[Echognome]

Scoring: IMP

1♥ - (2♣) - 4♣ - (P)
4♥ - (P) - 4♠ - (P)
5♣ - (P) - 5♦ - (P)
?

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After opening a heart (limited from 11-15), LHO overcalls and partner makes a splinter. With your 5422 shape, minimum opening and club length, you sign off in 4♥. But partner tries again with 4♠.

1) Do you agree with 5♣?

2) What do you bid now?

3) Ok, I'm going to force you to bid 6♥, just to see how you would play it.

The NS hands are:

Scoring: IMP

Lead: ♠9

---

[joshs]

Echognome, on Apr 10 2006, 05:02 PM, said:

Scoring: IMP

1♥ - (2♣) - 4♣ - (P)
4♥ - (P) - 4♠ - (P)
5♣ - (P) - 5♦ - (P)
?

---

After opening a heart (limited from 11-15), LHO overcalls and partner makes a splinter. With your 5422 shape, minimum opening and club length, you sign off in 4♥. But partner tries again with 4♠.

1) Do you agree with 5♣?

2) What do you bid now?

3) Ok, I'm going to force you to bid 6♥, just to see how you would play it.

The NS hands are:

Scoring: IMP

Lead: ♠9

---

I do bid 6H

I the win the Spade A.
I then cross to the heart K and lead a spade up. If LHO follows, I win the K and then ruff a spade with my 9. How am I doing so far?

[mike777]

1) Disagree with 4clubs, prefer 3clubs.
2) Agree with 4H
3) 5C I guess 4s is cuebid.
4) 6H over 5D.

[Echognome]

joshs, on Apr 10 2006, 10:13 PM, said:

I the win the Spade A.
I then cross to the heart K and lead a spade up. If LHO follows, I win the K and then ruff a spade with my 9. How am I doing so far?

LHO follows to the 2nd spade. Your 9 is overruffed by the J and the ♦K is returned.

[han]

6H seems clear to me (can we be any better after signing off initially?) but I think that partner misbid. Partner should sign off in 5H after our 5C call. First we sign off, now we show the club ace.. this is the worst news that partner can get.

I like Josh's start: heart to the king and spade up.

When both follow to the second round of spades I play the third round and ruff with the king (assuming RHO followed). If spades split 3-3 I am done (heart to the queen, either making 6 or 7).

If RHO shows out then I have to hope that hearts split 2-2 (not enough tricks if the heart finesse wins).

A third option I considered for a second is to pitch a diamond on the third spade, but I don't see yet what advantage that could give.

[kenrexford]

No time right now to assess the play, but the bidding seems strange. I would assume that a splinter-then-4NT was exclusion. So, logically, a splinter-then-4S seems like an "option exclusion," sort of showing a club void to induce you to use RKCB, if you want. This would imply an ability to answer 4NT in a manner that safely shows the trump Queen, meaning two Key Cards with the Queen.

Assuming this, 5C makes some sense. If seems non-serious, expecting to slow the auction down. True, your hearts are good, but 5C focuses the club Ace as a tenuous value in a relatively poor hand. Contextually, you are poor, but this is awful opposite a void.

5D seems like a Last Train bid. He probably has some side values somewhere and wants your input. I still hate this hand and would opt out.

[joshs]

Echognome, on Apr 10 2006, 05:21 PM, said:

joshs, on Apr 10 2006, 10:13 PM, said:

I the win the Spade A.
I then cross to the heart K and lead a spade up. If LHO follows, I win the K and then ruff a spade with my 9. How am I doing so far?

LHO follows to the 2nd spade. Your 9 is overruffed by the J and the ♦K is returned.

Ooh, I thought this line works, but now I noticed that I am a trick short..........

I guess I had to play 2 rounds of trumps first and hope they break.

[jdonn]

1) 5♣ is obvious.
2) 6♥, this hand is as good as it could be given the limited opener and 4♥ signoff. I would cuebid an ace or king on the side if I had it now, so this has to show good hearts. The slam only turns out to be bad since partner was insanely aggressive, he has a clear signoff over your 5♣ bid (even 4♠ was aggressive).
3) I will draw trumps right now, ending in my hand. If they are 2-2 I make as long as spades aren't 1-5. Otherwise I still make if spades are 3-3 so also assume that isn't the case. If hearts are 1-3 I will take a good spade, ruff a spade (assume they are 2-4), and play west to have been 2146 and now be squeezed in the minors, having to pitch down to three in one of them. If trumps are 3-1 I really don't see a good way to make.

EDIT: Sorry I analyzed too quickly and my line may not work, I really don't have time to figure it out right now, but without getting too in depth I do think it's possible to play for trumps 2-2 and otherwise squeeze a 2146 west in the minors if I time it right.

[mikeh]

The auction seems fine to me: other sequences can be used, but the one on display seems acceptable to me.

As for the play: partner's void is, as usual, bad news, since our communication is simply not there.

We have 4 side tops and 5 trumps, ignoring 4-0, which we cannot handle on this hand. We need 3 more. We lack the entries to ruff 3♣ in dummy. We can set up a ♠ via a ruff or two: the lead strongly suggests ♠ are not 3-3 and we can forget 5-1: we ain't making.

If we ruff 2♠ in our hand, we get 3♠, 6 trump and 2 minor aces: still a trick short. I think we need to ruff 3 times in our hand.

At the same time, there is no way to ruff 3 times in our hand without risking an overruff if we leave trump outstanding.

We can get home on any 4-2♠ break if trump are 2-2, and the bidding suggests that they may be: LHO looks to have 8 cards in the blacks and thus 5 in the reds, and is more likely to have 3♦ than 3♥: by no means a sure thing, but it does give us some slight encouragement.

It is also possible that LHO has the stiff ♥J, and we may be able to untangle 12 tricks on that 3-1 as well.

So win the first ♠ and lead a trump to hand. The J fails to materialize so lead a second trump. I see no advantage to which hand we end up in on this lead: we are either making or going down.

If trump are 2-2, it is easy. If trump are 3-1, we need an unlikely 3-3 ♠ break: I'd cash the top ♠ and ruff.

I am not mathematician enough to know the odds of my line as compared to the win ♠, cross in ♥, lead ♠ and ruff ♠ with the 9. They share some common chances: ♠ are 3-3 or the ♥ J is stiff or Jx in RHO.

My line works when LHO has Jx and the other line when RHO has Jxx. I think, but am not sure, that my line has a very tiny edge based on LHO not having preempted, not having bid an unusual 2N, and probably having 2♠.

[Codo]

I agree with the bidding. I win the ace, play a Heart to the ace, a Spade and a third round, discarding a Diamond.
Lets believe, that rho plays his fourth Spade, I ruff high.

Now, I get to know, that rho has xx in spades. But he bid 2 ♣, so he should have something like, xx, xx, KQx, KJtxxx. (And even this is no 2 ♣)
I will watch his discards. If he discards diamonds, I have to play for Hearts 2-2. Else, I try for a dummy reversal by ruffing diamonds and mayl finesse in Heart later.

[Echognome]

I can't remember the exact hand, but West has J7x of ♥ and 2 small spades. I ruffed the third spade with the 9, but was overruffed. When a diamond was returned I set up my 5 spade for a discard, but now had another loser.

My partner suggested discarding a diamond on the third spade. I'm not sure if that would have worked either, but it was a shame either way.