[pclayton]

Scoring: MP

---

We generated the following auction against John Kranyak and Ron Smith:

1♠ ......2N
3♣......3♦
4♣......4♥
4N.........5♥...(double)
6N.....All Pass

1. 1♠; 2/1 and 5 card majors
2. 2N is regular Jacoby
3. 3♣ = shortness
4. 3♦ = cue: Ace or King
5. 4♣ = void (or stiff Ace)
6. 4♥ = cue: Ace or King
7. 4N = RKCB
8. 5♥ = 2 without TQ

6N is down 5. 6♠ makes with the ♣K onside.

Assign the blame please and what is the worst call?

[hrothgar]

pclayton, on Apr 4 2006, 01:15 AM, said:

Scoring: MP

---

We generated the following auction against John Kranyak and Ron Smith:

1♠ ......2N
3♣......3♦
4♣......4♥
4N.........5♥...(double)
6N.....All Pass

1. 1♠; 2/1 and 5 card majors
2. 2N is regular Jacoby
3. 3♣ = shortness
4. 3♦ = cue: Ace or King
5. 4♣ = void (or stiff Ace)
6. 4♥ = cue: Ace or King
7. 4N = RKCB
8. 5♥ = 2 without TQ

6N is down 5. 6♠ makes with the ♣K onside.

Assign the blame please and what is the worst call?

Split score from me...

East shows a top honor when, in fact, he holds a distribution control.
With this said and done, the decision to jump to 6N seems rather unilateral...

[mike777]

Great hand to post I will leave to others how to access the blame but in general disagree with all this cuebidding and could only suggest you take a look at this issue.

I stopped playing reg Jacoby but If I remember the responses I prefer 3s and not 3c. For me I would rebid 3s not 3clubs showing extra but denying a second suit or shortness. I do not know what partner will bid over 3s now but I think partner is captain on the hand and in charge and will just follow her lead.

It would be nice if partner can bid "serious 3nt" over 3s so I can bid 4c but not sure if that is an option.

[jdonn]

Do the cuebids have to be A or K as you said or can they be shortness? East has no other bid with short hearts on a hand that isn't worth taking control with keycard, so playing this agreement would make it really difficult to diagnose controls. In any case if that's the agreement East has to get some blame, but I'm going to refuse to accept that agreement and give west all the blame. 6NT was absurd, and in fact 4NT itself was a huge overbid. Change easts stiff heart queen to the ace and 6NT still has no play. And why shouldn't east have AJTxx Ax Axx Qxx where no slam has play? But at least 4NT was an understandable overbid, 6NT was the height of greed.

[joshs]

pclayton, on Apr 3 2006, 05:15 PM, said:

Dealer: West Vul: Both Scoring: MP

♠ KQ9854 ♥ 862 ♦ K53 ♣ A ♠ AJT76 ♥ Q ♦ A982 ♣ QJ5

We generated the following auction against John Kranyak and Ron Smith:

1♠ ......2N
3♣......3♦
4♣......4♥
4N.........5♥...(double)
6N.....All Pass

1. 1♠; 2/1 and 5 card majors
2. 2N is regular Jacoby
3. 3♣ = shortness
4. 3♦ = cue: Ace or King
5. 4♣ = void (or stiff Ace)
6. 4♥ = cue: Ace or King
7. 4N = RKCB
8. 5♥ = 2 without TQ

6N is down 5. 6♠ makes with the ♣K onside.

Assign the blame please and what is the worst call?

The worst call was 3D, by far.

If responder felt he was too good to splinter, but not strong enough to take over, he should have clarified his hand type with a 4H splinter at his second bid. The direct 4H spinter has to be a tight range, since there is no room between 4H and 4S, so I actually think 2N was a good start. But he was given the chance to show what he had and didn't...

The 4N bid on the auction was a slight over bid (5D seems right), and 6N was an attempt to protect Kx of hearts from attack, not realizing that partner might have a singleton.

[cherdano]

As always, easy to agree with Josh. I think 4♠ over 4♥ is just fine, partner can still move. After 5HX, it seems tempting to protect partner's heart stopper with 6N, but partner knows better than we do whether he has Ax or Kx, nothing wrong with leaving the decision to him.

Arend

[Echognome]

I give West 100% of the blame, unless you can convince me that East's diamond cue always shows the A in your system. Otherwise, East has made a raise of spades and is trying for slam in spades.

[kenrexford]

West is 100% to blame for the contract.

That being said, East should be allowed, in my opinion, to cuebid a stiff heart. However, this is not the right hand for that cuebid after a non-serious (I assume) 4C cuebid. However, when 6S happens to make, East's calls did nothing to suggest the 6NT strain and therefore has no responsibility for the zero. I'd venture that East's insanity gained a top, thrown back to a zero by West.

Further ignorance is shown by the 6NT call after the double of 5H. Sure, 6NT might protect the lead. But why force this slam when a nice forcing double would work. I can understand a brutally aggressive pass-then-5NT as a choice call, if that can happen, but a unilateral 6NT is obscure.

[hatchett]

I have to give west a large slice of the blame for the greedy 6NT call. The auction rather took off on its own without either hand having a solid idea how strong their partner's hand was. I think it is much better for opener to show how strong he is as well as his shape, so that at least one hand in the partnership has an idea of the likely level. I think Mike's idea of bidding 3♠ has a lot of merit, i hate splintering stiff A.

[whereagles]

The presented cue-bidding session seemed quite aimless to me, so I'm not amazed by what happened. I guess I'd blame the system.

[hotShot]

100% blame for west.
After agreeing to play ♠, he has to bid 6♠. The only reason to enter a cuebid sequence is to investigate distribution. So any cuebid given here might also be given with shortness.
I might be willing to reduce the blame to 80%, because east should downgrade his hand after the 3/4♣ bid. East should have tried to stop in 4♠, but with the stiff ♥ and 5 trumps there is still a chance sto make slam, with a ruffing finesse and a crossruff.

[Fluffy]

I wanna balme East for forgetting the system on first bid, but still 6N was a gamble that might be off 1 ace and ♣K. Sure you don't want the lead through. But still 6N is probably worse than 6♠.

All in all I voted too quick for 20% west, I think he only gets 10%.

[Gerben42]

The system is partially at fault. If you can't cuebid a ♥ shortness partner will be afraid you have xx.

[cherdano]

Now that I think more about it, I don't think it is so bad that 4H should show an honor, since 1. West likely has length in the suit, and 2. East is unlikely to be short, as he did not splinter.

Anyway, maybe the root of the problem is that you have not really discussed how to show extras after Jacoby 2N?

Arend

[whereagles]

cherdano, on Apr 4 2006, 12:05 PM, said:

Anyway, maybe the root of the problem is that you have not really discussed how to show extras after Jacoby 2N?

Bingo.

[Al_U_Card]

West is 0% to blame. EAST should SPLINTER in H, as Jacoby is used as a BALANCED forcing raise. Once the H splinter is used, the auction is trivial and the right contract will be reached.

[mcphee]

The 6NT bidder lost their marbles twice, 4NT after the H cue bid and then 6N. While a secondary splinter may have helped as suggested from joshs.

[mikeh]

West 100%

Both E and W were a tad aggressive up until and including 4♥, but the partnership was not getting out of its depth until West committed a bad bid followed by a desperate move.

I like the 2N response: splinters into the suit below trump are very awkward, especially when responder knows that opener may not be happy about his trump holding: 4♥ forces opener to decide NOW whether to venture beyond game with little information.

3♣ is okay

3♦ is slightly aggressive but reasonable since it uses minimal space and partner is unlimited.

4♣ seems clear

4♥: so long as the partnership understands that cue-bidding in these sequences aims for the suit slam, it is aggressive but okay. If the partnership never cues shortness (I know of NO good players who do not cue shortness in suit slam investigations), then it is an error: but that seems absurd to me.

So far we have several close calls, but I assign no blame to them because, after all, they ought to have led to a 50% slam: one that makes.

4N is silly, and a sign of the incredible hold that Keycard has over the bulk of the bridge playing population. The answers will almost always be of no assistance to west.

I would have bid 4♠: having bid 4♣, I have already shown some mild interest, and that is all I have. If partner has what we need, he will usually go on.

If I were not to bid 4♠, then what on earth is wrong with 5♦??

The 4N bid end played west: now he was convinced (for no real reason) that east held the ♥K. What West overlooked was that even if he did, where were 12 tricks coming from?

So the 6N was an act of desperation precipitated by a silly use of keycard. All the other choices to that point were okay, altho too aggressive for my liking.

West made one egregious error and one unthinking further error caused by the outcome of the first error and so gets 100% of the blame

[jdonn]

Al_U_Card, on Apr 4 2006, 08:14 AM, said:

West is 0% to blame. EAST should SPLINTER in H, as Jacoby is used as a BALANCED forcing raise.

That is simply an untrue statement. There is no other way to put it. Jacoby does not deny shortness and it never has. Splinters can't have a 12-18 range or whatever you would have it be. And besides, wouldn't west want to keep bidding over a splinter? Why couldn't the queen of clubs have been in diamonds?

[pclayton]

I held the KQxxxx, xx, Kxxx, A hand. I suppose I could bid 4♠ over 4♥, but I have great trumps. Should pard have to take over with his balanced 14 and Axxx trump? I think not.

I'm fine with 2N. it doesn't deny a stiff in out agreements, but if it has one, it has at least a King extra.

If Brian splinters over 1♠, I'm not sure I'm making a slam try. He thought he should have splintered over 3♦; that would have made things a lot simpler. I wouldn't have considered anything but 6♠ after the splinter.

I never considered that he would have cue bid a stiff. I don't agree with the statements here about never cue bidding stiffs; Fred doesn't in his partnership with Brad, and neither do we. 4♥ was a violation of our agreements.

Maybe I took a view with 6N, but it seemed indicated with a possible (likely?) Axxx, Kxx, Kx, KQJx across the table. When 5♥ is doubled, I have a real problem. I recognize that pard could have the major A-K's reversed, and if thats the case, we have a real problem at any level. At the time, I really struggled after the double and it seemed necessary to protect pard's guarded ♥K. Of course, pard is in a better position to analyze this, but I'm in control of the auction.

Here's the real issue. The keycard bidder is in control of the auction. When 5♥ is doubled, does pass (or redouble) transfer control to responder? I think it should. But how?

It seems we need a way to invite 6N after the double. I'm curious about others ideas on captaincy as it relates to these key card sequences.