[InTime]

Dlr:W
Vul:Both
North opens 1♥
The question is do South show his 4-card support immediately with Bergen or any other method you have or bid 1♠?
If you bid 1♠ then you will not be able to persuade partner of your 4-card support and if you show your 4-card support immediately you will loose your 4-4 fit in spades.
Which is the more desirable way to go? I will appreciate any comments with rationale.
Regards

---

[neilkaz]

I would show a 4 card limit raise with whatever means I have available to do so.

[Kaitlyn S]

InTime, on 2016-December-02, 12:07, said:

Dlr:W
Vul:Both
North opens 1♥
The question is do South show his 4-card support immediately with Bergen or any other method you have or bid 1♠?
If you bid 1♠ then you will not be able to persuade partner of your 4-card support and if you show your 4-card support immediately you will loose your 4-4 fit in spades.
Which is the more desirable way to go? I will appreciate any comments with rationale.
Regards

---

While I know that frequently 4-4 fits play better than 5-4 fits, I have a general philosophy of supporting with support. This lets partner make decisions should the auction get highly competitive. (How many trump suits can you have on a hand? Bidding 1S will only help the opening leader when opener doesn't have spades.)

On this hand, hearts makes 12 tricks easily. In spades, you make only 11 tricks. A singleton heart lead forces you to draw 3 trumps (or suffer a heart ruff) and you can only ruff one club in dummy.

While I think South is a tad short of a splinter bid of 4D, there are pairs that play them this weak (a poster yesterday said his splinters were 8-11) and it would be easy to bid slam after a splinter. Some would think the hand was enough because it's 7 losers. However, you have 7 1/2 when adjusting for aces versus queens, and I wouldn't feel comfortable forcing to game with this hand, especially with the garbage that people call opening bids now days.

I would make a limit raise, which means 3H (which I like to have show 4), or if you play Bergen, whichever of 3C or 3D is stronger. If North makes a slam move, South will cooperate but I wouldn't blame North for setting for game.

I'm not sure a 1S response helps. North can splinter in 4C, and South has club wastage and may fear that some of North's strength is in diamonds. If North doesn't play splinters, North will jump to 4S, and now South has a shot to get to slam because he doesn't know his club strength is valueless. However, the chosen slam will almost certainly be 6S unless somehow in the auction North gives South a choice of slams, which is pretty tough since South is the one that knows there is heart support. If North is given a choice of slams, he will likely make the wrong choice, thinking that the singleton diamond and discards on the hearts make spade play better.

I don't have a good way to get to 6H after a limit raise. South's spade fit and singleton diamond are magic, yet any auction where South shows that fit creates a danger of reaching 6S. Expert pairs will probably have a way to reach 6H using relay bids. I don't think I can reach 6H without guessing well.

[mike777]

with an adjusted 7 loser(LTC) hand I prefer the splinter but close to a limit raise I suppose for others. Note the ten of spades and ten of hearts are key cards.

Now north with a 5 loser hand should look for the slam 24-7-5=12 tricks.

[Kaitlyn S]

mike777, on 2016-December-02, 13:21, said:

with an adjusted 7 loser(LTC) hand I prefer the splinter but close to a limit raise I suppose for others. Note the ten of spades and ten of hearts are key cards.

Now north with a 5 loser hand should look for the slam 24-7-5=12 tricks.

Slam makes without either major suit ten. The ♠10 makes it a better slam but the ♥10 makes little difference unless hearts are 4-0. South knows there's a 9-card fit so he should know that the ♥10 is unlikely to be of much use.

[1eyedjack]

I like minisplinters below game.

[Wackojack]

South knows that the singleton diamond makes the hand play at least as well (or better) in a 5-4 heart fit than a 4-4 spade fit. Therefore just make the 4 card raise bid according to your agreements. As it happens a splinter reveals that there are no wasted values and North likely to be encouraged to get to the reasonable slam.

[gszeszycki]

GOOD QUESTION:)

Looking at the nature of your hand can also help determine if playing in a 44 fit might be beneficial vs a 54 fit. There appears to be no plausible benefit so searching for a 44 fit seems like a waste of time. Change your distribution to 4423 or 4432 and there is plausible reason to search for a 44 spade fit. The hand in question should have no worries concentrating solely on hearts as trump with the only problem being how to proceed.

All systems are different so one must choose a tool that fits the overall system and I cannot possibly cater to every conceivable system. Once it has been decided looking for a 44 spade fit offers no likely benefit we need to determine just how strong our hand is vs the opening 1h bid. IMHO I would not stop below game but is it best to just blast or take time to try and show WHY we want to be in game (the 4 card support + short dia)?

I would go for the splinter on the theory that the 5 level "should" be safe if p has an appropriate hand to start searching for slam. I would be even happier if we happened to be playing mini splinters (all NOINT jumps to the 3 level are splinters) because it leaves more space to explore and thus less danger.

After the splinter opener is so strong and hand so perfect opposite our short dia they will be searching for a grand but signing off in 6h when they find we are missing 1 key card. There are other routes to 6 but none as easily clear cut as the splinter route.

IMHO treating this hand as invitational (especially at IMPS) will doom you to a huge disadvantage over your bridge career. If you like to open "garbage" (Kaitlyn S) then be prepared to get overboard sometimes do not sell your side out of games for fear this is one of those stinko openers.

[Kaitlyn S]

gszeszycki, on 2016-December-02, 18:02, said:

IMHO treating this hand as invitational (especially at IMPS) will doom you to a huge disadvantage over your bridge career. If you like to open "garbage" (Kaitlyn S) then be prepared to get overboard sometimes do not sell your side out of games for fear this is one of those stinko openers.

Let's agree to disagree. Nonvulnerable, if I show a limit raise on this hand and partner passes, I'll be happy giving up 6 IMPs to the other table that bids a game to pick up 5IMPs when the game doesn't make. My partner's usually aren't that bashful about accepting a four card limit raise (just about any non-flat hand accepts), so if we play 3H, I'm pretty confident that game is at best 50-50 and could be worse.

Of course if you are vulnerable at IMPs, you get 10 to 6 IMP odds and I would be inclined to bid game. Once I've decided to do that, I bid 4D (splinter) in case partner has the magic hand.

[sfi]

A limit raise on this hand is a huge underbid. Take away partner's AK of spades and you're basically 50% if they don't lead a spade, and that's not all that close to an opening bid.

Sure partner could have something like
Jxx
Kxxxx
KQJx
A

and we go down in game, but you're very likely to have good chances on any hand that doesn't have half the points wasted.

[alok c]

Between 4-4 & 5-4 fits,it is always desirable to go for 5-4 fits particularly when you have ruffing interest in your hand so that you do'nt lose trump control.For the cited hand, imo, it is ideal for splinter but do whatever your partnership agreement dictates.

[msjennifer]

After seeing all 26 cards it is easy to say that "I will splinter a 4D bid".Let alone slam even 4H will go down if partners hand has xxx in spades with either diamond or club Ace to lose.Since the hand lacks at least a King in the remaining two suits we will never make a splinter bid but make a direct limit raise in hearts.One does not know how much value to give to the two Queens.I would not mind if someone suggests a "temporising" response of 1S ,if the partnership knows how to handle the auction afterwards.

[Lovera]

For double jumping bid you must have not more of 8 points in high cards and 5/+ trumps with an unbalanced hand. Here for bidding it you have to consider a plastic valutation so +/-1 card or point then you can apply keycard-Oklahoma for 4♣(=1 keycard) that shows the Ace (partner corrects in 4♥ if not interested).(Lovera)

[msjennifer]

I have serious doubts if anyone ,barring perhaps a handful,has even heard of Oklahoma convention leave alone play it in tournaments.

[PhilG007]

InTime, on 2016-December-02, 12:07, said:

Dlr:W
Vul:Both
North opens 1♥
The question is do South show his 4-card support immediately with Bergen or any other method you have or bid 1♠?
If you bid 1♠ then you will not be able to persuade partner of your 4-card support and if you show your 4-card support immediately you will loose your 4-4 fit in spades.
Which is the more desirable way to go? I will appreciate any comments with rationale.
Regards

---

I would definitely respond 1♠ on the South hand. Partly because it's forcing and I need more info
to decide what the final contract will be. The spade response immediately shows up the double major suit fit
and strengthens North's hand as he can now count an extra 2 points for the club singleton.
A likely auction would be 1♥ 1♠ 3♠ 4♥ (A♥) 5♦(A♦) 6♥

[wank]

literally every good player would show a heart raise in some form. a splinter or a limit raise are both possible.

[Left2Right]

Two points.

Point 1. There's an important and little discussed mathematical reason that one must not extrapolate the 4-4 vs 5-3 preference: For each and every additional card you posses in an auxiliary suit, the chances of an adverse ruff on either the opening lead or second round increase exponentially.

See SuitSplits and scroll down through the fits greater than 7. Keep an eye on the line that shows a void on the right. From .05 to .11 to .24 (rounded), the chances balloon. It really is better to have the fatter suit be trump.

Point 2. If you are a 2/1 player, convention requires you to support on 4 pieces as a priority. When you do not, that wonderful concept called Negative Inference informs partner that you have fewer. This dovetails with the concept of SupportPoints where partner may mis-evaluate his hand when you don't support and could have.

[kenberg]

Perhaps there is no "never' and no "always' in bridge, but "I always show my four card support for a 1M opening" is very close to true. The OP states the basic reason. If I don't do it, partner will never play me for four cards support. He might, along the way, start wondering just what I am doing, but really he won't figure it out.

Now for this hand in particular, looking only at the NS cards, surely I want to be in 6H, not 6S. In 6S, I could (try to) develop two tricks by ruffing clubs, but why would I want to? Diamond ruffs on the board do the trick nicely.

In the general setting, where pard opens 1H and I am 4-4 in the majors. I may not have a stiff but then I have a doubleton. I have a nine card fit in hearts, I have side suit shortness, I think we want to play in hearts.

Would I splinter? Sure, it makes 6. Joking. But I think I might. It's close.

[ggwhiz]

I look at my minor suit holdings to see if 1 pitch on the 5th heart might be an advantage. ie. if I had Ax in one of them playing in the (longshot) 4-4 spade fit could be a homerun and I have no problem catching up to the right # of hearts in my partnership if it isn't there.

Not the case with this hand and in fact, late® spade losers may go away on clubs so I would always support hearts with this one with whatever method you play.

I'm never getting to slam in reality but would bid 3♣ (limit) and if opener happened to choose 3♦ as a help suit game try, intending to bid game regardless we have an outside chance. Probably only get there at the end of a KO match we were behind in.

[1eyedjack]

Left2Right, on 2016-December-03, 10:06, said:

Two points.

Point 1. There's an important and little discussed mathematical reason that one must not extrapolate the 4-4 vs 5-3 preference: For each and every additional card you posses in an auxiliary suit, the chances of an adverse ruff on either the opening lead or second round increase exponentially.

See SuitSplits and scroll down through the fits greater than 7. Keep an eye on the line that shows a void on the right. From .05 to .11 to .24 (rounded), the chances balloon. It really is better to have the fatter suit be trump.

There is at least one reason that this mathematical effect is "little discussed" (if that is really the case). It might have some relevance to choosing between a 4-4 fit and a 5-4 fit (a discussion that is indeed relatively rare, perhaps as befits the frequency of the choice), but in the actual choice highlighted, in both cases you have an 8 card fit and the number of cards held by the opponents in the side suit not chosen for trumps is identical.