[inquiry]

ArtK78, on 2011-September-12, 10:34, said:

I can see a way of arriving at the magic 6♦ contract.

In the original version of Romex, a 4NT opening bid shows a monster 56/65 minor suited hand with two major suit singletons and 11 playing tricks. If someone were playing such a method and were misguided enough to open this hand 4NT (despite its obvious flaws) responder might place the contract in 6♦.

How would you like to be on the receiving end of that auction?

Well, MisIry ends up in 6♦ as well. The auction would be.....

3D            	(heart preempt or strong D + black suit)
   	3NT  	(attempt to play in heart is partner has strong two suiter)
6C           	(minor two suiter, one loser, no need for heart cover card)
   	6D    	(crap. lack of fit may create new losers even if spade ace is working)
Pass

The 3NT bid is used with hands you want to play 3NT in, or in hands like this one where you want to play in the suit partner "presumably" preempted in when you know he doesn't hold that suit because it is your suit. Again this is documented in that misiry PDF.

[TheoKole]

I remember this hand as Jec's hand in one of his matches. I commented at the time that I would open it with a regular partner as a 3NT bid asking partner to bid the suit of his lowest Ace.

If LHO bids a suit, an X by partner shows the Ace of that suit, pass shows no Ace and a bid suit shows the Ace of the suit and denies lower suit aces and the ace of the preempt suit.
If LHO passes partner bids his suit Ace and 4NT for no Ace of a suit.

After partner passes or bids the lowest NT bid other than 6 or 7 NT asks for a higher suit Ace or a King of a lower suit (in that order of preference).

This bid rarely comes up in my partnership but I find it is very valuable for Goulash type hands like this where everybody else is simply guessing. Every time it has come up in the last 5 years, about twice a year, I have gotten a top on the board. As I have no other use for a 3NT opener, I find a Gambling 3NT opener, is both useless as a preempt, easy to bid against, (X for the majors, minor 4 bid for major-minor 2 suiter), easy to defend against, (lead an Ace or King, look at dummy, continue or switch accordingly) and very very rare. I have had a classic Gambling 3NT opener once in the past 5 years.

The hand is very very unlucky, in that what looks like the best contract (6 or 7 ♣) from your hand goes down from a horrendous split. I admit that I would have been in 7 ♣ probably down 2 because of the splits. But the 5 ♣ punt by Jec as I recall was really really lucky and definetly an underbid.
If I had no agreement or with a pickup partner I would probably punt 6 ♣.

Just my thoughts,

Theo

[pooltuna]

whereagles, on 2011-September-12, 16:09, said:

If you have a tool to check for the spade ace, by all means use it. Otherwise this is probably a case where it's best to play the odds.

I think if you did a simul you would find the winning call is 6♣ followed by 6♦ (assuming you were allowed only one call)