EricK

With this hand, partner has decided not to bid 3NT over our delayed support but to make a cue-bid, so he is certaqinly interested in the ♣ slam. We have a good hand for slam (a good 5 card suit, excellent 4 card trump support, a control in the outside suit, so we can afford to cue bid the ♠, having already shown a minimum hand. Eric

I would add that 4 handed players will try to play a system which is difficult for the opponents to mess up. It is quite easy to invent incredibly accurate systems on the assumption that opponents aren't going to bid. But these systems invariably end up opening a large number of hands with a fairly non-descript 1♣ and 1♦ (leaving maximum room for both sides to describe their hands). If these are tried at the table, clever opponents will bid aggressively over these low openings and you'll never get to use your fancy descriptive bids anyway. Eric

I Pass, of course. The other replies have said it all. Eric

My sequence: 1♠ 2♣ 2♠ 2NT 3♣ 3♥ 3NT Eric

The original hand is a weak hand in support of ♣, but the hand you quote is not at all weak - 5 card support, no wasted values, a strong 5 card side suit - I'd rate it at least a trick stronger than the original one. If I were playing the style of not immediately supporting on minimum hands then I would certainly not support on the original hand but I would on the hand you quoted (either with a raise or a splinter depending on agreements). Eric

If you play this sort of style, you are ahead of the field when these hands crop up and behind them when you get hands on which you can no longer pre-empt. I suspect that gains do not outweigh the losses as so many nice-looking pre-emptive hands do not quite fit the mould. Eric

You could try to buy it it 2♦, then compete with a X if they compete. That keeps open the option of playing in 3♦, but also the option of catching them for a penalty if eg partner is 4423. Eric

The whole conversation was purely theoretical as far as I am concerned. Firstly, I never have fit for my partner, and secondly I never have a slam suitable hand :) Eric

Thanks Ben, I shall carefully reconsider all these sequences. Eric

Even if we are playing 2/1, I am not convinced! I am sure you have read Fred's post on another thread where he mentioned why Frivolous 3NT was better than Serious 3NT (i.e. if neither player really wants to look for a slam it is better that less information is given to the opponents). I think the same thing may apply here i.e. a Serious splinter is better than a Frivolous splinter. Also, I am worried about sequences like this (I will assume serious 3NT as that is what you were using in earlier posts, but similar things apply to Frivolous): 1♠ 2♥ 3♥ 4♣ (frivolous) Aren't you at all interested whether the 4♣ bidder has the A? He may be cue-bidding the K, or he may even have a singleton! Now if you cue-bid 4♦ to show your seriousness, partner has to either sign off in 4♥ and you have to then decide whther to bid on, or he bids to the five level thinking you like his ♣K. Eric

I see where part of the confusion lies. I was speaking with this in mind: Whereas you are talking about the optimum conventions in a slightly different set of circumstances. Eric

I open the first hand. Without the ♥Q I open it unless I know my partner hates that kind of opening. On the second hand I bid 3NT without further ado. This seems like a good hand for mini-NT as you have reached the likely contract in two bids without telling the opps anything much about strengths and weaknesses. Eric

I am still not convinced that this method (splinter denies control of 4th suit) is the best. After 1♠ 2♥ (not GF) we have a lot of hand types we might want to show 1) Hands without ♥ support (of all strengths) 2) (Sub -) Minimum hands with ♥ support not suitable for game 3) Minimum hands which don't want to suggest a slam (but partner still might!) 4) Hands which are slam suitable but not particularly slam suggestive 5) Hands which are slam suggestive (or slam forcing) I am sure you will agree that 1♠ 2♥ 4♥ should be a picture bid (i.e minimum hand no control in minors), rather than any minimum. So you are splitting the support hands up as follows (please correct me if I am wrong) Group 2: 2♠ followed by ♥ support (bearing in mind that 2♠ also covers various hands in group 1) Group 3: 4♥ (if suitable - but most aren't) else 3♥ Group 4: Splinter (if suitable - but most aren't) else 3♥ Group 5: Splinter (if suitable - but most aren't) else 3♥ (or RKB, EKB etc) It may be that this is best, but it does seem that you are not making the most efficient use of alternative bids. Eric

Ben, You haven't really answered the question of who is to blame if the partnership are not playing all these fancy gadgets. Obviously, if a splinter by agreement doesn't show this hand then West is to blame, but if they don't have that agreement then...what? Playing with a pick-up partner having agreed say 5 card majors, a reasonably strong 2/1, splinters and RKCB what would you bid as West? Playing with a pick up partner with limited agreements, if your partner splintered would you look for the slam as East? Eric

Even if the splinter is wrong that doesn't mean West is 100% to blame. West has made a slam try (surely you agree that a splinter is some sort of slam try), and East has signed off despite being eminently suitable for slam. So East must get some of the blame! But I would go further... If the partnership is not playing serious 3NT or similar, it is very dangerous for opener to just bid 3♥. Suppose partner simply raises to 4♥ with ♠xx ♥AQxxx ♦Axx ♣xxx, are you going to bid on? Because if you are, partner may well have ♠Jxx ♥Axxxx ♦ x ♣KQJx. And can West be sure that partner realises 3♠ should show the Q? Maybe partner will play that it shows delayed support (xxx). If the pair have a lot of well defined agreements then maybe there are better bids than 4♣. But if they had those agreements then they would know who was to blame and they wouldn't have had to post the hand here! But if they haven't got those agreements then what has happened is this: West has said "I have a hand which is suitable for slam in ♥, and I have a ♣ shortage. Are you interested?" and East has said "No". West was right in his description of his hand and East was wrong. Eric

Could you elaborate? Was his 4♣ bid an overbid or an underbid, in your opinion? Do you think he should have bid on over 4♥? Eric

Nicely defended. But the 3♣ bid vulnerable opposite a passed partner on a weak suit and with most of the points in RHO's suits must rank as one of the worst bids I ever seen! Eric

East is to blame. West has made a slam try, and East has a lot more than he has promised. The ♣AKQ are good (but not great) cards as they provide 2 (or 3) discards opposite partner's shortage. The doubleton ♠ is good (much better than eg 3 small would have been). And the trumps are good. Eric

If we have agreed a suit, we use RKCB. If we haven't agreed a suit, we don't use Blackwood at all (We use cue-bids, or just punt it) Eric

3♠ seems wrong to me. If partner has a good hand, NT by me is going to play as least as well as ♠ by partner, and you'll never get there if you support ♠. If you want to make a flexible bid, 2NT is more like it. Eric

Hi all I agree 100%. Everone, who has ears to hear, knows there is something suspicous. Because I never heared about a board with about 50 HCP opener 10; RHO 16+ for his double and later 3 ♦, me 10 and LHO 12+ or a long very good suit. Now there are 2 possibilities. 1) opponents are crazy. 2) partner psyched Being polite I assume the second. There is not a whiff of UI here. Btw. My own psychics tend to occur rarer aand rarer, because I learned in bitter lessons, that on long run "crime" doesn't pay. In the early 60ties I admired great Bob Slavenburg and tried to make psychics like he did. But even when more than 50% of the psychics are successful, the graetest disadvantage of psychics is that they ruin the partnership's faith. Cheers Al I disagree with some of your numbers. After a third hand mini NT, you don't need that much to double, as you know the points are evenly divided between the two sides. ♠xx ♥xxx ♦KQJxxx ♣Ax is easily enough to be confident about beating 1NT. And after 2♠ is passed round, 3♦ seems OK too. Also, North can't have 12+ as he passed originally, nor can he have a good long suit as he would have bid it to begin with or bid over 2♠. From West's point of view, North could have been hoping that South's ♦ were solid, and they could run 9 tricks. Eric

If anyone should look for a slam it is South. He has a 5 loser hand in a double fit auction where partner has forced to game. eg It is not hard to imagine 6♠, 5♣ and an ace. Eric

I can't even see from the bidding why they were sure they weren't missing an Ace! Eric

A weak NT is a semi-pre-emptive weapon. If I open 1NT then LHO has to come in at the two level. That allows us to steal a lot of part scores, and also forces opps to play a lot of inferior part scores. If I open the same hand 1m, then I do alright if the bidding gets back to me without the opponents intervening, but I am less happy in the cases where I have allowed an easy 1M overcall. I would say that at IMPS you have got to open these hands whatever the system because of the few missed games that would occur otherwise. But at MPs, where so many points hinge on part score hands, it might not be such a good idea without a major suit or two (unless you can bypass both majors with a weak NT). Eric

I would certainly open it. But I would like to open it with 1NT! I can remember hands like this where a 1NT opening led to a good result, but a 1m opening would have led to their finding a major part score. I suspect that a Pass might have led to the hands being thrown in (again for a good score). But I would be interested if anyone could demonstrate whether in "real-life" bridge, opening balanced 12 point hands without a major suit does gain or lose IMPS/MPS. Perhaps someone with BridgeBrowser or equivalent can do that. Eric