[dickiegera]

3 Clubs and 3 Spades cuebids. 4 Spades kickback. 5 Clubs 0 or 3 keycards

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With Hearts being 1-4, 6♥ is down 1. Just looking at 2 hands it is obvious that 6NT is a laydown.
In a team game is there a way to tell that you should bid 6NT rather than 6♥?

We could have bid 5♦ Queen ask and found out Queen of Hearts missing. Anything better?

Thank you

[Cyberyeti]

Other than being facetious and saying something like 1N-5N-6N.

I would have interpolated 3♦-3♥ over 3♣ rather than bid 3♠ directly.

This would mean that once it goes 4♠-5♣ I can bid 5♦ and when partner bids 5♥, I can bid 6♣ (normally bid 7 with the K or Q, I have the other, in this case clearly angling for 6N as we're missing Q♥ and partner will bid 6♦ (haven't got that but we've shown ♦AK and I have the Q too), now you can count 12 tricks.

[rduran1216]

queen asking is clear, and when north says no, south has an obvious 6NT call. 4 clubs, 3 spades, 2 hearts and 2 diamonds for sure. partner needs to hold Q of clubs or Q of diamonds for laydown 12, and with J of hearts could easily have squeeze chances after attacking clubs. I would never bid 6H with the south hand.

[gnasher]

rduran1216, on 2012-March-31, 09:14, said:

queen asking is clear, and when north says no, south has an obvious 6NT call. 4 clubs, 3 spades, 2 hearts and 2 diamonds for sure. partner needs to hold Q of clubs or Q of diamonds for laydown 12, and with J of hearts could easily have squeeze chances after attacking clubs. I would never bid 6H with the south hand.

Is it obvious that opener doesn't have xx Axxxx Axxx Ax?

[Cyberyeti]

rduran1216, on 2012-March-31, 09:14, said:

queen asking is clear, and when north says no, south has an obvious 6NT call. 4 clubs, 3 spades, 2 hearts and 2 diamonds for sure. partner needs to hold Q of clubs or Q of diamonds for laydown 12, and with J of hearts could easily have squeeze chances after attacking clubs. I would never bid 6H with the south hand.

This is a fair point, it would also be embarrassing for the clubs to play for 5 tricks and have 13 top tricks in NT but 2 heart losers in 6♥. But you can be sure if you use the queen ask I advocate above.

[rduran1216]

gnasher, on 2012-March-31, 10:02, said:

Is it obvious that opener doesn't have xx Axxxx Axxx Ax?

Well over 2H I'm bidding 4H with this pile of faeces. Even with this minimal pile, finding Qx or Qxx of clubs on either side will still make 6NT, and against 4-1 hearts on your left, 6H has no prayer.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Make the ♥Q-ask with 5D.
When it is denied with 5H, then you could bid 5NT, which must be a general "outside Q-ask", since the K-ask ( 5S ) was by-passed.
If he replies 6C or 6D , you can count to 12 tricks at NT.
If he replies 6H, then all he has are 3 bullets and you pray he has some useful Jacks.
..... But 6H may be the better contract since you can ruff a ♦ in the short trump hand ( 3s, 4h, 2d, 2c, 1d-ruff ) .
..... ( But you also need a 3-2 trump split which obviously isn't here according to OP ).

[lalldonn]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2012-March-31, 10:57, said:

Make the ♥Q-ask with 5D.
When it is denied with 5H, then you could bid 5NT, which must be a general "outside Q-ask", since the K-ask ( 5S ) was by-passed.
If he replies 6C or 6D , you can count to 12 tricks at NT.
If he replies 6H, then all he has are 3 bullets and you pray he has some useful Jacks.
..... But 6H may be the better contract since you can ruff a ♦ in the short trump hand ( 3s, 4h, 2d, 2c, 1d-ruff ) .
..... ( But you also need a 3-2 trump split which obviously isn't here according to OP ).

5NT "must be" a queen ask since we didn't make the king ask? So is 6C a jack ask then? I play 5NT as a general slam invitation give the knowledge we are off a keycard and the trump queen. What if we held AKQ Kxx Kxx AJxx here and partner had shown 1? We would probably want to be in slam only if partner has anything extra. If not then 5NT is no worse than 5H.

On the given hand either player could have bid differently but neither would have known for sure 6NT was better by the end. It's good for a serious partnership to have a "choice of 6-suit or 6NT" bid, such as some unplayable suit on the 6 level, but for most partnerships such an agreement would just lead to trouble and I think they are better off doing the best they can on hands like this.

[the hog]

I am surprised no one has commented on the non existent suit bid of 2D as being part of the blame. Yes if Nth is a 5-4 shape, then maybe 6H might be a better contract. What is 3c now? 1543? That is what my partner's show with this awful auction. Treat a balanced hand like a balanced hand - 1H 2C 2NT.