[rona_]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

- - - Pass
Pass 3♣ Dbl Pass
3♥ Pass 3NT Pass
Pass Pass

I bid 3 clubs. How should East West bid to get to the grand.

Thanks
Rona

[neilkaz]

West has 28 HCP and three card support for PD's major and all he can bid is 3NT !!!

WOW...I cannot think of words strong enough to desribe how wimpy this is

[HeavyDluxe]

Admittedly, I'm a total n00b (at least as far as actually skill goes), but this seems pretty plain.

After Dbl, opps silent:

3H 4NT*
5C 5D**
5NT 7H

*1430
**Queen ask

As has been noted above, 3NT with East's hand is lame... Perhaps he was 'serious'?

[ArtK78]

I wouldn't call it wimpy. I would call it pessimistic (perhaps with a capital P).

West had a reasonable hand, but I understand merely bidding 3♥.

East has game in hand (assuming a club lead) so, while double followed by 3NT shows a very good hand, very good doesn't begin to describe this hand and a mere 3NT is just not enough. No call is really appropriate for the hand. And any form of Blackwood is totally inappropriate for the hand (theoretically, you might not even have a 7 card trump fit - suppose pard had xxx QJx xxx xxxx?).

For lack of an alternative, I would bid 4♣ on the East hand.

West still doesn't really have an alternative to a simple 4♥ call.

Now East has no real choice other than to raise to 5♥. 5♥ is a general slam try on this auction. (This probably would not be a success opposite the xxx QJx xxx xxxx hand that I suggested above, but what else is there to do?)

West certainly has a slam bid. He has promised nothing to that point in the auction. If he chooses to bid 6♣ on the way the grand may be reached.

By the way, I always chuckle when I hear questions like "How do we reach the grand on these cards?" when you didn't even reach the small. I was playing in an ACBL game on BBO the other night when our opponents played in 3♠ making 230. One of their first comments in the inevitable discussion of the hand was that a different opening lead would have beaten the slam!

[jdonn]

ArtK78, on Dec 14 2007, 01:50 PM, said:

I wouldn't call it wimpy.  I would call it pessimistic (perhaps with a capital P).

West had a reasonable hand, but I understand merely bidding 3♥.

East has game in hand (assuming a club lead) so, while double followed by 3NT shows a very good hand, very good doesn't begin to describe this hand and a mere 3NT is just not enough.  No call is really appropriate for the hand.  And any form of Blackwood is totally inappropriate for the hand (you don't even know if you have more than a 7 card trump fit).

For lack of an alternative, I would bid 4♣ on the East hand.

West still doesn't really have an alternative to a simple 4♥ call.

I pretty much agree until this point. East cuebids, and west has the most he could have (some would probably even say more than he can have.) Surely west is too good for 4♥ there. 5♣ seems the logical choice. Of course I don't pretend to know how it continues from there, but the one thing of which I'm sure is east will be very very excited. He can probably all but bid a grand at that point, with the one qualm that the trump suit isn't yet proven adequate.

BTW, doesn't the club lead set 7♥ anyway? I can see 7NT makes, but I'd be quite proud of myself for bidding to 7♥ in competition if I managed it.

[ArtK78]

No doubt that a club lead would beat 7♥. But if East can find out that his partner has 5 hearts to the QJ and the ♣A, he should certainly be bidding the grand in notrump.

And he wouldn't be bidding the grand in hearts if he did not assume that his partner had all of those cards.

By the way, I edited my post after jdonn quoted from it, so my post doesn't match the quote.

[rona_]

ArtK78, on Dec 14 2007, 08:50 PM, said:

By the way, I always chuckle when I hear questions like "How do we reach the grand on these cards?" when you didn't even reach the small.  I was playing in an ACBL game on BBO the other night when our opponents played in 3♠ making 230.  One of their first comments in the inevitable discussion of the hand was that a different opening lead would have beaten the slam!

Happy to give you a chuckle, but if you read my post, I wasn't the one to miss the slam. I asked how the opponents should have bid. This is the beginner/intermediate forum, so maybe you should go somewhere else for a chuckle or two.

[rona_]

HeavyDluxe, on Dec 14 2007, 08:42 PM, said:

Admittedly, I'm a total n00b (at least as far as actually skill goes), but this seems pretty plain.

After Dbl, opps silent:

3H 4NT*
5C 5D**
5NT 7H

*1430
**Queen ask

As has been noted above, 3NT with East's hand is lame... Perhaps he was 'serious'?

But you are forcing your partner to bid. He might have zero points. I think west should have bid 4 hearts since his partner doubled at that level. Then things are a little easier for East.....Mind you, if I knew the answers I wouldn't be asking here.

[ArtK78]

rona_, on Dec 14 2007, 02:39 PM, said:

ArtK78, on Dec 14 2007, 08:50 PM, said:

By the way, I always chuckle when I hear questions like "How do we reach the grand on these cards?" when you didn't even reach the small.  I was playing in an ACBL game on BBO the other night when our opponents played in 3♠ making 230.  One of their first comments in the inevitable discussion of the hand was that a different opening lead would have beaten the slam!

Happy to give you a chuckle, but if you read my post, I wasn't the one to miss the slam. I asked how the opponents should have bid. This is the beginner/intermediate forum, so maybe you should go somewhere else for a chuckle or two.

The remark wasn't meant to be insulting. It is just the wrong question.

This partnership didn't even get to a small slam. And, quite frankly, I don't think they would be alone in that (although stopping at 3NT is the height of pessimism).

At least one of these hands has to move ahead to get to a small slam. Jdonn suggests that after East cue bids 4♣ that West should move ahead. I am not convinced that West will be willing to move beyond 4♥ (although he will know that he has a good hand on the auction). My suggestion was that East should raise to 5♥ over 4♥, but that is far from clear.

All in all, getting to the small slam would probably be a fairly good accomplishment after the 3♣ opening bid.

[hrothgar]

I'll point out that any number of players use methods in which a 2♥ opening shows 5+ Hearts and a 4+ card minor. I suspect that such pairs would have little trouble reaching 7NT.

Playing more traditional North American methods, you're in a rather nasty place after the 3♣ preempt.

West has to decide whether or not to underbid with 3♥ or over bid with 4♥. If West chooses a 3♥ response, East is in a nasty position.

Regardless, this hand is well within the "freak" zone. I normally don't worry too much about methods to show my 28 HCP hands after the opponent's open 3♣. (If I found that I needed to worry about this often I'd quit my dayjob and start playing rubber bridge)

[ArtK78]

hrothgar, on Dec 14 2007, 03:16 PM, said:

I'll point out that any number of players use methods in which a 2♥ opening shows 5+ Hearts and a 4+ card minor. I suspect that such pairs would have little trouble reaching 7NT.

And if partner doesn't have a 4 card minor?

Certainly all that the big hand needs is Qxxxx of hearts and the ♣A to have reasonable play for a grand. QJxxx of hearts and the ♣A make 7NT a claim. The fact that partner has 4 clubs is totally irrelevant.

Yes, on this particular hand if you were playing the 5/4 opening 2♥ call you would arrive at the grand easily. But that really has no effect on the problem faced by each of the players on this hand.

[pclayton]

Double and 3♥ are clear.

I would only bid 3N if my child needed a heart transplant and we were playing for $1,000 a point, and maybe not even then. 4♣ is clear.

Opposite a cuebid, West has a huge hand and should cue back with 5♣. East has a bit of a problem, the ♣A is nice, but we need the 5th heart. I may not get to the grand.

[kenrexford]

Warning: Pet Convention!!!

If you play that a weak two, doubled, passed, lends itself well to 2NT as Lebensohl, then you might like this. I like for 3♣-X-P-3♦ to be Lenensohl (Herbert Negative, same thing). This gives up playing in 3♦ but gains a lot more in exchange.

Using that, Responder would bid 3♥, showing a positive with hearts (this hand qualifies, IMO). Whatever psychotic paranoia East may have had in the actual auction would vanaish.

[whereagles]

nice pree my problem here is how to avoid bidding 8♥

I'd jump to 4♥ with West's hand, after which it should be easy to reach a grand (East can just use RKCB).

[neilkaz]

pclayton, on Dec 14 2007, 03:21 PM, said:

Double and 3♥ are clear.

I would only bid 3N if my child needed a heart transplant and we were playing for $1,000 a point, and maybe not even then. 4♣ is clear.

Opposite a cuebid, West has a huge hand and should cue back with 5♣. East has a bit of a problem, the ♣A is nice, but we need the 5th heart. I may not get to the grand.

100% agreement.

West is close to a direct jump to 4♥ which makes things trivial since you RKCB.

But East must show his once a year 28 count and for me, the way to show an enormous hand is to double the preempt and then cue bid.