[Cascade]

Dealer: West Vul: NS Scoring: MPs

♠ AKQT ♥ 7 ♦ K8652 ♣ J74

West North East South

 Pass  1♣    1♠    3♦*
 Pass  3♥    Pass  3NT
 Pass  4♥    Pass  ?

*3♦ is natural and forcing - 2♦ would have been NF.

You have the clear agreement that 4NT would be natural now.

Is anyone keen to offer to play 4NT rather than give a club preference at this point in the auction?

[Codo]

5 ♣.
I was writing why I chose 4 NT (it is MPs, I have good stopper etc.). But I changed my mind. The risk, that 4 NT is not making- espacially after a diamond lead and continuation- is there. So I go for a lame 5 Club.

[benlessard]

4Nt but not convinced.

[gnasher]

It wouldn't occur to me to bid 4NT, which needs either solid clubs or a double stop in each red suit, and might have communication problems even then. 4NT is horrible opposite an ordinary hand like x AQxxx x KQ10xxx.

[FrancesHinden]

Yes, 4NT is (i) going to play like a drain and (ii) can easily have four losers - (just imagine it on a heart lead, for instance)

The only problem with 5C is that we might be making 6 (xx Axxxx - AKxxxx has mild play for 7 if they forget to lead trumps), but 4S sounds like a cue for hearts and might confuse matters.

[keylime]

I'll pass under the "no fit, time to quit" principle.

[rbforster]

5♣ for me, even though I'd rather declare than partner (so we can pitch any diamond losers he might have on spades before they get cashed). We have a fit and partner has a very distributional hand - I don't see any reason to insist on NT.

[fred]

Agree re bidding 5C now.

But I think you might want to reconsider some other aspect of your system if it really forces you to jump to 3D on hands with Kxxxx of diamonds.

IMO it is not realistic to hope for a sensible auction if you start with 3D on such hands.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebsae.com

[bid_em_up]

keylime, on Oct 31 2008, 09:29 AM, said:

I'll pass under the "no fit, time to quit" principle.

Dwayne , do you really believe this?

You have at least a 9 card club fit on this auction, partner should be 5♥/6+♣.

I'm more inclined to bid 6♣, than 4N to play.

[ASkolnick]

I bid 4♠. I doubt this could be for hearts, it is much more likely club support. With Hearts, I probably would have bid 3♠ on the previous round instead of 3N. So, he can still bid 4N, 5C, or 5H. Worst case scenario, you correct 5H to 6♣ and you are in a light slam.

[mikeh]

ASkolnick, on Oct 31 2008, 11:03 AM, said:

I bid 4♠.  I doubt this could be for hearts, it is much more likely club support.  With Hearts, I probably would have bid 3♠ on the previous round instead of 3N.  So, he can still bid 4N, 5C, or 5H.  Worst case scenario, you correct 5H to 6♣ and you are in a light slam.

Why? Partner's 3♥ call showed only 4 cards... so why would you raise on Hxx with, say, 2--3 spade stoppers? However, once partner shows a 5-6 hand, hearts are far more likely to be a good slam trump suit.. picture AQx Kxx AJxxxx x.. wouldn't we bid or at least consider 3N rather than a heart raise? But once partner announces 5=6, we can picture slam opposite lots of suitable minimums: x AQxxx x AQJ10xx... virtually cold on a 3-2 trump break, for example. So I think 4♠ will likely be interpreted as liking hearts.. altho I suppose it might mean: I like my hand, but you have to guess why

I echo Fred's comment. Add this hand to the (lengthy) list of why negative free bids are godawful for bidding high-level contracts... here we are, with zero information as to how good partner's hand is, and no way to let partner know how our hand meshes... because we consumed an entire level of bidding, in a mundane auction... just to allow us to try to play 2♦ after a 1♠ overcall.

[dake50]

May I use transfer advances here? 2C -> 5+D with a) signoff hopes to be followed with strong bid. That fits with next a 3S cue. Now partner's 2H to D-xfer shows long H + long C( refusing xfer only with max/distributional hand). WE are well placed for 6C/5C decision.

[ASkolnick]

1) If I had hearts, wouldn't I start off with a double? Not sure how this works with negative freebids though. Therefore, when I don't I probably don't have that.

2) Even with negative freebids, I assume this hand is supposed to be a double saying I have positive values. I would think that when you jump you have a somewhat self-sufficient suit. If you just play it as a negative double, you will have big trouble on hands like this.

3) I think negative freebids work much better in limited opening systems. This way, you never have to worry if partner has the "strong" hand, because he can't.

[Cascade]

keylime, on Nov 1 2008, 03:29 AM, said:

I'll pass under the "no fit, time to quit" principle.

I think we have a club fit on this auction.

[Cascade]

mikeh, on Nov 1 2008, 05:45 AM, said:

I echo Fred's comment. Add this hand to the (lengthy) list of why negative free bids are godawful for bidding high-level contracts... here we are, with zero information as to how good partner's hand is, and no way to let partner know how our hand meshes... because we consumed an entire level of bidding, in a mundane auction... just to allow us to try to play 2♦ after a 1♠ overcall.

That is an extremely distorted view of the reason you want to bid 2♦ Non-Forcing.

The main reason you bid it is not to play 2♦ although that is an option but rather to show a hand with a potential source of tricks so that our side can bid a game or even a slam.

Over our negative free bids we frequently bid games that become difficult to bid when the opponents aggressively raise if we do not get into the auction quickly. In fact in the National Trials last year we bid and made a grand slam in clubs when partner had ♣ KQJxxx and out on a hand that no one else got to slam and at least one very good pair did not even mention their club suit.

Nevertheless even the option to play in 2♦ serves a purpose to keep us low on misfit hands where partner might be tempted to bid later having passed or made a distorted takeout double.

[Cascade]

fred, on Nov 1 2008, 04:02 AM, said:

Agree re bidding 5C now.

But I think you might want to reconsider some other aspect of your system if it really forces you to jump to 3D on hands with Kxxxx of diamonds.

IMO it is not realistic to hope for a sensible auction if you start with 3D on such hands.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebsae.com

This is a low frequency bid with diamonds this poor.

There is about a 4% pool of hands with five or more diamonds and game-forcing values.

Of these:

about 1/3 have four hearts so would double;

about 1/8 have club support and would make a raise;

another 1/8 would have a decent spade stopper and be able to bid NTs.

This leaves less than 2% of hands that make this bid. About half of these have six or more diamonds.