[benlessard]

1- bidding is completly nutz here.

2 i prefer 2Nt but 3D is ok, of course partner clubs are better than our diamonds so 6C obvious (with xx in D or a stiff AKQ he will bit 5Nt PAS with awesome clubs so hes likely a stiff in D)

3- i dont believe in slam try when im not strong enough to open 1C and im facing a passed hand, i dont play responsive X here. so for me 4D is COG typically 6 good H and 3/4S or 3514/3505 shapes so 5C seems clear.

Jlogic hands are usually tougher.

[Hanoi5]

1) Pass, I don't want to put my head into the guillotine
2) 6♥, but only 'cause you explained 3♥ might show some hearts. Otherwise 6♦ probably.
3)I think I'll pass 4♠.

[xcurt]

1. P. Their other strain is diamonds so why help responder know about the double fit. Also we have reasonable defense, not great offense, and we can alwys bid later.
2. 6C. Really dislike 6H btw.
3. I would have passed 2D. If I had even one more hcp I would double. Double is really aiming at 3NT imo since partner is bidding when short in diamonds anyway. Partner is slammish 56xx (nonslammish would just jump to game in spades and any one suiter that can slam now is worth 1C regardless of highcard). I think as a practical matter I'll bid 6H here

- avoids a director call after 5C, slow 5H
- I don't think we can make 7 unless partner is 5701 but NV opponents aren't bidding that much

[rhm]

1) 3♣ Not close in my opinion. To pass here is even riskier than to bid
2) 6♣ The ten is a big card
3) 5NT pick a slam. This is aggressive, but you were a passed hand when opener bid 4♦ and 5NT is the best way to reach the right slam. Partner could have a major two-suiter or 4♠-5♥-0♦-4♣,e.g. ♠Axxx,♥AKJxx,♦-,♣Kxxx. I would have passed over 2♦

Rainer Herrmann

[Phil]

1. Pass. Not surprised this hand has some swing potential.
2. 6♣, but I feel like the program is about to terminate.
3. 4N and then if I get the right answer, 6♥ to choose. Don't understand these genius bids.

[nige1]

Phil, on 2011-April-15, 09:38, said:

1. Pass. Not surprised this hand has some swing potential.
2. 6♣, but I feel like the program is about to terminate.
3. 4N and then if I get the right answer, 6♥ to choose. Don't understand these genius bids.

Is the meaning of 4N clear-cut? In cases like this, I like to play that there are six key cards and two trump queens.

[Phil]

nige1, on 2011-April-15, 09:50, said:

Is the meaning of 4N clear-cut? In cases like this, I like to play that there are six key cards and two trump queens.

Since we've never supported hearts, showed spades and partner bid spades, yes I'd say 4N is clearcut.

I like 6-ace too, but only when we've both bid two suits or one partner has shown a two-suiter across from a balanced hand.

[quiddity]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the auction on 2. With 6 clubs and interest in playing in clubs opposite a singleton, in standard 2/1 I would bid 2♣/3♣ and I would have thought in this non-gf structure I would bid 2♣/2M/3♣ (or 4♣ if necessary). And with really solid clubs I would bid 2♣/4♣.

Given partner's 3♥ bid, can't he have a 4315 slam try with extra good clubs? When we didn't shut it down in 4NT he said "ok, let's play slam - but you've bid diamonds FOUR times, maybe you have a solid suit?"

[nige1]

deleted

[JLOGIC]

I passed on hand 1. This was not good when it went all pass and we were on for 5C (partner had Kx of hearts and KJx of clubs with the HA on and clubs 1-1). I have no idea what's right but this sucked Most people I gave it to irl passed also, as well as here.

Hand 2 I'd say was the dumbest thing I've done in a long time, I will own up to it... I bid 6D. Of course, 6C is the right bid, the ten of clubs is a huge card and as my not-so-nice friend Geoff Hampson said "I think we've bid diamonds enough times already!" The odds of partner having 3 honors 6th in clubs is very high (he has forced to slam with no fit and 6 clubs...). And with the ten of diamonds he should probably bid 6D himself after we have bid 1D, 2D, 3D, 3N, 4D. Our diamonds could still be 7 1 loser etc. I cannot explain why I bid 6D at the time.

Hand 3, meh. I'm not sure if 4D should agree spades with 4S last train, it seems like we should still be able to back into hearts if partner is 4-6 in the majors, regardless of whether or not I can double with a hand like this. It's not that often you have slam when the auction starts like this is precision, so dedicating bids to that rather than making sure we play the right game doesn't feel right.

That said, when partner bids 4S over 4H I think he is 5-6 or 4504. I am not sure if he can be 4513. In any case, opposite 5-6 or 4504 I have a great hand for slam. I am not sure what partner will think of 5C, is it "getting to clubs" or cuebidding or whatever, but you will probably survive it and get to slam. It's a pretty murky auction. Partner had AQTxx AKTxxx x x. I think maybe just bidding 5N over 4S is reasonable in the midst of all of this confusion.

Most people irl didn't like double, and I think no one here did, fair enough. To answer the question of "what's the point" though, I think there are a lot of hands where we will belong in game in hearts or clubs or possibly even 3N where partner will be under a lot of pressure to bid something after we pass. For instance on an auction like 1H (2D) p (3D), partner is going to be passing with Ax KJTxxx xx KQx type routinely (that is not even a good hand) and we are cold for game. Obviously if that 6322 13 count makes game, my hand has a lot of potential opposite some hands with stiff diamonds (which he still won't bid with at the 3 level if we haven't shown anything). Another subset of hands is something like Ax Kxxxx x Kxxxx. Again, partner will never be bidding again and I won't get the chance, but if partner does have something like this it is a disaster. Being R/W, I obviously don't want to risk getting games stolen from me. I thought if we ended in a partial it might be fine, and partner won't usually force to 4S having not opened a strong club but I will deal with that if it happens, and it would be worth the risk of the initial double.

I accept that it might not be right, but I do think there is upside to showing values and encouraging partner to bid when he would have a tough time doing so otherwise and we have potentially 3 great cards.

[benlessard]

Hand 3 in my system I would open 1C(15+) and manage to show H+S 15-17 and ill think it would still be be a small underbid. Any hand where i want to play game vs a random ace and a tol in one of my suit is worth 1C IMO. Matter of style I guess.

I Would you have bid 4D with 3613, 4612, 3505, 3604,3514 ? I would have passed 4H with any hand holding 6H and i would bid 4S with the rest of them suggesting S+C (3S+longer clubs) IMO it shouldNOT show a 56??. Im pretty sure all my partner would agree with me here. If i ever get a non strong enough hands for 1C that get massively upgraded after a neg X (5701) i would probably need to reach the 5 level by myself.

[JLOGIC]

benlessard,

That's great if you don't play responsive doubles, but since everyone else does including me, it is not really relevant to this discussion. 3613, 3514 etc are normal responsive doubles.

[benlessard]

Good point so there is still 3505,4504 i guess.

PS i think Xing 2D is superior to 2H or pass.

[JLOGIC]

3505 can also double and then bid 4C. You risk having your double get passed though. Your other option is to just bid 4C which makes it tough to get to spades if you have a 5-3 fit there. It seems like there are a lot of advantages to never bidding 4D with that shape (so that 4D always contains 4 spades), especially with 2 reasonable alternatives.

If partner is 4504 with a good hand, we probably have 6C, we are playing with a 30 point deck and have a great hand and fit. It seems like an underbid to just bid 5C opposite 4504.

Anyways, I'm not sure about anything, but it seems like bidding 5N over 4S would be pretty reasonable if you're not sure what is going on but pretty sure you have a slam somewhere. If partner can still be 4513 then you might want to just play 5C though.

I thought it was pretty complicated, but anything reasonable should get you to 6S after this start.

Had I not doubled, it likely would have gone 1H (2D) p (3D) 3S p 4C which would have made it easy to get to slam, or perhaps even 1H (2D) p (3D) 4D over which I basically have a slam force. So double def made things harder.

[JLOGIC]

My partner and I did agree that in the future we cannot double here without 4 of the other major as a passed hand (but obv as an UPH we can sometimes). Someone said with even 1 more point they would have doubled, but with 1 more point we would have opened so I think it is a good solution.

[benlessard]

I agree with your "post number 34", especially if responder isnt a passed hand. If you have some pretty good hand into 1M (would you open 1C or 1H ?) opening than you have to keep some tools to get to slams. In wich case partner 4D is ambiguous and probably a slam try after 4S if that is the case your hand cannot be better than what it is so 5Nt is automatic. I like COG bids but im not addicted to them but if you dont play them here when a non 1 clubber facing a passed hand then you should probably never play them.

I know these similar auctions quite well
We play that our 1M openings are 12-14 or 18-22 so in competitive auctions we are forced to make cue bids, X (with some trumps) or impossible bids (often 2Nt) to show the big hand and set up GF auctions.

This post has been edited by benlessard: 2011-April-15, 14:08

[kayin801]

What does:

1♥-(2♦)-P-(3♦)
P-P-X

show? Isn't it penalty? I just feel like we're going to miss a lot of +140s vs -50s or -110s, small partscore swings, when partner has 6 hearts this way if we can't do SOMETHING with hand 3. Maybe this advertises for 2♥ or something if X is wrong.

[JLOGIC]

Yep that's about the biggest penalty X you can make. You already passed 2D rather than make a X there, so you are very unlikely to have a takeout double. On the other hand, what else would you do if you trap passed and it came back to you?

Raising to 2H can work badly when partner misjudges a competitive auction, or when you belong in clubs and don't get there now, or when partner has a hand that is much better opposite 3 card support than 2 card support and bids game incorrectly. It will obv work better than Xing if partner has 4 spades though, so that is the tradeoff. I do think in general lying about support for partner's suit is the biggest lie we can make.

I don't know, most people who are better than me at bridge seemed to think passing was right, so next time I'll try pass.

If I wasn't playing strong club I would be too nervous to pass but at the end of the day maybe it's just not that likely we have a game that we get shut out of when we have at most 25 HCP and no known fit at this point, and the most likely result of Xing is that we declare when we should be defending.

[bluecalm]

Nice hands!
I am convinced now that I made a mistake by wanting to bid 6♦.