[1eyedjack]

Any suggestions on how to find 6C on this hand?

http://online.bridgebase.com/cgi-bin/history.pl?...92225354-926634

[hrothgar]

Pretty easy for a relay system...

[1eyedjack]

hrothgar, on Aug 11 2004, 01:04 PM, said:

Pretty easy for a relay system...

Possibly. But with a 10 card diamond fit against you, you may be better to go for a low level penalty double.

[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP

---

It is tempting to jump to 3♥ with the south hand, but I am not fond of that because the hand could belong in hearts or spades. Three ♥ while stressing the heart values removes clubs from real consideration. On the other hand, I am not quite ready to give up on hearts as a possible trump suit either. So, I would start with either a 2♥ rebid or a direct club raise (I am assuming 2♣ promises a biddable five card suit, the bidding would be...

The "science way"
1S - 2C
3C - 3S
4C - 4NT
6C - Pass

4C = two suit agreement minorwood
4NT = two key cards plus club queen, not spade queen
6C = 4H, 4C, 2S, 1D, and a diamond ruff or maybe 5H.. even without a diamond ruff.. lose one keycard.. wish I had use exlusion blackood

The emphatic way...
1S - 2C
4D - 4H
4S - 5D
6C - Pass

4D = exclusion blackwood, giving up on spades and hearts.... right to the heart of hte problem... how good are clubs....

The try all opton way...
1S - 2C
2H - 2S
3C - 3NT
4C - 4NT
6C - Pass

4C is again two suit agreement minorwood. You could jump to 5D over 3NT as two suit agreement exclusion blackwood.. but responses there get fuzzy.

How would i bid it? I think I jump to 4D over 2♣. Your slamming against good clubs.... and grand slamming against some great clubs.... If your partneer has a habit of bidding 2♣ on three or four cards suits, or really crappy 5 card suits, this 4♦ bid will also break him of that habit with you.

Ben

[1eyedjack]

inquiry, on Aug 11 2004, 01:23 PM, said:

4C = two suit agreement minorwood

Is that a sort of Byzantine Minorwood? What are all of the responses, by the way?

[inquiry]

Well, there are a couple of ways to play six key card blackwood/minorwood...The initial rule is to decide when there are five keycards (the four aces and trump king), and when there are 6 key cards (four aces, and two kings in the two key suits).

I use six card RKCB and minorwood, when
1) One partner is balanced and the other has shown a two suiter
2) when two suits ahve been bid and raised.

The responses are fairly straight foward.. there is two ways to go... to show queens held immediately, or to show 0 or 1 or 2 queens and then, if one queen, show which one. So this could go either way. the responses could be...

Step 1 - 1 or 4key cards
Step 2 - 0 or 3 key cards
Step 3 - 2 or 5 with no queen
Step 4 - 2 or 5 with one queen
Step 5 - 2 or 5 with two queens

or

Step 3 - 2 or 5 with no queen
Step 4 - 2 or 5 with cheapes queen
Step 5 - 2 or 5 with highest queen
Step 6 - 2 or 5 with both queens

If queen not shown (First scheme above), cheapest new suit ask which queen...

Also, if after ambigious response (like step 1), cheapest not signoff ask for queens, starting with none, cheapest, highest, both....

Ben

[1eyedjack]

Thanks. Either scheme is easier on the memory than Byzantine Blackwood. I was always impressed by Byzantine, but wonder whether it never caught on because of the memory load or whether it was just inferior.

[luke warm]

i can't see the bidding going this way.. with a j/s and 2 five card majors, most souths would open 1S and over 2C bid 3H (i think)... then most norths would gladly support spades.. then serious 3NT then 6S, which is down

looking at all hands, 6C is by far the best contract, but it seems very hard to reach with the south hand.. i can't see suppressing the heart suit to support clubs

[inquiry]

luke warm, on Aug 11 2004, 04:13 PM, said:

i can't see the bidding going this way.. with a j/s and 2 five card majors, most souths would open 1S and over 2C bid 3H (i think)... then most norths would gladly support spades.. then serious 3NT then 6S, which is down

looking at all hands, 6C is by far the best contract, but it seems very hard to reach with the south hand.. i can't see suppressing the heart suit to support clubs

Why would you rush t oshow hearts, when you have grand slam opposite as little as

---

2S, 4H, 5C, 2D ruff? (if they lead one to make it easy)....

A jump to 3♥ makes it too hard to find clubs.. you KNOW you have a club fit and after 2♣ you know there is a good chance for 6 in clubs.. why mess with hearts.. I liek the immediate 4♦ bid...

[EricK]

1♠ 3♣
3♥ 3♠
4♣ 4♠
5NT 6♣

North makes a SJS then reveals it was based on a spade fit. South shows the double fit. North has a poor hand for slam opposite Heart strength, so signs off in game. South then asks him to pick a slam, so he does.

How dubious was that

Eric

[jtfanclub]

OK, I give. As long as you're taking a chance bidding slam, why not be at 6♠? Yeah, a bad spade split may get you, but it also gets you if they get a spade ruff on the first or third trick.

[mikestar]

jtfanclub, on Aug 11 2004, 08:44 PM, said:

OK, I give. As long as you're taking a chance bidding slam, why not be at 6♠? Yeah, a bad spade split may get you, but it also gets you if they get a spade ruff on the first or third trick.

Because the bad spade split always sinks 6S but sometimes they won't get a spade ruff in 6C.

[luke warm]

but mike, doesn't the same hold true for a bad club split? and ben, you're right about jumping in hearts, but i honestly can't see anyone suppressing that suit... 10 NICE cards in the majors? no i think 1S : 2C : 2H at least..

and the truth is, north is salivating over the spade fit right about now.. 2S by him would (in his mind) set trumps.. then south can bid 3C, but i'm not sure if north would view that as an alternative trump suit or a cue showing the ace (or void, or stiff)... while a 2/1 *usually* shows a 5+ card suit, sometimes people bid it with 4...

sure, it's possible to get to 6C, i'm just saying that it might be a little difficult at the table, since north has to love the fit

[mikestar]

luke warm, on Aug 11 2004, 11:18 PM, said:

but mike, doesn't the same hold true for a bad club split?

No, because the clubs are solid from K to 9: there will be only one trump loser in 6C no matter how they split.

Also, they have a better chance of a club ruff against 6S that the other way around becuase the have the club ace and not the spade ace.

[1eyedjack]

The reason Clubs is better than Spades is that in a Club contract you can discard Spade losers on the Hearts, but in a Spade contract you are unlikely to be able to get your Club losers away on Hearts.

Yes, if they have a Spade ruff coming to them in Clubs then you are down in Clubs, but then you are probably down in Spades also.

It would have been perhaps a more interesting problem at Matchpoints.

I love the strong jump shift idea.

[luke warm]

i'm not saying either of you are wrong, on this hand you're obviously right... all i'm saying is, imagine you hold the south hand... could you really *not* bid those hearts? north didn't deny hearts, far from it... hell he didn't even deny spades

we're so used to looking for that major suit fit that it's hard to imagine north thinking about a club contract once south bids spades...

[the hog]

I'll get to 6S. Those who claim they will get to 6C are liars.

[Free]

Pfff, just play 6♥, laydown after endplaying E

[inquiry]

The_Hog, on Aug 12 2004, 07:35 AM, said:

I'll get to 6S. Those who claim they will get to 6C are liars.

Hmmmmmmm. Liar's, really? At imps? I can imagine at matchpoints even when south correctly places teh contract in 6clubs, norht might override the decision and revert to 6Spades... but I would shoot my partner for making such a decision if I placed it in 6C at imps.

Do you agree South opens 1S with 5-5 in the majors? I think you do...

Do yo splinter with a void and four card support or do you first bid your good six card side suit headed by the KQT? I think you bid the six card suit in preference to the splinter.

As South, and javing heard you partner bid 2♣ and holding what is clearly at least 9 tricks in your hand for a club contract (AK spade, AKQJ of hearts and two diamond ruffs), and assuming your partner has a five card or long clubs suit (so up to five more tricks... 5C+9 = 14 tricks)... you cant envision at least a chance of GRAND SLAM in clubs? And certainly a reasonable play for SMALL SLAM in clubs after hearing the 2♣ response?

At imps, my STRONG preferecne is for a leap to 4♦ as exclusion blackwood if available. The reason being, you can count your tricks from that second forward. If parnter is C-Kxxxxx. probably no slam will do (true he may have diamond AK for club pitches, but opening club lead through dummy could do you in). If he has two key cards (outside diamonds) and no club queen, 6 clubs is a fine contract, and if he shows AKQ fo clubs, then grand slam should be bid.

I think a jump to 3H is very wrong with this hand, because you lose the ability to get back into clubs effectively, and to find out what you really need to know... how good is partner's clubs (slam, and grand slam depend upon the answer to that simple question.. yes, even if you play in spades), At MP, I would try the effect of a 2♥ bid (as given in my initial reply), because of the higher scoring value of a major. Then I would raise clubs.. maybe with a jump... so there I might end up in spades or notrump.

And ron, as a six club bidder, I don't particularily like being called a liar. Anyone with any experience at all will see the potential for this hand in a club slam as soon as his parnter bids 2♣. I find your statment that (essentially) says getting into clubs is imposible as showing a lack of understanding of hand evaluation. I also am confident that relay bidders will find six clubs or even the superior 6NT by north on this hand, and they wouldn't like being called liars either.

[1eyedjack]

Free, on Aug 12 2004, 06:58 AM, said:

Pfff, just play 6♥, laydown after endplaying E

Hmm you may find yourself losing tricks 1 and 2