[jjbrr]

pretender, on Feb 11 2010, 02:05 PM, said:

jjbrr, on Feb 11 2010, 01:40 PM, said:

pretender, on Feb 11 2010, 01:35 PM, said:

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge. You have 22HCP opposite an opening hand. It's your job to find out the cards that you need to see if you should be in a grand slam. There's no point telling your partner about diamonds by bidding 1D if it doesn't help you reach your destination. You need to plan the auction before your first response, and be the captain in this auction.

Sorry, but this is not sound advice. And I think you were serious about 6♣ Q ask.

lol.

I was serious about the Q ask in that when I was first taught Gerber years ago, you didn't use it unless the point was to be in NT. To bid Gerber and then be able to get out in a suit seemed contradictory (establish your suit and bid keycard).

How was my advice not sound? I basically just advised him to plan the auction before his reflex response. Wasn't that part of the problem? That he ended up in a situation where he couldn't make a naturalish bid that forced the auction? Why work on solving a problem that you're going to create when you should just not create the problem in the first place? To me a forcing club raise is the lesser of evils if you are worried about being naturalish. If you're not, then bidding 2H shouldn't have been a problem either.

pretender said:

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge.

Bidding anything besides 1♦ that isn't RKC or 7NT will not improve anyone's bridge. I mean we've identified one hand where it literally doesn't matter what we bid as long as it's forcing and our final bid is 7NT, but sometimes it matters and bidding your AKQJxx at the one level is a great start!

[gdawg01]

@pretender :

The rationale behind bidding 1D was that since partner had opened, he was not going to pass this. I figured I would let him know about the diamond suit, then figure out what to do when his bid came around to me! With anything else, I would have probably responded with 4N RKC (yea, he might have construed this as support for his second suit but in this case, that would not matter as he would be in 7N ) and found 7N; it was the 1N that exposed the gaps in agreements / how to force at a low level!

G

[pretender]

jjbrr, on Feb 11 2010, 02:23 PM, said:

pretender, on Feb 11 2010, 02:05 PM, said:

jjbrr, on Feb 11 2010, 01:40 PM, said:

pretender, on Feb 11 2010, 01:35 PM, said:

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge. You have 22HCP opposite an opening hand. It's your job to find out the cards that you need to see if you should be in a grand slam. There's no point telling your partner about diamonds by bidding 1D if it doesn't help you reach your destination. You need to plan the auction before your first response, and be the captain in this auction.

Sorry, but this is not sound advice. And I think you were serious about 6♣ Q ask.

lol.

I was serious about the Q ask in that when I was first taught Gerber years ago, you didn't use it unless the point was to be in NT. To bid Gerber and then be able to get out in a suit seemed contradictory (establish your suit and bid keycard).

How was my advice not sound? I basically just advised him to plan the auction before his reflex response. Wasn't that part of the problem? That he ended up in a situation where he couldn't make a naturalish bid that forced the auction? Why work on solving a problem that you're going to create when you should just not create the problem in the first place? To me a forcing club raise is the lesser of evils if you are worried about being naturalish. If you're not, then bidding 2H shouldn't have been a problem either.

pretender said:

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge.

Bidding anything besides 1♦ that isn't RKC or 7NT will not improve anyone's bridge. I mean we've identified one hand where it literally doesn't matter what we bid as long as it's forcing and our final bid is 7NT, but sometimes it matters and bidding your AKQJxx at the one level is a great start!

I agree. And I would bid 1D in my partnerships. But that's because both you and I are confident in our ways to force in the subsequent auction. Since gdawg had a problem with agreements that he can only discuss after the fact, my suggestion was that it was probably better to think about how the auction might proceed and come up with an alternative. Thinking about how problems might come up and avoiding them is usually better than dealing with them after, although the latter is probably more interesting in general and better for discussion forums.

I'm also curious what relevant information you think you can get after a 1D response that you can't get opposite a forcing club raise?

[jjbrr]

So you think the way to better bridge is to do things incorrectly? I respectfully disagree. There is nothing wrong with getting in the routine of doing things correctly, even if it leads to uncertainty in the rest of the auction. How else will he learn how to bid the rest of the auction correctly?

Relevant info? Lol. I'm glad your inverted minor agreements are so good!

[pretender]

gdawg01, on Feb 11 2010, 02:31 PM, said:

@pretender :

The rationale behind bidding 1D was that since partner had opened, he was not going to pass this. I figured I would let him know about the diamond suit, then figure out what to do when his bid came around to me! With anything else, I would have probably responded with 4N RKC (yea, he might have construed this as support for his second suit but in this case, that would not matter as he would be in 7N ) and found 7N; it was the 1N that exposed the gaps in agreements / how to force at a low level!

G

Let's get back to that auction though, gdawg.

According to what you said, if partner had responded 1H you would have probably bid 4N RKC, which might have been construed as RKC for hearts (likely) or clubs? or diamonds?

Well what if partner's hand is KJxx KJxx x KQxx? or AKxx JTxx xx KQx?

Do you know which key card you're missing? Would you still be in 7NT?

That's what I mean by perhaps planning the auction (or at least visualizing dangers) before making your first bid.

[gdawg01]

pretender,
with both those hands, he has 1 KC to show and I will know we are still missing one, so given our methods (or lack of them!) I cannot try for 7 anything as we might be off the A of spades. I meant the 7N bit with respect to his actual hand that I posted here.

[pretender]

jjbrr, on Feb 11 2010, 02:40 PM, said:

So you think the way to better bridge is to do things incorrectly? I respectfully disagree. There is nothing wrong with getting in the routine of doing things correctly, even if it leads to uncertainty in the rest of the auction. How else will he learn how to bid the rest of the auction correctly?

Relevant info? Lol. I'm glad your inverted minor agreements are so good!

No, my point was that he should have visualized a plan. Perhaps he would come to the conclusion that after 1C-1D-1NT he would bid 2H. If he felt uncomfortable doing that, then he might come to the conclusion of the forcing club raise. Either way, it's just a good thing to do in general.

Instead of scoffing at my inverted minor agreements (which I actually believe in my partnerships are quite good), perhaps you can answer the question? What relevant info can you get in your auction that can't be gotten in the forcing minor raise auction? You have example hands? Example auctions? If you do, great, I'd be happy to see it.

[jjbrr]

Lol.

So you're suggesting that after a 1♣ opening, a good bridge player will visualize every possible auction that can result from every possible response? This is absolutely terrible advice.

Think about this quote for a little while and try to extrapolate what it means in the big picture:

jjbrr said:

we've identified one hand where it literally doesn't matter what we bid as long as it's forcing and our final bid is 7NT

Meanwhile, back in the real world, you honestly can't think of any bids that convey relevant information after the auction 1♣-1♦? Would 2NT convey any relevant information to you? Would 2♦ put us in a bad position? How about 2♣? And how is knowing partner is 12-14 and balanced not relevant? I know what he has and we're still at 1NT, whereas you would be at some level higher than 2♣ if you go the other route with some amount of information that is likely less than what a 1NT rebid shows, though it's possible you have really good inverted minor responses (which I'm very skeptical of). I don't see how you can possibly think my way is anything but objectively superior.

What if I have the same hand without the ♥A? Don't you think the familiarity with 1♣-1♦ auctions will be valuable? Surely you don't argue that 2♣ is the right bid with that hand.

[neilkaz]

gdawg01, on Feb 11 2010, 12:56 PM, said:

We need to get A LOT of this "simple" stuff sorted out Meanwhile, I seem to have missed a rare opportunity to bid 7N directly after 1N, sigh.

Re: your original question, you certainly don't suck, but your methods do

If you jump to 7NT w/out asking for aces you deserve to find PD missing the ♠ace that is cashed instantly in 7NTx.

Many have responded with good ideas allready but I'll toss in my 2 cents worth as this seems you were playing with a regular pd.

1) I feel that it is an absolute must to have some good method of continuing after opener rebids 1NT. Many play nmf after that, but here there is no new minor so you substitute an artifical 2♥ which should be GF here, IMO.

1a) Better than some nmf idea is to just play XYZ, XY-NT or two way checkback regardless of the two bids preceeding opener's 1NT rebid. Now 2♣ relays to 2♦ for invites or for getting out in 2♦ and 2♦ directly is GF. You give up playing 2♣ but gain much more on other sequences, IMO.

2) I prefer to use the jump from 1♣ to 2♦ as a strong JS since I think it is a more effective use of the bid. This is used with a slam invite or better and of course is 100% GF. You either have a great suit of your own, or great support for partner's suit as a decent suit of your own. If PD has any kind of fitting hand that is not sub-minimum you should have great play for slam, and there's still plenty of room to investigate and stop in 5m or perhaps 4NT at MP.

3) Many strong players who contribute often here think Gerber is basically useless.
It is easy to agree with them, but you can find times, like here where you just want to ask aces ASAP and once in a while where you prefer to ask aces rather than key carding since you may not care about the king. Anyhow, I don't mind playing Gerber directly over NT openings as I don't have another use for 4♣. With some pards we also use Gerber directly over opener's quantative NT rebids..ie 1NT showing 12-14 or even the jump to 2NT showing 18-19.

Anyhow, my advice is to make sure that you have firm methods of continuing after NT rebids and also establishing trumps and asking aces/key cards.

In closing, I'll state that you may find something below 4NT useful as RKCB for minor suits, either Redwood, Kickback, or even Minorwood as you can more likely stop at 5m.

Just my opinions .. neilkaz ..

[pretender]

jjbrr, on Feb 11 2010, 03:07 PM, said:

Lol.

So you're suggesting that after a 1♣ opening, a good bridge player will visualize every possible auction that can result from every possible response? This is absolutely terrible advice.

Think about this quote for a little while and try to extrapolate what it means in the big picture:

jjbrr said:

we've identified one hand where it literally doesn't matter what we bid as long as it's forcing and our final bid is 7NT

Meanwhile, back in the real world, you honestly can't think of any bids that convey relevant information after the auction 1♣-1♦? Would 2NT convey any relevant information to you? Would 2♦ put us in a bad position? How about 2♣? And how is knowing partner is 12-14 and balanced not relevant? I know what he has and we're still at 1NT, whereas you would be at some level higher than 2♣ if you go the other route with some amount of information that is likely less than what a 1NT rebid shows, though it's possible you have really good inverted minor responses (which I'm very skeptical of). I don't see how you can possibly think my way is anything but objectively superior.

What if I have the same hand without the ♥A? Don't you think the familiarity with 1♣-1♦ auctions will be valuable? Surely you don't argue that 2♣ is the right bid with that hand.

Partner opens the bidding, which gives you some information at least. You look at your hand, you should at least have an idea of where the hand might take you. It's like thinking about possible rebid problems before deciding whether to open a marginal hand. Except with more information.

You still haven't given me specific hands from partner with specific auctions relating to this specific hand. The same hand without the HA is a different hand which would have different goals and possibilities. It would have a different problem over a 1NT rebid. And I believe in figuring each hand out individually instead of just having a blanket 1D response with anything "like" this hand.

I did not say 1D wasn't objectively superior to 2C. I said earlier that in my partnerships I would respond 1D also. But given the added problem of the 1NT rebid (which you or I would not have), the question is whether it generates enough negative expectation to make 2C a lesser of evils.

[jjbrr]

I never consider possible rebids when deciding whether or not to open, fwiw, and I think doing so is not a good practice. As a beginner I learned not to try to guess who holds what cards and how everyone will bid. You might be shocked to learn that sometimes people don't bid whatever it is you're worried about.

It seems to me that you're arguing "when you know where you're going, use the easiest path to get there."

My point is that you face this problem very infrequently at bridge, and it is much better to just do the normal thing even if you know where you're going. I think my argument has many more practical applications.

[ArtK78]

I don't know what agreements the original poster had, but it seems to me that a forcing club raise might get the information that he needs to have to properly place the contract.

So, while it seems obvious to bid 1♦ over 1♣, one might consider making a forcing club raise (whatever that might be). After that, you might be better placed.

[Fluffy]

I really don't see the problem here, if you don't know what 4♣ is don't bid it, bid 3♣ instead.

If 3♣ is not forcing or you suspect it to be non forcing, then try 2♣ if still unclear for you then you have 2 bids avaible wich must be forcing and allow you to bid RCKW at some point: 2♥ and 4♦, 4♦ is the direct route while 2♥ lets you brake when partner bids 2NT next.

I advice you not to bid 6NT on this kind of hand ever again, it is better to try some non forcing bids and train your biddings skills playing some partscores than to remind blind for the rest of your life. If you never try, you never learn.

[nigel_k]

How many matchpoints did you get for 6NT+1? The field may be such that you don't want to bid grand unless you are really certain of 13 tricks.

But normally, with few agreements, I would want to set clubs (via 2♥ is probably safest) and then bid grand any time we have two key cards. The biggest worry is missing a good grand when we are off the ♣K.

[gdawg01]

Fluffy -- Point well taken. Given all those bids were completely undiscussed, I chose to make a "practical" bid. I would not have posted this if I thought blasting 6N was a good idea. Also, I was quite clear what I would take 4C as, my partner was doubtful. :-)

Nigel -- it was a good field. We scored a grand 2 MPs out of a possible 8, beating two pairs who ended up in 6D+1. The more I think about 2H after Jeremy brought it up and several others (you included) suggested that route, the more I like it.

Neilkaz -- thanks for a very detailed reply. I looked very briefly (as I was at work!) into XYZ and XY-NT, and will study them more when I am home. They do seem like awfully good tools to game force at a low level and allow for further hand description without absurd jumps.

[ONEferBRID]

I apologize if I missed someone posting the obvious splinter for this hand:

♠ Q
♥ AQ
♦ AKQJ43
♣ AT85

AKx
Kxx
xxx
Kxxx

1C   - 1D
1NT - 3S! = self-splinter for Diam
?? Opener probably bids 3NT

3NT - 4C! ( cuebid )
4H! - 6D

[eyhung]

jjbrr, on Feb 11 2010, 01:47 PM, said:

I never consider possible rebids when deciding whether or not to open, fwiw, and I think doing so is not a good practice.

You're kidding, right? I always know what my rebid is over each non-jump response, that way I can bid in tempo and not give UI when I have an unusual rebid. I also find that if a rebid is too difficult and opening is marginal, that influences me to pass rather than open.

[kenberg]

A few suggestions:

1. A convenient treatment of Gerber is to play that 4C is Gerber if it is a jump to 4C over a natural NT of defined range. Here, playing with a partner w/o discussion, I would bid 4C over 1NT. I don't think he will be passing. If he bids 4D, maybe no aces, maybe a diamond fit, who knows, I will bid 6D. If he raises 4C to 5C I will assume he did not understand and I will bid 6D. If he bids 4H I will assume he understood and is showing one ace. Or maybe he will bid 4S. Sounds like the ace of spades to me. Either way, I'll take my shot at 7D (in most online games a making grand in any strain is a good score).

2. You say SAYC. SAYC, as written, has strong jump shifts. This is because SAYC keeps things simple. You are not playing them, I know, but if you want to play a simple system such as SAYC why not go the whole hog?

3. In a way, you pose an impossible problem: How to carefully bid to a minor suit grand when you have no bidding agreements. Of course the answer is that you cannot. I often play online w/o extensive agreements. I do my best. Sometimes it's good enough. Sometimes it isn't. Eg, if you bid 4C over 1NT and partner passes, then you play 4C. If this thought is unbearable to you, then you have to play only with those who have discussed such auctions with you.

[jjbrr]

eyhung, on Feb 11 2010, 09:57 PM, said:

jjbrr, on Feb 11 2010, 01:47 PM, said:

I never consider possible rebids when deciding whether or not to open, fwiw, and I think doing so is not a good practice.

You're kidding, right? I always know what my rebid is over each non-jump response, that way I can bid in tempo and not give UI when I have an unusual rebid. I also find that if a rebid is too difficult and opening is marginal, that influences me to pass rather than open.

Why would I be joking? Why do you waste everyone's time sitting there thinking about bids that haven't happened yet? I'm also a very fast player fwiw. And I've played enough hands that I know what the rebids are lol. That argument is a little ridiculous.

You really sit there and think "Well if the auction goes 1♣ (1♥) dbl I have an opening hand! But if it goes 1♣ (2♠) then I don't!"

[jukmoi]

Yes - 6NT is kind of practical. Even more practical is to ask partner something like "responders reverse gameforcing, partner?" after the hand is played.