[jocdelevat]

Dealer: East Vul: None Scoring: IMP

♠ T5 ♥ AQ42 ♦ A43 ♣ AQ32

West North East South

 -     -     Pass  1NT
 Pass  4NT   Pass  6NT
 Pass  Pass  Pass  

Dealer: South Vul: None Scoring: IMP

♠ K4 ♥ KT8 ♦ AJT87 ♣ KQ4

West North East South

 -     -     -     1NT
 Pass  4NT   Pass  Pass
 Pass  


Hi all on both boards I open 1nt and my partner (random in both cases) jump to 4nt. opponents pass all the way.
I took it in both cases as bid 6nt but I really don't know how to judge for that to happend. Usually long suits will do it but I open 1nt so?
On first board I just bid 6nt with no dilema thinking is a must to bid 6nt after 4nt quantitative bid. On second I didn't even looks better than first one but I burned on first blew on yougurt on the second one.

thank you all in advance for your advice(always apreciated)

best regards
jocdelevat

[keylime]

My view of 1NT-4NT are as follows:

1. If you accept the invite, I play what is referred to as "Baron". Basically this is a treatment that mandates that you bid 4 card suits up the line (or with five card minors).
2. I look at my losers and controls. At NT controls these two are intertwined.
3. Lastly, have very clear understandings of when 1NT-2C-2M-4NT and auctions similar to this is quanitative versus keycard.

Hand 1. I hold a six loser hand with six controls (A=2, K=1). I'm in the middle of my loser range for a strong NT (5-7), and I am control rich. However, the only slam potentially here is six clubs and not 6NT. You have two very soft holdings in T-x and A-x-x. You're also right in the middle with 16 points (all working mind you). Probably a disciplined pass required here.

Hand 2: I hold five controls but what a much better hand! All my suits are stopped, I hold a five card suit which I upgrade a point for, and everything is working. I happily accept the slam try and table 5D (not RKC or reg. blackwood!) en route. Heck, if pard has right cards, sometimes seven diamonds is ice cold.

The importance of 1NT-4NT auctions is to keep it simple. They don't come up but maybe once or twice a year it seems with me. No need therefore to complicate matters.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the first question to ask yourself,
are you max. with respect to HCP.

In this auction, 6NT gets bid on power,
and partner is asking you, how many
points do you have.
Assuming a 15-17 point range
Pass => Min (15)
5NT => one above Min (16).
6NT => Max (17)

You may add. look at your hand and as
yourself, is it a bad / normal / great ???
count, but that is secondary.

A rule:
One expects 15-17 HCP NT to contain 5-6
controlls, King count as one control, Aces
as two controls

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: Both of your given hands are normal NT
openers, i.e. in both cases bid 5NT.

[SoTired]

Bid 6 or not:
1) With 17 always bid 6
2) With 16 and a 5-card suit, always bid 6
3) With 15 and no 5-card suit, always pass
The rest are judgement - How does the hand "feel". How many tens compared to the average of one per hand?

#2 has 16 with a 5-card suit, so I think it is clear to bid 6. Hand #1 is OK to pass.

No one bids 5N as the "in between" hand, because 1 point may not make the critical 1 trick difference and 5N is harder to make than 4N. Better to play an easy 4N than a 5N and go down 1.

Many bid 4-card minors up the line after deciding to bid 6 because a 4-4 fit usually takes an extra trick. Getting to 6C making 6 rather than 6N down 1 is a great feeling.

As a previous poster mentioned, Make sure you and your partner have decided what 1N 2C 2M 4N is. Some play 4N=quantitative and reserve 1N 2C 2M 4C as RKC for M.

[kenrexford]

This all makes me think.

I have often laughed at the "Quantitative Gerber" crowd, who bid 4♣ to at least know about Aces on these hands, having no concept of Quantitative 4NT.

So, what about going "sort of" with the sheep?

I wonder how effective a 4♣ Quantitative call would be, perhaps Baron. Sure, Opener cannot introduce clubs except at the five-level if 4NT is a rejection. But, using this approach, you could bid 4♥ on the first (at least mild interest, with four+ hearts) and 4♦ on the second (at least mild interest, with 4+ diamonds). This may do the trick.

Notably, this would even save space on the 1NT-5NT auctions.

When is the last time you bid 1NT-4♣ as Gerber?

[whereagles]

hand 2: obvious accept. 5 card suit and good intermediates.

hand 1: less obvious, but I would also accept because my hcp are all well placed in the long suits.

[whereagles]

kenrexford, on Sep 1 2006, 01:36 PM, said:

When is the last time you bid 1NT-4♣ as Gerber?

10 years ago

pard me
2NT 4♣
4NT 6♠
..7♠

1 down. An ace was out (I had like KQJxxx x Qx Kxxx).

Pard said he bid 7 because he couldn't live with the thought of missing a grand. I scrapped the word 'gerber' out of my dicionary that day

[P_Marlowe]

SoTired, on Sep 1 2006, 08:25 AM, said:

<snip>
No one bids 5N as the "in between" hand, because 1 point may not make the critical 1 trick difference and 5N is harder to make than 4N. Better to play an easy 4N than a 5N and go down 1.
<snip>

.... having a guranteed 33HCP instead of only
32 HCP makes sure you are not off two Aces.
You may still miss AK of a suit, but I would say,
there is a difference in 1 point, maybe not a big
one.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: One could easily play 4NT as a quantitative Ace
ask, (and some do) to ensure one is not missing 2 Aces,
but this would change the meaning of 4NT.

Added Remark:
There are also times, that you feel, you cant make the decision,
alone and you want to pass it back to partner.

[bid_em_up]

To me, hand #1 is a clear pass. The hand is not max, does not contain a 5 card suit, and its low spots are horrendous. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that this hand should bid 6N.

Hand #2, can either bid 6♦ (assuming partner will understand this bid) or 6N. My preference is 6D. Partner can pass with a diamond fit and a ruffing value on the side or correct to 6N if no fit.

But it belongs in 6 something after the quantitative raise. It contains a GOOD 5 card suit (source of tricks). It contains a stop in each suit. And the spot cards are excellent. I tend to add one hcp in evaluation whenever the hand contains fewer than six cards below a seven (more than half the hand is cards that are a seven or higher). This hand contains only 2 such cards (the two 4's), and is much better than 16 hcp it contains.

[mikeh]

I would accept the slam invite on both hands.

Hand 1 is minimum in terms of high card, for an acceptance, but that is misleading because it assumes that the 4321 point scale is accurate, when it is not. Aces should be upgraded... especially when partner has invited slam holding at most one Ace... he must have the fillers we lack. I am not happy with my lack of spot cards.... give me a 10 in a long suit, and I'd be much happier, but this hand is just north of the go-no go line.

Hand 2 is a wonderful hand: if I had the same hand with an extra Jack or one of my Kings an Ace, I would have viewed it as too strong for a 15-17 1N: this is close to a super-max and one of the clearest acceptances I have ever seen.

As for how to respond to 4N: there are several schools of thought.

One is to respond as if to blackwood if you are going to accept.. this avoids the distressing result of having 16 opposite 16 and being off 2 Aces, but does not avoid 16 opposite 17 being off an AK combination.

The second mainstream method is to bid 4 card suits up the line, looking for the 4-4 minor suit (usually) fit. However, that sometimes gets you to a 4-4 fit breaking badly with 12 top tricks in notrump, and sometimes allows the opps to avoid a poor lead, and/or direct a safe/killing lead.

Regardless of whether you use either of these methods, it can certainly pay, on occasion for opener to jump to 6 of a suit to show an acceptance and a good 5+ suit..... sometimes the 5-3 or 5-4 fit is superior because it affords more opportunity for advanced declarer technique (when technique matters, there are more tools available in a trump contract than in notrump).

Whether the second hand is worth 6♦ or 6N is close: I would prefer slightly better ♦ for 6♦, so would go with 6N, but I wouldn't say that 6♦ (at imps) would be an error.... at mps, I think it would be wrong, since the field will be in notrump.

[bid_em_up]

mikeh, on Sep 1 2006, 11:37 AM, said:

Hand 1 is minimum in terms of high card, for an acceptance, but that is misleading because it assumes that the 4321 point scale is accurate, when it is not. Aces should be upgraded... especially when partner has invited slam holding at most one Ace... he must have the fillers we lack. I am not happy with my lack of spot cards.... give me a 10 in a long suit, and I'd be much happier, but this hand is just north of the go-no go line.

Not to dispute your reasoning Mike, but really? I would like to hear more elaboration from you on this, if possible.

From my viewpoint, this hand contains a worthless doubleton, Aces and spaces, absolutely zero spot cards in the 2 four card suits and no 5 card suit. Where can I possibly expect 12 tricks to come from opposite an invitational hand? (Partner is not likely to have a long suit of his own).

I see absolutely nothing positive about this hand that makes it worth even considering 6N. But I certainly see enough negatives to make me downgrade the value of this hand and pass.

Now if partner was inviting slam in a suit contract.....sure. Then the aces are pulling their extra weight, and if the suit is one other than spades, I also have a ruffing value (however slight) to add. Then I would definetely accept any slam try.
But as it is? No.

(And this is coming from someone who never met an invite he didnt like)

[mikeh]

Consider the hand type shown by partner: he presumably lacks a 4 card major, but may well hold a 5 card minor. Try to construct hands on which he should be issuing an invitation to slam, holding at most 1 ace.

For example, a hand on which I would not invite would be KQx Kxx KQJx J10x, and that hand (which, as i say, I view as too weak to bid 4N) makes slam a 50-50 proposition.

There will be hands opposite which slam is not great: AQx KJx KQxx Jxx is one minimum invitational hand...in my view, that hand should have a spot card or 2... give it a minor suit 10, and the contract becomes quite sound.

How about AJx Kx KQxxx Kxx.... maybe we'd look for a ♦ fit, maybe not. This hand has some play for grand and small is cold on normal breaks.

The point is that the old saying of 'aces and spaces' is simply bad bridge when partner promises that he has the intermediate honours that we lack. Our 3 Aces will result in a significant upgrade of his holdings, and we know we have them: he doesn't.

On the hand where he has AJx Kx KQxxx Kxx, we might hold KQx QJx AJxx QJx as an example of a 16 count that has no thought of acceptance.

I am not saying that the first hand is wonderful.... as I wrote, it is, imo, just enough to accept: I would expect to make 12 tricks more often than not.. which is the criteria for bidding small slams at either mps or imps....

BTW, 10x is not my idea of a 'worthless' doubleton... I sure don't like the holding, but I don't consign it to worthlessness: give partner AJ9 or KQ9 or AJx with the lead being in that suit, and I will be very happy to hold the 10x rather than the 32.

[whereagles]

Actually, the lack of intermediates in hand 1 reminds me of something.. squeeze!

By the way, aces are not so undervalued when both hands are balanced. They're quite powerful in suit play, but less in NT.

[jocdelevat]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     Pass  1NT   Pass
 4NT   Pass  6NT   Pass
 Pass  Pass  

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     1NT   Pass  4NT
 Pass  Pass  Pass  



Those are the 2 boards with all hands. my p in first board had level intermediate and on second board was level private. Board 1 I failed by 2 and board 2 I made 6nt.

[mikeh]

I think that you were moderately unlucky on the first board, and, more importantly, I think that there is a plausible line that would allow you to make. I would like to know the opening lead (a low ♠, for example, would make life easy... I'd duck to my 'not-so-worthless' 10x).

You might end up having to decide which squeeze to play for: north in the roundeds or S in the blacks... but I think you have a double squeeze that will become discernable after you cash the KA of ♥ (catering to Jx) and after ducking a ♠ at some point, to rectify the count. I believe you have the entries to do all of this, but that may be an easy area to foul up.

I also appreciate that discussing setting up a double squeeze as a method of making a tight slam is a bit much for the B/I thread

In hindsight, given the thread, it was probably an error to advise bidding 6N on hand one.... certainly, I think that an expert declarer would be foolish to not bid the slam, but any player at the advanced or lesser level of skill as declarer should probably aim to pass 4N.... and then, maybe, study how it would have been possible to make 12 tricks.

[jocdelevat]

2 diamond lead on first board
2spade lead on board 2

[HeartA]

jocdelevat, on Sep 1 2006, 05:46 PM, said:

2 diamond lead on first board
2spade lead on board 2

Trick #1, DJ on dummy,
Trick #2, H/C (or even D) to hand,
Trick #3, S finesse,
Trick #4, small S to justify losers
...

North would be squeezed on H and C.

[whereagles]

There's just 1 small catch: you only have 10 tricks. The squeeze puts you to 11, not 12

[HeartA]

whereagles, on Sep 2 2006, 07:38 AM, said:

There's just 1 small catch: you only have 10 tricks. The squeeze puts you to 11, not 12

2(S)+3(H)+3(D)+3C = 10?

[whereagles]

saw the ♦Q in the wrong hand. oops

Still, the slam makes on 2 finesses and a squeeze. Not exactly THE slam to be in, but then again, any slam that makes is a good slam