[Kaitlyn S]

Hi - these problems should be very easy for experienced players but an I/N player needs to think about the right things in an auction. If you get them wrong, don't feel too bad as long as you understand the rationale for the answers. I'll provide the answers later but I'll put a hint as a spoiler. Try to solve the problem without the spoiler. Also, let me know if you would be interested in seeing more of these from time to time.

Assume you are playing Standard American (a natural system with 15-17 1NT openings and 5-card majors), IMPS, and nobody is vulnerable except hand 1 where you are vulnerable.

1.

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2S is weak, showing a 6-card suit and 5-10 HCP. Your options are to bid what you think you can make, or bid 2NT over which partner will show a feature (high card) with a hand in the top half of the range, or bid a new suit which is forcing.

Spoiler

What will the final contract be? Is there any information that would change that?

2.

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Spoiler

What will the final contract be? Is there any information that would change that?

3.

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Spoiler

Does it matter how many aces partner has?

[hrothgar]

On #2, many of my partnerships have a method to ask for a weak doubleton in the hand of the NT opener

I'd like to be playing that on this hand...

[Cyberyeti]

On #3, aces are not what I need to know, most of the really bad slams have the A♠, AJx, xxxx, Qxx, KQx for example. Min/max doesn't help too much either as AJx, KJxx, (Kxx, xxx) is laydown for 12 tricks. You need to find out which side suit cards partner has.

[1eyedjack]

I wouldn't mind having RKCB available in Clubs on 3, but I would not expect a N/B partnership to have that mechanism having agreed Spades.

[Kaitlyn S]

Incidentally, I think I have pretty strong evidence that these problems should stay in this forum rather than move to the I/A forum. This had has 55 views; the thread in the I/A forum saying that a new problem set is ready has 0 views (I doubt that most of the intermediates know to look here for the problems.)

[1eyedjack]

I think the forum software only displays a (reliable?\positive) view count after first response.

[Kaitlyn S]

duplicate post, ignore

[Kaitlyn S]

The subtitle should have been a clue to the answers I was looking for. Text in blue indicates more advanced material.

1.

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2S is weak, showing a 6-card suit and 5-10 HCP. Your options are to bid what you think you can make, or bid 2NT over which partner will show a feature (high card) with a hand in the top half of the range, or bid a new suit which is forcing.
Hint:What will the final contract be? Is there any information that would change that?

Answer: I don't believe there is anything that you could find out that would make you want to play anywhere except 4S. If you could find out that your partner had a singleton club and the DQxx and KQxxxx of spades you might take a shot at 6 but I don't know of anybody below the level of world-class fine tuned partnership that could find that out. So you should bid 4S. But what's the harm in bidding 2NT or 3D?

---

While 4S likely will buy the contract, your 2NT or 3D bid lets West bid hearts at the three level, and East, who believes 5H is a good sacrifice, bids it now, and you have the choice of getting 300 against 5H doubled or trying 5S which will go down.


2.

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Hint: What will the final contract be? Is there any information that would change that?

Answer: It is very likely that you can make 3NT but don't have enough strength to make 5D. But what's the harm in bidding 3D?

---

Against 1NT P 3NT, West could bid 4S, get doubled, and give up 500 against your game. Or he could pass, East will bid a heart, and you make 3NT.
Once West gets to bid 3S over 3D (or over any conventional bid you make that shows diamonds), you can no longer make any game, as a spade lead will set either 3NT or 5D. Your best score is doubling 3S for 300, but that's hardly obvious from your hand.

If you really, really, want to show your diamonds, Eddie Kantar has some advice for you. Bid 3NT, and then as you put down your diamonds, say "Partner, I have really beautiful diamonds."


3.

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Hint: Does it matter how many aces partner has?

Answer: Partner showed a minimum opening hand with spade support. You have 20 points counting length (perhaps your ace-rich hand is slightly stronger.) So you should have enough for 6S but partner can't have enough to give you 37 points to bid 7S. Do you have such a sophisticated relay system that will let you find the SA, HK, and C-KQJx or KQxxx? I assumed Standard American so the answer for this problem should be "no". So you could ask for aces and bid 6S if partner shows none, or bid 6S if partner shows one. (When you bid Blackwood, you are implying that you have enough for slam, so you shouldn't ever bid Blackwood and "chicken out" and stay out of slam missing an ace. Worse is to "chicken out" after much thought and have partner bid six. You'll get the worst of both worlds as either you go down or the director will roll back your making slam to 5S making six.)

Or you could just bid 6S now, since you know that is where you are going to end up.

With three aces in your own hand, and every suit controlled, and about 33 points, you should have no qualms about bidding slam.

What's the harm of bidding Blackwood?

---

When your partner shows one ace, your opponent has a free shot to double the artificial 5D bid to ask for a diamond lead! A diamond lead will beat 6S, as when West gets in with the CK, E-W will have a diamond to cash.

Note that if you had just bid 6S, West makes the normal lead of the H10, and you have time to set up an extra club winner to discard your D7.

The moral of the story: If you don't need any more information to place the contract, don't ask for it.

I gave you a few examples where unnecessarily playing show and tell will damage your side when the opponents get active. There is another way to lose by making an unnecessary bid when you know where to play: whichever one of you or partner that declares may give extra information to help the opponents defend. Also, there is a slight chance that partner will pass a bid you intend as forcing.

When you need information, by all means, ask for it. But when you don't, just bid your final contract.

I can hear some of the advanced players saying Aha! I can bid Roman Key Card Blackwood (1430) and my partner's answer will be 5C! So I can get away with bidding 4NT!

Of course, I have a hand for you:

---

Now, partner's "no ace" answer is 5D which gets doubled for a lead, and you've bid both spades and notrump. If you feel clairvoyant and feel partner has the DQ and bid 6C to protect partner's DQ, while you deserve partner to have three clubs, you still pay the piper when East leads ace and another spade.

[hrothgar]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-22, 18:45, said:

It is very likely that you can make 3NT but don't have enough strength to make 5D. But what's the harm in bidding 3D?

I think that most any good play will force to game with this hand. Yes there are constructions where 3N will go down.
Balanced against this, 3N rolls home opposite three bullets...

If you are teaching players not to GF with this hand, I think that you are doing them a disservice...

On to the suggestion that you bid 3D

If 3D is GF, natural, what is your plan opposite the NT opener's rebid?
You've burned bidding space and leaked information without exchanging useful information about each other's hands.

If 3D is invitational you're leaving the NT opener incredible poorly placed.
The NT opener can't hold a Diamond honor and will downgrade their hand way too often.
What you really care about is whether any suits are unprotected and 3D is not the way to discover this...

If 3D is drop dead then I'm completely confused...

As I noted earlier, I have often played a convention in which a 2N response asks for a small doubleton.
This would work very nicely on this hand...

If partner has xx in Diamonds, then he has more length / strength in the remaining suits and I am happy to play 3N.
If partner has xx in Clubs or Spades, then I know that 3N is death and get to decide whether I am willing to play 5D or a Diamond part score (I suspect that I'd go for the part score)

Absent this, I'd bid 3N without a second thought

[Kaitlyn S]

 hrothgar, on 2016-October-22, 19:13, said:

I think that most any good play will force to game with this hand.

Most students that bid 3D with this hand think they are making a game-forcing bid (and they are, since I haven't seen their partner pass yet in the many times I've seen this done.)

[smerriman]

 hrothgar, on 2016-October-22, 19:13, said:

If you are teaching players not to GF with this hand, I think that you are doing them a disservice...

On to the suggestion that you bid 3D

Kathryn was suggesting 3nt, not 3♦. "What's the harm" was answered in the next paragraph.

[hrothgar]

 smerriman, on 2016-October-22, 19:20, said:

Kathryn was suggesting 3nt, not 3♦. "What's the harm" was answered in the next paragraph.

d'oh...

[akwoo]

On (1) - this is more an intermediate consideration than a beginner consideration - but if you don't have more specific agreements for weak 2s, you should be playing Ogust. Here Ogust would help: if your partner has KQxxxx of spades and no side A or K, you want to be playing 3N, not 4S.

On (3) - if you don't have a fairly advanced partner, 6S is certainly the right bid. With a good partner opposite, I would bid 3H (either as a help suit or as a strong suit game try), followed by 6S after an accept or 5S after a reject. This should tell partner that you're not worried about aces, and you need either a heart honor or another source of tricks for slam. I think that will get partner to evaluate their hand correctly.

[1eyedjack]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-22, 18:51, said:

3.

---

Hint: Does it matter how many aces partner has?

Answer: Partner showed a minimum opening hand with spade support. You have 20 points counting length (perhaps your ace-rich hand is slightly stronger.) So you should have enough for 6S but partner can't have enough to give you 37 points to bid 7S. Do you have such a sophisticated relay system that will let you find the SA, HK, and C-KQJx or KQxxx? I assumed Standard American so the answer for this problem should be "no". So you could ask for aces and bid 6S if partner shows none, or bid 6S if partner shows one. (When you bid Blackwood, you are implying that you have enough for slam, so you shouldn't ever bid Blackwood and "chicken out" and stay out of slam missing an ace. Worse is to "chicken out" after much thought and have partner bid six. You'll get the worst of both worlds as either you go down or the director will roll back your making slam to 5S making six.)

Or you could just bid 6S now, since you know that is where you are going to end up.

With three aces in your own hand, and every suit controlled, and about 33 points, you should have no qualms about bidding slam.

What's the harm of bidding Blackwood?

---

When your partner shows one ace, your opponent has a free shot to double the artificial 5D bid to ask for a diamond lead! A diamond lead will beat 6S, as when West gets in with the CK, E-W will have a diamond to cash.

Note that if you had just bid 6S, West makes the normal lead of the H10, and you have time to set up an extra club winner to discard your D7.

The moral of the story: If you don't need any more information to place the contract, don't ask for it.

I gave you a few examples where unnecessarily playing show and tell will damage your side when the opponents get active. There is another way to lose by making an unnecessary bid when you know where to play: whichever one of you or partner that declares may give extra information to help the opponents defend. Also, there is a slight chance that partner will pass a bid you intend as forcing.

When you need information, by all means, ask for it. But when you don't, just bid your final contract.

I can hear some of the advanced players saying Aha! I can bid Roman Key Card Blackwood (1430) and my partner's answer will be 5C! So I can get away with bidding 4NT!

Of course, I have a hand for you:

---

Now, partner's "no ace" answer is 5D which gets doubled for a lead, and you've bid both spades and notrump. If you feel clairvoyant and feel partner has the DQ and bid 6C to protect partner's DQ, while you deserve partner to have three clubs, you still pay the piper when East leads ace and another spade.

The odds of a Diamond lead after the recommended 1C-1S-2S-6S auction are not that remote here. West is probably looking to choose between the reds. And sure, without the double he would be more likely to err. I am not saying that the double doesn't help. But accurately to assess the risk of RKCB you do need somehow to quantify increased likelihood of a critical double and of its effect, and that increase must start with a comparison with the existing likelihood, and then compare that with the risk of missing a biddable granny. The possibility of opposition finding an informative double over RKCB is seldom entirely eliminated, but that does not stop us from using RKCB because overall we consider the benefits to be worthwhile.

If RKCB (or some other route that might be in the grasp of a N/B player) is never going to uncover the granny then Kaitlyn's sums are of course correct. Any added risk of exposing a successful defence however small is a losing strategy. But on this hand the granny is definitely in your sights, and while grannies are very hard to get right for N/B players (and indeed the rest of us) I really would be reluctant to give up on this hand. Indeed I would generalise that seldom would you have a hand in which raising 2S to 6S expecting to make would have no significant GS interest. Not sure that I could even construct one.

Although a better hand could undoubtedly be constructed to illustrate the following point, a valuable lessen to the N/B player, which from my experience they often fail to grasp until enlightened, is the inferences to be drawn from a 5N follow-up. Most N/B players will woodenly provide their King count, where the use of 5N is if anything more used as a concession of captaincy, providing a confirmation that all key cards are held, and inviting partner to go straight to 7 with a source of tricks. In this case KQJxx of Clubs and an outside King would be enough (obviously to go with the Ace of Spades in order to have all key cards),

[apollo1201]

Kaitlyn, again great job in exposing why talking for no use in the bidding is not good (reveals hands, help leads, leaves more space for intervention or X of artif bids, etc.).

And pls dont interpret my post as sharp criticism but more of a side note. Again, I really like your efforts to illustrate concepts and the "why". Your explanations are truly pedagogical for b/i (hence my feeling to where your posts belong: more than novice, less than advanced, but this forum doesnt exist haha).

The #1 example is (to my mind) not the best you've produced, because even with the methods you indicate after 2NT, I believe you can diagose KQxxxx Kx(x) xxx(x) x. The usual continuation after a feature is shown is indeed to answer shortnesses at the 4 level on 3M by responder which is 100% forcing considering opener showed a positive hand (I dont answer features when I have a minimum hand). Maybe it is more advanced, I dunno, but it is what is taught in my country to people who learn weak 2 (so b/i level kindof). So no need to be world class 😉

Make the hand a little weaker and the ex. will really be illustrative - no chance for slam, only game, so bid it rather than tell your life to anyone.

At IMPs I would definitely investigate slam as likelihood of giving up game for a penalty of 3-500 is low and not too costly anyway, at MPs I would probably blast 4S to try to get an extra trick after the lead.

I actually had a similar hand some yrs ago and found the fitting hand opposite to reach a good slam and +13. On other cases (more numerous, I admit), we safely stopped at the 4 level when opps went to 5 (making, down 1, plus 1) or whent down in slam.

[Cyberyeti]

I would happily take a penalty on board 1, clubs are 5-2 often enough that you may not be making 4♠ and you could easily be getting 500 if it is, no big loss at teams. I also think 3N is in the frame rather than 4♠ as this makes regardless of the club break if the spades run.

Board 2, 3N is obvious.

Board 3, you can be in some very bad slams here that are avoidable, just cue your way up, if partner doesn't have the ♥K, tread warily, even if he does it's not necessarily a cakewalk, J10xx, KJx, Jxx, KQJ is no play for example.

[Kaitlyn S]

 Cyberyeti, on 2016-October-23, 06:46, said:

I would happily take a penalty on board 1, clubs are 5-2 often enough that you may not be making 4♠ and you could easily be getting 500 if it is, no big loss at teams. I also think 3N is in the frame rather than 4♠ as this makes regardless of the club break if the spades run.

Board 2, 3N is obvious.

Board 3, you can be in some very bad slams here that are avoidable, just cue your way up, if partner doesn't have the ♥K, tread warily, even if he does it's not necessarily a cakewalk, J10xx, KJx, Jxx, KQJ is no play for example.

I would hope most players would not open that awful aceless 4333 that meets NEITHER part of 20+2.

[Cyberyeti]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-October-23, 06:59, said:

I would hope most players would not open that awful aceless 4333 that meets NEITHER part of 20+2.

The slam is no better with ♦Qxx other than a dodgy lead, and I suspect I would open the horrible 12, although I'd open 1N. Do you even have any guarantee partner has 4 spades for the 2♠ bid ?

[Kaitlyn S]

 Cyberyeti, on 2016-October-23, 07:35, said:

The slam is no better with ♦Qxx other than a dodgy lead, and I suspect I would open the horrible 12, although I'd open 1N. Do you even have any guarantee partner has 4 spades for the 2♠ bid ?

Several points here. Some more advanced are in blue.

I specified a strong notrump. If I played 12-14 point opening notrumps, and wasn't allowed to use judgment (i.e. was forced to open JTxx KJx, Jxx, KQJ which comes up to a whopping 9.35 points using the Kaplan-Rubens hand evaluator; Kleinman is more generous calling it 10 minus) then indeed I would not force to slam with a 20 point balanced hand.

However, playing Standard American, I presume I am allowed to use judgment with my 12 HCP hands and pass the ones worth only 9.35 with a more accurate method of counting.

When I saw your Qxx improvment (JTxx, KJx, Qxx, KQJ) I would pass that one as well. Now, I would never tell a student or a novice to pass a hand with 13 HCP that doesn't include a singleton king or doubleton QJ. However, my judgment tells me that if I open the bidding, I am likely to overreach. Kaplan-Rubens backs my judgment by telling me the hand is worth 10.40.

The Kaplan-Rubens evaluator can be found here:

http://www.jeff-gold...cgi-bin/knr.cgi

If a novice or intermediate has a good enough system to stay out of slam when they've opened such trash opposite a 20 point hand which includes three aces and KQxxx of trump, by all means they should use whatever tools they have to do so. However, I think very few of us are good enough to stay out of slam, especially if we only open hands worth opening.

(Full disclosure: My examples were AJxx, KJx, Jx, QJTx worth 11.75 with Kaplan-Rubens, and JTxx, KJx, Qx, KQJT worth 11.30. I'm sorry to say my judgment would have had me open both of these hands.)

I would like to think that responder, who is looking at three aces and the KQ of trump, can make the assumption that since partner doesn't have quick tricks, that his opening bid is based on sound values. If you have a partner that opens all 12's and most 11's, then you must treat this 20-count as only invitational to slam.

It is humorous to me that the first post questioning my decision was because he was afraid we were missing seven, and now I am being told that six is in danger and that a student or novice should have a way of being able to work that out. However, I don't really mind an honest discussion of the problems as I am not an expert and could easily miss something. Just don't be too upset if I disagree with you

About the three-card spade raise; most teachers in the US teach four cards for the raise; however I am aware of the need for a 3-card raise occasionally (or in some partnerships, frequently.) I would have to presume that a decent player looks at their rebid issues, and if he has to make a "flawed" raise on 3 cards to a normal response like 1S, he might not open on sub-minimum values. I'm willing to play 6S opposite most normal opening hands that would raise to 2S on only three cards (many are 3-4-1-5 or 3-1-4-5 with at least 12 HCP, so the five-card suit or the ruffing value should take care of a lot of losers.)

 1eyedjack, on 2016-October-23, 01:23, said:

Most N/B players will woodenly provide their King count, where the use of 5N is if anything more used as a concession of captaincy, providing a confirmation that all key cards are held, and inviting partner to go straight to 7 with a source of tricks. In this case KQJxx of Clubs and an outside King would be enough (obviously to go with the Ace of Spades in order to have all key cards),

I agree with what you are saying, and I do agree that Blackwood with 5NT allowing the answerer to bid a grand slam should be taught earlier than most conventions. However, I feel that a damaging double of 5D is more likely than partner holding the magic dummy and knowing it when partner bids 5NT. Granted, in a novice game, the double of 5D is often missed, but as you point out, opener bidding a grand slam after 5NT is also.

If I had it to do over, I would have chosen a different example that shows the same points.

[Cyberyeti]

It's actually not difficult for novices as they will not play serious/frivolous 3N.

What do you think 1♣-1♠-2♠-3♥(LSGT)-3N means to a novice ? I'd suggest it's what they'd bid with a 4333 that's accepting the invite either because the hand is good or has K♥.

Now you can cue 4♣ and see if partner has K♦, if he doesn't, slam probably isn't good.

I was aware you'd specified strong NT, but what I was saying is I would be much more inclined to open a weak 1N than 1♣ in first seat, I would always open the 13 count version with ♦Qxx, partly because I'd expect opps to do so.