[123600]

Is there any way of asking for A or K's after a 3NT bid or is it even needed? A 4NT bid is quantatative and Gerber 4 clubs needs to be jump.

[ggwhiz]

In most situations, you can stick in a bid of 4 of a minor, get a cuebid reply and use it to turn 4nt into blackwood.

[jh51]

Are you talking about an opening 3NT or 3NT after some other bidding?

I personally hate using a natural 3NT bid. If the 2NT openning bid has a reputation of being a slam killer, what must 3NT be?

[Fluffy]

as ggwhiz says just stablish trumps with 4m, then use blackwood

[Quantumcat]

Most of the time if you are thinking about slam in notrumps you don't really worry about checking for aces.

The reason you need to in a slam contract, is that usually you don't have the full quota of high-card points and you are planning to make enough tricks by ruffing and keeping control with trumps long enough to establish side suits. You don't need actual high cards to come to 12 tricks when you have a trump suit and some side-suit fits and some shortages. The more distribution and less high cards you have, the more likely it is that the opponents might have two aces they can cash.

When bidding a slam in notrumps, you usually do have the full quota of high-card points and it is unlikely for the opponents to have two aces. To make 12 tricks without a good fit or a trump suit you really do need plenty of high cards.

The only time when you want to check on aces for a no-trump slam is when you have one or two nice long suits to make tricks with and you don't need as many high cards to have 12 tricks available. It is then possible for the opponents to hold two aces. This will probably happen in matchpoint play if you think you have 12 tricks in notrumps as well as in a trump suit and you are trying to get a top. Otherwise, if you have a good fit, play in it, and don't worry about aces if you are going for a notrump slam.

P.S. Gerber is only played by little old ladies who don't understand about how to evaluate their hands for slam purposes. I don't know what the situation is elsewhere, but if you turned up to a tournament here with Gerber on your card, you'd get laughed at :-)

[mike777]

Quantumcat, on 2011-March-07, 18:22, said:

Most of the time if you are thinking about slam in notrumps you don't really worry about checking for aces.

The reason you need to in a slam contract, is that usually you don't have the full quota of high-card points and you are planning to make enough tricks by ruffing and keeping control with trumps long enough to establish side suits. You don't need actual high cards to come to 12 tricks when you have a trump suit and some side-suit fits and some shortages. The more distribution and less high cards you have, the more likely it is that the opponents might have two aces they can cash.

When bidding a slam in notrumps, you usually do have the full quota of high-card points and it is unlikely for the opponents to have two aces. To make 12 tricks without a good fit or a trump suit you really do need plenty of high cards.

The only time when you want to check on aces for a no-trump slam is when you have one or two nice long suits to make tricks with and you don't need as many high cards to have 12 tricks available. It is then possible for the opponents to hold two aces. This will probably happen in matchpoint play if you think you have 12 tricks in notrumps as well as in a trump suit and you are trying to get a top. Otherwise, if you have a good fit, play in it, and don't worry about aces if you are going for a notrump slam.

P.S. Gerber is only played by little old ladies who don't understand about how to evaluate their hands for slam purposes. I don't know what the situation is elsewhere, but if you turned up to a tournament here with Gerber on your card, you'd get laughed at :-)

excellent post thanks.

Your very first sentence says alot.

[ArcLight]

>>P.S. Gerber is only played by little old ladies who don't understand about how to evaluate their hands for slam purposes. I don't know what the situation is elsewhere, but if you turned up to a tournament here with Gerber on your card, you'd get laughed at :-)

1. then what should 4♣ mean over 1NT or 2NT?
Gerber may be infrequently used, so I ask you - what is a better use for 4♣

2. lets say pard opens 1NT and you have a long minor with great trick taking potential, something like AKQJxxx (pard will have 2 so this is good for 7 tricks. It is very useful to know if pard has aces. The alternative may be to play slam in a suit contract, which you might not want to do at MP.
You would transfer pard or to the minor or bid it, if your methods allow, and then bid BW.

[mattias]

ArcLight, on 2011-March-10, 09:50, said:

1. then what should 4♣ mean over 1NT or 2NT?
Gerber may be infrequently used, so I ask you - what is a better use for 4♣

A better use over 1NT would be 4m as transfer to the corresponding major and 4M to play.

Over 2NT we play 4m as a natural slam invitation.

[gwnn]

Sometimes you can count 12 tricks in notrump with (much) less than 33 hcp. In those cases you will have established a fit first, so you can use keycard. Note that keycard is typically quite important in these cases, since it is essential to have AKQ in the suit(s) you're thinking of running.

[ArcLight]

mattias, on 2011-March-12, 06:17, said:

A better use over 1NT would be 4m as transfer to the corresponding major and 4M to play.

Over 2NT we play 4m as a natural slam invitation.

If I understand correctly, your method is:
1NT 4C = hearts - slammish
1NT 4D = spades - slammish
1NT 4H = hearts - to play
1NT 4S = spades - to play


Using Jacoby and Texas transfers, you can transfer, then raise pard showing slam interest. Or directly Texas transfer.

What does your method do that the current methods don't do just as well?


I still don't see why 4 Clubs Gerber is bad. It may rarely be used, but what is a better meaning?

[gwnn]

you have a natural 4M, you sometimes want to conceal your distribution/strength. Also it's a little bit more preemptive.

[mattias]

ArcLight, on 2011-March-14, 06:58, said:

If I understand correctly, your method is:
1NT 4C = hearts - slammish
1NT 4D = spades - slammish
1NT 4H = hearts - to play
1NT 4S = spades - to play


Using Jacoby and Texas transfers, you can transfer, then raise pard showing slam interest. Or directly Texas transfer.

What does your method do that the current methods don't do just as well?


I still don't see why 4 Clubs Gerber is bad. It may rarely be used, but what is a better meaning?

You do not understand correctly.

I also transfer on the two level and raise partner to show slam interest.

The only difference between the is that with the hands that you would bid a texas transfer on I can choose whether to transfer by bidding 4m, or whether to play the hand myself by bidding 4M. Over 4m opener usually bids 4M, but with a hand without tenaces he can bid the intermediate step instead to let me declare.

This obviously handles onesuited major hands better than your method. The drawback is that I do not have Gerber available, and that you have a 4S bid available which i do not. Personally I have never missed Gerber.

Another more minor advantage is over interference. Are texas transfers still on over 1NT (3D)? Over 1NT (3S)? Are you sure that your partner is on the same wavelength? If my partnership doesn't have a detailed agreement in this situation I know that I can always bid 4M to play.

[Quantumcat]

ArcLight, on 2011-March-10, 09:50, said:

1. then what should 4♣ mean over 1NT or 2NT?
Gerber may be infrequently used, so I ask you - what is a better use for 4♣

I use 4♣ over 1NT to show both majors and slam interest, and 4♦ to show both majors and no slam interest.

I use 4♣ over 2NT as a slam invite in clubs. Same with 4♦, 4♥ and 4♠ except 4♣/♦ are forcing and 4♥/♠ are not.

Alternatively you can use Texas transfers, which means that you can have 4NT be both keycard and natural invite. e.g. Texas then 4NT is keycard, which means transferring at the two-level then bidding 4NT is quantative.

ArcLight, on 2011-March-10, 09:50, said:

2. lets say pard opens 1NT and you have a long minor with great trick taking potential, something like AKQJxxx (pard will have 2 so this is good for 7 tricks. It is very useful to know if pard has aces. The alternative may be to play slam in a suit contract, which you might not want to do at MP.
You would transfer pard or to the minor or bid it, if your methods allow, and then bid BW.

This is exactly what I said in my post: When you don't have a long suit that is a source of tricks, then you should have the full quota of high card points and it is unlikely that the opponents can hold two aces. However, if your tricks are small cards and not high ones, it becomes more likely that they can hold two aces in which case you do want to check for aces. In this case, though, if you have a fit you would have found it first, checked for aces, and only right, right at the end decided whether you think it's best to play in 6NT or 6 of your suit.

[Vampyr]

Quantumcat, on 2011-March-07, 18:22, said:

P.S. Gerber is only played by little old ladies who don't understand about how to evaluate their hands for slam purposes. I don't know what the situation is elsewhere, but if you turned up to a tournament here with Gerber on your card, you'd get laughed at :-)

Very impressive that you know everyone in the world who plays Gerber.

P.S. I hate voting a post up when I am trying to reply to it!

[Quantumcat]

Vampyr, on 2011-March-17, 19:45, said:

Very impressive that you know everyone in the world who plays Gerber.

P.S. I hate voting a post up when I am trying to reply to it!

Ok, I'll amend it to:

I have never seen anyone play Gerber except for little old ladies who were taught to play bridge more than thirty years ago and have never forgotten their lessons, unfortunately they have never shown any evidence of having learnt anything beyond them either.

At nationals, us youth players usually get together during breaks and after discussing who made the coolest beer cards, laugh about the stupid auctions that people got themselves into through playing Gerber. Usually it involved not being able to cuebid or give preference to or raise their partner's clubs, or rebid their own clubs in a forcing manner. Only last week I got a top on a board because one of our opponents could not compete to 4 clubs over our 3 spades because, quote "4♣ is always Gerber in our partnership, no matter what the circumstances".