[mike777]

UdcaDenny, on 2015-August-27, 13:11, said:

We play 2/1 and I open 1S with AKxxx AQxx Qxx x and my p bid 2H with xx KJxxx AKxx Kx. I jump to 4C, splinter for H. What shud my p bid ?

playing 2/1 strongly prefer 3h rather than your 4c splinter...lets preserve space and see what pard says. Note for me 3h would be stronger than 4h here. You may debate 4c or 4d over 3h.

given OP pard should still cue 4d over your 4c

[gszes]

There are many factors to take into consideration before making a bid. The op hand has a couple of interesting features that make their hand much better than normal. Akxxx spades and the 9 card heart suit are excellent slam worthy combinations opposite another opening hand. Splinter is best used when there is no extra source of side trick(s) and here we not only have that extra source (spades) but an almost guarantee we do not have any spade losers to worry about. All of this is leading up to bidding 3h vs 4c (mike777) but let's deal with what really happened and what to do next.

We need to take advantage of bidding space when we can and here we have only one bid between 4c and 4h. Best use of this would seem to be last train (kenrexford) as showing a hand with minimal overall values outside clubs (10-12) and leaving it up to partner to decide how high. If opener had bid 4d splinter I would have chosen to bid 4h but here the last train gives me a little more wiggle room for description and using it makes sense. To show the effectiveness of last train with the hcp switched around a tad opener with AKxxx Jxxx AKx x and responder xx AKQxx Qxxx Kx and responder cannot do anything other than 4h since they cannot bid 4d as a control if not playing last train. An important concept to remember is that all cue bidding denies the ability to take control of the bidding at that time.