[RunemPard]

North is the dealer at MPs. You are sitting EW...V/NV

East (2nd to bid)
♠ Q
♥ T62
♦ KQ86
♣ KJ973

West
♠ A752
♥ A98
♦ AJ
♣ AQT8

Our bidding was quite boring...
P-P-P-1♣
P-1♦-P-2N
P-3N-AP

I felt partner's hand was almost splinter worthy, but better without the Q there. Our other option was to bid 2C 9-11

[Cyberyeti]

Please use the hand editor, I don't understand what's happening here, if N dealt, E bids next and passed the 19 count ?

[RunemPard]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-February-03, 16:21, said:

Please use the hand editor, I don't understand what's happening here, if N dealt, E bids next and passed the 19 count ?

Sorry had it backwards. Will adjust, but doesn't really require a hand diagram...just a matter of bidding the two hands.

[Cyberyeti]

RunemPard, on 2014-February-03, 16:22, said:

Sorry had it backwards. Will adjust, but doesn't really require a hand diagram...just a matter of bidding the two hands.

Just that hand editor stops you doing odd things like that.

We'd bid:

2N (19.5-21)-3♠(slam try, one or both minors)
3N(forced)-4♥(both minors, longer clubs)
4♠(keycard ♣ agreed)-5♣(1/4)
5♥(confirms all keycards, so 4 aces and Q♣, would normally show K♥ but can't be here as that would be an upgrade)-5N(K♦)
6♣(system hasn't worked well here)

Or if the small hand opened:

1♣-2♣(10+ not denying 4M)
2N(minimum 5♣/4♦)-3♥(ostensibly NT probe)
4♣(no spade stop)-4♥(4♦ would ask aces, not terribly useful here)
4♠(singleton/void as showed no stop)-4N(rolling)
5♦(K and in context not ashamed of the hand)-5N (could have asked about either major, the "something I couldn't ask about below 6♣" bid which has to be Q♦)
7♣

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Why respond 1D ??

West East
- - pass
1C - 2C ( 5+♣, ~ 10 - 11 hcp, no 4 card Major )
4C ( Minorwood )
.... - 4H ( 2nd step = 1 or 4 )
6C - all pass

[Zelandakh]

P - 1♣ = 15+ nat/bal or 18+ any
1♠ = GF; no 4 card major
... - 1NT = relay, usually 18+
2NT = 5♣4♦
... - 3♣ = relay
3♦ = 1345
... - 3♥ = relay
3NT = 2 controls
... - 4♣ = relay
4♠ = ♣K, ♦K, no ♣Q
... - 4NT = relay
5♦ = ♦Q, no ♥Q
... - 7♣

Of the other options I note that I would have the same problem as CY in the 2NT structure. With (13)(45) hands you can typically show either the longer minor or the major shortage below 3NT but not both. Here finding out about the shortage would probably be more useful.

After the inverted minor start jumping directly to key card asking seems a little precipitous. If West goes more slowly they can perhaps find out about everything they need to. Similarly for 2♣ 9-11. The splinter alternative is presumably game forcing, which works perfectly here but is perhaps not so clever if Opener has some 44(32) 12 count.

[Cascade]

What am I missing how do you plan to make 7C?

[Zelandakh]

Cascade, on 2014-February-04, 08:20, said:

What am I missing how do you plan to make 7C?

My plan in the auction was to ruff 3 spades. There may be a better one but this was not a play problem so I did not think about it in more detail than that. That may or may not be the optimal contract - the question is "where do you end up?" not "how do you reach XX?"

[mfa1010]

7♣ is bad since it requires trumps 2-2 or diamond length together with the trump length.

If responder plans to never show his 5-card support for clubs, then these boards become impossible.

[Cyberyeti]

mfa1010, on 2014-February-04, 09:06, said:

7♣ is bad since it requires trumps 2-2 or diamond length together with the trump length.

If responder plans to never show his 5-card support for clubs, then these boards become impossible.

Sorry, my system is not good enough to detect that partner has KQxx rather than KQ10x in the diamond suit where it's pretty much cold, and the grand is not terrible as it is.

[mfa1010]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-February-04, 09:15, said:

Sorry, my system is not good enough to detect that partner has KQxx rather than KQ10x in the diamond suit where it's pretty much cold, and the grand is not terrible as it is.

Mine neither, I was just making a general point.

Anyway, OP is asking how to bid the club slam. The way to do it is for responder to show his clubs. As the bidding went responder was guessing that 3N was the right contract opposite 18-19 bal. He will be right a lot of the time, but slam is certainly possible so he should involve partner. Responder could perhaps bid a natural 3♣ over 2N, that will make opener unstopable with his max and nothing but working values.

[Cyberyeti]

mfa1010, on 2014-February-04, 09:36, said:

Anyway, OP is asking how to bid the club slam. The way to do it is for responder to show his clubs. As the bidding went responder was guessing that 3N was the right contract opposite 18-19 bal. He will be right a lot of the time, but slam is certainly possible so he should involve partner. Responder could perhaps bid a natural 3♣ over 2N, that will make opener unstopable with his max and nothing but working values.

This is a fair point, it always makes me laugh as somebody who plays a 4 card 1♣ how many hands on these boards are "we opened a 2 card club, partner didn't raise with 4 or 5 and we missed our club contract". Systems have issues, 5M benefits on lots of hands, this is where the accompanying short club suffers in compensation.

[Cascade]

Zelandakh, on 2014-February-04, 08:54, said:

My plan in the auction was to ruff 3 spades. There may be a better one but this was not a play problem so I did not think about it in more detail than that. That may or may not be the optimal contract - the question is "where do you end up?" not "how do you reach XX?"

Yes but you commented that the system hasn't worked when you ended in 6C.

[Cyberyeti]

Cascade, on 2014-February-04, 10:24, said:

Yes but you commented that the system hasn't worked when you ended in 6C.

Zel and I said this in that the grand could have been laydown but we couldn't tell, so had to settle for 6♣, it wasn't one of those auctions where we settled for 6 knowing the grand wasn't good, but we settled for 6 not knowing if the grand was no play or cold.

[monikrazy]

1C - 2C (inverted)
2S - 3D
3H - 3S (CUE)
4C - 4N
5C (14) - 6C


edit: I would open 2N, but if 1C was opened that would be my recommended bidding for slam. If I did open this 1C I will frequently be dissatisfied with my rebids. 2N rebid is an underbid and my spade suit isn't strong enough for me to want to reverse into it.

[gszes]

p p p

1c close to 2n but really need p to have around 6 hcp for game anyway no sense pushing here

1d this is MP cannot bypass dia to emphasize clubs because it could all too easily cause us to

-----miss NT and get stuck in clubs ick (2c makes a ton more sense in IMPS).

1s I do not know why players insist on jumping around if p lied about their power with a very short club and want to pass 1s we are good with that

3c obvious do not even dream of 2h with xxx in hearts have at least a partial stopper we might still belong in 3n

3h not because I am interested in nt but I want to see if p can give me more information on their distribution (if p surprises with 3n

-----I will continue with 4c (rkc for clubs) and end up in 6c pretty darn sure 7c will be almost impossible when p has heart stuff)

4c nothing else to talk about

4n rkc clubs

5d 1/4

6c cannot readily bid 7 though it might be a huge favorite if responder has 5 of them (at least I know they wont set me with the first 2 tricks--famous last words)




never considered opening the weaker hand in 2nd seat. lack of power and big rebid problems almost no matter what p might bid.

[mikeh]

Late to the party but:

1. I'd open 2N with the big hand. The AJ tight holding isn't good (tho better than KQ and much better than KJ) but the 4 Aces are huge, and the 4432 is better than 4333 and the club 10 is a potentially useful card. Thus I would upgrade to a 20 count.

2. Opposite a 20-21 2N, East has some modest slam interest. If he can conventionally show both minors, the opening hand becomes huge. Now the AJ in diamonds is an upgradable, rather than a downgradable, feature and the club 10 is confirmed as valuable, while the possession of no wasted major cards is tremendous.

In fact, as opener, I would feel that I had a maximum 2N opener opposite a minor 2-suiter. To see why, compare this '19' count to something like AJxx AKJx Ax Axx: a very prime 21 where slam is poor.

If I did open 1♣, I am unsure as to why responder wouldn't show me a limit raise in clubs. Were he to do so, the Aces would make me at least think about slam but I wouldn't know how good my diamonds rated to be.

However, even after the prosaic and wooden, unimaginative auction to 2N, East still had a chance altho that is probably contingent on method. For me, in my preferred methods, E would bid 3♠ showing a mild slam try in clubs (all 3 level suit bids over 2N are transfers), expecting that almost always opener, cognizant of the limits implied by my initial pass and not expecting KJxxx in clubs (due to my supressing the suit) would retreat to 3N. However, as opener, I'd picture, say, x xxx KQxxx KJxx with a side card somewhere (that 9 count wouldn't be worth a mild slam try) so I'd upgrade my AJ of diamonds for the wrong reason and we'd again reach slam, tho less convincingly.

[Cascade]

Cyberyeti, on 2014-February-04, 14:05, said:

Zel and I said this in that the grand could have been laydown but we couldn't tell, so had to settle for 6♣, it wasn't one of those auctions where we settled for 6 knowing the grand wasn't good, but we settled for 6 not knowing if the grand was no play or cold.

I am coming around to 7C being not too bad.

40% clubs 2-2 minus a small amount for a defensive ruff if diamonds are 6-1 for example and we have to unblock two diamonds before drawing trumps.

Partner has 2 of 9 small diamonds there are 8 10x out of 36 pairs, plus 9x and 8x might be good enough with an opponent having 10x or 109 respectively. That is another 13+%.

Plus long diamonds with the long trumps. If trumps are 3-1 and diamonds 4-3 it is 7/16 that the long Diamond is with the three trumps. Which is more than 10% extra. Plus more for diamonds 5-2 and trumps 4-0.

And maybe some extra small chances hQJx, 6th club ...

It looks to me from the balanced hand's perspective the grand is up over 65% in the bidding.

[mfa1010]

Cascade, on 2014-February-04, 16:53, said:

I am coming around to 7C being not too bad.

40% clubs 2-2 minus a small amount for a defensive ruff if diamonds are 6-1 for example and we have to unblock two diamonds before drawing trumps.

Partner has 2 of 9 small diamonds there are 8 10x out of 36 pairs, plus 9x and 8x might be good enough with an opponent having 10x or 109 respectively. That is another 13+%.

Plus long diamonds with the long trumps. If trumps are 3-1 and diamonds 4-3 it is 7/16 that the long Diamond is with the three trumps. Which is more than 10% extra. Plus more for diamonds 5-2 and trumps 4-0.

And maybe some extra small chances hQJx, 6th club ...

It looks to me from the balanced hand's perspective the grand is up over 65% in the bidding.

He doesn't know about the ♣J, though, which is useful when ruffing all those spades.

[Cyberyeti]

mfa1010, on 2014-February-04, 17:12, said:

He doesn't know about the ♣J, though, which is useful when ruffing all those spades.

Depends on the auction, if he opened the bidding, he's very likely to have J♣.