[broze]

I think one of my greatest weaknesses is driving on to slam too often. My partner and I bid this one today - what went wrong? I sat South.

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I'm not too interested on your thoughts about how bad the Jacoby convention is or whatever, just what went wrong here. Thanks.

This post has been edited by broze: 2012-July-15, 07:34

[TWO4BRIDGE]

For one thing, if you used 2NT! as some kind of GF raise w/4+ card support, then Opener would be able to show ♦-shortness on the 3-level instead of the 4-level:

1S - 2NT!
3D! - now you can start cuebidding on the 3-level :

3D! - 3H!
3NT! - 4S ( denying ♣-Ctrl or ♦-Ace, or another ♥-Ctrl )
PASS
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Also, the reply to the ♠Q-ask with NO outside King is 5NT! , but it doesn't keep you out of slam since you are too high already.

[quiddity]

Or maybe North could just resist the temptation to drive to slam with a balanced 13-count including a wasted ♦J and duplicated shortness?

[mike777]

along the same lines, north has a minimum hand, 8 losers.....do you really expect pard to have a 4 loser hand on this auction.

JUst make whatever bid shows a minimum hand over pards 3h bid.

Let south be the one to drive the hand once you show a minimum 8 loser hand.

[SteveMoe]

Agree with advice from above - note however that your 3♥ call allowed partner to count tricks that were not in your hand. S/he was expecting 55 in the majors. Ouch. Does 4♣ instead show your actual pattern?

[quiddity]

I assumed the description for 3♥ was a typo and it shows 5 spades.

[Antrax]

Do you think it wise to show a singleton ace as shortness? I feel my life is easier when my partner shows shortness because I can assume he has HCP outside the short suit. Of course, I might be missing slams you guys would get to.

[Yu18772]

Antrax, on 2012-July-15, 00:47, said:

Do you think it wise to show a singleton ace as shortness? I feel my life is easier when my partner shows shortness because I can assume he has HCP outside the short suit. Of course, I might be missing slams you guys would get to.

If you play the sequence as singlton ask, i think South should show the single, even if its an ace - its not like a voluntary splinter bid, he was asked to show it.
In general, i think North way overbid the hand when he asked for rkcb. North could cue with 4♥ after 4♦ and let South decide if to continue to slam, this would show slam interest but not a good enough hand to drive there alone. (All this assuming 3♥ explanation is typo).
Yu

[rmnka447]

If I have a problem with this auction, it's because your partner is asking the questions and you are answering even though you have the big hand. Where you have a big hand that raises slam as a possibility, partner needs to be telling what he/she holds rather than vice versa. This is because most of the time you can not describe the big hand well enough for the lesser hand to make an intelligent decision about the slam. OTOH, the weaker hand can usually give the stronger hand enough information for the big hand to make an informed decision. But more importantly, the big hand usually knows the exact key information to be sought and can captain in a direction to get that information.

After you show extras, responder needs to have some sort of mechanism to limit his/her hand. This needs to be done as cheaply as possible because the hand with "extras" may have enough to even want to explore for slam opposite an invitational hand. In this regard, you need to differentiate between invitational raises, game force raises, and slam positive raises. (By slam positive, I mean a raise with "extras" or possibly a game force raise rich in controls.)

If your agreement is that partner's 3 ♠ [relay?] asks about shortness, then I think your partner should not ask about shortness. Partner cannot see or know from his/her hand if slam exists no matter what you answer. Instead, partner should either simply bid 4 ♠ or show his/her cheapest control on the way to 4 ♠. In this case, the control bid would be 4 ♥ denying controls in ♣s or ♦s. (This is in line with my 1st paragraph comments -- partner should be thinking "I can't tell if slam is there from my hand, so I should look to tell what might be useful to partner in deciding if slam exists.")

By bidding the cheapest control, partner gives you additional information by denying a club control. You are now looking at potentially 1 1/2 losers in ♣, 2 potential losers in ♥s, and a possible loser in ♠s. Slam might still be possible if partner has both missing As, the ♥ K and a favorable ♣ holding. But that's a pretty tall order, so just bidding 4 ♠ looks right at this point.

More comments later.

[broze]

Thanks for the interesting comments. As you assumed "5♥" was a typo. Meant to read 5♠. Fixed now.

Antrax, on 2012-July-15, 00:47, said:

Do you think it wise to show a singleton ace as shortness? I feel my life is easier when my partner shows shortness because I can assume he has HCP outside the short suit. Of course, I might be missing slams you guys would get to.

I did worry about this at the time, but because I had already shown shortness somewhere with the 3♥ bid I thought I might as well show it anyway. You have made me realise though that we have the 4♠ bid after 3♠ undefined. Not sure what we could use it as - perhaps to show a bottom of the range hand with extras. Hmm.

[wank]

north had a toke

[Zelandakh]

If your style is to show a singleton ace as a shortage then the auction is fine up to 4♦. However, North was too optimistic at this point, only a club shortage should be of any interest. FWiiW I also play a 3♣ response to 1♠ as a GF raise and 3♥ is for me also extras with a side shortage, and 4♦ over 3♠ would indeed also show a singleton diamond, so I am certainly not going to blame the methods.

I will leave it to you and your partner to decide if showing the ace as a singleton is a good idea. But consider the holding ♦KQJx opposite for a moment. Usually this would be one of the worst possible holdings opposite a splinter but when partner holds the ace it might actually be the best possible! In other words, it robs the splinter of one of its biggest advantages, being able to easily judge the combined assets. In return you get more accurate shape resolution. Most experts seem to think the former is more important so it is definitely something to discuss with a serious partner.

[rmnka447]

Some further comments --


I don't think anything you bid in this auction was wrong. The quibble I might have is your bid of 6 ♠. If your agreement over the queen ask is that any bid other than a simple return to 5 ♠ guarantees the Q, then you might have considered bidding 5 ♥ and let partner bid the slam, probe further, or sign off in 5 ♠. If your agreement is you should jump to 6 with the Q, then you have done everything right.

The problem on this hand was that your partner took control and drove toward slam with a hand that didn't warrant that kind of action. Despite the 13 HCP, partner's hand is an 8 loser hand which makes it equivalent to about a limit raise. Your hand has to be almost the equivalent of a strong and artificial 2 ♣ opener for slam to be right opposite partner's hand.

Since partner took control of the hand and asked the questions, you must as part of partnership trust answer them as fully and correctly as possible.

Is your hand originally worth the extras response? I think so. You have 15 really good points that translate into a 5 loser hand. Given something similar held by partner, slam is a definite possibility. So you have to alert partner to that possibility. Say partner held for instance ♠ Axxx ♥ AKx ♦ xx ♣ Kxxx. If you bid your as a normal minimum opener, partner is very unlikely to make a move toward slam. But once you show extras, partner will very much cooperate in exploring and finding slam. Indeed, this very example hand would be the type of hand hand where partner should take control of the auction like he/her did.

Finally, if your hand captains the auction, you need to find out about partner's specific controls, especially those in the ♥ suit, to bid slam. That should push toward control bidding rather than rolling out RKCB.

[gszes]

hand evaluation is important---you have a uselss spade J (at least a 9 card trump suit J will almost
never pull its own weight)

You later learn you have a uselss dia J (p dia shortness)

Your club J is unsupported so it also probably isnt worth full value.

your doubleton dia opposite p short suit is also poor since it cuts down
on the ruffing potential of your 9 card fit.

This leaves you with a balanced 10 count is this really the type of hand you
want to take over the bidding with??????????? I do not know your entire
system here but if possible I would show mild slam interest (over 4d) with a


4h


cue bid and leave any further festivities to your p. Also note that (if your
3 useless jacks had been the club K) that 6c might be a vastly superior slam
due to the pitch from the 5th spade (something to think about).

[Cyberyeti]

gszes, on 2012-July-16, 07:02, said:

Also note that (if your
3 useless jacks had been the club K) that 6c might be a vastly superior slam
due to the pitch from the 5th spade (something to think about).

6♣(N) still a vastly better slam (clubs 3-2 and either K♥ right or Kx♣ in the hole with some other minor chances), simply add the 10♣ is all that's needed for it to be decent.