[babalu1997]

i had a 2 suited,4-6, spades / clubs, 16 hcp hand hand, and opened 1 club.

i was playing with a jolly good friend so i knew bidding disasters would not result in drama.

so the bidding went 1club-pass- 4 hearts, my singleton


i had never seen the bid and i bid 4 spades, and after some uncontested sparring, we bid some abomination.


partner said that his bid meant that he could play 4 hearts opposite a singleton, and he had aqkq 6th or 7th perhaps, and that was what his bid meant.

i have always fumbled in bridge in the sa or 2/1 style while this guy`s home is in precision.

I bid the 4 spades because well, i had more to tell, the hand was quite good.

i think this bid takes away too much space and had he started with 1 heart , it would have forced me to bid, and he would have at least one more opportunity to bid the hearts.

So, fast forward and i am playing with an unknown and there it was the opened 1 diamond and i had them 6 solid sapdes and bid 4 spades.

He then bid 5 clubs and a disaster ensued.

Somehow I dont like this bid, or at least i dont think it is standard and should therefore be subject to agreement.

Am i right?

[whereagles]

It is precisely because the bid takes too much space that it has to be very, very well defined. In standard bidding, it shows a hand that is WEAKER than the corresponding preempt, but with a BETTER suit. Something between

xx
QJTxxxxx
x
xx

a min, and

x
KQT9xxx
Qxx
xx

a max.

Opposite such a bid, usually opener won't have much more to say. On the rare occasions he will have a hand suitable to carry on, say

AKxx
Ax
x
AQJxxx

his bids will be cues (side control + heart fit) or 4NT RKCB. Under no circumstances should opener pull from hearts into his own suit. Why? Because if opener can make a game opposite ZERO tricks from responder, he should have opened 2♣ instead of 1x.

[Bbradley62]

According to the BBO 2/1 convention card, 4M over 1m shows: Preempt; 7+M; weak jump shift.

It should be a hand that would have opened 3M, not 1M or 2M.

[Stephen Tu]

It's a pretty standard bid, it's part of Bridge World Standard, and is described in most of the classic beginner's books like Goren, Root.

It's just that it's very low frequency, and optional (you can do OK responding 1M), so players who learn just by playing, not reading, aren't all that likely to encounter it, and thus fairly likely to screw it up.

It should usually be 8 cd suit, or 7-4, a hand you probably would open 4M as a preempt. You want to have enough playing strength that you expect to either make it or for it to be a good sac (say down 1 vs. opps 3s) a great deal of the time. Not so strong that slam is likely unless opener has an unusual # of controls. If your hand is flawed. you probably don't want to preempt with some of the hands you might gamble with in 1st or 3rd seat as opening bidder; since partner opened and has some defense, and RHO has already declined to act, there's not as much urgency to preempt. You want to make a descriptive bid that has a good shot at making, that you would probably end up bidding anyway if you just started with 1M, not put yourself in a probable minus position when the opps would have let you buy the contract for lower when opener is misfit.

It used to be std for 1m-3M to be the same sort of hand, just less shape, 7 cd suit expected rather than 8, but splinters became popular and displaced that bid in BWS.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

well - for me 4H would be a splinter, we can discuss, if it has to be a void, since
3H is also a splinter.
I know peoble, who like to bid 4H in this seq. to show a hand with lots of hearts,
I dont care for this approach, but peoble are out there, who do it that way.
I am a simple sould, if a bid looks like ..., than it is it, and the 4H bid in this seq.
looks like a splinter to me.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[pooltuna]

When partner makes a unilateral undefined action the best bidding choice is usually to pass. The operative meta-agreement if you make another call is a slam try for his suit

[pooltuna]

P_Marlowe, on Oct 3 2010, 12:07 PM, said:

Hi,

well - for me 4H would be a splinter, we can discuss, if it has to be a void, since
3H is also a splinter.
I know peoble, who like to bid 4H in this seq. to show a hand with lots of hearts,
I dont care for this approach, but peoble are out there, who do it that way.
I am a simple sould, if a bid looks like ..., than it is it, and the 4H bid in this seq.
looks like a splinter to me.

With kind regards
Marlowe

okay if you have that agreement but two methods to splinter seems like overkill

[Siegmund]

All bids are "subject to agreement" but To Play is a pretty common meaning for 1m-4M and many other unexpected jumps to game.

Here is where things went wrong:

Quote

I bid the 4 spades because well, i had more to tell, the hand was quite good.

Remember it's a partnership game. The goal is to find the best spot, not to describe every feature of your hand whether it matters or not. Partner is allowed to think too.

You said "I think he should have bid 1H, and made it easy for me to show my spades"... the flip side to that - assuming you trust your partner - is that IF your partner had wanted to hear about your 4-card spade suit he WOULD have bid 1H to make it easy for you to show them. He deliberately chose a bid that told you he did not want to hear about your 4 spades or about your 6th club.

[bucky]

I agree, without discussion, 4♥ sets the strain. Any further non-heart suit bid by opener should be cuebid.

Similarly, if one opens 4♠ and partner bids 5♣, that is cuebid (or, by agreement, control-asking bid), not to play.

[P_Marlowe]

pooltuna, on Oct 3 2010, 01:03 PM, said:

P_Marlowe, on Oct 3 2010, 12:07 PM, said:

Hi,

well - for me 4H would be a splinter, we can discuss, if it has to be a void, since
3H is also a splinter.
I know peoble, who like to bid 4H in this seq. to show a hand with lots of hearts,
I dont care for this approach, but peoble are out there, who do it that way.
I am a simple sould, if a bid looks like ..., than it is it, and the 4H bid in this seq.
looks like a splinter to me.

With kind regards
Marlowe

okay if you have that agreement but two methods to splinter seems like overkill

well, assuming you play 4H in the given seq. as lots of hearts, you also have two
methods to show lots of hearts, bidding 4H direct, or first bidding 1H, followed by
bidding 4H.
In the end, be sure, you are on the same wavelength than with regard to this.

With kind regards
Marlowe