[jillybean]

Dealer: North Vul: NS Scoring: IMP

♠ A ♥ QJT764 ♦ J982 ♣ KJ

West North East South

 -     1♣    Pass  1♥
 Pass  2♥    Pass  ?  

[jdonn]

I don't know what rule you are referring to but this is a very easy game bid.

[kenrexford]

jdonn, on Apr 14 2009, 12:10 PM, said:

I don't know what rule you are referring to but this is a very easy game bid.

Agree.

Rather tough to imagine a slam that is not at best on a hook. Opener would about have to have the diamond stiff and no wasted values in spades. With both pointed Aces, the club Queen, and the heart King, that's 13 HCP plus a stiff, a very strong 2♥ call. Lose the club Queen or heart King, and slam does appear to be on a finesse, however. But, finding it would be very difficult. I suppose you could make one stab by bidding 2♠ if desperate.

[Old York]

With 6 losers, I might try 3♦ as "help wanted trial bid", if partner rebids 4♥, then a 4♠ cue bid could get us to a slam, but after opener's weak rebid I am not too hopeful

Tony

[ArtK78]

4♥ seems clear. What are we missing?

[Phil]

If you picture some of the possible hands partner can hold, slam can be quite good. For instance:

xxxx, AKxx, x, Axxx can give us a laydown slam.

If I had 2♠ or 2N available as an inquiry, I would try that and make a further move if pard showed a s/v diamond.

[jdonn]

Phil, on Apr 14 2009, 12:24 PM, said:

If you picture some of the possible hands partner can hold, slam can be quite good. For instance:

xxxx, AKxx, x, Axxx can give us a laydown slam.

If I had 2♠ or 2N available as an inquiry, I would try that and make a further move if pard showed a s/v diamond.

I had definitely thought of that, but:
- The 5 level is far from safe opposite a singleton diamond.
- Slam is not at all laydown in your example though it is very good.
- By 'some of the possible hands' you really mean 'the one possible hand', which is diamond shortness and AK of hearts and A of clubs, with irrelevant rearrangements. A void is rather too obscure to worry about imo.
I don't think searching for the unlikely slam is bad just in case, but I don't think it's worth a B/I worrying about on this hand with so few values, a good system needed, and slam very unlikely.

[kenrexford]

Phil, on Apr 14 2009, 12:24 PM, said:

If you picture some of the possible hands partner can hold, slam can be quite good. For instance:

xxxx, AKxx, x, Axxx can give us a laydown slam.

If I had 2♠ or 2N available as an inquiry, I would try that and make a further move if pard showed a s/v diamond.

How is that "laydown?"

You get a trump lead.

The opponent with two hearts wins the diamond to play another heart.

You end up with six hearts, two diamond ruffs, two clubs, and the top spade, for 11 tricks. You still need the club finesse or some miracle, I think.

[mikeh]

This looks like a simple game bid, as others have said.

Yes, one can construct hands where slam is good (xxx AKxx x AQxxx is one maximum he might hold) but on most such hands, the opps have lots of pointed cards and didn't bid at the one level, so partner probably doesn't have the hands.

If you have good methods (say, using 2♠ over 2♥ as an artificial asking bid, to have opener describe his raise) you MIGHT be able to untangle a few of the small number of slam hands, but few in the B/I would have such methods, and I am not sure I'd bother to use them even in an expert game.

BTW, jb.. what rule are you referring to?

[JLOL]

4H

[Phil]

kenrexford, on Apr 14 2009, 01:33 PM, said:

Phil, on Apr 14 2009, 12:24 PM, said:

If you picture some of the possible hands partner can hold, slam can be quite good. For instance:

xxxx, AKxx, x, Axxx can give us a laydown slam.

If I had 2♠ or 2N available as an inquiry, I would try that and make a further move if pard showed a s/v diamond.

How is that "laydown?"

You get a trump lead.

The opponent with two hearts wins the diamond to play another heart.

You end up with six hearts, two diamond ruffs, two clubs, and the top spade, for 11 tricks. You still need the club finesse or some miracle, I think.

Thus the word, "can". Who leads a trump on this auction anyway?

[jillybean]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     1♣    Pass  1♥
 Pass  2♥    Pass  3♠
 Pass  4♥    Pass  Pass
 Pass  

Lead ♠2


The rule, don’t splinter a stiff Ace.

We have 10card ♥ fit and some shape. 4♥ to me says I have zero interest in exploring above game. My question is why is it a bad idea to splinter ♠ here? It tells partner we have game and a maximum 1 loser in ♠ and says I have a good hand, cue if you think there could be slam. With serious slam interest I can find another bid and force partner to cue.

[vuroth]

I wondered if that was where you were going.

My understanding is that the idea behind a splinter is you're hoping to find that you and partner have like 13+13=26 of the 30 points OUTSIDE your short suit, which is very strong.

Here, even if partner has 13, you only have 13+8=21 of the 30 HCP in the lower 3 suits. Ok, so you have no spade losers, but missing 9 points sounds like 2-3 losers to me.

PLUS, your own 8HCP aren't exactly beefy. If you're ever taking 11 tricks in ♥♦♣ with only 21 points, you're probably going to have your points in a lot of aces and kings - not jacks.

That's my guess, anyways.

[cherdanno]

The problem with this hand is that slam is only good if partner has no wastage in spades and short diamonds. Neither in standard nor with the agreements I have with my partners could I find out about this below 4♥. Since inquiring may give away the right lead, and since I certainly can't drive to the 5-level, I think it is 100% clear to bid 4♥.

Still, 3♠ is not a bad plan. If you bid 3♠ and then 4♥ over 4♣, maybe partner with short diamonds will realize the slam potential. On the actual hand, partner had a 100% clear 4♣ bid, 4♥ is very bad bid. He has good controls, good trumps, shortness and no spade wastage.

[Stephen Tu]

If you splinter, partner ought to think xxx AKxx Kxx Axx is the nuts, but slam is terrible and even 5 is in jeopardy.

It's a question of how often you find the perfecto (+ no trump lead), vs. how many disasters you create. Not only bad slams, but also getting better lead/defense vs. game.

[kenrexford]

Phil, on Apr 14 2009, 04:23 PM, said:

kenrexford, on Apr 14 2009, 01:33 PM, said:

Phil, on Apr 14 2009, 12:24 PM, said:

If you picture some of the possible hands partner can hold, slam can be quite good. For instance:

xxxx, AKxx, x, Axxx can give us a laydown slam.

If I had 2♠ or 2N available as an inquiry, I would try that and make a further move if pard showed a s/v diamond.

How is that "laydown?"

You get a trump lead.

The opponent with two hearts wins the diamond to play another heart.

You end up with six hearts, two diamond ruffs, two clubs, and the top spade, for 11 tricks. You still need the club finesse or some miracle, I think.

Thus the word, "can". Who leads a trump on this auction anyway?

Anyone who hears the auction necessary to get to the slam.

[mikeh]

Jb: even tho the splinter deserved to reach a good slam here (your partner is very weak not to bid slam after 3♠... if i had only one call to make at that point, it would have been 6♥, but in fact i would have cue bid clubs first), it is a bad bid. As Stephen mentioned, partner will misevaluate hcp in diamonds... thinking that you must have cards there, because you are looking for slam with a stiff 'x' in spades... xxx AKxx Qxx Axx is another horrific hand where you may go down in 5 even without them scoring a ruff... yet he should co-operate... expecting you to hold, for example, x QJxxxx AKxx Kx (you couldn't keycard over 2♥ because he might hold KQJx Kxxx Qx QJx, as an example).

Splinters are usually made in the context of one hand being limited.. thus most players, when splintering in response to a 1M opening, have a narrowly defined range, and here opener has a narrowly defined range. The splinter gains its utility not merely by stating that we have no more than one loser in this suit but also, critically, by implying that we have enough values in the other suits that slam will (usually) be good if partner has no wastage in the splinter suit. In other words, our high cards are all 'working'. When you splinter with a stiff A or K, your partner will mentally place those 3 or 4 hcp in the other suits... and see how the hands mesh accordingly.

If his hand is limited.. he will upgrade when the great majority of his hcp are in the other suits, and downgrade when he has 'wasted values'. When his hand is unlimited, but your is limited, then he will mentally place your 'known' strength amongst the other suits and see if these images make slam worth bidding/investigating. The images he constructs will all be very misleading because he has misplaced 3 or 4 of your hcp.

Too many players, in my view, think of bidding only in terms of their own thought processes... good partners have a mind to the image that their partners will be forming and the processes through which they will be working.

[kenrexford]

mikeh, on Apr 14 2009, 06:18 PM, said:

Jb: even tho the splinter deserved to reach a good slam here...

How is this a good slam?

Against a slam, a spade lead is hopeless. A trump lead is 100%. Since the person with the doubleton heart has the diamond Ace, they get in to lead another trump.

Now, are you supposed to find the smother play in diamonds for trick #12 instead of the simple club hook? Or, am I missing some exotic compound squeeze somewhere?

[jdaming]

The reason for this "rule" is partner will generally make an assumption that your points lie out side the splinter and that you will be able to develop a side suit for extra tricks. IE.

Axxx x is a lot more valuable to p then
xxxx A because he has a chance with some honors in his hand of developing the suit.

[mikeh]

kenrexford, on Apr 14 2009, 06:26 PM, said:

mikeh, on Apr 14 2009, 06:18 PM, said:

Jb: even tho the splinter deserved to reach a good slam here...

How is this a good slam?

Against a slam, a spade lead is hopeless. A trump lead is 100%. Since the person with the doubleton heart has the diamond Ace, they get in to lead another trump.

Now, are you supposed to find the smother play in diamonds for trick #12 instead of the simple club hook? Or, am I missing some exotic compound squeeze somewhere?

It is an excellent slam, looking at the 2 bidding hands...slightly more than 50% of the time, the hand with the diamond A has a stiff heart... and sometimes they don't lead a stiff trump... in fact, there are a LOT of good players who try to avoid that lead... and after all of that, we can fall back on a club hook... so this is an excellent slam to bid.. I did not say a 'cold' slam. And I find it useful to analyze bidding in terms of whether we reached a good single dummy contract... I leave double dummy bidding and analysis for result merchants