[awm]

Agree with 6♦.

If partner is balanced, he should have passed 4♠X as this is the percentage action and double is more "I have a big hand" than specifically takeout or penalty. If partner has some 5-5 hand or the types of 5-4 hands Sathya is postulating, it is better for him to bid 4nt (two places to play) over 4♠X as doubler could have a wide variety of distributions and there is no guarantee that diamonds will be the right strain.

For this reason, partner's 5♦ is almost invariably a six-card suit. Our hand is really quite good; give partner ♦Kxxxxx and out and we should have quite a lot of play for slam (we could have twelve tops in the minors and the heart ace, and if clubs misbehave we might be able to ruff a spade, or if worst comes to worst we can take the heart finesse through the non-preempter). Obviously partner doesn't have to hold the diamond king, but if he really has nothing he might pass the double, and we are just trying to figure out the odds here. Partner could also easily have both red kings in which case slam is icy cold.

Bidding 5NT seems undesirable for two reasons. First, it is quite possible that this will be (should be?) interpreted as a grand slam try. We do need to have grand slam tries available, and it'd be nice to distinguish between tries with and without a first-round spade control (presumably 5♠ is with and 5NT without). While it's certainly possible to have a grand slam on this hand, we need partner to have two keycards (♠A, ♦K) and even then it's not exactly cold unless partner has club length as well. So I don't think this hand is really sufficient to make such a try. Second, even if we're sure the 5NT is "two places to play" partner has already pretty much shown six diamonds. I'd expect "two places to play" to be more like a 5-5 in the rounded suits hand than a hand with three-card support for the six-card suit, so partner will tend to preference clubs on many hands where diamonds is better (i.e. 6-3 in the minors).

[sathyab]

awm, on Feb 19 2009, 04:34 PM, said:

Agree with 6♦.

If partner is balanced, he should have passed 4♠X as this is the percentage action and double is more "I have a big hand" than specifically takeout or penalty. If partner has some 5-5 hand or the types of 5-4 hands Sathya is postulating, it is better for him to bid 4nt (two places to play) over 4♠X as doubler could have a wide variety of distributions and there is no guarantee that diamonds will be the right strain.

For this reason, partner's 5♦ is almost invariably a six-card suit. Our hand is really quite good; give partner ♦Kxxxxx and out and we should have quite a lot of play for slam (we could have twelve tops in the minors and the heart ace, and if clubs misbehave we might be able to ruff a spade, or if worst comes to worst we can take the heart finesse through the non-preempter). Obviously partner doesn't have to hold the diamond king, but if he really has nothing he might pass the double, and we are just trying to figure out the odds here. Partner could also easily have both red kings in which case slam is icy cold.

Bidding 5NT seems undesirable for two reasons. First, it is quite possible that this will be (should be?) interpreted as a grand slam try. We do need to have grand slam tries available, and it'd be nice to distinguish between tries with and without a first-round spade control (presumably 5♠ is with and 5NT without). While it's certainly possible to have a grand slam on this hand, we need partner to have two keycards (♠A, ♦K) and even then it's not exactly cold unless partner has club length as well. So I don't think this hand is really sufficient to make such a try. Second, even if we're sure the 5NT is "two places to play" partner has already pretty much shown six diamonds. I'd expect "two places to play" to be more like a 5-5 in the rounded suits hand than a hand with three-card support for the six-card suit, so partner will tend to preference clubs on many hands where diamonds is better (i.e. 6-3 in the minors).

What if partner's Diamond suit is disproportionately stronger and longer than his Clubs ? If you bid 4nt with x Kxx Kxxxx 8xxx or xx Kx Kxxxx 8xxx, then your argument about not looking for a second place to play is valid. Does everyone bid 4nt with either of these hands ? Or how about xx Kxx Kxxxx Jxx ? Is this an automatic pass as he's balanced ?

[awm]

sathyab, on Feb 19 2009, 05:50 PM, said:

What if partner's Diamond suit is disproportionately stronger and longer than his Clubs ? If you bid 4nt with x Kxx Kxxxx 8xxx or xx Kx Kxxxx 8xxx, then your argument about not looking for a second place to play is valid. Does everyone bid 4nt with either of these hands ? Or how about xx Kxx Kxxxx Jxx ? Is this an automatic pass as he's balanced ?

I'd bid 4NT on the given hands. I believe in finding my bigger fit on these hands. I don't think just "having the king in one suit and no honor in the other" is enough to be unilateral here. Partner could easily have a 2425 or 1525 pattern for the double and how happy am I playing in 5♦ now? Bidding 4NT guarantees me to find at least an 8-card fit whereas diamonds could easily by seven.

I would also pass with xx Kxx Kxxxx Jxx. It is easy to construct hands that are quite reasonable doubles where we cannot make at the five level opposite this hand and defending 4♠X is pretty much a guaranteed plus score. True it will not get me the best score on this particular hand but what can we do?

[rogerclee]

sathyab, on Feb 19 2009, 12:06 PM, said:

If you don't consider the problem interesting enough for a non-cryptic response, please feel free to post nothing at all. I have seen several of your one-liners to "obvious" problems before. A lot of problems seem obvious to rank beginners or true experts. Since you are obviously not a member of the latter group, you probably belong in the former group, one which I am not particularly anxious to hear from.

Clever!

Anyway all I can say is that you are being pretty obnoxious in this thread to think that only you are capable of seeing the problem here when everyone else thinks the solution is obvious. Maybe you are right, but historically, I have been wrong when this has occurred to me. Similarly, if you think I am not an advanced/expert player, that is fine, but you are being pretty emotional in this thread, so I would stop and consider some of the things you are doing and saying.

Your arguments for 5NT are within reason since 6♣ can often be right, but as others have pointed out, it is not that good a description of this hand, since we could have doubled with all kinds of hands with a doubleton (or even singleton) diamond, so 5N should be wrong on balance.

[sathyab]

rogerclee, on Feb 19 2009, 06:47 PM, said:

sathyab, on Feb 19 2009, 12:06 PM, said:

If you don't consider the problem interesting enough for a non-cryptic response, please feel free to post nothing at all. I have seen several of your one-liners to "obvious" problems before. A lot of problems seem obvious to rank beginners or true experts. Since you are obviously not a member of the latter group, you probably belong in the former group, one which I am not particularly anxious to hear from.

Clever!

Anyway all I can say is that you are being pretty obnoxious in this thread to think that only you are capable of seeing the problem here when everyone else thinks the solution is obvious. Maybe you are right, but historically, I have been wrong when this has occurred to me. Similarly, if you think I am not an advanced/expert player, that is fine, but you are being pretty emotional in this thread, so I would stop and consider some of the things you are doing and saying.

Your arguments for 5NT are within reason since 6♣ can often be right, but as others have pointed out, it is not that good a description of this hand, since we could have doubled with all kinds of hands with a doubleton (or even singleton) diamond, so 5N should be wrong on balance.

Thank you for allowing that the 5nt bid is within reason, that's mighty generous of you. I'll convey it to the National champion who suggested it, I'm sure it'd mean a lot to him.

[Fluffy]

sathyab, on Feb 20 2009, 12:08 AM, said:

Thank you for allowing that the 5nt bid is within reason, that's mighty generous of you. I'll convey it to the National champion who suggested it, I'm sure it'd mean a lot to him.

Being a national champion myself, I can tell you that 5NT bid is wrong LOL.

Now, seriously: We have had this problem in the past, people quoting expert's comentaries that they were told. This has some flaws:

-You don't have the level of the expert in question, and you can't understand fully why he meant to bid something.
-You are never objective enough that you do not add some of your persoanl feelings to that expert's opinion.
-And the most important: There are great players on this forum, several of them I am sure are better than your unkown expert, quoting him doesn't give any extra credit to the bid you are defending.

[Fluffy]

jdonn, on Feb 19 2009, 09:02 PM, said:

Disagree with diamond loser will exist in clubs. Agree with there is no point in asking since if partner is 5-4 he bids 4NT not 5♦.

WTF?, you just disagree without giving any reason, what am I learning from this????

LOL

[jdonn]

Fluffy, on Feb 19 2009, 07:28 PM, said:

jdonn, on Feb 19 2009, 09:02 PM, said:

Disagree with diamond loser will exist in clubs. Agree with there is no point in asking since if partner is 5-4 he bids 4NT not 5♦.

WTF?, you just disagree without giving any reason, what am I learning from this????

LOL

Lol if I said I disagree because you are Fluffy you might tell me I'm a rank beginner!

[rogerclee]

sathyab, on Feb 19 2009, 05:08 PM, said:

Thank you for allowing that the 5nt bid is within reason, that's mighty generous of you. I'll convey it to the National champion who suggested it, I'm sure it'd mean a lot to him.

For some reason this comment annoys me more than any of the other idiotic things you have written in this thread. I thought you were all for talking about the bridge! You wanted a detailed response analyzing the problem in full! Three-word responses are not good enough, no matter who they are from, because they don't contain any content or justification!

Now all you can do is hide behind this unnamed national champion, who you think can't possibly be wrong (even though awm explained very clearly, using the LOGIC you wanted, why your friend is wrong).

This is just such a LOL, because not only are you just terrible at bridge logic, but you are also a hypocrite.

[sathyab]

Fluffy, on Feb 19 2009, 07:26 PM, said:

sathyab, on Feb 20 2009, 12:08 AM, said:

Thank you for allowing that the 5nt bid is within reason, that's mighty generous of you. I'll convey it to the National champion who suggested it, I'm sure it'd mean a lot to him.

Being a national champion myself, I can tell you that 5NT bid is wrong LOL.

Now, seriously: We have had this problem in the past, people quoting expert's comentaries that they were told. This has some flaws:

-You don't have the level of the expert in question, and you can't understand fully why he meant to bid something.
-You are never objective enough that you do not add some of your persoanl feelings to that expert's opinion.
-And the most important: There are great players on this forum, several of them I am sure are better than your unkown expert, quoting him doesn't give any extra credit to the bid you are defending.

In the Burlingame regional last week I spotted the following players, one of whom gave me the opinion, which I quoted to the best of my understanding and objectivity: Kyle Larsen, Alan Sontag, John Mohan, Lew Stansby, Chip Martel, Ron Smith, Kit Woolsey. If any of the experts on the BBO forum are as good as any on the list I'll be glad to listen.

[Fluffy]

LOL roger, this is kinda simple, if he doesn't like 6♦ bids withotut comments and he doesn't like 6♦ bids with comments, it is very easy to understand what he would enjoy: non 6♦ bids. He jsut wants people o agree with him, don't we all? (Except when it is kenrexford, then I feel suspicious).


Having such a strong beliefs on a bid is often acompained with a blame discussion with partner.


What was the full deal?

I think I can predict what Sathy played, and what he should have played.

[jdonn]

Well Fred participates in the forums and as good as any of them. Anyway I thought the only requirement was to be a national champion, now it has to be one as good as a random expert out of a group of 7? I'm just a lesser national champion who thinks 6♦ is right, I guess I lose.

Seriously they are right, I mean which is it? Do you care what everyone here thinks and thus want them to expound upon their answers, or do you not care because you got advice from a better player and thus you had no reason to post the problem? The only third option I can think of is you were hoping to teach everyone who disagreed with 5NT why they were "wrong".

This would have been so much easier from the beginning if you had just asked anyone who posted a short answer to elaborate rather than ranting about a very common and harmless posting style.

[the hog]

I am inclined to agree with Sathyab that this problem is not trivial at all.
Contrary to the other posters, I am going to pass 5D. I would not be at all surprised to find we had a S and another trick to lose.
If I were going to bid, and I think this is relatively close, I would bid 6D. I must admit 5NT would not have occured to me, as I would think this is a gsf in Ds. (Bid 6C with no hon, 6D with 1 etc etc.)

[sathyab]

Fluffy, on Feb 19 2009, 07:47 PM, said:

LOL roger, this is kinda simple, if he doesn't like 6♦ bids withotut comments and he doesn't like 6♦ bids with comments, it is very easy to understand what he would enjoy: non 6♦ bids. He jsut wants people o agree with him, don't we all? (Except when it is kenrexford, then I feel suspicious).

The fact that he didn't publish the full hand makes it obvious, he probably got a missunderstanding for not bidding the right strain directly (I can be wrong of course).

You still don't get it at all, do you ? I'm not as concerned about whether a direct 6♦ is right or wrong, as much as the reasons behind it. If someone had said "Obvious pass" I'd put that post in the same category. What I really dislike is the trivialization of a problem just because you think it's obvious. I think there were a number of useful posts before some of the one-liners that pointed out some of the reasons which make 6♦ a better percentage bid. Those arguments are what I'm looking for.

As for your suspicion about what I wanted to hear, I didn't even tell you what happened at the table for that often colors the issue needlessly.

[orlam]

What happened at the table?

[sathyab]

jdonn, on Feb 19 2009, 07:56 PM, said:

Well Fred participates in the forums and as good as any of them. Anyway I thought the only requirement was to be a national champion, now it has to be one as good as a random expert out of a group of 7? I'm just a lesser national champion who thinks 6♦ is right, I guess I lose.

Seriously they are right, I mean which is it? Do you care what everyone here thinks and thus want them to expound upon their answers, or do you not care because you got advice from a better player and thus you had no reason to post the problem? The only third option I can think of is you were hoping to teach everyone who disagreed with 5NT why they were "wrong".

This would have been so much easier from the beginning if you had just asked anyone who posted a short answer to elaborate rather than ranting about a very common and harmless posting style.

Yes Fred does participate occassionally, but very rarely do I see one-liners from him. I believe that the problem was non-trivial and quoted the expert's opinion just to prove that point. If he had said everything that awm said and told me that a direct 6♦ was the right bid I would had no problem with it.

BTW, there was another post about a 6h slam from the same regional. I didn't play the hand, neither did my teammates. We in fact gained on the hand as my teammates (I was sitting out the round) only got to 4h, while opponents got to 6h and went down. But the line chosen by the declarer is an intriguing one, so I'm still thinking about how I'd play that if it came up again .I posted the hand because it's a useful exercise in trying to combine chances. I know that if someone else posted a similar hand I'd benefit from it.

[Codo]

Sathyab,

I dislike 6 ♦ wtp answers too, but you overreacted.

Wouldn't your (and our) life be nicer, when you just read this one liner, ignore it and read what the next poster wrote?

At least this is much easier then to teach anybody the right behaviour on this forum. Besides this, who knows what the right behaviour is? Maybe many people love one-liners?

Actually, even Bob Hamann errs once in a while, so any given expert may give a "wrong" answer. Or he may give an answer which is perfect in his way of playing.
F.E. when you are sure that your partner won't misunderstand 5 NT, this can work much better then a direct 6 ♦. But when you are sure that partner cannot have 5/4 in the minors, because he had bid 4 NT the round before, or when you are sure that 5 NT is a gsf, this bid is surely wrong.

Maybe your expert is from the first school. What do we know.

Anyway, please calm down, so that we can enjoy many more problems without sneaky remarks.

[MFA]

I don't think that 5NT is wrong as such. But I would be more nervous about getting out of diamonds when we belong there than the other way around. Maybe partner bids 6♥ over 5NT which is very likely to be wrong.

It seems rather clear however to try for slam over 5♦, I think.

[jdonn]

BTW I hadn't mentioned it but I was talking to clee last night. I don't believe 5NT is pick a slam OR gsf. I think it's just a grand slam try without first round spade control. I can't picture what shape bids pick a slam. 1435 should raise diamonds since partner has 6+ for his bid (four hearts or clubs would have bid 4NT, 2353 would have passed). 1336 can just bid 6♣ (this has to include tolerance for the other suits since we didn't bid 5♣ a round earlier). 5-5 is not possible either.

As for gsf, you will be waiting a long long long time for the right hand for that bad, and then a 5♠ bid becomes completely vague. I don't even play gsf, the right hand for it has never come up at the table so I can't say I miss it.

[mtvesuvius]

jdonn, on Feb 20 2009, 11:01 AM, said:

As for gsf, you will be waiting a long long long time for the right hand for that bad, and then a 5♠ bid becomes completely vague. I don't even play gsf, the right hand for it has never come up at the table so I can't say I miss it.

In 8 years I have had GSF come up once... Partner bid the Grand and it went down on a 5-0 trump split