[Fluffy]

I would had bid 5NT after 4♥, too impulsive probably.

But 4NT followed by queen ask (partner should then bid 5NT with ♠Q but no outside King), sounds nice, on a perfect world a 6♣ inquiry might happen.

I didn't even think of partner showing no keycard as adam said, it makes 4NT even better.

[han]

I read David's post but I find it hard to believe that we don't have a shot at slam. What on earth can partner have? As many others I am only thinking about 6S versus 7S.

mikeh, on Nov 14 2007, 12:01 PM, said:

I agree with the comment about 5♣... I think you'd be poorly placed over any bid... and partner, who is essentially limited only by his inability to use 4N himself, may well consider that he need not show the ♥ control again, if he holds, say, Qxxxx Axx xxx Qx, thinking, reasonably enough, that he doesn't want to sound like someone with Qxxxx AKx xxx xx. And I think this concern applies with as much force over 5♦ as it does over 5♣.

I don't think we'll be poorly placed over any bid after 5C. Consider for example the first hand you gave, Qxxxx Axx xxx Qx. Partner will certainly sign off in 5S. If we bid 6C next then partner will know that we have a really big hand with AK of clubs and that we have a first round diamond control (partner would certainly cue with both red aces. I think partner should be able to bid 7S over 6C with this hand, and partner wouldn't bid 7 without the spade queen or with xxx in clubs.

Over 5D it would be tougher. I'd try 5H next and if partner signs off bid 6S (if partner doesn't go to slam with two aces then he won't have the spade queen and we don't have a grand). If partner bids anything else I'd probably bid 7S.

But to be honest, I would just bid blackwood. If partner has bid 4H with the diamond ace but without the heart ace then we have a problem. Either you agree to play last train and use it or you agree not to and don't use it.

[beatrix45]

5♣. My earlier 4♦ bid confirmed spades as trumps as far as partner is concerned. He cooperates with a cue bid of the heart ace - he does not guarantee the spade queen or extra length in spades, but he might have skipped the heart cue bid if that was his only value.

My master plan is to harass partner into bidding seven spades or even seven clubs if he has anything extra. Over my 5♣ bid, if he bids 5♦, I will bid 5♥ (not liking the putative duplication of values). He is unlikely to bid 5♥, but if he does, I will bid 6♣. Over 5♠ sign off, I also bid 6♣.

Now I have forced the hand to small slam, and I am clearly not looking for some specific value in order to bid the grand. Worse case, I may end up in seven spades looking for the trump queen, bfd, I've been there before.

[skjaeran]

In my methods this woud be an easy 4NT - Exclusion BW. 4♦ already showed a void for me. I rebid 4♣ if you move a low ♥ to ♦s.

[FrancesHinden]

Well, this is what happened:

Partner _should_ have the HA but it was of course vaguely possible that he has a suitable hand for slam, some form of heart control, and doesn't want to go about the 4-level. I was concerned about the third round of clubs as well.

It didn't occur to me to bid 5D, because that would in theory deny the ace of clubs (of course, if partner signed off/bid 5H over 5D and we made a grand try we would then have shown the CA).

I didn't bid 6D, although that's quite a clever idea - it simply didn't occur to me at the table.

What I did was to bid 5C, effectively putting the decision off for a round.
Partner had a nice hand, and didn't want to sign off, but he did not have enough to bid a slam himself. He had neither the ace of diamonds nor the king of hearts, so didn't really have anything to cue bid. He bid 5D (looking slightly embarrassed).

At this point, opposite further cooperation, I decided I'd be prepared to gamble out the club suit and bid 5NT, grand slam force. But now partner denied the queen of spades, because he had shown the two red aces and he only had one of them (the 'Fleet recovery').

Given I was going to bid 5NT, bidding it over 4H would have worked perfectly well. If partner was in fact missing the HA he would lie about his top spade honours (as he did on the actual auction) and we'd still get out alive.

The 4NT option selected by many would also work; partner will not try and show you his club void as he knows that isn't good news.

A 5D call now will generate a 6S bid from partner which you will probably raise, but it's still a guess.

Anyway, the good news is that with spades 4-0 and hearts 5-1, making 6S+1 was worth 93% of the matchpoints (the overtrick was very valuable).

[whereagles]

So where did you misbid after all?

Oh, and I wish all my misbids ended up with 93%... lol.

[FrancesHinden]

whereagles, on Nov 16 2007, 11:29 AM, said:

So where did you misbid after all?

The 5C bid led to it all going wrong.

Quote

Oh, and I wish all my misbids ended up with 93%... lol.

me too