

Specially because my partner on a 30 board set should had a total of five times 8 card suits. (just that in the 4 boards of the set we missed 3 of them were lost).

One of them makes me sick and makes a strong argument against human intelligence.

Partner opens 1♠ and you have:

♠K8xxx
♥-
♦AQ10xxxxx
♣-

look at the table records of board 5 and cry:

http://www.aebridge....0by%20table.pdf

yes, 6♠ is above average

[Zelandakh]

I am impressed with the North player (Castellsague?) who brought in 6♥+1. I guess they got to a few similar contracts they could not rescue though since they ended on 45%. I bet Ken has a way of bidding Exclusion Blackwood with 2 voids. Did East not stick in a 3♥ overcall at your table?

[Fluffy]

I missed the hand, for being table 4, but from what I ahve gathered most Easts overcalled 2♥ wich makes me sick as well. Comentating hands with local experts, they also though ♠AJ9x♥A10xxx♦J10x♣x was an obvious 2♥ overcall over 1♠ and though it was so unlucky to go -300 against nothing in 3♥.

BTW: Castellsague are Bocchi's wife and father in law, so they might have learned some beatuful tricks

And about the 2 void exclusion blackwood... well you don't need modern conventions, grand slam force dates from previous century and I think not preciselly the end of it.

[Zelandakh]

Fluffy, on 2013-February-05, 06:15, said:

And about the 2 void exclusion blackwood... well you don't need modern conventions, grand slam force dates from previous century and I think not preciselly the end of it.

GSF dates from Culbertson, so sometime in the 1930s. It would be something of a possibility if partner makes a finger (or foot tapping) signal that they have the ♦K.

[Fluffy]

are you really concerned about ♦K zel? seriously? He has 1.66 average damond a priory, but that is before taking into acount his spade length that gives him around 4.3 less vacant spaces than the opps. And he even has more HCP than average so even in the worst case he is favourite to hold the king.

EDITED: 1.66 a priori

[Zelandakh]

Fluffy, on 2013-February-05, 07:27, said:

are you really concerned about ♦K zel? seriously? He has 1.33 average damond a priory, and taking into acount his spade length around 4.3 less vacant spaces for them than the opps. And he even has more HCP than average so even in the worst case he is favourite to hold the king.

Well there is a difference between favourite and assured. If you could find out that partner had precisely ♦xx without an honour, would you still want to be in 7♠? Obviously it depends what methods we have available and how high they bid. Is that your recommended auction (1♠ - (3♥) - 5NT - (P); 7♠)?

[Fluffy]

When I saw the hand my first reaction was to blast 7♠ directly without GSF. If I don't have GSF, or I don't have the methods to tell appart ♠A from ♠Q I would blast 7♠, only just in case maybe I would use a form of exclusion blackwood, so that if I hit the suit where partner lacks the ace, and he answers zero, I will know he doens't have ♠A, but other than that, staying out of 7 is overthinking.

7 is not foolproof, but you shouldn't worry about info you cannot access.


Not so long ago, I had a similar scenario, I opened 2♣, and got a 2♠ positive response from partner, I found no other bid than 7♠ remotelly appealing. I was playing with an intermediate with very few agreeements, maybe with a serious partner I would move around (probably not) I don't remember if I had ♦AKQxx or ♦AKJxxx but the hand looked like:

♠AQx
♥Ax
♦AKJxxx
♣AJ

Only 2/10 tables found the grand slam, and some players them came to me to seek advice about how to bid it... well... just bid it!



Adding more:

In 2008 Bejing I missed a silly grand, I had the following hand:

♠x
♥AQ109xx
♦Axx
♣Qxx

The bidding went:

1♠-(2♦)-double (damned NFB)-(5♦)
6♥- all pass

I tanked forever to think that my ♦A was useless (it was) and my ♣Q was useless (it was) and my singleton spade was of no use (it was), but it never mattered, partner had 6 solid-6 KJ, stiff club ace. Or somethng like that, I made all the right asumptions to reach the wrong conclusion, including going to grand at IMPs needing to be foolproof.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

Pass.

I once bid 4H with a similar hand, partner did not get, after the tournament, I was
able ??? to convince him, that absent agreement, 4H had to be natural.
But I may have just talked him to death, and he may wanted have it get passed by.

For that matter, I got a similar situation wrong, as partner tried a similar ploy, but
I had the chance of passing the buck to him back.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[PhilKing]

Fluffy, on 2013-February-05, 05:12, said:

♠K8xxx
♥-
♦AQ10xxxxx
♣-

May as well respond 2♣ (or bid 3♣ if East overcalls). I plan to bid hearts at some stage as well. The big money on this hand was to get doubled in 7♠ - I intend to redouble.

At least Ken will agree.