[Winstonm]

Scoring: IMP

Most biddable minimum high card slams occur when a double fit produces 10 or more tricks in the two suits. The hard part is untangling this message and letting partner know your slam interest without seeming to hold excessive high cards. The key it would seem is the quality of parnter's suit, so partner and I developed a concept we call "sniffer bid" slam tries. The sniffer bid is basically a secondary support showing bid of partner's suit that asks two specific questions: Does my "filler" card give us good prospects of 5 or more tricks in your suit? If so, I have slam interest - how about you? The "sniffer bid" came up last night with the above hand in this auction:
1S-2C
2H-3S
4C-4H
5D-6S

A secondary concept is that a double jump into partern's suit shows "a holding that virtually guarantees solidity" if the suit is of moderate texture and length: KQx, QJx, KJx all would qualify for jumps in the auction: 1S-2C-2H-2S-4C.

Cue bidding with only the A or K seems too narrow of approach to consistently reach these tricky (12 of them) slams.

Comments?

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[mike777]

Miles in his new book as well as many other authors for years have been advocating this type of jump bidding to show this hand type.

On this hand and most of these hand types seems 1s=2nt gets you there quite easily. Even after 1s=2c=2h=2s. If your system thinks this is a hard slam to bid, DROP YOUR SYSTEM.

I am more than ready to concede relay systems will bid grand slams with more confidence than most systems but come on ..this is an easy one.

BtW who the heck advocates cuebidding ONLY be aces or kings? This seems to be a straw man. Big difference between cuebidding being first round controls very very often and Italian style cuebidding.

[Winstonm]

I concede this hand was not particularly hard due to the sixth club - but what if partner instead had held:

A10xx
x
Jxx
AKJxx

I see many examples of slams using Jacoby 2N or splinters when holding good and long suits and to my way of pondering - how many times in the postmortem do we hear: "What else could I have had?" - this is making bidding more work than it needs to be. Instead of making partner eliminate all possible holdings for the bid, why not make life easier and tell him the key issue of your hand?

To my mind, forcing raises fall into 3 categories: 1) holding an outside source of tricks: 2) With strong ruffing potential. 3) With balanced HCP.

Each type is bid a different way - lets partner in on the secret instead of taking control - which to me is the essence of good bidding. I don't have much use for the captaincy concept. Therefore, in my methods these hand patterns are treated with different bids:

xxxx, x, xxx, xxxxx Bid the decent to good 5 card suit.
xxxx, x, xxxx, xxxx Splinter with a singleton and without a decent to good 5 card suit.
xxxx, xx, xxx, xxxx Jacoby with a balanced hand.

To me it is just common sense. How can partner evaluate his Qxx of clubs unless you bid clubs? I believe this boils down to theory - exclusion bids ask/show about 2 suits; direct bids emphasize a single suit.

If I splinter (Exclude) with:
Kxxx
x
AKxx
AKxx

Partner has reason to reevaluate 2 suits:
AQxxx
xxx
QJ
QJx

But if I splinter with:
KQxx.
J,
xx
AKJxxx

I have misled about the nature of my hand and partner cannot evaluate his hand properly. Worse still is if I Jacoby and hear 4S from partner on Axxxx, Axx, Kxx, Qxx.

But then I do not claim to be a superstar or anywhere close: so take or leave whatever you wish - it's dispassionate discussion instead of defensive posturing that leads to truth. But then, I'm simple minded.

Winston

[mike777]

Whether to splinter, 2nt, or bid clubs is a great issue to discuss. Great hand examples thanks.

Just using LTC and FTL can help in many, not all, cases for us intermediate level players.

1) ATXX=X=JXX=AKJXX.

I splinter showing stiff H and around 7 LTC. This hand is 6.5 LTC.
Partner using FTL comes up with 13-1+0=12 =make slam try.
13=total tricks, -1=combined 2 shortest suits, 19-21 estimated whcp=0

2) KQxx=J=XX=AKJxxx=4.5 to 5 LTC hand
Axxxx=Axx=Kxx=Qx

Again this hand is too strong to splinter over one spade opening.
1s=2nt=4s=4nt We assume opening hand is 7 LTC and we are 4.5-5 LTC so we make slam try again..I grant you this opening hand is 8 LTC hand.
Using FTL we have 13-3+2
13=total tricks, -3=two shortest suits, 25 estimated whcp =plus 2.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on Sep 11 2005, 03:16 PM, said:

Whether to splinter, 2nt, or bid clubs is a great issue to discuss. Great hand  examples thanks.

Just using LTC and FTL can help in many, not all, cases for us intermediate level players.

1) ATXX=X=JXX=AKJXX.

I splinter showing stiff H and around 7 LTC. This hand is 6.5 LTC.
Partner using FTL comes up with 13-1+0=12 =make slam try.
13=total tricks, -1=combined 2 shortest suits, 19-21 estimated whcp=0

2) KQxx=J=XX=AKJxxx=4.5 to 5  LTC hand
    Axxxx=Axx=Kxx=Qx

Again this hand is too strong to splinter over one spade opening.
1s=2nt=4s=4nt We assume opening hand is 7 LTC and we are 4.5-5 LTC so we make slam try again..I grant you this opening hand is 8 LTC hand.
Using FTL we have 13-3+2
13=total tricks, -3=two shortest suits, 25 estimated whcp =plus 2.

Mike,

I've read many of your posts and consider you well above intermediate in the thinking department.

I do think the "exclusion" concept of short suit bids is not well understood. This also applies in game tries. Suppose you held:

AQxxxx
x,
AJxx
Ax

You open 1S and partner bids 2S. I realize that LTC suggests that 4S should be on, but can't we get more accurate than that with game tries? If partner holds as little as Kxx, xxxx, K109, xxx then game is a good bet, but with xxx, Axxx, Qxx, Qxx we don't have anything to write home about.

The key issue here is that there could be 10 tricks available in only 2 suits due to the lengths held - 7/3, 6/4, 55 hand patterns have this built in edge. So to my thinking, game tries here are of the 1-suited variety. I play 2-way game tries so I get to chose. Some don't have that available. But my take on this hand is what you want to find out is about diamonds specifically - club cards may or may not be useful but even Q109 of diamonds is a big help. So even though this may qualify as a short suit game try, that is an inferior bid IMO.

If I held:
AKxxx
x
AJxx
KJx

This would be short suit - excluding hearts, cards in any other 2 suits rise in value. Now partner can take his Qxx, xxxx, Q10x, Qxx and at least think about game if not bid it (after all, this is help in all 3 excluded suits). With Qxx, xxxx, Kxx, Qxx partner should really bid game, I believe. Notice here the 5/4 hand pattern does not yield 10 tricks in 2 suits - it takes more, hence the ask has to be for more - 2 or 3 suits instead of a single suit.

IMO this same structure is extended from game into slam bidding as well, but with slam bidding the 10-trick concept applies to a combination of opener's hand and responder's suit - with less than 10 tricks in 2 suits it takes more - back to the exclusion priciple.

For what it is worth.

Winston

[mike777]

Very interesting topic.
I am biased towards using the captaincy principle but I understand you do not have much use for that principle.

For me I see this as:
1) Do I want to show my 4 card support, shortness and limit my hand on example one? Do I let partner assume captaincy, or do I want to bid where my HCP and length are?

2) On example two do I want to bid 2nt, assume captaincy and just have partner describe their hand to me while telling them nothing about mine? Or again do I want to tell partner where my hcp and length are?

Just saying bridge is a partnership game and we should just tell each other as much as possible does not help explain much.

I think all of these are very important issues and throwing light on these sometimes conflicting goals and setting priorities would be helpful.