[bd71]

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Matchpoints. Club game. Playing 2/1 with 1430 and cue-bids past game showing only first-round controls.

Obviously grand is a (strong?) possibility, but even small slam is uncertain depending on partner's club holding.

I felt my options were:

1. Trust that partner has a club control and bid 1430 to see if we have all keycards for grand. Bid 7♠ if partner has 3. If pd has only two..

1A. Bid 6♠ and trust that one of them is the ♣A or that they don't lead clubs, or
1B. Bid 6♥ to protect a potential ♣K holding by partner.

2. Establish the club situation with certainty by cue-bidding 5♦. This eliminates the chance at grand because I lose my method to find out about the ♠K.

Possibly relevant points:

1. We don't have specific agreements about how strong the heart suit needs to be for the 3♥ bid...I would think AJT9xx is likely the weakest possible. AQTxxx is certainly possible, perhaps even AQxxxx.
2. Again, no specific agreements but I don't believe partner would bid 4♠ with a stiff, even the king.

Areas where I welcome comments:

1. What you would be thinking about and your chosen approach.
2. Whether switching to teams scoring would change your thinking and approach.
3. Whether a tougher field would change your thinking and approach.
4. After cue-bidding 5♦, do you have methods to find out about the ♠K or get partner to bid grand if he has ♠K/♥A/♣A plus reasonable other holdings?
5. Are you giving any thought to a NT slam at matchpoints?

[ahydra]

Hmm, this should be interesting. One of bridge's great mysteries to me is how to continue after a cuebidding sequence goes past your ace-ask - you can find out you have controls in all suits, but not whether you have all keycards. I'm sure 5NT is involved somehow but never been sure of what is "expert standard".

To avoid looking like a fool when they cash ♣AK off the top, I would bid 5D here and try to show grand interest later on.

ahydra

[MrAce]

When i have to give up on blackwood or control cues, i always give up on control cues when grandslam is likely. I can get away with this even if we are losing 2 quick tricks in an unbid suit as long as i don't announce it to entire world. Some people are good to cue their way to grandslam, i am not. And i am neither using sarcasm nor trying to imply that those who thinks they can cue their way to grandslam are bs ing, It is just not an area that i am comfortable with to cue my way to grandslam.

But i have a feeling, even the cuers will key card on this hand, because the frequency of hands which opens 1♥ and rebids 3♥ which has no 1st or 2nd round control in clubs suit, when we hold the hand in OP, is extremely low.

[kuhchung]

keycaaaaard

[wyman]

I try to cuebid as much as possible. I would KC on this auction.

What's the best hand partner could hold that doesn't have a club card?

KJx AQJT9x QJ QJ

That's a 17 count... sort of. I dunno. Looks pretty awful. That's 7 losers... The possibility of any of the following -- him having the club ace or club K w ace onside or stiff/void in clubs or they dont lead a club or you keycarding talks them out of a club lead -- just massive. I'd keycard, and if it blew up in my face, well, partner would understand and likely be embarrassed of the trash he bid 3H on.

[monikrazy]

agree with keycard

bid 6S if he shows 2, and 7S if he shows 3

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

why did partner bid 4S and not bid 4C, if he has a club control?

He does not have a club control.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[gszes]

I voted other because it is hardly unreasonable for p to have a hand similar to:

KJx AQJTxx Qx Qx

which would explain both the 3h and the 4s (no cue bid) bids. Yes its ugly and

adding the minor suit jacks (wyman) would make it just as ugly and even more likely to bid

3h. since it is MP opener might easily choose to bid 2h (I would bid 2h but I am a big coward)

with my example hand since pushing for game is not as important but 3h is hardly the worst

bid ever. Trust your p* (P_Marlowe) they did not cue bid for a reason so quit while you are ahead

OR KEY CARD always intending to bid 6* and hope the opps believe you have all the suits controlled.

This is partnership appreciation and how much p can stomach going down in a

slam you knew could be set off the top:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[bd71]

Re: the suggestion from P_Marlowe and gszes that it's significant that partner didn't cue-bid after 3♠, I'm a bit confused.

If partner has a decent spade holding, isn't his first priority to clue me in and set the strain? It's also not clear to me that a 4m bid here should even be a cue-bid in support of spades...after 3♠ in this auction, wouldn't you want to bid 4♣ naturally with a hand like x AQJTxx Qx AKxx?

[wyman]

4m definitely sets spades here. He can't jump rebid hearts and then start showing a second suit at the 4 level.

[mike777]

agree with the comments about 4c but sometimes pard is not on the same wavelength. so I rkc.

disagree with these lousy 3h bid examples. these are 2h rebids not 3h or offshape 1nt openers

[MrAce]

wyman, on 2014-January-08, 20:08, said:

4m definitely sets spades here. He can't jump rebid hearts and then start showing a second suit at the 4 level.

It definitely does not set trumps spades for everyone.

There are other things that is more important to some players, such as COG (choice of game) bids before they commit to something by themselves, instead of calling everything ambiguous a control cue for slam.

And those who plays it as control cue will face other issues but it will take a long typing and a bit topic hijacking so i will leave it at that.

But if we have couple people here who are not sure what 4m would be, or who thinks it is something different than control cue, proves that lack of 4m bid is not as reliable clue as some people think it is, unless OP has an agreement with his pd specifically. But i doubt he had this or he would not be posting it.

[P_Marlowe]

bd71, on 2014-January-08, 19:18, said:

Re: the suggestion from P_Marlowe and gszes that it's significant that partner didn't cue-bid after 3♠, I'm a bit confused.

If partner has a decent spade holding, isn't his first priority to clue me in and set the strain? It's also not clear to me that a 4m bid here should even be a cue-bid in support of spades...after 3♠ in this auction, wouldn't you want to bid 4♣ naturally with a hand like x AQJTxx Qx AKxx?

There was a nice article by Karen Walker on the meaning of new suits bid on the 4 level,
the article discussed the various options. MrAce mentions the 1 alternative, ... as far as
I remember Karen Walker described / discussed 3 options, the side containing the article is
http://home.comcast.net/~kwbridge/
but I was not able to find the article.

Re the hand you gave: The hand you gave for opener, is not really possible, opener should bid 2C
or 2H instead of 3H, (if you believe in the AAB ABA rebidding theory for openers 64 hands, I guess it is 2C),
or 3C, if he thinks the hand worth a GF.

But there are problematic sequences like

1H - 1S
3H - 4C

where 4C can now be constructed as showing a 2-suited hand.

Anyway, i do believe, it is more important to clarify the meaning of new suits on the 4 level
in a GF sequence, when both sides have shown their suits, even rebid their suits, than discussing
what to do with a given hand after the auction developed in a certain way.
This will help a lot more, because it is a common problem in slam auctions.

And in the given seq. I am pretty sure 4C is a control showing bid for spades, why should opener
introduce a new 4 card suit, when responder denied the possession of a 2-suiter?

Assuming it is control showing, you have still to discuss, if opener could show Kx as control,
when the lead goes through Kx.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[wyman]

MrAce, on 2014-January-08, 20:38, said:

It definitely does not set trumps spades for everyone.

There are other things that is more important to some players, such as COG (choice of game) bids before they commit to something by themselves, instead of calling everything ambiguous a control cue for slam.

And those who plays it as control cue will face other issues but it will take a long typing and a bit topic hijacking so i will leave it at that.

But if we have couple people here who are not sure what 4m would be, or who thinks it is something different than control cue, proves that lack of 4m bid is not as reliable clue as some people think it is, unless OP has an agreement with his pd specifically. But i doubt he had this or he would not be posting it.

There is a camp where every bid is natural. There is another camp where 4C is ace-asking in every situation. On the forums, though, I'd be incredibly surprised to find more than a few folks who play 4C as natural in this auction. As always, I'm completely ready to be shown that I'm wrong, and if I am, then I apologize for generalizing, and authoritatively at that.

In any case, even if we play 4m as a cue here, I think there are styles in which cuebidding is more-or-less mandatory and styles in which it's not. And if partner has a hand that's minimum for the auction thus far, he may have chosen not to cuebid. I don't tend to rebid 3M light, so I can't imagine going down in 6 unless partner has the hand I posted above, basically KJ AQJTxx QJ QJ and any other small card. That's a small target, and honestly, I can imagine rebidding 2H with it.

But people are allowed, certainly, to make their own agreements. For OP, if he's not sure that in _his_ partnership, 4m would confirm spades, I think the problem is massively easier. And if they are rebidding 3H on random 14 counts with AQJT98 of hearts, then the problem is considerably more difficult. A lot depends on style.

The point I'd make to OP is that you should know:

- how light you're allowed to be to jump rebid 3M
- whether 3S here is forcing (hint: it is)
- whether 4m by responder after 1H-1S; 3H is a cue or natural
- whether 4m by opener after 1H-1S; 3H-3S is a cue or natural
- whether 4m by either, if it's a cue, can show a poorly placed Kx or shortness
- whether 4m by opener, if it's a cue, is mandatory.

I think everyone's answers ITT will be influenced by their answers to the above questions (except the one about 1H-1S; 3H-4m, which I included as part of a more general point). And I think that for a given set of answers to the above questions, you'd be able to reason out your best course of action over 4S.

My thesis advisor's thesis advisor told him "for every problem to which you don't know the answer, there's a simpler problem to which you don't know the answer." Often times reducing your problem to a much simpler problem will be incredibly enlightening.

[Fluffy]

If cuebidding or competition goes above 4NT, I have the agreement that 5NT is RCKB if our fit is in a major. However I have found this to be very far from standard.

[JLOGIC]

Wyman, I'm with you on "4m should not be natural" 100 %. But arguably you should flag here, 6H is still in the game and opener might want to show a very slam suitable hand with his own hearts rather than just a 4H bid. So maybe 4C slam suitable with hearts, 4D slam suitable with spades, 4M that suit and not slam suitable (in context of already opening and jumping ldo).

If partner had Kx AQJTxx xx AJx he's going to think that's a pretty bad hand for slam relative to his auction. He only has 2 spades, his hearts are NOT good (since we usually don't have the king, we didn't raise hearts, AKTxxx is much better for slam in spades for instance), and he's certainly minimum. I don't think partners failure to cuebid means he has no minor suit control, how many hands have no minor suit control that open and jump? Most likely, he just doesn't have a great hand in context of his bidding. I would say he almost certainly has only 2 spades rather than 3 (wouldn't almost every hand with 3 spades think they have a great hand? The third spade is huge). He might not always raise with Kx of spades since we could have 5 good ones, but we know he has diamond weakness, and to me with Kx of spades and weak diamonds bidding 4S rather than 3N is a no brainer.

On top of that, he might be reluctant to cue since one guy thinks 4m is obv nat, one guy thinks obv cue for spades, one guy thinks obv flagging. lol.

Finally, I definitely agree with keycarding. It is almost 0 % partner has no club control, he opened and jumped and we have 16 points. He would have to have all the jacks as others have noted, I mean I guess KJx AQJTxx QJ QJ minus a minor suit jack is still a 3H bid (?) but without either jack it's a ridiculous bid. So we have one exact precise hand with maybe leeway on a minor suit jack. And even then, they have to lead a club, whatever.

[JLOGIC]

Fluffy, on 2014-January-09, 18:08, said:

If cuebidding or competition goes above 4NT, I have the agreement that 5NT is RCKB if our fit is in a major. However I have found this to be very far from standard.

Some world class Poles did this against me (not sure who but I think pepsi-kweicen?). Had never heard of it before that, so def in USA it is extremely rare, but maybe in other countries it's more normal.

[MrAce]

Wyman, fwiw when i wrote choice of games, i did not mean 4m was one of the choice suits. I meant choice between majors.