[pclayton]

Playing in a KO match, you have a big lead late in the game. Still, you want to do your best:

You look at:

Scoring: IMP

---

Pard opens 1♦, you try 1♥ and pard bids 1♠.

Whats your approach?

[jillybean]

4♣ splinter

[Walddk]

2♣ if that is 4th suit (otherwise 2♦). I need more information with a hand like this. 4♣ splinter will not solve my problem. After 4th suit, I can always set spades later in the auction.

Roland

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

from the given option I would choose 2C (FSF),
intending to support spades later showing
slam interest in spade.

A splinter wont help you a lot, the splinter
just kills space.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[keylime]

I bid fourth suit myself. If pard has something like 4-2-x-x or 4-3-x-x the double fit might have grand wrote all over it.

[Walddk]

Some might even want to bid 5♦, exclusion. I wouldn't risk that with a random pick-up partner, of course, but it can't be natural. 4♦ should not be natural either.

With a limit hand and diamond support, you bid 3♦, and with a GF/slammy hand and diamond support you will go through 4th suit first.

I really want to know how many hearts partner has, so maybe it's not such a bad idea to rebid hearts after 4th suit. A singleton is fine, a void is not so good. The most likely pattern is 4153. 4054 and 4063 also possible but less appealing unless we have an abundance of key cards and high cards.

4252? Sure, he can have that, but we will find out about the hearts if we go through 4th suit, then rebid hearts.

Zia would obviously bid 5♣ (exclusion) over 1♠. Maybe I will try that some day

Roland

[Walddk]

Jlall, on Mar 9 2006, 06:29 PM, said:

I would take a 5D bid as natural. You might have a wildly distributional hand that is not well suited for 4sf because of a severe deficiency in HCP (oh wait...i advocated 4sf on this hand!).

Something like --- KJxxx Kxxxxxx x maybe.

Yeah, the support you come up is better than mine with my 5701 shape. Maybe partner will be a wee bit disappointed with my support when my cards hit the table

I won't be there to see it, of course, because I will ask one of my opponents to table dummy after I leave the room in order to find a bucket

Roland

[mikeh]

4SF: I was confused by the 2♦ suggestion, but if the partnership uses 2♦ as the artificial game force, then go for it.

Any space consuming effort to describe this hand is mis-guided. This hand should assume captaincy and seek information, rather than attempt to give it.

I agree with Justin that 5♦ should be natural, some weird weakish freak with 6+♦. But even if it were, by agreement, exclusion, it would be stupid to use it. What is there about the responses that will tell you what you need to know about the ♥ suit?

Bid 4SF (or your equivalent) and see how partner describes his hand. In all likelihood, we are about to embark upon a slow, informative auction, where I may well be able to accurately set the contract without calling upon that over-used keycard crutch (exclusion or otherwise)

[whereagles]

Jlall, on Mar 9 2006, 03:49 PM, said:

2D. I believe that this hand is impossible to describe, so my goal is going to be to get partner to describe his hand to me as much as possible.

This strategy is good on paper, but the key is to find out where pard has his high cards, and in practice I wonder if that is possible to know without confusing the heck out of partner.

So I guess what I'm saying, is this.. if you feel lucky, go ahead and scentificize with 4SF. Otherwise the practical shot of 6♠ might be a more straightforward and relaxed way to reach what you probably can make.

[Walddk]

whereagles, on Mar 9 2006, 06:56 PM, said:

So I guess what I'm saying, is this.. if you feel lucky, go ahead and scentificize with 4SF. Otherwise the practical shot of 6♠ might be a more straightforward and relaxed way to reach what you probably can make.

I would like to compliment you for your consistency, whereagles. Punting is your kind of game as you clearly stated in another thread.

Fair enough, but is it also bridge? That's a completely different question. You have all the space in the world, and yet you can't find a bid between 1♠ and 6♠. How many cards did they remove from your bidding box?

Silly question, of course. All cards from 1♠ to 6♠.

Roland

[pclayton]

With my regular pard, 5♦ wouldn't be exclusion. We have a lot of exclusion sequences too. 5♦ shows some sort of 4-?-7-? freak that isn't too strong in the way of HCP.

It was late in the match and I was getting a little burnt out, so I settled for a 4♦ splinter and 5♦ over pard's 4♠ signoff. He retreated with 5♠ which I passed. LHO hits it and I fought back the urge to rewind.

Too bad! Pard holds: KQ6x, T, KQT9xx, AJ. In a sense, I think he should take a step over 5♦. While his diamond cards look wasted, he doesn't have a whole lot of losers either.

But lucky for us. His RHO had KQ-5th of hearts. I don't know the rest of the hand, but even 5♠ is pretty touchy. He made it on the nose. The other table blasted to 7♠, which is pretty unlucky. Their auction wasn't a thing of beauty either.

There's a lesson in this hand for everyone. Don't splinter if you can't (or don't want to) control the auction later.

In my other partnership I can bid a nice forcing 3♠. Here, I think a simple 2♣ call gets the job done better. Auction should proceed ...2♣-2♦-2♠-3♦....and we should get to slam.

[whereagles]

Walddk, on Mar 9 2006, 06:17 PM, said:

I would like to compliment you for your consistency, whereagles. Punting is your kind of game as you clearly stated in another thread.

Fair enough, but is it also bridge?

Roland, you disappoint me.

Don't take this personally, but I find this last statement of yours to be the silliest you ever said. Anyone is entitled to play the game the way he likes, provided he's playing fair (e.g. playing to win). Shooting 6♠ certainly is a rational bid, with a clear purpose (bid what you think you can make, avoid confusing partner). People bid the way they want. That is bridge and you have to put up with it, whether you like or not.

And you know what? I am a scientific bidder. I don't like punting if I have the means to find out what pard has. This shouldn't come as a surprise: in real life, I do science for a living.

Besides, you're being very unfair. You cannot infer from what said previously that I would bid 6♠ 100% of the time. What I entitle you to infer is that I would bid 6♠ some of the time.

[whereagles]

Jlall, on Mar 9 2006, 06:21 PM, said:

I will blast most commonly when I think it is our hand in 3 situations...

(...)

3) I don't think we can get any useful information out of partner.

The reason 6♠ might be a good shot is precisely this: I'm not so sure that you can get from pard the info you need.

Perhaps you see more than I, but right now I don't see how I could "lure" pard into telling me what I want. Unless, of course, you agreed to play that cues are always 1st round only. (Does this cuebidding style actually have a name?)