[monikrazy]

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You and (nonregular) partner bid to an aggressive slam (Imps).

1. Is 6H a good bid?

2. W leads the 10♠. How do you play from here?

[Cyberyeti]

The 6♥ bid is a gamble, the slam could be excellent or very poor.

It would be a lot better if your second heart was bigger than the 6 as you might want to ruff 2 diamonds.

I play the Q♠ and assuming it's covered, I pitch my spades on the clubs, if the Q doesn't drop I run the 10♦.

[mikeh]

I truly don't like 6♥. Yes, we hold 6 controls, which is excellent for a strong 1N, and we hold the diamond 10, but we have only 3 trumps, and partner's announced club shortness doesn't improve our hand one bit.

Methods count, and what I would do over 4♣ depends on what 3♥ meant. For me, 3♥ is stronger than 4♥ and I would be content to bid 4♥ over 4♣, having already promised more than a minimum. Were it otherwise, I'd like to bid 4♦ if that was known to be a last train bid, but I don't like it as such, even if last train were an I/A gadget...this really is an auction in which the limited opening hand should be able to convey, with certainty, possession of a diamond control.

So I think that I'd always be bidding 4♥ here, after the 4♣ cue downgraded my hand.

As to the play: rise with the Q, assume it is covered. We are in trouble, deservedly so. We need a lot of luck. Even if we could bring the clubs home for 5 winners, through Qxx onside, we still end up needing to guess the diamonds, so it makes little sense to hook the club. Take the top clubs, ditching a spade, and table a diamond. It is usually a tiny technical error to lead the 10 in this suit combination, since the stiff Q could appear, but we're down anyway if it does.

While there are layouts in which playing to the diamond K works, and running the 10 fails, playing low to the K and then back loses on some fairly common layouts even when the A is onside. Meanwhile, so long as the Q is onside, you are more strongly favoured to make by leading the 10, intending to run it if not covered.

[Trump Echo]

My regular partner and I would have found 6 Hearts, although we'd have bid it a little differently, so I think it's a good bid. But obviously, making would depend on the lay of the cards.

[mikeh]

Trump Echo, on 2015-February-19, 08:18, said:

My regular partner and I would have found 6 Hearts, although we'd have bid it a little differently, so I think it's a good bid. But obviously, making would depend on the lay of the cards.

6H. Is less than 50%, which makes it a bad contract. The fact that you and your partner would reach that bad contract says something about your bidding, but does not in any way make your bidding good or the contract sound. Rather the opposite.

[helene_t]

6♥ is not a good bid. Opener had to acknowledge that he has already showed a non-minimum balanced 15-17 with probably exactly three hearts. Responder knows all this while he knows very little about responder's hand. So he should not try to guess at the right contract. He should make the most descriptive bid possible in order to allow responder to place the contract. Responder could have a stronger hand and be interested in grand slam. That becomes impossible after the 6♥ bid (unless you are playing with Ken Rexford and have agreed that 6♥ shows exactly this hand ).

If 3♥ didn't show extras and he thinks he still has extras despite the bad news about partner's club singleton, then maybe the right bid is 4♠. Now I can sort of understand that he would like not to show the lack of diamond control since that would help the opposition. But if that is your partnership philosophy, then responder should just have punted 6♥ after the 3♥ bid. As it is, responder chose to start a cuebidding sequence, and then opener should respect that decision by cooperating. Probably the best bid is 4♥.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

#1 the bid is terrible, the 4C cue told you two things
- you are missing 2nd round control in spades
- you face club shortage

#2 regarding the play, I would (incl. the technical error )
have followed the line MikeH outline, raise with the
Queen, ducking will bring nothing, pitch spade, try the
finesse against the Queen

With kind regards
Marlowe

[wynsten]

Here is a reasonable layout where 6H makes:

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Interchange the 5 and 6 of hearts, though, and the hand goes down.
So, yes, based on the possession of the ♥6, South was justified in bidding 6♥.

[zillahandp]

Bidding is rubbish hennce nearl hopeless contact so all has to be right, try qs by all means but achieves little ad must be right if Qc does not lay on left, better chance tha n drop. So if 4/3 we get home with five clubs five hts one spade and still ad has to be right! So best play fails cos club finesse //(best ) loses

[PLimprove]

2D&3D are just to show 5-5+ H&D but the cue bid shows a void/singleton in clubs and good pts. However, you two may be 4H~7H so good players will adopt rkcb. 6H is a beginner bid.
By the way, spade is the most reasonable lead.

[GrahamJson]

You could hardly hold less in partner's two suits (3 points out of 15), so a sign off in 4H seems automatic. The only way that your hand could be worse for the bidding so far is if you changed a black suit ace for a couple of black queens, or QJJ.

[GrahamJson]

Oops, I see you already have Jack of clubs. (I pad mini; can't type and see previous text at the same time)

[mikeh]

PLimprove, on 2015-February-20, 00:14, said:

2D&3D are just to show 5-5+ H&D but the cue bid shows a void/singleton in clubs and good pts. However, you two may be 4H~7H so good players will adopt rkcb. 6H is a beginner bid.

You really need to try to understand why no 'good' player would even consider using rkcb as south. How on earth is south ever going to be able to count tricks? On any hand on which south can use keycard and get away with it, you will find that north is the one who should have used keycard over 3H. On hands on which north should, instead, cuebid, south cannot count tricks after a keycard ask. Here, finding out that partner has 1 keycard tells you nothing useful. Slam could be cold or, as it is on the hand, bad.

Good players use rkcb only when the responses will allow the accurate placement of the contract. It is the bad player who overused rkcb. I disagree with 6H, but that bad call is better than using rkcb.

[ggwhiz]

I've been in slams a lot worse than this when playing with a non regular partner. Both were aggressive but either had room for the ♦Q making slam a good bet and incomplete methods so I wouldn't take the criticism of the bidding too seriously.

However, I would bid 4♠ instead of 6♥ and expect the bidding to die at 5♥ but may well blast slam in a speedball.

[all loomis]

since 4c ruins openers hand, a return to 4h seems obvious. it sends the message that d lead may be more exciting than desired.