[flytoox]

whereagles, on May 28 2005, 12:01 PM, said:

He didn't want to take control because he was "a limited hand".

This is not a good reason. Bridge is a partnership game. After your limited bid, pd still shows slam interest by bidding 4H. You have a good hand in the context. There is nothing wrogn with 4N keycard asking.

[han]

Blackwood seems appropriate.

[whereagles]

flytoox, on May 28 2005, 12:24 PM, said:

whereagles, on May 28 2005, 12:01 PM, said:

He didn't want to take control because he was "a limited hand".

This is not a good reason. Bridge is a partnership game. After your limited bid, pd still shows slam interest by bidding 4H. You have a good hand in the context. There is nothing wrogn with 4N keycard asking.

Yeah, that's what East told West.. a limited hand can still take SOME action, especially if it's a strong hand as this one was. 4NT followed by a quick sign-off in 6S seems ok (no grand slam try because West knows clubs are not solid).

[HeartA]

I am surprised that why nobody here mentioned 4♠ by opener. After all, he has limited his hand by 2NT. There is nothing wrong to bid 4S and let pd take control.

[Chamaco]

HeartA, on May 28 2005, 04:23 PM, said:

I am surprised that why nobody here mentioned 4♠ by opener.  After all, he has limited his hand by 2NT.  There is nothing wrong to bid 4S and let pd take control.

IMO 4S would show a missing control in the minor suits, since pard has already expressed the will to explore slam by bidding 4H.

4H by responder denies minor suit controls, so I think 4S should mean signoff, not the reliquishing of captainship.

I believe that once responder has showed slam interest, using RKCB seems well appropriate, and in fact, here it works quite fine:
when opener hears of pard's 2KC+Q, he asks for the club K, and when responder denies, he signs off in 6S

[Fluffy]

Why was he that sure 4♥ was a cue from teh ace and not singleton?

[Chamaco]

Fluffy, on May 28 2005, 04:50 PM, said:

Why was he that sure 4♥ was a cue from teh ace and not singleton?

I responder denies a minor suit cue, but he has anyway slam interest, he must have hcp close to opening, and it's likely hcp are concentrated in the majors.

Of course it's easy to construct a hand that fails to meet this statement, but bridge is a % game, and I think that, *on percentage*, if opener uses RKCB here, he'll seldom will be in a contract too high, if indeed responder has bid reasonably.

[mike777]

Pat on the back for partner at least thinking about the principle of captaincy. Of course they could have just made another cuebid rather than taking control by asking about the trump suit. Note 5s was basically asking bid just as 4nt would have been asking bid. So by bidding 5s they did become captain. Note if 4h bidder really is captain they are asking for more cuebids, otherwise why bother to not bid RKC in your methods?

Anyway playing 3c as fancy Baron or 3c//3d as game only//slam try is something to at least think about.

Great hand to discuss principle of captaincy and how best to apply it in non strong club auctions.

Add on:

When I was learning captaincy in a strong club setting I got confused all the time. Since only the captain could start the asking bid sequences this often lead to disaster since I got lost as to when asking bids where on. As a result I just used 2 simple rules. Perhaps not best in theory but it stopped the disasters.
1) Strong club is captain even if limited unless they sign off.
2) If we opened limited bid than responder was captain unless they limited their hand or signed off.

In 2/1 I play if one hand shows strong then they are captain, otherwise responder is if unlimited. In this example the 2nt showing 18-19 would have been captain. Perhaps not best in theory. In any event this post gave you the chance to discuss important issue and come to some partnership agreements.

[beatrix45]

whereagles, on May 28 2005, 05:01 AM, said:

Well, what happened is hands were

♠ Jxx........AKQxx
♥ KQx.......Ax
♦ AKT9......xx
♣ AJx........Qxxx

1♦ 1♠
2NT 3♣
3♠ 4♥
5♠ ...?

Geez, dog bites man. You have 15 HCP, partner has 18 or 19 HCP, neither partner has a singleton or void, your side does not have a nine card trump fit. So, with a combined 33 or 34 HCP and one known 5-3 fit, and knowing this, you elected to bid a grand that turned out to have a 30% chance. Goren would have done better.

There may well be a better auction using modern methods, but the bidding as given seems perfectly OK to me, right up until the last bid.

[HeartA]

beatrix45, on May 29 2005, 01:14 AM, said:

Geez, dog bites man. You have 15 HCP, partner has 18 or 19 HCP, neither partner has a singleton or void, your side does not have a nine card trump fit. So, with a combined 33 or 34 HCP and one known 5-3 fit, and knowing this, you elected to bid a grand that turned out to have a 30% chance. Goren would have done better.

There may well be a better auction using modern methods, but the bidding as given seems perfectly OK to me, right up until the last bid.

I find this kind of HCP oriented thought disturbing. Opener could have ♠Jxx, ♥xx, ♦AKQ(J)x, ♣AKx, or ♠xxx, ♥Kx, ♦AKQxx, ♣AKx, or ♠Jxx, ♥Kx, ♦AKQxxx, ♣AJx, or ♠Jxx, ♥Kx, ♦AKxxx, ♣AKx, or .......

[beatrix45]

HeartA, on May 29 2005, 12:35 AM, said:

I find this kind of HCP oriented thought disturbing.  Opener could have ♠Jxx, ♥xx, ♦AKQ(J)x, ♣AKx, or ♠xxx, ♥Kx, ♦AKQxx, ♣AKx, or ♠Jxx, ♥Kx, ♦AKQxxx, ♣AJx, or ♠Jxx, ♥Kx, ♦AKxxx, ♣AKx, or .......

In short, some hands with long, powerful diamond suits will produce extra tricks with spades as trumps. The hands given in this posting almost exhaust those possibilities - indeed, two of them are not very good 2NT rebids, ones I might make playing with a partner who was a poor dummy player (the six bagger with wide open hearts is a perfect 3♦ bid, and the solid 5 bagger with open hearts is surely flawed and 3♣ is available to check back for 5-3 spades or a heart stop protected from the opening lead).

Run a simulation or do a thought experiment and get a feeling for just how many possible hands require a 2NT rebid versus how many have the 'magic' diamond holdings. The latter are so few in comparison as to be nearly insignificant. One of Hamman's rules is that if it takes the 'magic' hand to make slam a lay down, then you probably shouldn't even try for it. This strikes me a a variation on that theme.

You only have so much information at your disposal here, and you have to act on it. Bridge is a game of percentages.

[HeartA]

beatrix45, on May 29 2005, 09:41 AM, said:

Run a simulation or do a thought experiment and get a feeling for just how many possible hands require a 2NT rebid versus how many have the 'magic' diamond holdings.  The latter are so few in comparison as to be nearly insignificant.  One of Hamman's rules is that if it takes the 'magic' hand to make slam a lay down, then you probably shouldn't even try for it.  This strikes me a a variation on that theme.

Don't try to always rely on simulation, which doesn't apply here. How would you simulate hands with consideration of all bids, especially 5♠?

[beatrix45]

HeartA, on May 29 2005, 09:52 AM, said:

How would you simulate hands with consideration of all bids, especially 5♠?

There is always a question as to what a bidding sequence means. Once one settles this point, constructing a simulation is easy. Whether or not you agree with he meaning of the bids determines whether or not you agree with the conclusions drawn from the simulation.

In this case, I took the 5♠ call to show an average or better 2 NT rebid with three card spade support and both minor suit aces - not a super hand, but an acceptance of my slam try conditional on my having good spades. Partner's concern over my spade holding is for obvious reasons. Failure to cue bid a minor suit ace says she must have both of them.

I generated 50 hands with the appropriate point count (18 or 19), two aces and spade support, and then discarded 16 of them that looked too junky to accept a slam try. One of the keepers was the exact hand your partner actually held. In fact, that particular hand was below average in the simulation sample in terms of offering a play for seven. Overall, according to the simulation sample, the probability of making seven was right at 50%. So, I concluded that unless you play partner for an exceptional hand, bidding seven is reasonable, but slightly against percentages.