[Siegmund]

One of the harder hands to bid at this weekend's sectional. LHO deals. Your side is vulnerable, they are not.

♠AK62
♥KQ3
♦K4
♣K754

a) What do you bid if it goes (3S)-X-(P) to you?
b) What do you bid if it goes (3S)-P-(P) to you?
I am assuming the majority answer to b) is going to be 3NT.
c) ... what methods does partner have at his disposal after 3S-P-P-3NT-P?

[Phil]

a) This is a tough problem over 3S - x - pass - ? at MPs. Slam is possible but it is very dependent on pard's club holding or if he has extras. Can we hold declarer to exactly five tricks? I think its likely, so I'll try for 800.

b) 3N is easy.

c) Well established partnerships have some nice treatments here, but they rarely come up. You can play 4 suit transfers, or play 4♣ as a defined ask about partner's hand type.

[rogerclee]

I hate passing on (a), if LHO has 7 spades you're basically gambling on partner having all three aces, in which case we are easily in slam territory. All of this seems like a bad gamble to me.

Unfortunately 3S X P 4S is a terrible auction for your side, it's not like it shows a 4324 18 count. Consequently you are not very likely to get good information from this approach.

Still, thank god we're r/w so partner should be reasonably heavy. This gives us enough to bid past 3N in my opinion.

In the end I'll start with 4S and see what happens, but probably will end up offering 6C and be willing to play 6H or 6N if it comes to it.

[whereagles]

Siegmund, on 2011-August-20, 23:02, said:

One of the harder hands to bid at this weekend's sectional. LHO deals. Your side is vulnerable, they are not.

♠AK62
♥KQ3
♦K4
♣K754

a) What do you bid if it goes (3S)-X-(P) to you?
b) What do you bid if it goes (3S)-P-(P) to you?
I am assuming the majority answer to b) is going to be 3NT.
c) ... what methods does partner have at his disposal after 3S-P-P-3NT-P?

a) I'm going to pass. Yes, slam is possible but it's also possible pard, who's short in spades, streched to dbl.

b) as Phil: easy 3NT

c) playing standard (i.e. none!) agreements, pard can bid a suit, natural weak, or cue with a decent hand.

[daveharty]

a) I don't think I could bring myself to pass, even though it might be a big winner. It's just too easy to construct minimum hands for partner where slam is at least good. Even as little as x/Axxx/Axxx/QJTx gives you a pretty good play for 6C and that is awfully light for a R/W double of 3S. So I will bite the bullet and bid 4S like rogerclee.

b) Agree with others, easy 3NT.

c) Good question, I don't really have an answer other than to agree with whereagles: suits are natural and to play, cue with a better hand.

[ggwhiz]

a) Tough all right but I can't imagine partner doubling on a bunch of quacks so I'm punting slam. Not out of the question for pard to have a source of tricks and enough to bid the grand.

First thought of 5nt as pick a slam and convert 6♦ to 6nt.

Second thought 4♠ followed by 5nt over 5♦ to keep 6♣ in contention.

Emptyish controls feel like a suit contract but might get us to something down on a ruff too.

b) 3nt Hammans Law

c) I have no methods other than natural with 4♣/♦ being a slam try. We just don't pull 3nt to play here! I'll watch this thread for better suggestions.

[whereagles]

ggwhiz, on 2011-August-21, 09:03, said:

I'll watch this thread for better suggestions.

Well, in case you're interested, I play transfers except that 4♣ = majors if the opening was 3m. These bids are normally weakish, but you might have a good hand on occasion. 4NT is a natural raise (~12-13 or thereabouts) and 4♠ is open.

[Phil]

Back to hand 1.

I think all of us should concede that anything that involves bypassing 3N is a gamble.

We have no guarantee of a fit (partner can easily be 1453 for instance). Its quite likely that LHO has some shape along with his presumed QJ-7th, so we can expect bad breaks. Also, I would like my club spot to be higher than the 7 if I were to make a higher move.

4♠ is such a messy force. We won't learn anything useful from partner, and follow-ups are ugly. I would expect 4N is 'scrambling' by partner, and then what? I wouldn't be surprised if the 4N bidders just end up punting 6♣ or 6N in the end, so 4♠ doesn't achieve much.

I think its an oversimplification that three aces gives us a slam, because we are very dependent on partner's J's and 10's and good splits. Three aces should give us 800 in 3♠ x'd however.

Just checking - if 4N is quantitative (any why shouldn't it be?), that's a pretty good description of this too. It keeps the higher-scoring NT in play and it gives us a chance at finding slams when partner has more than a minimum.

[Flameous]

I'd assume 4NT is minors. Although I've always been interested which comes up more.

If I had it as natural, it would be clear cut. Now I think I'll just hope and pass.

[Siegmund]

At the table, I decided opener would have at least 5 tricks in spades, so we'd have only 800 defending if we had a slam, and 500 if our side didnt have an easy slam, so I was unwilling to convert for penalty.

As it happened, partner was a pickup partner who had already shown himself to be a habitual overbidder so I took the seriously-chickenhearted path of 3NT. But opposite a normal partner I would have liked to have something besides 4S. (4NT sounds like minors to me too.)

Re question c), I think my regular partner would have assumed our 3NT system (our 2C-p-2D-p-3NT system, that is) was on. I really don't know how that compares to 4m natural (and forcing or not?), 4H to play, 4S strong, 4NT quant.

[Free]

a) I'd probably bid 4NT, just in case partner doubled light with good distribution.

b) 3NT, no problem here imo.

c) We play:
4♣ = asks 4 card suits up the line
4♦ = transfer ♥
4♥ = transfer ♣
4♠ = transfer ♦
4NT = quantitative
After 4♥ I'll superaccept with 4♠.