[hammberry]

Here is a passage from Marshall Miles' Bridge From the Top:
"The first cuebid almost always shows length, so that the cue bidder's partner can determine how well the hands fit." He criticized cuebidding high card and shortness controls indiscriminately: "if one partner can cuebid a singleton and the other has the king, or vice versa, how can either player tell how well the hands fit?"

This advice, similar to that written much earlier by Miles, always seemed convincing to me. Challenged on this approach, I began reading other contemporary books on slam bidding. Ron Klinger, for example, in Cue-Bidding to Slams wrote:
"Where the choice is to cue-bid an ace or a void as a first-round control, the 'cheapest-first' rule applies. The same approach is used when the decision is king versus singleton..."

Setting aside exceptions (and Miles himself offers some), and setting aside whether to reserve the first cue for first-round controls:

1. Which approach (call them "high card control" versus "shortness control") is generally more useful for advancing but non-expert players?

2. Which approach is more prevalent among expert players using methods similar to two-over-one game-forcing?

3. What other bidding agreements impact this issue?

[mikeh]

As your reading has already revealed, there are at least two schools of thought in the expert community, and I certainly don't claim that my expertise or level of knowledge is in the same ballpark as either Klinger or Miles.

As I have written before, and as I think is generally accepted by the majority of the expert community, one's first cue bid is rarely shortness.

However, a lot depends on context.

There seem to me to be two fundamentally different situations.

In one, one partner has assumed captaincy and announced slam ambitions, even if only modestly. A classic example is a Jacoby 2N response to 1major... while the partnership will often subside in game, most would require of responder that his hand at least be suitable for slam if opener has the appropriate values.. and in old-fashioned J2N, opener in fact cues shortness right away.

In the other, and this is in my experience a more common scenario amongst expert partnerships, one partner or the other makes a bid below game that suggests that he may be interested in bigger things if partner is: this is not a captaincy siutation, but bidding as a dialogue.

Thus 1♠ 2♣ 2♠ 3♠ in 2/1 is a slam try.. responder would have bid 4♠ with no interest, and opener is unlimited at this stage.

I think that I am on very strong ground when I say that very few experts would cue 4♣ here on shortness.

Partner has announced a club suit (okay, 2♣ can be suspect, but IF responder has a potential source of tricks, it will be in clubs). KJ10xxx opposite a void is not a slam-suitable holding. The same suit opposite Ax is very much a slam-suitable holding given the long club suit, in this auction, will have a side entry to allow the running of the club suit once the Queen is ruffed out (assuming it doesn't fall).

Responder would have no idea whether a 4♣ cue by opener is reason to be excited or reason to give up IF that cue could be either shortness or high card control.

Please note that I am ignoring serious 3N or similar gadgets in this discussion: i am writing in terms of general principles.

A less prevalent but still.. in expert circles.. popular style arises when the bidder has two high card controls he can show... and his cue is going to be the first word to partner that he is interested in slam.


This variant, which I personally don't play, would have a player holding, say, AQ10x Ax in two side suits make the first cue bid in the higher AQ10x, because AQ10x will be improved by a holding of, say, Kxx far more than would the shorter holding: if one is counting winners rather than losers... and counting winners (or assessing whether the hand may afford sufficient winners) is the usual precursor to a slam investigation...even tho that investigation may then (and should at some stage) move to focus on whether we can avoid fast losers. The idea is that a cue bid in a potential source of tricks may encourage partner to count winners, and we later check for losers.

I don't play this, in part because I have never played with a partner who likes the style and in part because I am uncomfortable with the idea of bypassing Ax to show AQ10x, and then later worry that my cue of the lower suit would be taken to be second round..... and (in keeping with the idea that one's first cue ought not to be shortness unless in a specific conventional auction asking for shortness) shortness control.... ie AQ10x x in the two suits. I also feel that I can cue the lower suit and that partner will often be able to cue the higher suit to show the K, since we cue 1st and 2nd round controls indiscriminately... in which ever order makes the bidding most efficient.

Keycard is a way around that, but I am not a big keycard fan in cue-bid auctions, especially in a minor.

I think that this variant is what Miles is writing about, while I really don't think many experts play the Klinger school, at least as presented in your OP.

[kenrexford]

As Mike sort of suggested, there are multiple schools as to how to cuebid, when to cue shortness, and the like. A lot of cuebidding styles have merits, some more so than others, but all help tremendously in evaluating fit and control. The most important thing, IMO, is to have agreements as to one or another school and to apply the principles for that school consistently.

The worst form, IMO, is a patchwork of indecipherable or non-existent "rules" and relatively random application of them.

An example from some friends of mine. After agreement of strain in a 2/1 GF sequence, Opener made a cue consistent with a "cue first," modern Italian type of cuebidding scheme (similar to the one I personally like). His partner followed with a similar "cue first," modern Italian type of cuebid. Opener then launched out a pattern bid, apparently thinking that Responder should somehow read the bid as a pattern bid because Opener could not have that call using "cue first," modern Italian cuebidding. Except, he could. Given the auction, I described for Responder precisely what hand Opener had to have, and that hand was very possible. Responder assumed that same hand and signed off at game, expecting to lose two club tricks. Instead, the club void meant the grand was on.

If you and partner are discussing this question, then you are miles ahead of the field, even much of the "expert" field (no pun intended).