[brianshark]

I don't see why an unlimited hand in an auction that lacks space should be making a 'mild slam try' opposite a limited partner. The negative doubler needs plenty of extra values to make slam a possibility, and the limited hand has a narrow range of possible values so can really only answer yes or no. It's hard to put into words... but it seems awfully inefficient.

Put another way, to quote the principle of captaincy, the limit hand makes his partner the captain. The captain asks the questions, and the limited hand answers.

If the captain of this auction really wants to know if his partner is min or max for his limited bid, he can bid 4♠. Now that all the controls are known to be present, this can only ask for extra strength (as with sufficient strength and knowledge of all controls, he should just bid 4NT right away). So a return to 5♥ shows min and sign's off, else keycard.

And as I said, I wouldn't blame a partner for being optimistic and a little pushy if he did that and would consider ourselves fairly unlucky the hands shapes matched so closely meaning 5 goes off.

[inquiry]

Late responding to this one... The obvious wacky bid was 4♦ (RKCB) by a balanced minimum hand. That was, well, faulty, very faulty.... for a lot of reasons. One south really has nothing extra to be making a slam try on himself. Second, if one key card was missing, south wouldn't know if he was off two cashing spades. So I vote South 75% to blame. The other 25% I credit to a system that allows 4♦ be RKCB with agreement in hearts on this auction. 4♣ is a slam try, of course, but it does not promise a club stopper (4♥ would be sign off so how else is north to raise hearts and show slam interest). South just has to either bid 4♦ -- CUE-BID to see if his partner is excited about that (my bid) or bid 4♥ to show minimum values. But 4♦ RKCB is just not a good treatment on this auction imho.

[djehuti]

4 ♦ was just a cue, then 4nt Rkc, from north.

[inquiry]

djehuti, on Feb 2 2007, 02:53 PM, said:

4 ♦ was just a cue, then 4nt Rkc, from north.

Ahhh... Ok, that changes my response. I am use to seeing the description of a bid written after the bid not before it, so 4♦-4NT (RKCB) would be 4NT as RKCB, but 4♦ (RKCB) 4NT would be a minorwood version of RKCB.

Minorwood seemed to make sense, since 4NT would be two key cards no Queen heart reply to it, and 6♥ would be an aggressive but not too odd a continuation. With 4NT as RKCB, the 6♥ reply, instead of the normal response showing keycards is, well, extremely odd, and clearly wrong from the south side of the table. So for 6♥ over 4NT, south will get some blame, as that can hardly be correct.

But while I accept the bidding up 4♦, I do not agree with north's very aggressive 4NT over the 4♦ cue bid. He has already made one slam try with 4♣ over 3♥ and south will (as he did) cue-bid 4♦ on a minimum with a control in diamonds. North with his balanced minimum slam try has to bid 4♥ over 4♦. This is not a SIGNOFF, but rather a descriptive bid that shows that he was qualitatively on the minimum of his slam try. South will gladly then pass 4♥ and the slam try had been issued and logically rejected.

So I fault North most for his quick resorting to 4NT but south takes some heat for his 6♥ leap. Note, if you play that a 4♦ bid shows EXTRA VALUES in addition to a control, then the blame would fall back to 100% on South, but I prefer the forced cue-bid. Also, if you play 4♦ is LAST TRAIN (you said it was a cue-bid), then again the fault falls back on South entirely.

[HeartA]

keylime, on Feb 1 2007, 02:27 AM, said:

South. By cooperating with a slam try they did not limit their hands sufficiently. 3H can be bid on a wide enough assortment of hands and North is definitely entitled to a go.

I concur.

[brianshark]

I don't think South leapt to 6♥. I think djehuti just intended to say that after 4♦, North used Keycard and they ended up in 6♥.