[daveharty]

---

This was the common auction in a recent game. Suggestions?

[dustinst22]

In before splinter

[wank]

obviously north needs to do more, for example describing his hand.

[masse24]

1NT - 2♥
2♠ - 4♣
4♦ - 5♣ EKCB
etc.

[TylerE]

masse24, on 2013-May-15, 15:52, said:

1NT - 2♥
2♠ - 4♣
4♦ - 5♣ EKCB
etc.

How does this auction cope with

♠AKJ
♥xxx
♦Qxx
♣KQJx

[rogerclee]

north is pretty bad at bridge

[broze]

TylerE, on 2013-May-15, 16:12, said:

How does this auction cope with

♠AKJ
♥xxx
♦Qxx
♣KQJx

That hand obv doesn't bid 4♦...

[JLOGIC]

Bidding 6S would be way better than 4S, but yeah first 2 replies nailed it.

[daveharty]

rogerclee, on 2013-May-15, 16:18, said:

north is pretty bad at bridge

A bit hyperbolic. None of us would want to be judged thusly based on a single bid. Not his finest bid ever, and he owned it afterwards. Plus, this auction was repeated several times.

[JLOGIC]

daveharty, on 2013-May-15, 17:19, said:

Plus, this auction was repeated several times.

Many people are bad at bridge

I wish the whole mild slam try thing would go away, standard methods have no bid for a balanced 6 card slam try so I would just say play 4x is a splinter and 4S is 6322 or 7222 and be done with this whole concept of a "mild slam try." It just causes people to either make silly slam tries, or to not show their hand via a splinter when the key to the hand is how partner fits with your shortness. It's all pretty silly.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

1NT - 4H! ( Texas )
4S - 5C EKCB
5S ( 3rd step = 2 - ♠ Q )
.... - 6S

[the hog]

It is pretty obvious to make an autosplinter after the transfer. South would accept of course.

[JLOGIC]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2013-May-15, 17:47, said:

1NT - 4H! ( Texas )
4S - 5C EKCB
5S ( 3rd step = 2 - ♠ Q )
.... - 6S

This was my first reaction, but I think just splintering is better. If partner simply bid 4S over the splinter slam can't really be good, our hand is nice but it only has 1 keycard and no DK. We might as well splinter and check that partner wants to cuebid a red suit before driving on imo.

Anyways, it's obviously closer to a drive than a "mild" slam try heh.

[JonnyQuest]

masse24, on 2013-May-15, 15:52, said:

1NT - 2♥
2♠ - 4♣
4♦ - 5♣ EKCB
etc.

Not really sure why this post is ignored, but, this "Nails It" as far as I am concerned.

Are there other, better options I am not seeing?

My knee jerk response was to Texas then EKCB, but responder is not quite strong enough for that action. Best to bring partner in on the decision. Obviously opener does not cooperate with half his strength in ♣'s.

[JLOGIC]

If 5C is exclusion in your agreements then that seems like a good auction. I would just take it as continuing to cuebid, a club void and no heart control.

[wyman]

JLOGIC, on 2013-May-17, 11:27, said:

If 5C is exclusion in your agreements then that seems like a good auction. I would just take it as continuing to cuebid, a club void and no heart control.

That's how I play that sequence with any of my regular partners as well (and we have ERKC agreements).

edit: in case this was ambiguous, i mean that I'd play 5C as a cue and not voidwood.

[cargobeep]

At Rubber this would probably be my choice of auction.

At MP/IMPS I'd splinter clubs or cue bid diamonds, depending on agreements.

[FM75]

Using OC Precision...

1♥ - 1♠ -- 5♥, 11-15; natural - usually denying 3 card trump support
2NT - 4♣ -- Upper range, balanced; Control ask
4♠ -- 2 aces or ace and 2 kings

Now we need to worry about PA on control bidding at 5 level. Assuming that control bids show A or K
-- - 4N -- start bidding controls

5♦ - 6♠ Partner has the ♦K and either ♠AK (and did not show support?!) or more likely ♠K and ♥Axxxx


If the PA is only to show Aces, then probably
5♥ - 5♠ Partner could have the ♠A, or 2 kings that could be anywhere but hearts and we could be off the 2 top trumps.

[gszes]

Using splinter when your hand is so strong is normally
an exercise in futility simce p will rarely be able to do
anything but try and sign off. there is a better way. Using the
principle of majors NT minors we can try to discover below game
level if p has wasted club values for ex using the given hand-

1n 2h 2s 3d
We make a forcing bid and while the bidding may go many
different ways here the bidding shows opener has stuff in
hearts and fears clubs for 3n. This bidding sequence alone
gives us enough information to bid 6s and the only fine
tuning left is how to get to 7s if p has no wasted values
in clubs (that's another topic). This is using splinter theory
w/o taking up all the space a splinter bid normally uses.

Very simple and this same thinking can be applied to many
different hands. Note that we can use this same thinking
anytime our long suit is a major and the other suits can
be swapped around any way you like A976 QJT9653 KQ void

1n 2d 2h 3d if p now bids 3s KQx Kx AJxxx Qxx we have enough to
bid 6h and can explore for 7.

directly using exclusion is fine if you dont mind occasionally getting overboard
when p has lots of wasted club values. Using the above thinking it is rarely
necessary to risk a negative score under such circumstances. This thinking
can be applied to an incredibly large array of hands. It is not a cure all but
it can have huge success under the right set of circumstances with no risk.

[rmnka447]

As others have said North needs to do more. I really think the auto splinter is the way to go.
since it must be construed as at least a mild slam try, responders ♠ can't be too shabby.

If you don't have any agreements about EKCB, you might get there if opener ends up asking.

1 NT - 2 ♥
2 ♠ - 4 ♣(autosplinter)
4 ♦ - 4 ♥
4 NT - 5 NT (odd keycards plus a void)
6 ♠

4 ♥ has to be the ♥ K. Knowing that, at worst, 5 ♠ might depend on a ♥ finesse. So it seems relatively safe for the NT bidder to ask via RKCB.