[spwdo]

Scoring: IMP

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Playing bergen, jac 2 nt , splinters , partner opend bidding second seat with 1!S

[Chamaco]

spwdo, on Nov 18 2004, 02:30 PM, said:

<!-- ONEHAND begin --><table border='1'> <tr> <td> <table> <tr> <td> Dealer: </td> <td> West </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Vul: </td> <td> None </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Scoring: </td> <td> IMP </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td> <table> <tr> <th> <span class='spades'> ♠ </span> </th> <td> AJ974 </td> </tr> <tr> <th> <span class='hearts'> ♥ </span> </th> <td> J10832 </td> </tr> <tr> <th> <span class='diamonds'> ♦ </span> </th> <td>  </td> </tr> <tr> <th> <span class='clubs'> ♣ </span> </th> <td> KQ2 </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td>  </td> </tr> </table><!-- ONEHAND end -->

Playing bergen, jac 2 nt , splinters , partner opend bidding second seat  with 1!S

You have a GF hand.

Your tools allow you to:
1) show your 5 card suit (2/1 in hearts) and show support later
2) show GF support with shortnes (splinter in D)
3) show supoort and ask pard to describe his hand (J2NT)


You have to decide which is better here.

1) 2/1 in hearts
This one has the big advantage that pard will be able to evaluate his fitting honors in hearts.
Usually, a 5 card suit is more important to show than a void.
Unfortunately bidding a 2/1 suit should show a better suit, with at the very least a Q and a lower honor.
Another potential problem is that if opps stick in bidding and raising diamonds, we'll have to show support at the 4+ level, when pard won't know if we want to drive to slam or not.


2) splinter (4D)
Usually splinters with a void are not to be recommended.
Pard will have trouble to figure out your hand.
Usually the splinter says that the other suits are not a big problem,, but here we have heart losers.

2) Jacoby 2NT
This may be a viable option.
However, it is not perfect either: J2NT transfers the control of the bidding to responder, so it works fine when responder is the stronger hand.
Here it is not clear if responder or opener shoul place the contract.



I am torn between 2H and 2NT, but after considering the potential premptive action by opps I pick J2NT (at least we know the trump suit !)

[inquiry]

Bergen is out.. hand is way too good.

Splinter is out, for the same reason.

This leaves 2♥ and 2NT. Both these bids have flaws. 2♥ because you will have to raise spades next time, and no good direct spade raise will describe this hand (weak hearts, good clubs, diamond void, GREAT spades). Jacoby has an advantage in that if partner shows either clubs as a second suit, or shortness in hearts, the auction become easier, rather than harder.

Ok, so while in general, I like to show my five card suit BEFORE raising on GF hands with fit, this hand is a big exception. So I would trott out jacoby....

Ben

[pclayton]

With JTxxx of hearts, I DONT want pard to devalue his shortness there; quite the opposite. So I roll out 2N (or whatever you play as a forcing raise).

I don't think a forcing raise transfers control to anyone, even Jacoby; opener shows a feature (balanced, shortness, long suit, and responder can take control or cue bid).

[PriorKnowledge]

AJxxx J10xxx - KQx
p 1S p ?

GF splinter in D (Whatever that is in your system). You want to opener devalue diam honors.

Not 2H - Your hearts are too weak and partner's shortness is not a deficit.
Not J2N or any other bid that does not show shortness in diam

If opener has KQxxx KQx xxx Ax, you want to be in slam
If opener has KQxxx xxx KQx Ax, you don't want to be in slam, you don't even want to pass 4S.

The only way for opener to properly evaluate the partnership assets is if you splinter in diam.

If you don't splinter on this obvious splinter hand, remove splinters from your CC as you will never use them.

[whereagles]

It's not quite like that... The trouble with splinters is they eat up too much bidding space. Therefore a splinter bid must have a very specific strenght. A 1H-4D splinter, for instance, should show a 4441 or 5431 with something like 11-13 hcp. Anymore and you don't have enough space to try for slam, any less and pard will not be able to gauge the combined potential correctly.

In this specific case a 4D splinter will leave you in the dark if pard bids 4S, so something else is needed. The jac 2NT raise is a possibility.

[mike777]

Bergen 2nt. It comes up so seldom I better use it now or just discard the darn thing.

[PriorKnowledge]

whereagles, on Nov 18 2004, 01:43 PM, said:

It's not quite like that... The trouble with splinters is they eat up too much bidding space. Therefore a splinter bid must have a very specific strenght. A 1H-4D splinter, for instance, should show a 4441 or 5431 with something like 11-13 hcp. Anymore and you don't have enough space to try for slam, any less and pard will not be able to gauge the combined potential correctly.

In this specific case a 4D splinter will leave you in the dark if pard bids 4S, so something else is needed. The jac 2NT raise is a possibility.

You have 11 hcp... How is that not 11-13 hcp? This is a textbook splinter hand. It asks partner a specific question: If you have wasted honors in diam, return to 4S.

Let me repeat... Since you think splinters take up too much space and you don't splinter on this obvious splinter hand, remove splinters from your CC. You will never bid them.

I'll go even farther.... I will give up ALL my fancy slam bidding including Blackwood before I give up splinters. Splinters allow you to find slam on game-strength hands when the hands fit together well. No other bid does so much so easily.

[HeartA]

I am for Splinter, telling pd to devaluate honors in D. I may bid 5D again, announcing a void.

[spwdo]

hi,

Thx for your comments, north here bid 2♣ as gameforce, then 2♦ south,then north signed off in 4♠, (we knew we excaped here cause first ♥ was ruffed!!).
but we didnt seem to agree how it shoud have been bid bid it, i was in favour of jac nt wich i thought was sure to make things easier after partner first response.

Not it matters but we were opps , here comes south hand

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[inquiry]

spwdo, on Nov 18 2004, 02:39 PM, said:

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1S - 2N
3H - 3S
4C - 4D
4H - 5NT
7C - 7S
Pass

1) 3H = singleton or void
2) 3S = slam try
3) 4C = cue
4) 4D = cue
5) 4H = confirms void
6) 5NT = GSF, spades agreed
7) 7C = two of top three spade honors

Even with all those diamond honors we didn't de-valuate... :-) Of course, you could be less gready and bid only 6S as well.

[Fluffy]

easir:

1♠-4♦
4♥-5♦
5NT-6♦
7♠

or

1♠-4♦
4♥-5♦
5NT-6♦
6♥-7♠

[inquiry]

Fluffy, on Nov 18 2004, 05:25 PM, said:

easir:

1♠-4♦
4♥-5♦
5NT-6♦
7♠

or

1♠-4♦
4♥-5♦
5NT-6♦
6♥-7♠

I don't believe either ot these auctions are possible without looking at the hands.

The reason is that north doesn't know about the fifth spade or the club queen. And south doesn't know if north's 4♥ is Ax or Axx. Neither opponent can count enough tricks to bid 7, after the 4♦ splinter imho... MAybe if norht creatively jumps to 5♥ over 4♦ as RKCB exclusion, and if north has a way to show diamond void, and spade ace...but still, doesn't show the fifth spade and those very good clubs.

Ben

[pclayton]

1♠ - 3♣
3♥ - 3♠
3N - 4♣
4♥ - 5♦
6♣ - 7♠

is very possible.

3♣ is one of Fred's GF raises. 3♥ shows an unbalanced non-minimum with only 5 trump but shortage somewhere. 3♠ asks: 3N shows a void (my tweak); 4♣ asks; 4♥ = void, 5♦ = EKB; 6♣ = 2 with trump Q.

[cf_John0]

IMO splinter 4D is the best:
The first key to a slam is the H ctrl.

[whereagles]

PriorKnowledge, on Nov 18 2004, 06:52 PM, said:

whereagles, on Nov 18 2004, 01:43 PM, said:

It's not quite like that... The trouble with splinters is they eat up too much bidding space. Therefore a splinter bid must have a very specific strenght. A 1H-4D splinter, for instance, should show a 4441 or 5431 with something like 11-13 hcp. Anymore and you don't have enough space to try for slam, any less and pard will not be able to gauge the combined potential correctly.

In this specific case a 4D splinter will leave you in the dark if pard bids 4S, so something else is needed. The jac 2NT raise is a possibility.

You have 11 hcp... How is that not 11-13 hcp? This is a textbook splinter hand. It asks partner a specific question: If you have wasted honors in diam, return to 4S.

Let me repeat... Since you think splinters take up too much space and you don't splinter on this obvious splinter hand, remove splinters from your CC. You will never bid them.

I'll go even farther.... I will give up ALL my fancy slam bidding including Blackwood before I give up splinters. Splinters allow you to find slam on game-strength hands when the hands fit together well. No other bid does so much so easily.

Well, the point is this hand has 5 losers (3 hearts, 1 club, 1 spade - only 1 spade loser due to 10-card fit). The average splinter has 7 losers and a singleton. This particular splinter has 5 losers and a void. It has *huge* playing strenght. Even opposite a min with diamond wastage, say..

Kxxxx....AJxxx
Ax.........JT8xx
KQxx.....---
xx.........KQx

slam is cold. How are you going to persuade pard to go on after

1S 4D
4S 5D
5S ??

Will you just blast 6S and find pard with Kxxxx xx KQxx Ax instead?

It's hard to bid this hand already, and a splinter will eat up a lot of space. Which is why I say a splinter has to be limited. Not only to 11-13 in terms of points, but also to 6-7 losers. Not less than that, otherwise it gets too hard to gauge combined strenght.

I particularly like something like:
1S-3x = splinter, invitational values or better (next step asks)
1S-4x = swiss high-card raise with no wastage in suit x (otherwise bid 1S-2NT)

In this case you could bid the hand 1S-3D because there's enough space for opener to ask how strong you are.

[PriorKnowledge]

You are right, on the subject hand, there are perfect min hands with diam strength that opener can have that still make slam, and the splinter will miss those. But there are many more with diam strength and no slam that any other bid may take to the 5- or 6-level.

I like anonymous splinters. 3oM = anonymous splinter, over both a 1M opener and a 2M stayman rebid. It is more commonly played over a 2M stayman rebid, but it fits well with 3m Bergen responses over a 1M opener. Over spades you can even tell void.

1S 3H = anonymous GF splinter
3S 3N = void
        4C = where?
             4D = diam void
             4H = heart void
             4S = club void
    4C = club singleton
    4D = diam sing
    4H = heart sing

1H 3S
3N = where?
     4C/4D/4H = void or singleton

[han]

I agree with most people that 2NT is much better than 4D, the hand is too good. I play 4D here as a splinter with extras (3NT would show an unspecified splinter) and might use that. Still, it is not a good description of the hand.