[han]

Since Free is allowed to ban certain conventions from his threads, perhaps I should be allowed to ban certain formulas from my judgement questions? If so, I'd like to start with LTC and whcp . Notice that Mikeh's example hand gives you play for a grand opposite as little as Kxxx AQx xx Axxx (you need spades to split 2-2).

btw, I enjoy the fact that Mikeh has given himself the task of defending my (our?) bid from the populistic result merchants. Saves me some work.

[han]

Ben, of course it is much easier to do well in slam bidding when you have detailed agreements available. Comparing it with a pick-up partnership is not quite fair. As much as I enjoy playing with you, it is very interesting to play with someone who has a very different bidding ideas, and I don't feel sad about missing this slam. (I know, you were kidding)

I certainly think that the splinter is (at least) reasonable.

[mike777]

Hannie, on Oct 3 2005, 04:23 PM, said:

Since Free is allowed to ban certain conventions from his threads, perhaps I should be allowed to ban certain formulas from my judgement questions? If so, I'd like to start with LTC and whcp . Notice that Mikeh's example hand gives you play for a grand opposite as little as Kxxx AQx xx Axxx (you need spades to split 2-2).

btw, I enjoy the fact that Mikeh has given himself the task of defending my (our?) bid from the populistic result merchants. Saves me some work.

Opener cannot have this hand they opened 1D so this would be a funny hand across from MikeH responder hand..

With actual responder hand LTC would rkc at a minimum and force to slam no matter what if they splinter and p signs off or whatever. 24-7-4.5=more than enough.

[inquiry]

Jlall, on Oct 3 2005, 05:23 PM, said:

mikeh, on Oct 3 2005, 03:19 PM, said:

is possible that the 4♣ call was misguided? It looks 'obvious'

Usually when a bid looks obvious, that's because it is

If I can't splinter with this hand I'm not sure what I can splinter with.

The reason why you might want to splinter with this hand is your partner, with a balanced yuck and wasted stuff in ♣ mgiht not cue-bid, as roughly half the people in this thread choose to do. Even those of us choosing 4♠ were aware of the danger if partner had a hand just neading to hear a ♥ cue-bid from us.

But this is only because this was a random partner. Because herein is the problem: What you need? A ♥ cue-bid, and the splinter might not get that even when it exist. 4♣ to me is we might have slam if among your 12 to 14/15 points you don't have much wastage in clubs. If all I need for slam is specific cue-bid from you then I can blackwood, I would NOT SPLINTER... A splinter eats us an entire level of bidding, and tell the wrong story. So I go slow, clearly making a slam try and clearly asking for cue-bidding. The meaning is clear, distinct. I have to use a gadget to investigate slam. (for me the nice 3♦ bid suggested by mikeh is not possible as I play that as non-forcing, but encouraging), so I use Fluffy's favorite bid... 2NT forcing.... But the premise is exactly the same as Mike's, I am going to construct an auction to force partner to show me if he has a ♥ control or not. Mike's natural auction serves exactly the same function.

Ben

[inquiry]

Well, for the record.. this had was not the one with "balanced yuck" clearly, that part was a hypothetical... not the current hand.

[Trpltrbl]

I am back !!
And I am very sad to see that there are very few that choose to show their shape.
You have no rebid problems after any of pd's rebids and all possibilities to find a minorsuit slam.
I know that most don't really care about minorsuits anymore but this is what I call a prime hand, A, AK, and Q in pd's first bid suit.
How much better can it get for a minimum hand ?
So therefore I have decided to come back and help some of you misguided people to come back to see the light.
If you need to lie, make the least lie, but there is no reason to lie here.
I have posted this also on 2 European forums and so far only 1 vote for 1♠.
Everyone else bids the "normal" ( I guess in the rest of the world ) 2♣.

GBB

[inquiry]

Trpltrbl, on Oct 4 2005, 10:03 PM, said:

I am back !!
And I am very sad to see that there are very few that choose to show their shape.
You have no rebid problems after any of pd's rebids and all possibilities to find a minorsuit slam.
I know that most don't really care about minorsuits anymore but this is what I call a prime hand, A, AK, and Q in pd's first bid suit.
How much better can it get for a minimum hand ?
So therefore I have decided to come back and help some of you misguided people to come back to see the light.
If you need to lie, make the least lie, but there is no reason to lie here.
I have posted this also on 2 European forums and so far only 1 vote for 1♠.
Everyone else bids the "normal" ( I guess in the rest of the world ) 2♣.

GBB 

Your back? How long you been gone?

Anyway, I can suspect why no one voted to 1♠... it seems to be insufficient. 2♠ is clearly better than 2♣.

Oh, and welcome back.

[Trpltrbl]

inquiry, on Oct 4 2005, 10:12 PM, said:

Your back? How long you been gone?

Anyway, I can suspect why no one voted to 1♠... it seems to be insufficient. 2♠ is clearly better than 2♣.

Oh, and welcome back.

Almost 2 years but you already knew that
You might think it is clearly better, but I think it is going to be in the ACBL bridgemagazine forum and on another bridgewebsite bidding forum and in IMP, the leading Dutch bridgemagazine.
And then we'll see what the "real" experts say and think.

GBB

[han]

Mike's claims that the "real experts" would bid 2C made me investigate this hand myself. I've seen one of the forums where Mike posted the hand. Unfortunately the forum is in Dutch, but it is easy to see that the level of this forum is very low, much lower than the level of the BBO forum. Perhaps Mike could post a link here so that at least the Dutch speaking members here can see how to interpret the claims Mike makes.

I posted the hand on a Dutch forum myself:

http://www.12forum.nl/forum/bericht.php?ID...&tID=1459&fID=2

So far 3 players from the highest Dutch league have reacted, and all three of them said that 2S is normal, the hand is not good enough for 2K followed by 2S. All the others (who do not play in the highest Dutch league) say they would bid 2K. Draw your own conclusions.

[Codo]

Hi I am back too :-)

And I am with Trpltrbl, that there is no need to show the Spade support now, so I disagree with 2 Spade. Making the hand 3163 and it is more often a 2 Spade bid then 2 Diamond, but this time, I see no advantages for the quick raise. Espacially not while playing with a "fairly unknown partner", who is not able to find out about the structure of my hand.

Butwith 4 Spade, I dsagree even more.
With my 2 Spade rebid, I have limited my hand to something like 12-14 HCPs. Now, I look at 13 working points, which is much more then pd can expect. So 4 Heart is clear cut and even a blast to 6 Spade should work better then 4 Spade after the given bidding.

[Walddk]

Again, it depends on where in the world you are. Players in France and Poland would never rebid 2♠, since that would promise 4-card support. I think 2♠ is clearcut today, but I admit that I rebid 2♣ years ago until someone convinced me that 2♠ is better, because you are not good enough to bid 2♠ over partner's preference to 2♦.

If you support with only 3 frequently, I suggest that you add a relay, e.g. 2♠ over a heart raise, 2NT over a spade raise.

On this auction, responder has guaranteed 5+ spades, since he didn't ask if I had 3 or 4-card support. I have nothing to be ashamed of and will co-operate with 4♥.

Roland

[Chamaco]

Jlall, on Oct 3 2005, 09:23 PM, said:

mikeh, on Oct 3 2005, 03:19 PM, said:

is possible that the 4♣ call was misguided? It looks 'obvious'

Usually when a bid looks obvious, that's because it is

If I can't splinter with this hand I'm not sure what I can splinter with.

I always thought that the splinter could be played in 2 totally different ways:

a. "LIMITED splinter": the splinter promises shortness + support and a forward going hand, but pard is allowed to signoff if he has wasted values.

in other words, if the partner of the "splinterer" cuebids, he has real willingness to go to slam, and he is not cuebidding "just in case".
If he has wasted values, he shall signoff despite having one or more cues.


b. unlimited splinter: the splinter shows *at least* gamegoing values, but could be stronger.
In this case, the cuebid by his partner is much less clear: should he cue anything even with a bad hand or should he be allowed to signoff if holds wasted values ?

Unfortunately, most splinters bypass the "serious 3NT" and leave no room for LTTC, so it's hard to discriminate.

================================

I prefer the option a (limited splinters): using this agreement means that some hands are too good to splinter, and IMO the hand shown in this thread was too good to splinter, and should have rather started with a 2NT relay, if available, or with a Game Try (if the relay was not available). After the game try, if responder continues to probe for slam, opener will understand pard has a great hand, and will feel free to cue.

Of course, choosing to use "limited " splinters, means we'll use them much more rarely, but they'll be better defined.

Tradeoffs, as usual :-)