[pclayton]

You are rolling along nicely in your weekly game and pick up this fistful nv/nv: ♠ATx ♥AQJTxx ♦Ax ♣Ax.

Pard opens 3♦ (roughly 7 losers at these colors) and you try 3♥.

He surprises you with a raise to 4. What now?

[FrancesHinden]

My partners open 3D in first seat at love all on x xxx KJ10xxx xxx and would consider that a good hand for its raise to 4H (they might cuebid spades en route). From your explanation "7 losers" it sounds as if your pre-empts are a little sounder.

Funnily enough, we've given ourselves a real problem by bidding hearts. I don't believe partner can have KQxxxxx of diamonds and the HK, or he shoudl have cued over 3H - that's an enormous hand. So we are likely off a key card in the red suits. If partner has KQJ of diamonds, it's a 5 or 7 hand on the heart finesse if they lead the right suit - but they might lead the wrong suit, or he might not have the jack of diamonds.

If he really shows "7 losers" I would just bid 6D.
Or to be honest, if I'm bidding 6D now I should have bid 6D last round.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

6D.

Partners answer makes 6D at least a 50%
proposition and likely the slam will be better.

If you have a tool, to make partner choose
between 6D and 6H that would be great.

I dont think partner will bid over 6D, but maybe
he surprieses ...

With kind regards
Marlowe

[foo]

pclayton, on Jun 14 2006, 09:57 AM, said:

You are rolling along nicely in your weekly game and pick up this fistful nv/nv:
♠ATx ♥AQJTxx ♦Ax ♣Ax.

Pard opens 3♦ (roughly 7 losers at these colors) and you try 3♥.

He surprises you with a raise to 4H. What now?

If GOP has the HK, slam is at worst 50%.
If GOP does not have the HK, slam is at best 50%.

4N, 1430 in H's, for me.

Since I'm looking at the other 4 keycards, this will tell me exactly what I need to know.

If 4N here is not 1430, then I grit my teeth and trust that 5 losers and 8 controls opposite a likely 7 loser hand with 2 controls rates to have play for slam and I bid 6H {6D, choice of slams is plausible; but how can GOP know which? 6D could easily turn out to be a "pass the blame" bid, and that tends to be hard on partnerships.}

[Free]

4♠, control, trying to avoid the ♠ lead

[pclayton]

I just key carded and found pard with the K♥. Over 5N, he tried 7♦ on: xx, Kx, KQTxxx, xxx. I corrected to 7N. Easy right?

I played the same direction as one of my regular pards and the auction started the same, except he PASSED 4♥. .

His reasoning was there are plenty of hands that fit pard's bidding that aren't safe at the 5 level. Perhaps he's thinking of: x, xxx, QJTxxxx, xx.

I also gave the hand to a few pros who thought 4N was fairly automatic.