[FrancesHinden]

I can't get terribly excited about this hand, because:

6H is not a very good contract (it needs hearts 3-2 or singleton 10/9 over, plus the ace of hearts not having 4 diamonds, plus the king of spades suitably placed).

Edit: I was going to add "or singleton ace onside" but in fact it's worse than that on a diamond lead, I think you basically need hearts 3-2 or they can screw your entries completely.


6D is slightly better contract, but also needs hearts 3-2 or singleton Ace, plus the king of spades suitably placed.

That makes both of them way under 50%.

OK, you can get the odds up to nearly 50% because they lead the wrong thing sometimes. But the more scientific and revealing your auction, the more likely they are to lead the right thing.

FWIW I think the 5H bid is indeed asking for good trumps, because he could have cue bid either minor over 4H and didn't; if he was after a control in one of them he'd have made another cuebid. I also think Qxx is marginal where "good" is concerned.

[han]

Perhaps responder with his prime 19-count and double fit should grab the bull by the horns and bid a slam, instead of letting partner make a decision they can never get right. Of course, kickback would also help.

[mikeh]

I'm with Frances in that I can't get too excited about a problem where the 'right' answer involves bidding a bad but making slam. However, the auction is very poor. Responder bid 5♥ to avoid the problem he would have encountered had he asked for keycards and got a zero response. He could avoid that by using kickback: 4♠ as keycard, but leaving that aside, he avoided one problem at the cost of creating another. In my view, the likelihood of partner misunderstanding the 5♥ bid was too great: look at the answers posted here

As for how he should have timed the auction, it is true that he had a horrible set of choices. 2♠ looks clear. However, 3♠ seems wasted: partner was not going to bid 4♣ unless he had both extras and a stiff or void♣, and it was highly unlikely that he could or would bid 3N. So the odds must have been 90% that 3♠ would fetch 4♥.

For my money, if responder planned his auction, he should anticipate the problem and jump to 5♥ over 3♥. That must focus on trump, since neither partner has cue bid at all.

But even better would be to adopt kickback!

Or, and here is a radical solution, require an opening bidder to hold an opening hand

[cherdano]

FrancesHinden, on Jul 11 2005, 01:59 PM, said:

I can't get terribly excited about this hand, because:

I think the excitement is not about the result, but about the auction. I will assume that this is an absolute minimum opener. I think given the bidding, opener may still pass with hands (make ♠Q a king and add ♥T) where slam is excellent; so responder may have done better to drive to slam which is 50% even opposite this dead minimum.

Of course, if they had good agreements about 5♥, my point is moot. But this doesn't match with Roland's story (the long tanks etc.).

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