[effervesce]

The hand

Sorry maybe this is in the wrong forum and I should put this in the natural bidding forum -
I'm south on this hand.

The auction:

1♣ - 1♠ -
2NT - 3♦ -
3♠ - 4♣ -
4NT - 5♥ - (2 keycards no Q)
5NT - 6♠


We reached the right contract, but my partner (who I'm playing with for the first time in a competitive tournament, and we are doing well - 2nd in our direction), disagrees with my 4♣ cuebid. I am of the school that cuebidding Q in partner's suit is fine, but my partner disagrees and only cuebids controls and thinks I should bid 4♥.

Am I being immature/dominating the auction when I think cuebidding 4♣ is correct with the agreement we don't cuebid queens? From my perspective it seems 4 clubs leaves more room for both of us to express how interested we are in slam, even without a club K/A.

[paulg]

I would bid 4♥ rather than 4♣.

It is true that the knowledge of the queen of clubs is likely to be useful if partner has long clubs, but I'm guessing that he has not shown long clubs and may even hold just three. The danger of partner playing you for the ace or king of clubs when you have a marginal slam try seems a much bigger concern and it is likely to be his suitability opposite your singleton that determines whether you should be in slam or not. In addition, 4♥ is so descriptive in terms of your controls that the fact it takes up so much space is not an issue.

[kenrexford]

I think the 4C cue is correct. I am biased, but the argument that the club Queen might not be interesting seems wrong. Partner has three spades. Therefore, he cannot have only three clubs unless he's 3433. But, against that are a multitude of 4-card or 5 - card club suit holdings. Additionally, the chances of partner having interest induced by a club card from you greatly outweighs the chance that he has slam interest outside of the club suit and over bids despite lacking a club control

if the opening style is heavy short club, where 4D/2C is likely, I would not cue the club Queen, but that's because clubs is no longer his "suit.""

[aguahombre]

Interesting datum/IMP calculation. Maybe I am just old, but a datum was the highest/lowest two scores ignored then average of the remaining. That would give 9 IMPs to the slam and Minus 3 or 4 to everyone else.

But heck, I couldn't even find the wording staring me in the face on that law thread, so what do I know?

[mikeh]

Just a suggestion: put the actual hand (or the hands you want us to consider) in the OP. It is easy to do using the hand editor, and that allows you to insert the bidding as well. Putting a link requires that we call up another screen which, for me at least, means having to either memorize the hand, or futz around with different windows/screens, all of which is a minor annoyance and will and did detract from my willingness to invest any effort in responding to the substance of your post.

Please don't take this as a personal criticism: I hope this advice makes it easier for you to post, and I am sure it will make it easier for almost everyone to read/follow and maybe respond

[jogs]

4♣ is acceptable. Then pard should have rebid 4♦. 4♥(must be singleton) by you and 6♠ by pard.
With the heart king you would have cued the king before cuing the club queen.

You can't have the diamond king. By cuing the club queen, you semi-deny the kings in the red suits.

Also don't understand the scoring. Total score for any board sums to zero. At least in every scoring system I've ever seen.

[kenrexford]

jogs, on 2014-March-21, 15:10, said:

4♣ is acceptable. Then pard should have rebid 4♦. 4♥(must be singleton) by you and 6♠ by pard.
With the heart king you would have cued the king before cuing the club queen.

You can't have the diamond king. By cuing the club queen, you semi-deny the kings in the red suits.

Also don't understand the scoring. Total score for any board sums to zero. At least in every scoring system I've ever seen.

What kind of bizarre rules are you using?

[benlessard]

Cuebidding a Q in partner suit is totally legit and normal, some may argue that 1C followed by 2NT show a balanced hand so that that 1C is not a suit but I don't buy this POV and never saw an expert play that way.

Note that here since partner denied 4S and 4H its likely hes got 5C, so imo its clear that the AKorQ of clubs are more interesting feature than a A,K of stiff of club.

Cuebid a stiff in partner likely 5 card suit is quite dumb imo.

[paulg]

benlessard, on 2014-March-21, 16:02, said:

Note that here since partner denied 4S and 4H its likely hes got 5C, so imo its clear that the AKorQ of clubs are more interesting feature than a A,K of stiff of club.

I assumed that 3♦ was natural and so partner can still hold four hearts.

[Trinidad]

jogs, on 2014-March-21, 15:10, said:

Also don't understand the scoring. Total score for any board sums to zero. At least in every scoring system I've ever seen.

I don't understand how they determined the datum in this particular case either. (They seem to throw out an awful lot of extreme scores where throwing out any score is already a bad idea.)

However, it is quite normal that Butler scores (IMPs against a datum) do not add up to 0. It is one of the reasons why the cross-IMP method should be used to calculate pair IMPs, rather than Butler scoring.

To see that Butler scores don't add up to 0, simply think of a field of 100 tables where all NS pairs take 12 tricks in a spade contract. All pairs -except for one- play 4♠ and score 480. The remaining pair plays 6♠ and scores 980. The datum will be 485 (let's arbitrarily round up to 490). All pairs will score 0 IMP, except for the slam pair that scores 10 IMP (and would have scored 11 IMP if we would have rounded the datum down to 480). Net IMPs to all NS pairs together: 10 (or 11). This means you want to sit NS on this board: You could be winning IMPs but can't lose IMPs.

It could be worse: Take the same idea, but now for a field of 25 tables. 24 x 480 +1 x 980 leads to an average of precisely 500 (no rounding needed). All NS pairs score -1 IMP, except the slam pair (scoring +10). NS scores -14 IMPs and you would want to sit EW here.

In Butler scoring you could win a tournament simply by sitting in the right seat!

Rik

[Trinidad]

effervesce, on 2014-March-21, 04:57, said:

We reached the right contract, but my partner (who I'm playing with for the first time in a competitive tournament, and we are doing well - 2nd in our direction), disagrees with my 4♣ cuebid. I am of the school that cuebidding Q in partner's suit is fine, but my partner disagrees and only cuebids controls and thinks I should bid 4♥.

Am I being immature/dominating the auction when I think cuebidding 4♣ is correct with the agreement we don't cuebid queens? From my perspective it seems 4 clubs leaves more room for both of us to express how interested we are in slam, even without a club K/A.

I won't comment on the technical merits of the 4♣ bid. I don't have a strong opinion.

I do have a strong opinion on the rest of your post. You are playing in a competitive tournament and you are doing well. And you have an argument about a rare cuebid in a slam auction?!?! What are you thinking?

What do you think will cost you more IMPs during the rest of the tournament?

• The fact that you are arguing with your partner
  
• The fact that partner doesn't play your (presumed superior) cuebidding style

Many people think bridge is a technical game: Probabilities can be calculated and the best line can be found. I will tell you that bridge is a psychological game. The probability that you and your partner are doing your calculations correct and find the correct line is a very strong function of the atmosphere in the pair.

Of all the partnership agreements that I have, there is one that rakes in more IMPs than Stayman, Blackwood (pick your variation) and cuebids combined. I call it the AKQ convention (talk about cueing Q's ). Just yesterday at the bridge club, I subbed into a team game with a relative palooka as a partner against a team where all four players were technically clearly better than my 3 team mates. My friends (and regular team mates) were asking me what the $@%#$ I did to manage to win that 14 board match scoring 19-1 in VPs. The answer was that I didn't do anything. It was just that our opponents didn't know the AKQ convention.

Oh, I forgot to mention, AKQ stands for Always Keep Quiet.

Rik

[dboxley]

I like 4C, makes it easy for partner to get to slam. Any other auction makes it pure guesswork.

[gszes]

I completely fail to see the benefit of faking your club control here--
your normal bid of 4h is fine and if your p cannot at least make one slam
try with a hand loaded in controls then you have bigger problems to worry
about. Over 4h p should bid 5c asking for club help to bid 6 and your
side will have no problems bidding 6. The downside of your 4c cuebid is that
your partner might get overly excited about slam prospects if they hold say
QJx AKQ AQ JTxxx or some such where they are no longer worried about losing
2 clubs off the top. Your p will probably just bid 4n and when you bid 5h they
will happily bid 6s which will have play as long as the opps canno/do not cash
their two club tricks off the top (does that make it a good slam?).

Opposite my example hand the 4h bid will be an obvious short suit and p will
try to sign off in 4s.

[Fluffy]

Datum (in that tournament) is the median score

[whereagles]

Cuebidding a queen opposite a known 5-card suit is probably correct. Opposite what could be a 3-carder to the Jxx seems wrong though...

[bluecalm]

It depends on the system but in standard ones you didn't really show many clubs in this sequence. Cuebidding a Q in 4 card suit is very novel idea which I don't recommend, you could easily have xxxx Qx. Opposite 5 card suits it's better but still I don't like it unless partner had a choice to hide his suit (often the case in modern 2/1 where he can bid 2C but not really when opening the bidding) and he will misjudge with things like Axxx thinking there is no club loser.
So anyway, not standard, not reccomended. Your partner is rightfully surprised and probably already thinks that your bidding habits are way out of mainstream high level bridge standard these days.

As to the system if you don't play Walsh then 3S already sets spades (as 3D means 5 spades) and then you have serious/non serious 3NT available. In such cases you don't really need to cue bid a Q, you already convey your intentions by bidding a cuebid in the first place. If you do play Walsh it's difficult as now 3NT is probably to play with 4 spades and 5+diamonds but again a lot depends on other agreements.

Quote

From my perspective it seems 4 clubs leaves more room for both of us to express how interested we are in slam, even without a club K/A.

And how are you going to use that space ? Partner is going to bid 4D 95% of the time then you bid 4H and partner thinks you have H/D controls and slam invite or better. If you bid 4H right away partner is going to picture H control, lack of minor suit controls and slam invite.
I don't think it's close which one is better description of your hand. You are going to end up in slam opposite Qxx AKxx AKQ Jxxx/QJx AKxx AK Jxxxx as partner is going to just count to 12 after rkcb.

[rhm]

bluecalm, on 2014-March-24, 13:34, said:

You are going to end up in slam opposite Qxx AKxx AKQ Jxxx/QJx AKxx AK Jxxxx as partner is going to just count to 12 after rkcb.

Why should opener take control when

a) opener has shown his general strength and distribution already. It is responder who is unlimited in strength and distribution and as a rule should take control.
b) opener knows at least the ♥K is wasted (or dubious) opposite heart shortage. It is only because opener has good controls and no wastage in hearts, which allows him to take control here.

I would always bid 4♠ over 4♥ with your hands. If responder does not continue I am done.

Rainer Herrmann

[kenrexford]

IMO, this discussion is not making sense without discussion of theory and the goals you are attempting to resolve.

One theoretical "style" would involve a check on pure "controls," meanings Aces, Kings, Stiffs, and Voids, for purposes of avoiding the two-cashers slam down one despite sufficient key cards. That approach assumes, to some degree, that slam bidding will be largely quantitative. Control bidding and RKCB are means of avoiding otherwise justified slams (as to pure brute strength) because of a lack of Aces or of controls.

On the opposite end is the "fit" based slam approach. The fit-based approach can be viewed as a means of determining whether facially insufficient values actually will be sufficient because of the location of values. For instance, you need only about 26 HCP to make a slam if you have a 4-4 fit, a 5-card trick source, and two Aces if your suits are solid. You take 11 tricks on power, plus one ruff somewhere. To pursue this type of slam, your cuebidding is oriented toward finding whether the suits are solid. (There is a legitimate question as to whether side controls should be aces-first in this scenario.)

In the middle are blended approaches.

When you decide whether to cue a queen in partner's minor, the focus of the discussion should be on which cue style applies to the sequence (or which cue style is adopted by the partnership). A control-oriented auction means that 4♣ here should be the Ace or King (although shortness seems applicable, with the exception against shortness in partner's "suit" being theoretically inconsistent). However, if your approach is "fit" based, then cuebidding shortness makes little sense, while cuebidding the queen is nearly obvious.

When there are no space issues, both goals can be met. When there are space crunches involved, something has to give. Which gives?

On the one hand, a limited rebid like a notrump call typically has a tight range and typically is balanced, where "fit" sequences are less valuable than in sequences where there is a known long suit. However, tight "high card" strength is not equivalent with a tight "fit" strength, as obviously the same set of honors formed as Quacks external Aces internal is less slam power than Quacks internal and Aces external. A 2-HCP range probably equates with a 2-trick-potential spread for "fit" slam purposes, and a 2-trick range is fairly important.

Additionally, "balanced" hands tend to have more unknown shape than "unbalanced" hands. Consider what I mean by this. If you open 1♦ and then rebid 2♥ as a reverse, you are known to have at least 5-4 shape. The odds of varying much are somewhat low. 6-4 is common, but 7-4 or 6-5 much less so. Consider, in contrast, a "balanced hand with three spades." As some have pointed out, "balanced" includes perhaps 3-5 (or maybe even 6) in the original minor. A 5-card holding (+2 over shown) is much more common than a 7-4 holding (+2 over shown). Hence, the "balanced" hand is much more likely to have hidden trick-taking strength.

My personal feeling and conclusion in these sequences is that the main analysis problem with these auctions is the lack of ability to define the opened minor's length. As Opener, I frequently use cues in that suit to show not just a cue but to after-the-fact indicate a real suit. For example, a super-accept of a transfer after a 2NT opening, into a minor, is a cue for that minor but shows that the minor is a quality suit, not just a control. I would not super-accept with 4♣ on A-x-x in clubs but would super-accept with A-K-J-x or A-Q-10-x, for example.

The "logical" flip-side of this is the problem of when Responder makes the first cue at the four-level after such a "balanced" call. If the minor is known (opened), then we at least know the potential area of a trick source. It might be there, or it might not. In that situation, I personally like to assume that it probably is there and to cue accordingly. This is because I believe that the risk of bidding to a quantitative slam that would make but for the lead of the minor suit is outweighed by the gain of being able to cue a useful Queen opposite a possible trick source.

I also believe that there is a solution for the no-control scenario, akin to "Lackwood." Lackwood comes up when a "Last Train" call does not clarify control in the "Last Train suit." So also, one could ferret out the "could be a queen" scenario at the five-level as well. As only Responder would know that the slam is quantitative and not fit, however, Responder would have responsibility to unwind this himself. There are three methods for this that seem obvious.

1. Responder cues a queen only if interested in a fit slam, cuebidding control-only if interested in a quantitative slam, and hope it works out.

2. Responder keeps cuebidding past 4NT instead of bidding 4NT if he has only the Queen in the minor.

3. Something artificial is used, like a Lackwood parallel or RKCB in Opener's minor or 6KCB or immediate answering without control.

A fourth "solution" is to cuebid Queens, trust the averages, and occasionally laugh off a two-loser cash in Opener's suit if they find that lead.

[jogs]

kenrexford, on 2014-March-21, 15:41, said:

What kind of bizarre rules are you using?

The first cuebid used to only showed first round. Holding Axx, xx, Kxxx, Qxxx, after 1♠-2♠,3♣- ? it is difficult to show pard the ace of trumps. So responder cued the ♦K.

benlessard, on 2014-March-21, 16:02, said:

Cuebidding a Q in partner suit is totally legit and normal, ....

On this board both controls are in the trump suit. There is no first or second round control in the side suits. Therefore we bid the third round control in pard's suit. Maybe this should be called the new normal.

Quote

Cuebid a stiff in partner likely 5 card suit is quite dumb imo.

I also agree with benl on this statement.

[Trinidad]

Fluffy, on 2014-March-24, 01:27, said:

Datum (in that tournament) is the median score

How would they calculate the datum when there is an even number of tables (e.g. 10x 6♠ making (1430) and 10x 6♠-1 (-100))?

Seems very complicated to me...

Rik