[bid_em_up]

P_Marlowe, on Jul 10 2006, 04:13 PM, said:

bid_em_up, on Jul 10 2006, 04:09 PM, said:

FrancesHinden, on Jul 9 2006, 01:36 PM, said:

Not unreasonable:

1D - 2C
5NT (GSF) - 7C

Of all the listed sequences, for what is supposed to be a Beginner/Intermediate forum, this one is the most reasonable, logical and achievable. West should be able to see all the side losers being covered, the only real key is how many of the top three club honors does partner hold?

(What is all this talk about "Exclusion Keycard", and how many beginner/intermediates do you know that play it?! Or 3N showing spade control and forward going after a splinter?!! Come on!! )

I agree with Dwayne (keylime) that in a 199'r game any slam making is liable to be a good result, but the above auction should get you to the right slam 99% of the time. Even for the fancy folks, sometimes simpler is better.

Hi,

I am not sure, that GSF is a convention
that a 0-199 should need to know.

With kind regards
Marlowe

I promise you, a beginner or intermediate is more likely to be familiar with Grand Slam Force....than they are to understand Exclusion Keycard Blackwood or any other alternatives listed here. Which was my point....not so much as whether or not they actually knew it. After all, if they arent familiar with GSF, what chance do they have of actually completing any of the other sequences??!!

[bid_em_up]

jillybean2, on Jul 10 2006, 07:41 PM, said:

I am loath to disagree with Mike - I don’t use GSF or even know what it stands for. Im guessing it asks partner to bid 7 with something extra.  I doubt many B/I’s would know/use this either. 
I am familiar with splinters and cue bids but not in this partnership.

I would not be at all surprised to see people (non experts of course!) bidding a 4 card major here.  I can clearly remember the night school bridge teacher telling us “always bid your 4 card major – you don’t want to play in minor games”  I stuck by these 'rules' for a long time, terrified my partner would pass anything else. 

Grand Slam Force (GSF) is a (usually a leap to) 5N bid asking partner to bid 6 with one of the top three honors or Seven with two of the top three. Since no trump suit has been explicity agreed, it is normally considered to be for the last bid suit (most established partherships will also use this same agreement for RKC, where 4N asks for keycards on the last bid suit, where no trump suit has been agreed). While you may not have been familiar with it at the time, it is a fairly "common" treatment, and even when I was a beginner/intermediate, although I may not have known exactly what it meant, I certainly would have been able to deduce its meaning before I would have ever understood the meanings of any of the other sequences listed.