[helium]

flytoox, on Oct 12 2004, 09:29 AM, said:

whereagles, on Oct 12 2004, 09:51 AM, said:

I think there is an important lesson to be taken from this poll: sit down and discuss with your partner the overall approach to forcing pass situations. As we saw, a vague "pass is forcing" approach clearly won't cut it when complicated situations happen in real life.

The problem is not many ppl have this luxury. Most of us just sit down and play a few. Even you discussed it, sth new will come out and you find it has not been discussed before.

I personally dont like 6D. If pd is looking for 7H, Why not bid 5N? 6D is really testing pd. Why bother with it?




Hongjun

well i should have added that that my p (stanned) is learning me 2/1 so he have every reason to test me:))

[pclayton]

It doesn't apply here; but another iteration of Ben's four auctions is a cue bid of the opponents suit. I have been told by some of the best players on the west coast that a cue bid is even stronger than a forcing pass. Certainly a Q isn't available here, since spades is higher than hearts.

[junyi_zhu]

inquiry, on Oct 12 2004, 01:54 PM, said:

junyi_zhu, on Oct 11 2004, 07:38 PM, said:

The basic logic here is that you pass then you pull to show a hand that is better than direct 6H but not as good as cuebidding directly. Forcing pass means I don't know what to do, so I pass. Thus pass then pull the double means I still don't have a clear new suit cuebid, but I am sure I am stronger than direct 6H. The truth is that most players don't even understand the idea of forcing pass, including some fine players.

I think this is FAR from the generally accepted way to play this bid.

If you had to define a term for this, it would be the "principle of fast arrival". I am sure you are familar with this term, and it applies to competitive auctions as well... The general rule says when there are multiple ways to bid to a level, the SLOW WAY shows a stronger hand.

Lets use the PFA on the example auction...
you lho partner rho
1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠
5♣ -5♠ ?????

First, what would it mean to PASS and then pull your partner's double? Would it mean you couldn't make up your mind to defend or press on after 5♠, and upon hearing your parnter's decision to defend, all of sudden you have decided that your partner never gets anything right, so if he wants to defend, then bidding on is the only right option? Of course not. IF you really had no idea of to defend or bid on, your partners choice to double would have ended the auction....

Would a pass and then bid anyting over partners double (6♥ or 6♦) mean you simply want to play in six, end of story? Of course not, you could have bid that immediately without inviting partners participation in the process.

To pass and then pull, you in fact express doubt, but the doubt isn't about making six, it is about bidding seven.

So here are the possible auctions...

(1)
you lho partner rho
1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠
5♣ -5♠ -6♦

(2)
you lho partner rho
1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠
5♣ -5♠ -6♥

(3)
you lho partner rho
1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠
5♣ -5♠ pass pass
DBL ---Pass-----6♦

(4)
you lho partner rho
1♥ -1♠ -2♠ 4♠
5♣ -5♠ pass pass
DBL ---Pass-----6♥

Of these, auction number 2 is the weakest. Who knows, maybe your partner is worried that 5♠ will make on this one. You should pass in a flash.

Auction number 1 is the second weakest. Here 6♦ is forcing (as far as I am concerned we have agreed upon hearts as trumps) and is a mild grand slam try. The reasaon this is mild, is because of PFA... with a strong grand slam try, partner would have used the forcing pass.

Auction 3 is the strong of the four. Here partner is better is than an immediate six diamonds (slow auctions stronger). He is inviting grand slam, and since he could have show the diamond control immediately to invite grand slam (see auction 1), by inference has first round control of spades

Auction 4 is a betweener. It is a grand slam try but denies the ability to cue-bid either minor. Clearly shows a great hand and first round spade control, but lacks cue-bid in either minor.

So again, this is just anonther example of the very simple, and well understood Principle of Fast Arrival (PFA). This says that: in fit auctions, if there are
two ways of bidding to a certain spot, the slower route shows extra values. There are lot of places to read more about this treatment, I particularly like Robson/Segal's "partnership bidding at bridge" which is avaialbe on line in PDF format.

So while there are many ways you could agree to play forcing pass, I think in my experience, in my reading, and by study of how my "heros" bid (yes there are so many I look up to), I think this PFA-based approach is by far and anyway the most common. So with my partners, a FORCING pass and then a cue-bid (or 6H bid) doesn't say "I didn't know what to do, so I passed"... quite to the contrary, it says, I wanted to strongly invite to seven so I bid the best way to show that desire.

Ben

First, I almost never play principle of fast arrival in a GF sequence and I don't even think it's valid for gameforcing situations, because with good hands, if you don't bid and clearify your strong hand type, opps may bid more and you are virtually out of bid and have an extremely hard time next round. If I know you play this style, I'd bid 6S no matter what I have, and you'd miss grandslam half of the time because your partner has to double 6S without spade control and even he has extra he still has to double 6S.

Second, if you play as what you said, then what's your 5NT here? Do you really have the partnership agreement on 5NT and pass then pull double to 5NT? If you play 5NT as grandslam force, then it's inconsistant with what you said here, principle of fast arrival, because if you play this principle, you should pass then pull the double to 5NT. And if you pass then bid 5NT as grandslam force, I'd again
bid 6S to screw up your grandslam chance.


So the best approach to handle this kind of sequence is as following:
direct cuebid gurantees first round control of opps' suit and shows value in the cuebidding suit, grandslam try.
direct 5NT: trump asking.

pass then cuebid: denies first round control, grandslam try.
pass then 5NT: mild grandslam try and gurantees first round control in opps' suit.

It's really not hard as long as you have partnership discussion here.

[cf_John0]

helium, on Oct 12 2004, 09:28 AM, said:

Well Ben you coulnt be more right in ur analysis, this was the full deal:


http://online.bridge....php?id=6930332



i was whit my p on hi his bidding intill 6♦now i got the ide that he had shown strong loong ♦and a ♠void so i bid 7 ♦,p bid 7♥ and opps only took 1 ♠trick so we got a even board. 6♥-1 on other table.



kenneth

Kenneth had been cheated by his pd Stanned,now recites incorrectly.