[ahydra]

han, on 2012-June-16, 08:23, said:

1. Maybe she (correctly) bid 2S because she had a strong hand, not in order to show anything but strength, or as an asking bid. I agree with you that 3H was not the best choice for her, but wouldn't it be better for you to bid 3NT? What do you think 2S followed by 3H shows, is it a slam try? If you agree that that is a rather small target after two NF bids, perhaps you agree that your partner is still looking for the best strain. Isn't it then obvious not to bid 4H with 10-fifth and a triple spade stopper?

2. Perhaps your partner should have figured this out with AQ10 of hearts. But of course you would have done better not to make ambiguous calls.

1) I did mention she intended 2S as stop-asking. And what about something like void Axx Axx KQ10xxxx - that's not strong enough for X-then-bid, so start with 2C and when partner bids 2H you might envisage some kind of slam?

Still, I guess I could bid 3NT anyway, but to be honest I was playing partner to be the strong player I know her as, despite the splinter mix-up and her earlier not inviting with a 9-count over my 1NT overcall (yes, 10 tricks were cold). So when she doesn't bid 3NT herself despite me suggesting NT is a good place to play...

2) As I mentioned earlier in the thread I'd never before come across someone who, playing splinters, thinks 1S-4H is natural.

ahydra

[JLOGIC]

I think bidding 4H is really bad even if it was a splinter. Your partner has no room to maneuver and your hand is very bad. There needs to be a tight range on splinters that are 1 under our game contract.

[JLOGIC]

mgoetze, on 2012-June-13, 19:51, said:

Really... hm... looked like a max 4♠ call to me.

I would always bid 4S FWIW. We have no defense and a stiff heart, the last thing we want to do is let them into our auction easily. Also, what else can you bid but 4S? Sure you can play system and be able to show a good 1-4, or a very light splinter or something, but barring that I see no reasonable alternative to 4S anyways, tactical considerations aside. I'm not bidding 2N.

[Zelandakh]

1. 2♣ -> 2♠ -> 3NT. On the subject of the 2♠ call, a good general rule for non-expert pairs is to treat any undiscussed cue bid at the 2 or 3 level exactly like 4th suit forcing (stopper asking or general good hand). Not optimal but usually good enough and most importantly avoids misunderstandings.

2. 4♠. This is a simple hand evaluation matter. We are close to a 4♥ response but partner has to make an immediate decision over this as to whether to bypass 4♠ and in that spot it is a bad idea to lower the bottom end of the splinter. It is unusual for me to disagree with han so I assume he simply has a different splinter range agreed and handles the top end of my splinter range differently.

3. Pass. This looks obvious - we do not have anything special and there is a real danger we push them into a making 4♥.

4. Shame you already gave the answer to this. Seems interesting and I would have liked to see our card play experts evaluating the lines.

[sasioc]

ahydra, on 2012-June-16, 06:46, said:

I picked 4C in case partner had something like xxxxx x Kxxx xxx. Here 5CX is a good sac against their making 4H. Unfortunately this netted me a bottom - not for -500, but because my LHO was the only one in the room to bid 4H on his nice 7-count (5413 IIRC). Meh.

I'm amazed that nobody would bid again with this nice 15. I guess it looks like two fast losers each major and asking partner to show up with ♦AK is a bit much.

♠xx ♥Qx ♦QJ10x ♣AKQJx is not a nice 15 on this auction. I'd expect partner to have a 6 card suit a lot of the time for 2♣ - that or a little bit of extra strength. From this point of view you don't really have extras. The diamonds could be useful but Qx in opponents' suit is likely to be wasted and the fact that you don't have a singleton sucks. In short, you are not at the top end of a 2♣ bid imo and don't have anything like the shape required to wander back in at the 4 level.

There are also a couple of problems with the hand you are trying to pick with partner. He is not massively likely to have a heart singleton - opponents' auction doesn't sound like they have a 10 card fit so you should probably expect to find partner with some length in hearts (and, for that matter, spades). The other problem is that at white he is not going to be too scared to bid 3♣ over 2♥ and when he does not you can probably assume that you don't have a massive fit and/or that his hand is pretty rubbish.