[gwnn]

Sounds to me like a hand that only wanted to bid 7S if we had 4 spades (but I'm not that confident of this that I'd raise it to 7 if I had 44 in the majors - unless it really is a great 17). That's a weird way of evaluating a hand but, to me, less weird than jumping in a 4-card suit to the 6 level and expect me to understand it. I'd pass without looking at my hand and be a bit irritated if partner bid like this on some balanced hand with 4 spades. That hand can just bid 6N and live with the possibility that we missed a 4-4 fit in spades as opposed to torturing partner with an undiscussed 6-level jump.

[benlessard]

Players are really overthinking on this one. Its a bid that you will see less than once every 5 years so its not going to have a convulated meaning, its going to be natural and straightfoward.

6S as a inv to 7 level just make no sense. So 6S is I want to play at the 6 level but dont know between 6S and 6NT. This should be obvious.

Yes its possible to bid 3m followed by 6S/6NT but who cares, I might want to play the hand because of finesse position, after all im likely to be stronger than opener.

[gwnn]

On the contrary: If I am guilty of anything, it is underthinking. Partner makes an undiscussed jump to slam so I pass. If pressed, I can try to explain his/her jump, but it's not really what I'd do at the table. I'd never bid this way and expect partner to get it. With the strong spade suit, I'd transfer, texas perhaps, and sign off. With the magical 4342 or whatever, I'd bid 6NT instead of risking a disaster.

[Stephen Tu]

gwnn, on 2016-May-01, 16:48, said:

On the contrary: If I am guilty of anything, it is underthinking. Partner makes an undiscussed jump to slam so I pass. If pressed, I can try to explain his/her jump, but it's not really what I'd do at the table. I'd never bid this way and expect partner to get it. With the strong spade suit, I'd transfer, texas perhaps, and sign off. With the magical 4342 or whatever, I'd bid 6NT instead of risking a disaster.

If 6S happens to make while 6nt is down 1, that's a disaster. So whatever you do, you risk disaster.
If partner just wanted to play 6s, why didn't he just do it directly over 1nt or say after Texas or Jacoby? With stayman first, it really can't be a one suiter. I mean what kind of hand is interested in 7 opposite 4 cd support only?

So I am going to assume that partner is just not aware of the 5nt pick a slam option, considering how rarely it comes up, or overlooked it, and 6s is the only bid that occurred to him to give choice of slams. If it turns out he just wanted to play 6s no matter what I had, I get to win the post mortem with wtf with Stayman first.

Besides, opposite some 1 suiter in spades, I think 6nt will have play more often than 6s in a 4-2 fit will.

[chasetb]

After thinking about it for a bit and reading this thread, I came up with something different but still might make sense:
- Partner has a 5422 Smolen hand, and is really interested in one of 7♥, 7♠ and 7NT.

I got the idea from Problem 7 (p. 31-33) of Bidding A Bridge Hand by Reese. The auction was different, but the idea is the same.

Having said that, I doubt I figure all of this out at the table, and I would NEVER do this!

[gwnn]

6S making while 6NT goes down is a disaster but it's rarely the case that 6NT has absolutely no play while 6S is cold (of course there are cases, I know). Worst case scenario usually is that we need one more finesse in 6NT. As opposed to that, we sometimes avoid going down due to a bad spade break or a defensive ruff. And partner has 4 spades next to his 4 hearts what, 30% of the time? If we take that, and allow a generous 1/6 edge for 6S, we are still only losing 5% of the time (these are just random numbers I admit). So overall, the prospect of us missing a spade slam is not what I'd call a disaster and I'd definitely settle for 6NT at the table, knowing that we'd almost always have a playable slam. Being in a 4-2 "fit" on the 6-level IS a disaster, far more so than needing an extra finesse some of the time. Yes I know about Texas. I just said I'd have used it.

[Stephen Tu]

gwnn, on 2016-May-02, 00:33, said:

6S making while 6NT goes down is a disaster but it's rarely the case that 6NT has absolutely no play while 6S is cold (of course there are cases, I know). Worst case scenario usually is that we need one more finesse in 6NT. As opposed to that, we sometimes avoid going down due to a bad spade break or a defensive ruff. And partner has 4 spades next to his 4 hearts what, 30% of the time? If we take that, and allow a generous 1/6 edge for 6S, we are still only losing 5% of the time (these are just random numbers I admit). So overall, the prospect of us missing a spade slam is not what I'd call a disaster and I'd definitely settle for 6NT at the table, knowing that we'd almost always have a playable slam. Being in a 4-2 "fit" on the 6-level IS a disaster, far more so than needing an extra finesse some of the time. Yes I know about Texas. I just said I'd have used it.

The thing is, partner may not be of the same mindset as you, thinking that "well if I bid 6s, partner is just going to auto-pass without thinking about what hand I can have for using stayman first". He may not think that you passing automatically is even a consideration in his thinking, he doesn't think it's a risk! He thinks you are on the same wavelength, that if something unusual occurs you will stop and think through what the logical meanings are, rather than just auto-pass because you don't want to think about it.

I think the odds of partner forgetting both texas and jacoby in order to set spades as trumps and play 6s are absolutely miniscule compared to the possibility of overlooking 5nt (or 3m on non-suit) as choice of slams. Texas and jacoby are super common conventions one uses all the time. Unlikely to be forgotten. Having a hand wanting choice of 6s or 6nt after stayman is really really rare in comparison, the 5nt bid just doesn't come up a lot (even though I know the bid, I haven't used this on this sequence in my memory for over 20 years), so it's easier by orders of magnitude IMO for partner to either not know or overlook.

And yes, even though 6nt will often have some play when partner was offering choice of slams 6s, so you can argue that partner should not have risked you auto-passing, by the same token if partner has a spade one suiter who bid stayman completely randomly, 6nt still probably has play. So I would always correct to 6nt not having 4 spades, and if it goes down while 6s would have made, I'll just ask partner why the hell he bid stayman first. I mean what kind of hand could possibly care about stayman if he wants to play 6s regardless?

[gwnn]

Unfortunately my previous reply got swallowed by the internet.

I mean from now on all we are going to do is

"but if he has a long spade suit, 6NT still could have play"
"but if I have 4 spades, 6NT still could have play"

So I'm not sure what we will gain from this. I have no idea if my partner is suitable for 6NT but I expect him to have bid it if he had been. I don't always just assume I am playing with clone-gwnn but I do expect some common courtesy (no undiscussed jumps to the 6 level on 4-card suits). To me jumping to the 6 level on a 4-card suit is orders of magnitude weirder than on a 7-card suit, whether or not they have bid stayman.

To conclude I'd like to mention that there was an ex-partner of mine who thought
1NT-2♣
2♠-3♥
was a GF hand with hearts (but somehow different from transfer then 3NT) and:
1NT-2♣
2♠-4♥
was a slam-invite with hearts.

I don't know how common this is (in fact I am pretty sure it is less than 1% of people) but there are probably other players out there who think that stayman then making a bid is a stronger version of the same bid. I totally, unequivocally hate this idea, but I hate it less than jumping to the 6 level on AJxx or something.

As I said, we are going around in circles now.

[nullve]

My response to this thread was to start a related one: http://www.bridgebas...-auto-controls/

[Jinksy]

Regardless of what it should be, if you're going to claim that 6♠ 'obviously' shows four of the suit, I feel like you should provide some kind of analogous auction whose meaning we might map it from. This isn't hard with the 'to play, and don't worry your head about what exact hards I have' meaning. I would certainly assume the latter if any of the following auctions came up undiscussed:

1♣ 6♠

1♦ 6♠

1♥ 6♠

1♠ 6♥

1N 6♠

1N 2♦ /
2♥ 6♠

1♦ 1♠ /
2♣ 6♠

2♦ 6♠

2♥ 2N* /
3♥ 6♠

I'm basically typing out semi-random sequences ending with a jump to the six level, and in all cases it seems clear to me that (without discussion) P is showing a desire to play the contract he's bid. It seems far more like 'overthinking' to claim that this auction is the one exception to the pattern.

[gwnn]

I think

1NT-2♦
2♥-6♠

Is the odd one out because partner apparently showed hearts as well. That's the one of them I wouldn't pass without at least thinking about what's going on.

[Vampyr]

Stephen Tu, on 2016-May-02, 01:43, said:

I think the odds of partner forgetting both texas and jacoby in order to set spades as trumps and play 6s are absolutely miniscule compared to the possibility of overlooking 5nt (or 3m on non-suit) as choice of slams.

Partner might have thought that 5NT was invitational to 7NT, or that you would think it was. Yes, why bid Stayman first, but still.

[Stephen Tu]

Jinksy, on 2016-May-02, 04:23, said:

Regardless of what it should be, if you're going to claim that 6♠ 'obviously' shows four of the suit, I feel like you should provide some kind of analogous auction whose meaning we might map it from.

Why does there have to be analogous auction? To me the only analogous auctions are 2nt-3c-3h-6s and 2c-2d-2nt-3c-3h-6s, both of which I'd also treat as the same, undiscussed.

Look, stayman is a convention designed to ask about four card majors. Partner heard about hearts and didn't bid 6h or set hearts as trumps. Therefore he must be interested in 4 card spade support. Or he is being totally random to put in a stayman call on the way to signing off in 6s. Which is more likely?

Or I guess another way to look at it is that I see the analogous auctions as "other stayman auctions" rather than "other jump to slam auctions". In other stayman auctions, with the possible exception of 1nt-2c-2h-2nt, if partner doesn't raise hearts, we assume he has 4 spades. We correct 1nt-2c-2h-3nt to 4s don't we? We'd assume that 1nt-2c-2h-6nt had 4 spades and if 4-4 majors be disappointed we missed the fit, no, and want to get back to 6s?

So I am definitely not going to pass first and figure out what he was supposed to do later based on "weird jumps are to play".

[aguahombre]

gwnn, on 2016-May-02, 04:27, said:

I think

1NT-2♦
2♥-6♠

Is the odd one out because partner apparently showed hearts as well. That's the one of them I wouldn't pass without at least thinking about what's going on.

I think Treadwell invented it --- a grand slam try for hearts.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2016-May-02, 10:32, said:

I think Treadwell invented it --- a grand slam try for hearts.

I can see why it never caught on

[aguahombre]

Vampyr, on 2016-May-02, 11:14, said:

I can see why it never caught on

What ever do you mean? Jinsky's partner felt it was so obvious it didn't require prior discussion.

[gszes]

Fluffy, on 2016-May-01, 01:30, said:

Those who think it shows 4♠ and a choice between 6♠ and 6NT are forgetting that partner just needs to bid 3m over 2♥ to know if opener holds 4♠, afterwards he can jump to 6 whatever.

If the bidding continues 3c and opener bids 3s does that promise 4 or is it plausible they have "stuff" in spades and nothing in diamonds AK Kxxx xxx AQxx or some such. and would they prefer to bid 3s or 3n with xxxx Kxxx AQx AQ? This is reasonable because they know u have a heart fit OR 4 spades so 3n is their most accurate description.

What if opener held xxxx KQ KQ AQxxx they think there is a massive club fit and while they have the "reds" covered for 3N they have squat in spades and bidding 3s just for the sake of shwoing4 of them appears to be tactically wrong in almost every way shape or form.

[Fluffy]

Stephen Tu, on 2016-May-01, 10:41, said:

I know that 5nt should logically mean pick a slam, 6s or 6nt, but I've also never made that bid on this sequence in my lifetime of playing bridge. So people who learn differently may not have encountered that idea or thought it through, and it doesn't occur to them, only the 6s bid occurs to them, counting on partner to figure out, else why stayman first.

You are assuming things that are not there, 5NT is an obvious grand slam quantitative for me. As long as partner has ever played outside the US he will be worried that such a bid could be missunerstood, but since he is an expert, he will realice 3m will find the spade fit 100% of the time.

[Fluffy]

gszes, on 2016-May-02, 11:43, said:

If the bidding continues 3c and opener bids 3s does that promise 4 or is it plausible they have "stuff" in spades and nothing in diamonds AK Kxxx xxx AQxx or some such.

This is a very obvious 3♥ fitbid.

gszes, on 2016-May-02, 11:43, said:

and would they prefer to bid 3s or 3n with xxxx Kxxx AQx AQ? This is reasonable because they know u have a heart fit OR 4 spades so 3n is their most accurate description.

Sorry I can't understand why would they hide a 4-4 major fit, what are you taking about?

gszes, on 2016-May-02, 11:43, said:

What if opener held xxxx KQ KQ AQxxx they think there is a massive club fit and while they have the "reds" covered for 3N they have squat in spades and bidding 3s just for the sake of shwoing4 of them appears to be tactically wrong in almost every way shape or form.

I am not sure if you mean that partner with a mirror 4225 will hide the spade fit to play a surely hopeless 3NT, or that with that hand it is a wise tactic to show 4 hearts risking playing the 4-2 fit. Please think more than 5 miliseconds next time you make a lengthy response.

[Vampyr]

aguahombre, on 2016-May-02, 11:29, said:

What ever do you mean? Jinsky's partner felt it was so obvious it didn't require prior discussion.

What are you looking for -- a maximum with four hearts? Would partner not have super-accepted with that?

Anyway, what worries me is that if partner is unsuitable, 6♥ might be the last making spot.