[kfay]

Here's a hand I kibbed a BBOF regular defended against today.

Scoring: IMP

---

How would you propose to reach 7♥ by N/S (or do you not want to be there)?

The auction was as follows:

1♠-2♦
2♥-3♥
4♣-4♦
4♥-4NT
5♣-5NT
6♥-Pass

4♣ was a serious slam try. N bypassed their serious cue in spades, disagree?!!!! (Actually I'm not 100% they had that available, I can only assume).

I have thought some from time to time about what it means to ask for the trump Q when you actually hold it, and then bid on after partner denies. But I haven't asked many people or consulted 'The Last Word' etc. What would this auction mean to you?

...
4♥-4NT
5♣-5♦
5♥-6♣ (e.g.)

(KenRexford please hide your answers re: cueing queens and jacks )

[mikeh]

Simple answer: I don't want to be there. Grands should be 70% or so before we want to bid them: not only are there imp odds to consider, but we have to bear in mind that even the best partnerships sometimes have accidents in which they miss apparently trivial small slams.

[maggieb]

mikeh, on Nov 10 2009, 02:29 PM, said:

Simple answer: I don't want to be there. Grands should be 70% or so before we want to bid them: not only are there imp odds to consider, but we have to bear in mind that even the best partnerships sometimes have accidents in which they miss apparently trivial small slams.

Mike your 70% figure is nonsense. Here are some numbers:

1) The actual IMP odds are 56%.
2) Let's be generous and assume the other expert table will just be in game a shocking 20% of the time. Then the IMP odds are 62.4%.
3) For your 70% figure to hold, the other table would need to be in game about 45% of the time.

I estimate that this grand is actually quite good. On 2-2 hearts it's practically cold, and on 3-1 hearts it will still make on 3-3 diamonds or Kx of diamonds coming down or some other layouts, and we have other small chances too. Overall I would conservatively estimate it as about 65% to make.

[jdonn]

The real problem is that south doesn't know his partner is 5-5, if he did he would have a force to the grand opposite all the keycards. I don't claim to have an answer to that though, since of course south will raise hearts.

Of course north shouldn't bypass the spade cue, unless they really couldn't cuebid spades like if 3♠ is 6-4 and 3NT is a frivolous slam try.

Maggie I think you are too hard on Mike. He said 70% or so and you respond like that when you get the true answer as something like 60%?

[maggieb]

jdonn, on Nov 10 2009, 03:55 PM, said:

The real problem is that south doesn't know his partner is 5-5, if he did he would have a force to the grand opposite all the keycards. I don't claim to have an answer to that though, since of course south will raise hearts.

Of course north shouldn't bypass the spade cue, unless they really couldn't cuebid spades like if 3♠ is 6-4 and 3NT is a frivolous slam try.

Maggie I think you are too hard on Mike. He said 70% or so and you respond like that when you get the true answer as something like 60%?

I didn't mean it as an attack on Mike, who I've never met but assume is a nice guy and a good bridge player. I guess I am just annoyed at this very prevalent belief, even among strong bridge players, that grand slams need to be nearly lock-down in order to bid because the other table might not even be in slam. The actual numbers suggest that 2/3 is sufficient even against very mediocre players.

Anyway on this hand I think a reasonable partnership would get to slam 90% of the time, and an expert one essentially always.

[kfay]

There was an article in the BW last month(?) about how grand needs to be just 2/3 the probability of the SMALL SLAM to make it favorable. i.e. if you bid a 60% small and the grand is 40%, you should bid that. Maybe I am misremembering... will have to look.

Anyway, my main question about this hand is the auction:

4NT-5♣
5♦-5♥
6♣

For the record I thought it looked like a perfectly fine grand. Haven't done any numbers, though.

[Jlall]

Maggie I'm pretty sure the reason strong bridge players want grands to be very good before they bid them is because they usually win their matches. As such they don't want a huge swing on this hand, even if they are +EV. Since most teams do not bid grands very aggressively, your numbers do not tell the whole story. If the strong teams will win the match 80 % of the time by pushing the board, they will need really good odds to risk losing a slam swing since now they will lose the match much more often.

I know from playing on a lot of pro teams in a lot of regionals that I and my teammates would never want to be in a grand in the 6x% range generally. I would only want to be in one if the other team was a good pro team, or if the bad team we were playing was really aggro and likely to be in the grand somehow.

I know that meckwell will almost never bid grands in a regional. Rightly so, and it's not because they fear the other guys will be in game.

[mikeh]

Jlall, on Nov 10 2009, 06:08 PM, said:

Maggie I'm pretty sure the reason strong bridge players want grands to be very good before they bid them is because they usually win their matches. As such they don't want a huge swing on this hand, even if they are +EV. Since most teams do not bid grands very aggressively, your numbers do not tell the whole story. If the strong teams will win the match 80 % of the time by pushing the board, they will need really good odds to risk losing a slam swing since now they will lose the match much more often.

I know from playing on a lot of pro teams in a lot of regionals that I and my teammates would never want to be in a grand in the 6x% range generally. I would only want to be in one if the other team was a good pro team, or if the bad team we were playing was really aggro and likely to be in the grand somehow.

I know that meckwell will almost never bid grands in a regional. Rightly so, and it's not because they fear the other guys will be in game.

I agree with Justin on this point: back in 1998, playing for the right to go to the BB, our team felt that it was heavily favoured in a 128 board playoff, and our NPC lectured us at the beginning of the match that we should avoid any grand that did not seem, on the auction, to be virtually cold: he wanted to avoid the unlucky 17 imp adverse swing far more than he feared losing 13.

Ironically, I took this too much to heart and avoided a very baby grand in the first set, that I would otherwise have bid. Lose 13. Oh well.

[Phil]

Jlall, on Nov 10 2009, 06:08 PM, said:

I know that meckwell will almost never bid grands in a regional. Rightly so, and it's not because they fear the other guys will be in game.

Ergo, I should definitely bid the grand vs Meckwell since they are trading EV for lower variance.

[ArtK78]

mikeh, on Nov 11 2009, 12:35 PM, said:

I agree with Justin on this point: back in 1998, playing for the right to go to the BB, our team felt that it was heavily favoured in a 128 board playoff, and our NPC lectured us at the beginning of the match that we should avoid any grand that did not seem, on the auction, to be virtually cold: he wanted to avoid the unlucky 17 imp adverse swing far more than he feared losing 13.

Ironically, I took this too much to heart and avoided a very baby grand in the first set, that I would otherwise have bid. Lose 13. Oh well.

So, Mike, did you win the match?

[Jlall]

Phil, on Nov 11 2009, 12:51 PM, said:

Jlall, on Nov 10 2009, 06:08 PM, said:

I know that meckwell will almost never bid grands in a regional. Rightly so, and it's not because they fear the other guys will be in game.

Ergo, I should definitely bid the grand vs Meckwell since they are trading EV for lower variance.

Yes for sure. The best strategy vs Meckwell is to bid close slams and grands. Of course this will only work once...after that they will know you are someone who likes to bid slam and will adjust their own bidding accordingly.

Imo if you're going to beat meckwell in a long match you should also be aiming to bid close slams or grands regardless. They are conservative in that area and you probably won't beat them on the game hands, so hope to get lucky with the slams!

[mikeh]

ArtK78, on Nov 11 2009, 12:59 PM, said:

mikeh, on Nov 11 2009, 12:35 PM, said:

I agree with Justin on this point: back in 1998, playing for the right to go to the BB, our team felt that it was heavily favoured in a 128 board playoff, and our NPC lectured us at the beginning of the match that we should avoid any grand that did not seem, on the auction, to be virtually cold: he wanted to avoid the unlucky 17 imp adverse swing far more than he feared losing 13.

Ironically, I took this too much to heart and avoided a very baby grand in the first set, that I would otherwise have bid. Lose 13. Oh well.

So, Mike, did you win the match?

they conceded with 16 to go

[andy_h]

After queen ask and a denial, I think there are several possibilities:

- Maybe not on this auction but possibly on other auctions, but the partnership may hold 5KC except the trump queen and so you can use one of the bids to ask for trump length
- You may be missing a KC and the queen of trumps, so for heart auctions, possibly 5♠ can be an invitational ask, probing for 5NT/6NT by having enough side suit tricks so you don't have a trump suit to worry about.
- 6-your-minor is to play, as you may be able to set up tricks from opener's 1st suit to rid off the losers of the original trump fit.

[Fluffy]

I wrote a post not so long ago about asking for queen while holding it. To ahve a new set of askigs at teh 6 level.

I think only ken answered it, so go guess.

On this hand the problem is about captancy on the board, north has more info than south on this one, and he should (could) be forced to take control by bidding 4♠ over 4♥.

[mike777]

kfay, on Nov 10 2009, 02:10 PM, said:

Here's a hand I kibbed a BBOF regular defended against today.

<!-- NORTHSOUTH begin --><table border=1> <tr> <td> <table> <tr> <td>Dealer:</td> <td> North </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vul:</td> <td> E/W </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Scoring:</td> <td> IMP </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td> <table border='1'> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> AQ1054 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> A10653 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> 8 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> A9 </td> </tr> </table> </th> </tr> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> 2 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> KQ97 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> AQJ1054 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> K6 </td> </tr> </table> </th> </tr> </table> </td> <td>  </td> </tr> </table><!-- NORTHSOUTH end -->

How would you propose to reach 7♥ by N/S (or do you not want to be there)?

The auction was as follows:

1♠-2♦
2♥-3♥
4♣-4♦
4♥-4NT
5♣-5NT
6♥-Pass

4♣ was a serious slam try.  N bypassed their serious cue in spades, disagree?!!!! (Actually I'm not 100% they had that available, I can only assume).

I have thought some from time to time about what it means to ask for the trump Q when you actually hold it, and then bid on after partner denies.  But I haven't asked many people or consulted 'The Last Word' etc.  What would this auction mean to you?

...
4♥-4NT
5♣-5♦
5♥-6♣ (e.g.)

(KenRexford please hide your answers re: cueing queens and jacks )

tough hand I can find out that south has:
14+hcp
AD
KC
KQH
4H and 5D and denies KS.

South can know we have all the keycards and I deny KD(and likely deny KS) and I made a grand try.