[apollo1201]

IMPs all green

AK
Kxxxx
AKxxxx
(void)

You deal and open 1D (agree?), and partner pleases you by bidding 1H. Opponents even overplease you by passing throughout.

What do you bid? I'll disclose later the auction and outcome as well as pd's hand. As a hint, she said I was bold while opponents called me crazy...

[Jinksy]

The opps' passing seems like a tainted gift - it suggests P has some values in clubs. Still, I think I'll KI(relatively)SS, and opt for 5♣ EKCB, planning to bid to the level indicated by our missing keycards, and apologise to P if she turns up with QJxx xxxx Qxx KJx and things go badly in trumps. I don't like it much, but absent developed agreements (and I'm not really sure what those would be), I don't feel like dragging the auction out will tell me much of use. It's going to be very hard to tell P below the five level that I'm interested in her having the QJT of trumps and anything but xxx in diamonds.

Wouldn't dream of opening 2♣ on this.

[PhantomSac]

Perhaps 5H should show this hand? We have exclusion and keycard available in every suit so we are implicitly worried about stuff that cannot be shown via those routes like the queen of trumps or a fifth trump or the jack of trumps.

IRL I would probably go with the exclusion route unless I thought my partner would bid slam with QJxx or Qxxxx of hearts over 5H.

[MrAce]

apollo1201, on 2015-July-02, 14:56, said:

IMPs all green

AK
Kxxxx
AKxxxx
(void)

You deal and open 1D (agree?), and partner pleases you by bidding 1H. Opponents even overplease you by passing throughout.

What do you bid? I'll disclose later the auction and outcome as well as pd's hand. As a hint, she said I was bold while opponents called me crazy...

In the good old days there was a convention called "Josephine"

5♥ would say "bid slam with 2 of top 3 honors"
5 NT would say "bid grand with 2 of top 3"

[mikeh]

MrAce, on 2015-July-02, 16:40, said:

In the good old days there was a convention called "Josephine"

5♥ would say "bid slam with 2 of top 3 honors"
5 NT would say "bid grand with 2 of top 3"

Josephine would be a poor second choice compared to exclusion. It offers zero upside. At least if we use exclusion, partner will own to the heart Q with Axxxxx of them, while if we used Josephine, he'd have to worry that we were looking at the Q, not the K.

BTW, the last time I used Josephine was with farfie, from BBO, and she was the one who used it. I suspect I have told this hand before, but I am at the age where I tend to tell the same stories over and over:

I picked up AKQ A10xx AKQx Jx

She opened 1♣ and while many would respond 1♦, I chose 1♥ over which she bid Josephine It was fairly easy to figure out that she had voids in spades and diamonds

[Cyberyeti]

MrAce, on 2015-July-02, 16:40, said:

In the good old days there was a convention called "Josephine"

5♥ would say "bid slam with 2 of top 3 honors"
5 NT would say "bid grand with 2 of top 3"

Btw over 1♦-1♥ does nobody else use 5♠ as GSF to allow room for all the responses below 6♥ ?

MikeH however nails why GSF is a poor idea.

[blackshoe]

Cyberyeti, on 2015-July-02, 18:20, said:

Btw over 1♦-1♥ does nobody else use 5♠ as GSF to allow room for all the responses below 6♥ ?

MikeH however nails why GSF is a poor idea.

I do.

If you have Exclusion available, it's a better choice than Josephine.

[MrAce]

mikeh, on 2015-July-02, 17:35, said:

Josephine would be a poor second choice compared to exclusion. It offers zero upside. At least if we use exclusion, partner will own to the heart Q with Axxxxx of them, while if we used Josephine, he'd have to worry that we were looking at the Q, not the K.

Mike, people who used this convention in the past due to lack of RKCB or voidwood, decided many decades ago that one should never bid 5 NT with Q high trumps, since it leads one of 2 horrible things when pd held none of the A or K, and I assumed people knew this. So if you pd does not bid grand with Axxxxx thinking that you may have started with Q high trumps, it is probably a poor choice of partner by you much more than poor choice of convention. Common sense says that one should THINK before they bid 5 NT and wonder what will happen if pd has NONE of the A or K.

Having said this, I am not advocating Josephine. I do not like it. It has many flaws, especially the 5M version/extension of it. It was used in past before RKCB or Voidwood (1936 says a source). But not being able to find grandslam when pd bids 5 NT and you hold Axxxxx. is not one of them. It was almost standart where i grew up to use it with either A or K high trumps only. This was somewhat 30+ years ago and none of us bothered to make steps over 5 NT, and even if we did we would probably forget it by the time it comes, because it is a very rare bid.

And yes, of course VoidWood is better convention.

[nekthen]

I play a different version, where I bid 4♣ and after partner replies I bid 4N which is EKCB with a club void.

If partner bids 5♦ over 5♣ you cannot ask him about the Q♥, but I can
If partner bids 5♣ over 4N I have the 5♦ bid as a relay and p can bid 5♥ without the Q

If partner bids 5♥ over 5♣ we clearly want to be in 6. Now how do we find out if he is suitable for 7? I can find out about the Q♥ by bidding 5♠ and if he bids 6♣ I know he has it but no clue if he has the dreaded xxx in ♦ so last bid is a bit of a punt. I suppose I can bid 6♦, and surely p will recognise the value of the Q♦, whether he can recognise that xx is also great...

[Cyberyeti]

nekthen, on 2015-July-03, 06:21, said:

I play a different version, where I bid 4♣ and after partner replies I bid 4N which is EKCB with a club void.

If partner bids 5♦ over 5♣ you cannot ask him about the Q♥, but I can
If partner bids 5♣ over 4N I have the 5♦ bid as a relay and p can bid 5♥ without the Q

If partner bids 5♥ over 5♣ we clearly want to be in 6. Now how do we find out if he is suitable for 7? I can find out about the Q♥ by bidding 5♠ and if he bids 6♣ I know he has it but no clue if he has the dreaded xxx in ♦ so last bid is a bit of a punt. I suppose I can bid 6♦, and surely p will recognise the value of the Q♦, whether he can recognise that xx is also great...

I didn't put what I actually played which is that 4♣ is a club void and "optional exclusion", partner bids 4♥ if the club void is really bad news (in that if he ignores club values, he's significantly sub minimum for his bidding to date) and gives an exclusion response if not, if he bids 4♥ I can bid 4♠ to say "I don't care if my bid ruined your hand, I still want to know how many aces you have outside clubs".

[apollo1201]

Thanks all for your anwers. Exclusion and Q question is probably the best way to handle the hand enabling a stop at 5 while playing 7 facing a "long" Ace of trumps.

As you suspected I bid 5NT to play 7 with AQxx opposite. I hoped D wouldnt misbehave but if partner turns with 1, 2 or 4 it should be ok. If 3 she must have Q, or J and Q falls singleton, or 22 break.

I knew committing to slam would be tricky if she turned with poor H but some layouts offer a play for 1 loser (22 with Ace onside, etc.).

My p had J9xx (yuck ) with doubleton D and the not so useless CA that proved to be the entry to her hand after the lead, to be able to lead trumps towards dummy at trick 2.

She duly made 6 with stiff Q on the left and ATx on her right, she picked up the T on the 2nd round of trumps. I was so tense I cant tell whether vibrations and reactions around the table after dummy's appearance helped her or not.

When we scored 980 and after being called bold, I just said with such a card player I have to be bold in the auction !

[SteveMoe]

Why not play Exclusion with responses that tell you what you want to know? 0, 1, 1+Q, 2, 2+Q. Drop the 0 response if you agree you always credit opener with at least one Key.

[dave_beer]

SteveMoe, on 2015-July-03, 14:57, said:

Why not play Exclusion with responses that tell you what you want to know? 0, 1, 1+Q, 2, 2+Q. Drop the 0 response if you agree you always credit opener with at least one Key.

While there is no reason to credit responder with at least one key-card there is a good reason to believe that opener isn't leaping past game if he needs two of them. Why not use 0, 0+Q, 1, 1+Q, etc assuming that you and your partner agree to it and will both remember if it ever comes up. You might not be able to afford this if the void is one below responder's suit.

This way we get to 5♥ opposite xxxx, 6♥ opposite Axxx and 7♥ opposite AQxx or Axxxxx. We can decide whether or not to bid 6 opposite Qxxx. We also have room to ask for extra trump length if partner shows the A.

[massem]

I will bid 4 clubs (splinter 18+ pts)

[PhantomSac]

massem, on 2015-July-03, 22:23, said:

I will bid 4 clubs (splinter 18+ pts)

You only have 17 points though

[Jinksy]

Luckily I play EKCB as 15-17 unbalanced.

[croquetfan]

sorry missing something here.
when the KH drops the Q, RHO still has A10 of trumps over the J?

[MrAce]

croquetfan, on 2015-July-04, 19:09, said:

sorry missing something here.
when the KH drops the Q, RHO still has A10 of trumps over the J?

Q drops in front of K and LHO has AT while dummy has J over AT.

[gszes]

SteveMoe, on 2015-July-03, 14:57, said:

Why not play Exclusion with responses that tell you what you want to know? 0, 1, 1+Q, 2, 2+Q. Drop the 0 response if you agree you always credit opener with at least one Key.

The entire purpose of bids like exclusion is to finally get some real science into the bidding. Partner could own the AKQ in the suit you are void in and assuming p always has at least 1 (while probable) is cutting into the science part for very little gain. Almost all bidding is based on systemic probability and every once in a while we like to "know" what we are doing:)))))))