[kenrexford]

♠A ♥xxxx ♦xxxxx ♣Axx

Partner opens 2♣. You respond 2♦, GF and artificial, no positive suit, two Queens or a King or better.

Partner now bids 3♣.

Now what is your plan?

[helene_t]

4♣, sets suit or minorwood or whatever.

[FrancesHinden]

4C, what else?

[Free]

4♣ wtp?

[ArcLight]

3NT so I can hog the hand!

If playing with my regular partner Ren Kexford, I might bid 4♠ a splinter agreeing Clubs as trump. Or 4♦ as Kickback. Pard would know that since I bypassed Unserious 3NT I have a slammish hand with at least 2 aces.
Too bad that stiff ace of spades is not in a 5 card suit instead.
3♣ should imply a pretty good 2♣ bid. KQxxxx or KQJxx in Clubs. And not balanced else bid 2NT (or whatever 3NT is).

If I were not playing with Ren, I would bid 4♣ and let pard cue bid or BW.

[mikeh]

If I were allowed only one bid, and would then be barred, it would be 6♣, so that sort of tells me where this hand is going, and my 1st obligation is to tell partner that CLUBS ARE TRUMP.

The only alternative I can see is an artificial 3♦ (I think most experts use 3♦ as a noise here, unless they play that 2♣ 2♦ 3M is 4 major with longer clubs). The only purpose would be to check back for a 4 card heart suit, but I am not overly concerned about missing a 4=4 fit when my 4 are xxxx and I probably have no useful pitches on partner's clubs anyway.

So I will add my (long-winded) voice to the chorus of 4♣ bidders.

[keylime]

Set trumps here. I like the 6♣ without any agreements that Mike alluded to.

With agreements, then I Minorwood/Redwood just to make sure. With really fancy agreements, 3D asks for a major.

[Fluffy]

I'd bid 4♠

[pclayton]

4♣. Some hands are for tellin', some hands are for askin'.

[kenrexford]

So far so good. Now the zinger.

After 4♣, partner bids 5♣.

???

[mikeh]

kenrexford, on Aug 31 2007, 10:43 AM, said:

So far so good.  Now the zinger.

After 4♣, partner bids 5♣.

???

My first reaction would be to see if we were playing Precision, and, if so, pass and hope we don't get doubled

Having confirmed that 2♣ was a real bid, I am bidding 6♣.

If we go down on normal breaks, then partner probably did not have his bid.

I cannot construct a hand on which grand is good, consistent with his auction, so I am not bidding a likely misleading 5♠.. misleading in that it sounds like (and is)a grand slam try.

While 5♣ could well, in theory, be used to show 1st round control in all unbid suits (thus void A... A....KQJxxx(x)), that makes NO sense on this hand with my stiff spade. And in any event, I have far too many red suit losers to hope to avoid all of them when he cannot do anything other than 5♣.

[FrancesHinden]

How much do you trust your partner?

As mikeh implies (I think) it's hard to imagine a hand where 5C is the correct bid and partner had a 2C opener (and we don't have some obscure agreement about what 5C means).

So either:
- partner thinks a 1C opener is a 2C opener (KQx A Qx KQJ10xxxx or something) and is now embarrassed about it

- partner isn't interested in cue-bidding a red suit, or even making a trial bid in a non-club-suit.

Anyway, as long as partner has a real game force we have a real 6C bid.

[Free]

6♣ now, partner shows a minimum hand, I have 2 aces...

[cherdano]

I think partner is just showing a minimum 2♣ opener with clubs that doesn't care about where my controls are. He trusts me to know that he has 10 tricks and that I will raise if I have 2 more. S.th. like KQJ AKQ x KQJxxx.

I bid 6♣ obviously.

[skjaeran]

Agree with all others voting for two raises; 4♣ and 6♣.

[pclayton]

Apparently partner is from the school of "cue bids show extras".

Even minimum 2♣ calls have enough controls for 6♣ to be good.

[kenrexford]

Yeah, that's what I thought. I also bid 6♣, and the opponents cashed two Aces.

Partner's bidding was somewhat crazed, but I started wondering whether a hand was plausible. Maybe ♠KQ ♥KQ ♦KQ ♣KQJxxxx?

This seems to be the only logical holding, where 4NT as the only asking bid creates a problem. The answer propels us too high.

Of course, maybe partner is just insane.

So, then I wondered as well. Not playing Aces-first cuebidding, what the heck should 5♣ really show?

[hrothgar]

kenrexford, on Aug 31 2007, 10:56 PM, said:

Yeah, that's what I thought. I also bid 6♣, and the opponents cashed two Aces.

I can't image opening 2♣ with zero Aces and then planning to show a suit.

I can construct a few freak hands where a 2♣ opening looks best despite holding zero aces. All of these hands would plan to rebid in NT or raise partner's suit and transfer captaincy.

I'd open the example hand that you suggest 1♣

[helene_t]

kenrexford, on Aug 31 2007, 09:56 PM, said:

Of course, maybe partner is just insane.

It is of course important to know if that is the case. I think there is a Xango gadget that can clarify it. Like those asking bids they use at the intensive care units.

[mikeh]

did you check to see if he was in fact playing precision? Otherwise, you have compelling evidence that he is insane or incompetent. I cannot construct any hand consistent with the auction, and the result, that remotely resembles a 2♣ opening.

In fact, while this is NOT a knock on Ken for posting here, this hand doesn't really belong in the expert/advanced portion of the forum because no expert/advanced player could have this auction on the actual hand.