[Laplace0]

How to bid the following hands in 2/1, dealer North?

North:S A9 H A86 D AJ3 C KQ1085
South:S 8 H KQ75 D KD52 C A973

[smerriman]

I would start with:

1C - 1H
2N - 3C (Wolff)
3D - 3N (Slam interest in clubs)

That should get us to 6C at least, but after that it depends a bit on whether that D of diamonds is the queen of not.

[KingCovert]

Laplace0, on 2019-November-01, 13:44, said:

How to bid the following hands in 2/1, dealer North?

North:S A9 H A86 D AJ3 C KQ1085
South:S 8 H KQ75 D KD52 C A973

You really need to do a better job of writing this post. South's diamond suit is KD52. That D really matters. I don't know which slam I want to play here

Why is the title Walsh Bidding? Do you want a standard 2/1 auction or a Transfer Walsh auction?

[mikeh]

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Assuming this is the hand, and basic walsh, the start is trivial: 1C 1H 2N

Then it comes down to agreements. Most established pairs, and all good established pairs, have agreements over this. Some play, as one poster suggests, Wolff. I (greatly) prefer transfers.

With transfers:

1C 1H
2N 3S


3S shows interest in a high level club contract. Opener is to bid 3N unless his hand seems to be useful in terms of slam. Here, it is clearly 'useful' in that he has 5 clubs...he could have been 4=3=3=3, for example, and has 7 controls, which is towards the high end of the range....if he had, for example, 4 Aces, he'd have no kings so 8 controls is the most he could hold. He could have had lots of queens and jacks and fewer controls.

He also has a great holding in partner's heart suit and a ruffing value, although the auction does suggest that partner might be short in spades as well....but he could be, for example, 3=4=1=5.

So opener has a clear rejection of 3N. What he bids instead is again a matter of agreement, but I think that the 'normal' action would be 4C.

Now, responder has choices and....drumroll please....it depends on agreement.

For me, in minor suit slam auctions, we use kickback, and here that means that 4D is the call. Note that responder has 1st or 2nd round control in all suits, and opener is fairly narrowly defined...he has a 'good for clubs' balanced or semi-balanced 18-19 count.

4D fetches 4H, 1430. Now 4S asks for the club queen, and opener admits to it via 5C, denying a side King, but responder already knew that: with A/A/A/K shown as keycards, there is no room for a side King as well as the club Queen.

Responder can picture at worst Axx Axx Axx KQxx, and there has to be at least a little something extra. AJxx Ax Axx KQxx is about the worst hand I can conjure up, given that opener liked clubs....he would NOT like clubs with any hand with only 3 clubs.

When the worst hand you can imagine gives you play for grand, and there are many hands where grand is between good and cold, or almost cold, one has to bid it.

If one uses wolff over 2N, opener will pull 3N to 4C, and responder can use whatever keycard version the partnership employs.

Note that I have assumed that the KDxx in diamonds was supposed to be, in English letters, KQxx. The above auctions would be silly if it were otherwise: even KJxx is not enough to justify grand.

[Laplace0]

Thanks and sorry for the bad writing. Anyway you all guessed right, it is the Q (Queen) of diamonds. I consider to implement the Wolff convention after a strong 2 NT; where can I find a detailed description of the transfer system. Mikeh, "established" and "good" are already strong constrains. Thanks all again for the replies, very helpful!!