[han]

I know the hand so I'm a little biased. I agree that this hand is poor in context, even though we have a fit and our club honors could be worse. Partner has shown the red suits (for troll Cascade: it was forcing) and almost all our strength is in the black suits. So cuebidding seems wrong.

[cherdano]

I would also bid 5♦, not good enough for 5♣, and 4N is misguided, too. I admit 4♥ could be the winner, but with possible bad breaks etc. it is too smart for me.

[pclayton]

5♦. I like this hand, but I don't love it. 4N would be go away.

We need four of the five non-club honors to make slam. Is pard pulling with three: xx AKxxxx Axxxx x? Ax Axxxx Axxxx x? xx Axxxx AKxxx x?. I would only say no with the 2nd.

If pard does have 4 of the top 5: Ax AKxxx Axxxx x, he can carry on himself.

[andy_h]

I think I'll opt for 5C. My hand is decent but not that great as I've got lots of stuff in the black suits. On the bright side they are controls in the black suits and I've got the red queens for partner. I don't want partner in agony if he has something like xx AKxxx AKxxx x as our hand could be worse.

[Apollo81]

5♦.

My second choice is a natural 4NT. I don't like 4♥ since we could be 3-2 in the red suits for this sequence, and play in our 7-card heart fit instead of our 10-card diamond fit. Cuebidding is just silly with the amount of non working HCP we have in this hand.

[jtfanclub]

rogerclee, on Sep 15 2008, 12:32 AM, said:

Cascade, on Sep 14 2008, 10:12 PM, said:

Why didn't i pass 3♥?

Surely this is non-forcing.

I have never heard of any method which uses 3♥ NF.

At Nationals a few years back, I was playing that in this auction the 3 bid was NF by specific agreement. I was told that that was absolutely alertable.

[pclayton]

rogerclee, on Sep 14 2008, 09:32 PM, said:

Cascade, on Sep 14 2008, 10:12 PM, said:

Why didn't i pass 3♥?

Surely this is non-forcing.

I have never heard of any method which uses 3♥ NF.

On the actual hand I bid 5♦. I don't think the hand is good enough to bid 5♣.

You probably haven't seen an 8-track either

3♥ was commonly played as non-forcing a long time ago, before Lebensohl became popular. You doubled with many GF type hands.

But like the 8-track, 3♥ as NF became extinct as better methods became more popular.

Maybe in 40 years we will look back at a natural 3♥ call with amusement and wonder why everyone didn't play transfers here

[cherdano]

What does Lebensohl have to do with this auction?

I guess X = takeout, 3-level = transfers (3S = diamond) would make sense here. Gains big with weakish major one-suiters, loses big with diamonds.

[pclayton]

cherdano, on Sep 15 2008, 08:51 AM, said:

What does Lebensohl have to do with this auction?

I guess X = takeout, 3-level = transfers (3S = diamond) would make sense here. Gains big with weakish major one-suiters, loses big with diamonds.

It doesn't specifically. But 3H was non-forcing.

[han]

Don't know if it loses big with diamonds Arend, it loses but not big. Definitely think we should play transfers here.

[Lobowolf]

nige1, on Sep 15 2008, 08:46 AM, said:

Jlall, on Sep 14 2008, 08:51 PM, said:

You hold KQT Qx Qxxx AKxx at imps. The auction starting with you goes:
1N 3C 3H p
3N p 4D p
?
Your 1N was 15-17. What do you do now?

IMO 4♥ = 10, 4N = 9, 5♦ = 8, 5♣ = 5, 4♠ = 4, _P = 3
The hand is poor in context.

I disagree that the hand is poor in context. We have 6 1/2 losers out of context, which is about average (1NT openers tend to be either 6 or 7 loser hands), but given partner's all-red bidding, it's hard to seriously consider Qx Qxxx as 4 1/2 losers. We also have fast tricks in partner's short suits, and slow fitting honors in his long suits. If partner doesn't have slam interest, he's just going to bid 5♦ anyway, and no harm, no foul; if he does have slam interest, this hand shouldn't disappoint him, and what he may most want to know about is control of the suit they're bidding. I don't think we need the perfect (or even a great) hand to cuebid below the game level here. This hand is pretty good.

[han]

Yet another demonstration that loser counters can't bid.

[mikeh]

Tough call.

I have relatively few controls, and 75% of my strength is in partner's short suits, all of which argue for conservatism via 4N.

But I have a hand that is superb opposite, say, xx AKxxx AKxxx x, and I don't think he can bid over 4N... maybe I hold KQJx Qx Jxx AQ9x... that's what a 4N bid would look like.

Raising to 5♦ is a little more encouraging, but if he has a stiff club, and I don't cuebid 5♣, he may be concerned about a club out to LHO's Ace and a club back, promoting a trump trick on many layouts, even when the rest of the hand is slam suitable.

So I choose the slight overbid of 5♣... I would expect partner to let me off gently with xx AKxxx AJ10xx x as an example... note that on the auction, he probably doesn't want to be in slam on that layout even opposite KQx Qx Kxxx AKxx.

Finally, for all those choosing a more conservative call, please make it in tempo... if you tank and partner has a close call towards slam, you may be in committee trouble if he moves again. This, of course, is a real problem philosophically, since very few of us could choose our call here without breaking tempo.

[Lobowolf]

han, on Sep 15 2008, 12:22 PM, said:

Yet another demonstration that loser counters can't bid.

Ron Klinger called; his offer for your to provide a quotation for his next back cover has been rescinded.

[Echognome]

[SOAPBOX]
The big problem with losing trick count, high card count, or whatever count is that it's a static evaluation of a dynamic problem. You come up with a "value" for your hand based on some measure and consider your hand in isolation of everything else that is going on. You then assign a guess of a similar measure from your partner based on what you have heard thus far and then think this is a good tool to examine the combined value of the two hands?

Why not just consider the problem more fluidly. You can consider things like:

Honor location
Fitting values
Extra trump length
Useful shortness
Offensive vs defensive holdings
etc.

Notice that when the good bidders give reasons for their choices, they are based on knowledge from the entire auction (including opponents) as well as how their hand has increased in value or decreased in value based on the auction.

Can you tell me how losing trick count increases in value or decreases in value based on the auction? If not, then how can we possibly consider it a useful guide for bidding decisions?
[/SOAPBOX]

[Lobowolf]

Echognome, on Sep 15 2008, 12:54 PM, said:

[SOAPBOX]
The big problem with losing trick count, high card count, or whatever count is that it's a static evaluation of a dynamic problem. You come up with a "value" for your hand based on some measure and consider your hand in isolation of everything else that is going on. You then assign a guess of a similar measure from your partner based on what you have heard thus far and then think this is a good tool to examine the combined value of the two hands?

Why not just consider the problem more fluidly. You can consider things like:

Honor location
Fitting values
Extra trump length
Useful shortness
Offensive vs defensive holdings
etc.

Notice that when the good bidders give reasons for their choices, they are based on knowledge from the entire auction (including opponents) as well as how their hand has increased in value or decreased in value based on the auction.

Can you tell me how losing trick count increases in value or decreases in value based on the auction? If not, then how can we possibly consider it a useful guide for bidding decisions?
[/SOAPBOX]

I agree completely, which is why in my post LTC was merely a basic starting point. I contextualized my evaluation with reference to partner's bidding (making it likely that my red suit holdings weren't full of the losers as they would be in isolation), the opponents' bidding (partner's potential concern about the club suit), and the potential "in and out" (as Jeff Rubens would say) benefit of having slow honors in partner's suits and fast honors outside it.

[ArtK78]

My two cents.

Losing trick count hand evaluation is a better method than high-card points in evaluating the trick taking potential of unbalanced hands for suit play.

There seem to be two very different versions of losing trick count hand evaluation. The one that seems to be more well known is a method of taking the number of losers in your hand and adding the number of losers presumed to be in partner's hand from his bidding, and subtracting the result from some number to arrive at the appropriate level. I apologize if I am not presenting this method correctly, because I have never understood it and I have never figured out why it would work.

The other method, which I am familiar with, is the method that was presented in some of the early Romex books written by George Rosenkranz. I refer to this as the Modified Losing Trick Count (MLTC). Opener evaluates his hand by standard loser trick method - in each suit of 3 cards or longer, there are up to 3 losers. You reduce the number by 1 for each Ace, King and Queen of the suit held. So, AKx(xxx), AQx(xxx) and KQx(xxx) would each be one loser suits, Axx(xxx), Kxx(xxx) and Qxx(xxx) would each be two loser suits, and so on. If there are 2 cards in a suit, there are no more than 2 losers, and you reduce the number by one for each of the A or K held. A one card suit is one loser unless it is the singleton Ace (no losers). And a void, obviously, is no losers.

A seven loser hand is a typical minimum opening. A six loser hand is a good opening. A five loser hand is a maximum opening. A four loser hand is a near 2C game forcing opening - good enough to force to game over any response. A three loser hand is a game forcing 2C opening.

The difference between this method and the more common method is that responder evaluates his hand by cover cards, not losers. Opener bids his hand and responder determines which of his Aces, Kings and Queens are opposite long enough suits in opener's hand to cover opener's losers. The same can be said about short suits when adequate trump are held, but you have to be careful to avoid duplication of values.

If the partnership values their holdings properly, using the MLTC method of hand evaluation can prove to be far more accurate than high card points and most other methods of hand evaluation.

High card points tend to be reasonably accurate when a balanced hand faces a balanced hand.

[han]

Still think I hit the nail right on the edge with my comment. Or something like that.

[ASkolnick]

No, ArtK. Those are the same methods. The difference is the combining of the two hands:

Method 2: Use LTC to determine LTC in hand.
Method 1: To figure out the level of contract, it is (24-MLTC). So with

11 Losers combined (Grand Slam)
12 Losers (Small Slam)
13 Losers (Minor suit Game)


The only difference is you can think about it from the response side as well.

9 losers Simple Raise
8 losers Invitational
7 losers Game Plus.

But you still need to know slow cards covering length are better than slow cards covering shortness.

Qxx is not good opposite x, but Axx is good opposite x even though they are the same loser count. At least the principle of the ZARS takes this type of information into account.

[han]

Listen to lobowolf's argument:

I have a 6-loser hand. However, 4 of my losers are in partner's suits so he will cover most of these.

That's one of the most backwards arguments I have read this year and because I'm so polite I blame loser count for it.