[mr1303]

Playing a bad version of SAYC with a VERY bad version of J2NT

---

Bidding went:


1S 2NT
4S 5C
5S all pass

2NT was a limit + raise, 4S showed a non-min that was bad for slam purposes, 5C was a cue.

[inquiry]

Has to be north.

1♠ and 2NT seem normal

4♠ must be right by the method you describe
5♣ is a slam try... let's think aobut this choice, south didn't ask for aces... so what is going on. He has to be worried about tow quick losers in slam. What can south do over 5♠ but pass over 5♠. North has to cue-bid his diamond contol.

So, I assign 80% to north, as south bid relatively perfectly.. i do give some blame to south, for what could north have for his "extra values" but some kind of red card winners that were not cue-bid.

[Stephen Tu]

80% North.

20% to South for agreeing to play such horrible methods.

[HeartA]

I am against Ben this time, though I do agree to what Ben said: "what could north have for his "extra values" but some kind of red card winners that were not cue-bid".

North has to have controls (2nd or first round) in diamonds for the "extra". I would use RCK directly after 4S. Even if North didn't have DQ, it is OK since it is North who will be declarer. South has 4(!!!) keycards, North, on the other hand, has no keycards at all, he has too much to worry.

In the worst scenario, even if North has no control, 6S was not necessary bad. Since you didn't give out any info on side suits, opps has only 1/4 chance to find D lead. Without D lead, given that North has extra and no control in D, he must have good cards in other suits. D losers might be able to get rid of on H or on C, or some kind of squeeze.

So, I assign 60% to South, 40% to North. Actually, I should assign more blame to South, but I have voted.

[cherdano]

HeartA, on Feb 2 2005, 01:03 AM, said:

In the worst scenario, even if North has no control, 6S was not necessary bad. Since you didn't give out any info on side suits, opps has only 1/4 chance to find D lead.

I disagree. It is often attractive to lead from an Ace or king against a suit slam; hence you only get the 75% chance if LHO has ♦AK.

[fred]

HeartA - RKCB does not solve South's problem since the answer will not tell him what the right contract is. South might as well bid 6S since that is what he is going to bid regardless of what North responds to RKCB.

The North hand *is* suitable for RKCB (not that I am suggesting North should bid RKCB over 2NT or anything) because knowing how many keycards South has would enable North to select the right final contract (provided that North bids RKCB after the earlier auction has made it clear that his partner has at least 3 keycards).

I personally think that it is difficult to assign the blame since "4S showed a non-min that was bad for slam purposes" is not what I would call a meaningful definition (and I suspect the actual players were confused as to what sort of hand would be appropriate for this bid). To me it looks to me like North, with only 5 losers, did not have a hand that was bad for slam purposes. I don't know what his other options over 2NT were, but he deserves most (if not all) of the blame in my view for not trying to create an auction where he would know if it was safe to bid RKCB himself. If 4S really was his only choice, then I think he should have cooperated over 5C.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[luke warm]

as a slight aside, do you guys play 3♣ by north (after 2nt) is an acceptable short suit bid, holding the stiff king?

[HeartA]

Fred, I dare to disagree. I think "4S showed a non-min that was bad for slam purposes" is a meaningful description, though not very scientific. "non-min" means more than 13-14, so around 15-17; "bad for slam" means lack of first controls (aces). That gives South a picture similar to the reality.

And I think it is South, not North, who should use RKC after North shows "non-min". However, I do agree that North should bid 5D over South's 5C unless 5D has to be first round control in their agreement.

[Chamaco]

HeartA, on Feb 2 2005, 03:43 AM, said:

Fred, I dare to disagree. I think "4S showed a non-min that was bad for slam purposes" is a meaningful description, though not very scientific. "non-min" means more than 13-14, so around 15-17; "bad for slam" means lack of first controls (aces). That gives South a picture similar to the reality.

I think that when a fit is found, "minimum" or "max" should not longer be expressed in terms of pure hcp but in terms of losers.

Having said that, North's hand is aceless, and it may be reasonable not to be so enthusiastic; however, pard must have his good reasons to take the risk of reopening at the 5-level with 5C.
Hence, I think N has the moral obligation to bid his cheapest cue, at least if he trusts his pard.

[badderzboy]

Interesting hand given the current thread on Jac 2NT running elsewhere!

Using the 'old' fashioned version would it go...

1♠ - 2NT*
3♣(1) - 3♥ (2)
3♠(3)- 4♣(4)

then either
4♦(5)-4♥(6)

then 4NT or direct to
4NT (7) - 5♦(1 or 4)
6♠ IMPS or 6NT MPs depending on scoring?

(1) Singleton & better than minimum
(2) A ♥
(3) Nothing to cue yet
(4) A♣
(5) K ♦
(6) Second round control must be singleton

(7) Do u RCKB or ask for Spade Quality?

Steve

[fred]

HeartA, on Feb 2 2005, 03:43 AM, said:

Fred, I dare to disagree.  I think "4S showed a non-min that was bad for slam purposes" is a meaningful description, though not very scientific.  "non-min" means more than 13-14, so around 15-17; "bad for slam" means lack of first controls (aces).  That gives South a picture similar to the reality.

And I think it is South, not North, who should use RKC after North shows "non-min".  However, I do agree that North should bid 5D over South's 5C unless 5D has to be first round control in their agreement.

I 'm not saying North *should* bid RKCB. What I am saying is that if North did bid RKCB he would learn what the right contract was. The reason he should not bid RKCB is that a 2 keycard response would tell him that the right contract was 4S.

The reason I think South should not bid RKCB is because RKCB will not help him to know what the right contract is. Don't ask a question if the answer you get doesn't provide you with useful information. If South doesn't want to get scientific with a cuebidding auction at the 5-level, 6S is a better bid than 4NT.

Some hands (North's for example) are suitable for using RKCB while some hands are suitable for responding to RKCB (South's for example). The preceeding 2 paragraphs describe why North's hand is suitable for using RKCB while South's is not. The reason South's hand is suitable for responding to RKCB is because RKCB will allow him to show his partner all of his relevant high cards.

RKCB is one of the few (perhaps only?) great "modern conventions", but in my opinion it is abused just as much as old-fashioned Blackwood has been abused for the past 60+ years. I have noticed a tendency these days, even among some very good players, to launch into RKCB on hands in which only a "judgment auction" will get the job done. RKCB is not a tool for judgment - it is a tool for staying out of slams in which 2 critical high cards are missing.

To me "non-min" means a hand with roughly 14 HCP and "not good for slam" means a hand with a lot of losers. You could easily be right that your understanding of the definition provided is closer to mainstream, but the fact that at least 2 of us do not agree on the meaning of this definition suggest to me that it is not a very clear definition.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[inquiry]

Fred is right, make that at least three agree. And the use of 4S to be good hand, is, well counter is certainly an differnt treatment.

Since bladderboy showed an auction using different version of jacboy, Jacoby 2NT plus would go one of two ways. The one thing north wouldn't bid is 3♣ (no game interest). He might try 3H (at three level mild slam try at best, but GF) or 3D (game try, no slam interest). Let's see both..

1S 2NT
3D 3H
4C 4H
4N 4D
6S Pass

2NT = jacoby plus
3D = game force, no slam interest opposite limit raise
3H = ask for singleton
4C = singleton club
4H = last train, slam try, denies diamond control
4NT = RKCB
slam found

or,

1S 2NT
3H 3N
4C 4H
4N 5D
6S

3H = hearts as well as spades, accept game try, mild slam try at best
3N = serious 3NT
4C = cue-bid
4H = last train, really serious slam try
4NT = take control

Note the Diamond weakness is safely shown BELOW game on both these auctions with the need for the 5C club bid to explore this.

Ben

[mikestar]

There is a method form the Granovetter's convention book which makes this hand dead easy. In this auction, North has extra values but is poor in controls. So his hand is right for RCKB but he can't bid it because there is no safety at the 5 level. South knows North's hand is right for RCKB and knows that his four key cards provide safety at the five level. And North knows South knows this.

So South bids as if North had bid RKCB--assuming 1430 responses, South bids 5C showing 4 keycards (can't be 1 here) and North bids 6S with complete confidence.

[HeartA]

To directly bid 6S over North's 4S would be a good bet. I suggested that South use RKCB in case North's holding Qxxxx,KQxx,AKx,Q falls in the "non-min and bad for slam" category.

[hotShot]

I won't assign blame to a player, when it is the system that is flawed.

The idea behind conventions is to give up a little bidding space to gain a better description of the hands afterwords.

In this case it should have helped to clear any slam ambition prior to 4♠.
The 4♠ bid directly after 2NT should finalyse the auction, because otherwise every bid of bidding space between 3♣ and 4♥ should be used to describe hands and to decide about a slam try.

Remember that Gerber, BW or RKCB are not intended to bid a slam.
Their intention is to avoid the slam, if keycards are missing. The decision to try has to be made before.

[mr1303]

The system was North's idea, for what it's worth. Inicdently, no-one has picked up on Luke Warm's suggestion about bidding 3!C here. I think this would work here quite nicely, since South can now bid 3H, and tell North at a much lower level that he's worried about diamonds. However, it's the whole "don't splinter with a singleton A or K thing" come back again

[junyi_zhu]

mr1303, on Feb 1 2005, 11:50 PM, said:

Playing a bad version of SAYC with a VERY bad version of J2NT

Dealer: ????? Vul: ???? Scoring: Unknown

♠ QT985 ♥ KQ93 ♦ KQT ♣ K ♠ J42 ♥ 86542 ♦ A7 ♣ 965 ♠ 7 ♥ JT7 ♦ 8652 ♣ QJ832 ♠ AK63 ♥ A ♦ J943 ♣ AT74

Bidding went:


1S 2NT
4S 5C
5S all pass

2NT was a limit + raise, 4S showed a non-min that was bad for slam purposes, 5C was a cue.

When north shows extra and poor controls, it's really not too hard to bid a slam in my point of view. You can almost never construct a hand that 6S has no play. It's usually at worst a 50% slam. When you hold 4 Key cards, 4 trumps and a singleton, and partner shows extra, what do you really wait for here? You can argue that north can cooperate with 5D, but that's not the excuse for south not bidding 6S over an extra showing bid.

[mr1303]

What if north has something like:

QTxxx
KQxx
Qx
KQ

This would probably bid 4S similarly, and bid 5S after a 5C cue-bid

[HeartA]

mr1303, on Feb 3 2005, 07:02 AM, said:

What if north has something like:

QTxxx
KQxx
Qx
KQ

This would probably bid 4S similarly, and bid 5S after a 5C cue-bid

This does not qualify for "non-min (and not good for slam)". I view this hand as DEAD minimum. DQx and CKQ doubleton can't count for full hcp.