[Miron]

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The bidding goes:
1♥ - 2♦ - 3♦* - pass

3♦ means 9-12 HCP, 4+♥ and some shortness (you know opps that far, that you can freely assume it is not ♦ shortness).

3♥* - pass - 3NT* - pass

3♥ is question which shortness, 3NT is spade singleton.

You need ♥Kxxx and ♣KQx or ♥Kxxxx and ♣KJx for reasonable slam.
I tried it.

4♦* - pass - 4♠* - pass
5♦* - pass - 5♥ - pass
6♥ - all

4♦ (diamond cuebid, denying club cuebid; I desperately need the club king, partner will bid 4♥ without it - according to our agreements).
4♠ is allum, 5♦ is 1 of five with queen or 3 or 4, 5♥ is final contract against minimum, 6♥ shows 3 without side values.

At the table partner was maximum, but has all the bad points he could have:
♠Q ♥KQJxx ♦Jxx ♣Kxxx
So I made only five.

Was it reasonable slam?

[Edmunte1]

This is an intersting board, your gadgets worked pretty well, you found a lot about partner's hand, i guess 90% of the room will certainly be in 4♥. Still knowing about spade shortage, 2 big problems rise: does partner has ♣Q or ♦K and especially does partner has 5th trump (we need 3 ruffs in dummy)? If this is not sure or at least probable (partner showed a minimum hand tghough) you should have passed 5♥

[whereagles]

An FTL evaluation reveals a short suit total of 2, meaning 11 tricks on 19-21 working points. Slam requires 22-24 working points and you have only 21 (10 on hearts, 7 on clubs, 4 on spades).

Conclusion: you need to know whether responder has a max or not in terms of working points. In this case he has a min, so 5 is the limit. If the ♠Q were in clubs, he'd have a max in terms of WP and slam would be good.

I don't understand your auction, but it would seem no effort was made to know whether resp did have that max. So I'm afraid the bad slam is a consequence of misbids, not of misfortune

[pbleighton]

Quote

Was it reasonable slam?

No. Don't play partner for the perfect hand. Someone said that. It's true.

Peter

[Fluffy]

you could had splintered yourself with 5♦, partner has noting in ♦, but then, he has nothing outside anyway.

You both overbid a bit

[ochinko]

Even though your shape is perfect, you have great controls, and you don't have wasted values in diamonds, you still have 7 losers, which is what you have already showed with your opening. So unless your system requires you to start cue-bidding now you should bid 3/4♥, and leave any slam investigation to your partner.

By searching for a slam yourself you insult your partner's intelligence, and you bid your hand twice, as you have no extras: two capital sins in one bid.

I would have initiated a slam search with something like Ax Axxxx x Axxxx as the clubs here could provide some extra tricks.

[Robert]

Hi everyone

Have your considered playing 'Last Train' in these auctions? A 4D bid would ask partner to bid higher with extra values. I suspect that you would be overbidding to use 4D with this example hand. Seven losers and minimum values suggest a great deal of caution even when holding three Aces.

I think you 'pushed' a bit after you bid 4D and kept on bidding. Your partner also overbid a bit when he bid 4S over your 4D bid. At least he had the excuse that you had made a slam try first and he held strong trumps plus holding five trumps instead of four.

Regards,
Robert

[Apollo81]

It's really hard to make statements about such strange methods, but to me, it looks like 4♠ was the culprit.

[kenrexford]

When hands make slam if partner has the right hand, this usually means maximum cover cards.

Perhaps the better approach is for better techniques after the shortness bid. If 3NT showed shortness, simple cuebidding does little to help partner read your needs. If, in contrast, a 4♣ call from your hand isolates need, a natural call, then partner, with four covers (heart K-Q and club K-Q) would have the maximum covers possible. So, he'd accept. Without that, he'd decline.

In the alternative, I like to have five of a new suit, when obviously not exclusion, serve essentially the same purpose.

[jdonn]

kenrexford, on Apr 19 2007, 10:34 AM, said:

When hands make slam if partner has the right hand, this usually means maximum cover cards.

Perhaps the better approach is for better techniques after the shortness bid. If 3NT showed shortness, simple cuebidding does little to help partner read your needs. If, in contrast, a 4♣ call from your hand isolates need, a natural call, then partner, with four covers (heart K-Q and club K-Q) would have the maximum covers possible. So, he'd accept. Without that, he'd decline.

In the alternative, I like to have five of a new suit, when obviously not exclusion, serve essentially the same purpose.

A potential light slam opposite the perfect hand based on the right shortness!

Who you gonna call?

[kenrexford]

Sure, it may be a mirage more often than not in some auctions. Here, the likelihood is much greater. Partner will have shortness opposite some A-empty suit, and he is unlikely to have wasted values in the opponent's suit. Thus, he is likely to have fitting covers.

I'm also not convinced that the actual slam was that poor of a slam. Eleven tricks are easily reached. Catch LHO with a fourth club and solid diamonds, and...

The point, though, is that you should never play partner for the "perfect hand." You should, instead, ask when you can. If 3♦ is expected to provide 3-4 covers, and 4 covers does it, why not ask?

[cherdano]

Unless you play mandatory cues in this auction, I think 4♣ is a better bid then 4♦. Telling partner that you have ♣A will certainly help him upgrade ♣KQ. Then you can respect his sign-off. I think taking control with fake cues is only a good approach if you know you want to be in slam opposite the right control cues (such as splintering in a AKQ suit when all you need is a control in the next suit).

I am still not sure this would enable a stop in 4♥, though.