[straube]

In bidding practice (imps) I was dealt x AKQxxxx Jxx xx. Partner opened 1N which is 14-16. I can transfer and rebid 3S to show shortness or Texas the hand to sign off.

[mythdoc]

Your hand provides a whopping 7 tricks opposite pard’s 14-16. I would not sign off without exploring, as it is easy to imagine a slam making. I can understand why you are Considering splintering, it wouldn’t be my choice, but it seems better than simply signing off. I’d also give some thought to a Texas transfer followed by RKCB. I’m not convinced pard can tell me what I need to know after I tell him about my shortness, and I feel it is I who will set the final contract. Some partnerships (mine was one in the old days) drew a distinction between Texas then RKCB vs. a Jacoby transfer followed eventually by RKCB.

[pescetom]

straube, on 2020-January-29, 11:22, said:

In bidding practice (imps) I was dealt x AKQxxxx Jxx xx. Partner opened 1N which is 14-16. I can transfer and rebid 3S to show shortness or Texas the hand to sign off.

I voted for the self-splinter, it's not impossible that slam is on and partner has a right to know about my shortness. But I'm used to a style of splintering which is lighter than many US players expect. It might not be a good idea with GIB which defines this bid as 'slam interest' and is not good at slam bidding anyway.

[FelicityR]

Transfer, splinter, RKCB (if applicable), sign off in 5♥ or bid slam.

There are plenty of hands where there are enough controls in partner's hand to make slam viable. Though it is also possible there are hands where game is the maximum contract. However...

...the lead will be going up to partner's hand and the opponents may gift you a slam contract on a lead plus you have the added bonus of finding a 12th trick (by way of a squeeze) when the opponents squirm on the discards when that ♥ suit is led out.

I realistically say it's not a guarantee to find partner with right cards, but you have all the honours in ♥s so he/she should have a fair amount of honours in the other suits. At worst a slam contract may depend on a finesse, or on a lead that allows you a tempo to develop a side suit for a discard.

I believe with that ♥ suit you need to take control of the auction as opposed to the 1NT bidder. The 1NT opener probably has a small doubleton in ♥s and may not feel entirely comfortable pushing towards slam.

[helene_t]

Does a splinter really help partner evaluate? A good spade suit could be used for club or heart discards. So I think, if I were to invite for slam, I would rather just bid 2♦ followed by 4♥. But I am happy to know why I am wrong.

[apollo1201]

AKQ + AK in the minors make the perfect 16 you need. Or some luck, or an unfortunate lead could bring 12 tricks if just C AQ or SA and CK.

As soon as partner has wasted points, slam is clearly out of the picture.

That is almost exactly the meaning of a splinter.

However, the splinter would usually promises a little more cooperation in the other suits. I am not sure the 7th H fully compensated the lack of strength: apart S, all suits are wide open and you need opener to cover it all.

So it makes a very narrow target to reach. And opener will be hard to stop if they like their hand. Their H support is probably poor (Jxx at best?) anyway so they might just not like their hand too much anyway...

Self splinter therefore risks going down in 5 or 6, or helping the lead more often than finding a decent slam. On a normal tourney, I’d probably just transfer to game. Led in a KO IMP match or in need of a MP swing, yes.

[akwoo]

helene_t, on 2020-January-29, 16:37, said:

Does a splinter really help partner evaluate? A good spade suit could be used for club or heart discards. So I think, if I were to invite for slam, I would rather just bid 2♦ followed by 4♥. But I am happy to know why I am wrong.

I can't picture at 14-16 hcp hand with spade honors missing the ace that makes slam double dummy.

[mythdoc]

The preceding comments underline what I was getting at above, expressing doubt about the splinter bid. Frankly, I’m not crazy about that being one of the two choices in the poll. It is responder’s (my) job to place this contract. I know much more about opener’s hand. Opener especially has no idea I have a solid seven card running heart suit, so my telling him/her about my shortness is leaking information in the wrong direction, to no real purpose. One of the tenets of a good bridge partnership is each partner knows when it is their call to make. It’s clearly mine on this hand. Therefore, signing off in 4♥ at least fulfills my role. My other option, I think, is to ask aces and place the contract in 5 or 6 ♥. You said this is IMPS so I am likely to do the latter.

[nige1]

straube "In bidding practice (imps) I was dealt ..."
+++++++++++++++++

Slam prospects are slim but I still agree with straube's transfer + splinter (as on the left). to help partner to evaluate his hand ...
If partner .bids 3N/4♥ then pass. If he bids 4♣/♦, then bid 4♥ to show mild slam interest. If partner holds ...
- ♠ K Q J ♥ J x x ♦ K Q x ♣ Q J x x, Partner might try 3N.
- ♠ K Q x x ♥ x x x ♦ A K x ♣ Q x x, Partner should sign off in 3N or, better, 4♥.
- ♠ J x x ♥ x x ♦ A Q x ♣ A K J x x, We might reach a marginal 6♥.
- ♠ Q x x ♥ x x ♦ A K Q x x ♣ A x x, We might reach an excellent 6♥.

---

.

[KingCovert]

Your partner has to pick up 5 of your 6 losers in a side suit, and can't lose more than 1 trick? So, after you've self-splintered and marked a trump lead. Now what? This just seems a bit too optimistic, although, I appreciate that this is a really nice hand. I think 2♦ and then 4♥ as Helene says is best, it's a mild slam try. Partner will know when they're looking at a hand that should explore further.

[cherdano]

helene_t, on 2020-January-29, 16:37, said:

Does a splinter really help partner evaluate? A good spade suit could be used for club or heart discards. So I think, if I were to invite for slam, I would rather just bid 2♦ followed by 4♥. But I am happy to know why I am wrong.

A good spade suit, a diamond control and a club control, all that with just 16 hcp? Sounds like a recipe for a slam on a finesse opposite AKQx xxx Axxx Kx, and worse when partner also likes his hand with just slighty worse cards (AKJx Jxx in the majors)?

Yes, ♠AKQ are decent cards here, but they are not as good as ♦AKQ and we do need a perfect match here.

Splinter seems aggressive (xxxx Jxx AKx AKx will look like perfect cards to partner) but perhaps just about justifiable. Bidding RCKB if partner cues over our splinter, or any other slam try, seems madness. If you splinter, shut up unless partner drives to slam, and prepare to apologise if they do drive to slam and it goes down.

[KingCovert]

I suppose it does need to be said. This is a false dilemma. Considering there are more than two choices. Most decent players are going to choose sequences that cater to slams, so, when you present self-splinter or sign off via a Texas transfer as the only optins.... Shockingly, the answers say self-splinter.

[straube]

KingCovert, on 2020-January-29, 21:10, said:

I suppose it does need to be said. This is a false dilemma. Considering there are more than two choices. Most decent players are going to choose sequences that cater to slams, so, when you present self-splinter or sign off via a Texas transfer as the only optins.... Shockingly, the answers say self-splinter.

I have to check with partner but I thought we were playing 1N-2D, 2H-4H as a mild try with diamond shortness....this because 1N-2D, 2H-4D leaves no room for opener to show interest without committing to the 5-level. We have elsewhere a sequence ending at 3S which announces a balanced hand slam try, and this leaves more room to sort stuff out.

Anyway, I didn't want to complicate the poll with a bunch of system stuff (I could point out that our NT denies 11 QPs as well). I basically just wanted to know whether this hand makes a slam try or not. I did splinter in practice and have been second-guessing myself. I've used the rule of thumb that a fair 13 pt 6331 makes a try. Is this hand worth that? I thought so.

The basic question is do we make a try or not? Transfer and RKC seems out there for me. I need more than aces.

I can certainly construct a number of hands where slam is a lock or has play. My concern is that partner would look for slam on others that look promising but have no play. The AK club and AK diamond being one such hand.

Thanks for all the replies so far. I'm glad there was some division in replies.

[DozyDom]

akwoo, on 2020-January-29, 17:22, said:

I can't picture at 14-16 hcp hand with spade honors missing the ace that makes slam double dummy.

KJS, AQT9D, AC gives you enough honour structure for a 50% slam, and that's a place we want to be, right? That's 14 points - a minimum, or thereabouts - with 4 full points wasted in spades. I don't think we ever play in slam opposite that hand no matter how we bid it, though.

But I think akwoo's dead on - the splinter is the way to get to a coherent slam, for sure. I don't get why people think texas and then blackwood is even close to a realistic option compared to the splinter; it deserves to find P with either AQJx xx Txxx AKj or xxx xx akqx AKx; both give the same response, but one goes down in 5 while the other makes 6. Maybe it even deserves to find P with something like AQx xxxx AQ QJxx, and P decides to helpfully show trump queen with a 10+ card fit.

[dsLawsd]

I might bid Gerber (an Ace Ask alone) then decide what next.
Alternate would be to transfer, then bid 4 showing a mild slam try.
3rd choice bid 4NT slam invite and let partner decide if max.
Desperate for a swing just bid 6?
Fun hand.

[gwnn]

cherdano, on 2020-January-29, 19:11, said:

Bidding RCKB if partner cues over our splinter, or any other slam try, seems madness. If you splinter, shut up unless partner drives to slam, and prepare to apologise if they do drive to slam and it goes down.

I agree except that I don't apologise if I make a judgement call and it turns out wrong on the hand. I think my hand is worth a self-splinter although obviously it's a minimum. I won't apologise for having a minimum, or what I considered to be a minimum at the time. I would apologise if my partner had told me at some point "please don't ever make a slam try unless you mean it" and I said "got it, I won't" since that's more like breaking a promise/ignoring my partner's preference.

(I guess this is off-topic, sorry.)

[Zelandakh]

My inclination is to say "play a better system" but I know Baze is popular in the States. If you could set trumps at the 3 level and start with asking bids you could find out about partner's controls. If partner has controls in both minors and not spades then investigating slam at the 5 level is probably justified; if either minor is open or if partner holds a spade control then we can just play 4♥. Sometimes simple bidding is also good bidding. An example auction where partner has a perfecto:-

1NT
... - 2♦
2♥
... - 2♠ = invite with 5 hearts; or 4+ clubs; or 1-suited with SI
3♦ = max with 3 hearts
... - 3♥ = agrees hearts, SI
3N = accept slam try, no spade control
... - 4♣ = club control?
5♣ = controls in both minors, 2 or 5 key cards without ♥Q
... - 6♥

The beauty of an auction like this is that we can fine-tune it as desired. If we think partner being min/max, or having 2/3 hearts, or slam-suitable vs not is a critical factor then we can break off investigations and sign off. While still not perfect, this is imho just far more accurate than starting the auction at the 4 level.

[gwnn]

Zel, why is that better than asking partner what their opinion is? You can ask your partner anything you want but can you ask them "do you have a lot of spade wastage?"

A spade control could be KQJx or Axxx or AQJx or ... No spade control could be xxxx or QJxx.

If partner has no idea what we have, they can't meaningfully cooperate with our slam invitation.

[Zelandakh]

I agree wholeheartedly that it is not perfect and some hands are going to lead to the wrong answer, but I feel quite strongly that in this case the control approach combined with the rest of the questions being laid down will lead to the right answer more often than the pure splinter. I have both available in my preferred NT structure and I consider it a fatal flaw in Baze that it does not, notwithstanding its popularity.

[foobar]

straube, on 2020-January-29, 11:22, said:

In bidding practice (imps) I was dealt x AKQxxxx Jxx xx. Partner opened 1N which is 14-16. I can transfer and rebid 3S to show shortness or Texas the hand to sign off.

Seems like a different way of looking it is in terms of loser count and QPs. Given the constraint of a max of 10 QPs (A=3, K=2, Q=1), there's a maximum of 16 QPs between the two hands, which means that could be missing two Aces and a King.

It seems like a partner will expect at least a K outside the actual holding based in case of a splinter. Note that a ♠ void might be make a more compelling argument for a splinter.