[awm]

This meaning of 5NT (forward-going, good trumps) seemed quite clear to me. I am quite surprised that there are strong players who play this 5NT as "grand slam force" -- a convention which I think is quite dated by modern standards and almost useless in this era of keycard auctions and disciplined cuebidding. Personally I don't think I have any partnerships where "grand slam force" is even on the system card!

[mikeh]

Phil, on 2011-January-05, 16:25, said:

I've never heard of 5N as a trump cue either but I like it. I also know of a few that play 5N as RKC too.

I don't see any reason to play 5N as pick-a-slam here Mike. Don't we already have a fit?

I agree with this.

One can construct unusual hands on which pick a slam makes sense, but one can also do that for GSF. I suspect that most readers would now like to play the sort of agreements that Justin suggested and as Arend referred to in his post.

But that wasn't the point of the OP, which simply contained this 5N call with no explanation, and I think we can safely assume that whatever we now think it 'should' mean was probably not how it was taken nor intended, given what transpired thereafter.

[gnasher]

JLOGIC, on 2011-January-05, 14:37, said:

This seems inefficient and could run into problems. If you cuebid 6C with both the ace and the king of clubs, what is partner to do with say, no top club, but very strong elsewhere? Can he cuebid 6D with the king? Does 6H promise a top club? If so how do you get to slam when the CK is not a necessary card? I realize that you can not get every hand right, but with this much room I think you should be able to get it right fairly often, and not utilizing 5N for anything other than grand slam force seems like a mistake. Using it to help your cuebidding auctions in some way seems better.

Also, you say after 6D, 6H shows BOTH club controls. Again what if only the ace was needed for slam? Surely partner might have a stiff club. It doesn't seem that great to me.

I think it is better to just cuebid aces in these spots, surely theoretically no? That way you can use 5N in your scheme and be more accurate.

Are we still talking about two players who've just met? I wouldn't expect great efficiency when we've had to agree trumps at the five level and we don't have any agreements. Anyway, given that I think the default meaning of 5NT is GSF, I don't think it works for one partner to assume that it means something else.

Regarding club cue-bids, most of the time making 7♠ will involve setting up opener's club suit. With a singleton opposite AQ10xxx, and with the suits breaking badly, it is likely to be hard to make 13 tricks, and even harder to know during the auction that you're making 13 tricks. I think the bidding should focus on identifying cards that will make it clear that we can make seven.