[ahydra]

mr1303, on 2014-January-19, 09:39, said:

For those who say East should pass with wastage opposite a splinter, how would you bid the following?

KQxx
Akxxx
X
Qxx

Where 7S is a very good contract.

We'd probably bid 3S over 1S with that. Replace the ♣Q with J10 however, and that's a 2S bid, but you still want to go to slam. A hand like that one is the kind I was expecting when partner bid 4D.

ahydra

[quiddity]

I like West's bidding more than East's. The opener is aggressive but normal. Accepting the invite with a min+void would be normal at imps; maybe at MPs it's a bit too much but at least it seems close. Having decided to accept splintering seems normal, especially when it's not a one-under splinter, to cater for hands like AQxxx Qx Jxx AKx.

East has a pretty mediocre slam invite - minimum number of trumps, no heart help, a bunch of points opposite partner's singleton - he should just invite with 4♥ instead of driving to slam.

[Bbradley62]

mr1303, on 2014-January-19, 09:39, said:

For those who say East should pass with wastage opposite a splinter, how would you bid the following?

KQxx
Akxxx
X
Qxx

Where 7S is a very good contract.

I am not among those targetted in this post, but I would bid 3♠ instead of 2♠ with this West hand.

Edit: Oops... didn't see hydra's response before I posted.

[Zelandakh]

Just on a theoretical level (because that is where I am happiest ) how should the structure over 3♣ be organised? We know from here that 4♦ is a splinter, so presumably 3♦ followed by bidding above 3♠ should be a diamond fragment. But what about 4♣? Could we not use that to differentiate between a diamond singleton and a void? That would surely make East's life here much easier.

This is actually a fairly common story, at least on BBF, with splinters. One hand splinters and the other with an ace drives to slam picturing a singleton opposite, only to find that there is a void there and the pitch is not as useful. To this end, I think bidding theoreticians should be making a move towards opening up additional sequences for splinters where possible so that singletons and voids are separated. Many already do that for responses to opening bids but I suspect this concept can be expanded to more general auctions a fair bit more than is currently done to good effect.

[helene_t]

ahydra, on 2014-January-19, 12:26, said:

pard: having limited my hand already to 7 losers it feels right to show the diamond void rather than just a generic accept

I agree with this. If pard is going to accept anyway he might as well show the shortage. I don't think 4♦ is stronger than 4♠. The range for 4♠ is narrow enough that an accept is an accept.

Whether I would accept at all is a different issue. I am sometimes a bid of a walrus and would be afraid of accepting any game try when having opened a hand that is not rule-of-20. Then again, if 3♣ is a natural game try, my hand looks like it fits well.

[Zelandakh]

helene_t, on 2014-February-05, 04:20, said:

I agree with this. If pard is going to accept anyway he might as well show the shortage. I don't think 4♦ is stronger than 4♠. The range for 4♠ is narrow enough that an accept is an accept.

I think this depends a little bit on agreements. One popular treatment is for most accepts to bid 3NT here in case partner was making a slam try rather than a game try. In that case 4♠ should show a very bad hand for slam, which would make 4♦ stronger. Then your point would still stand but now for 4♦ not being better than 3NT.

[ahydra]

General principles, surely: For X in {partscore, game, small slam, grand slam} if you bid at a level such that the next bid of the agreed denomination is X, but have not made that bid itself, this shows some interest in playing a contract at a level above X. (This does apply to grand slam as well - 7NT being the next level up, consider for example bidding 7x on the way to 7S, looking for 7NT)

Or to put it simply: 4D shows slam interest, since otherwise one could just bid 4S. If you've no slam interest, why give away information to opps?

My point was - should one really be showing slam interest with a 10-count, when your hearts could be far better than they were (and partner is probably counting on that). Admittedly playing serious/frivolous 3NT helps to distinguish the different accepts further - for example, 3NT = good hand for slam based on good heart suit/good general values, 4D = good hand for slam based on diamond shortage, 4S = bad hand for slam.

ahydra