bd71

What are "bar bids"?

So my most regular partner and I have agreed to use help-suit game tries, but it became clear in recent bidding practice that we have significantly different understandings on when opener should use it and when responder should accept game. So would appreciate folks thoughts -- and most importantly, the background reasoning -- behind some of these questions: 1. What should opener's "help suit" look like to use the convention? In various sources we have found on the web, there seems to be different takes. This is also a key source for our different understandings: one of us had the impression that you should have a decent 4-card suit (AJ9x or better), and the other thought it could be a very weak suit (even Qxx). So what do the more experienced players here recommend, and WHY? 2. What guidelines should there be for how strong responders "help suit" support look like to accept the invite? And how should the strength of responders overall hand outside the help-suit play into this decision? Can responder bid game with a maximum and NO support in the help-suit? These answers are obviously significantly related to the answer to #1. 3. What should responses other than 3M or 4M mean for responder? Some online sources suggest a "counter game try" that identify a strong side suit if you can bid it below the 3M level; others suggest that bids other than the major suit be "advance cue bids" in case opener is investigating slam. 4. Since we use a strong NT, should we be using "Two-way game tries" that would incorporate short-suit game tries as well? For what it's worth, this discussion got started as we were practicing with the "Bidding Box" hands in the January 2007 ACBL Bulletin. Our hands were AKT96 K87 6 AJ94 across from J87 QJ2 974 KT76. Our bidding went 1S-2S; 3C-3S and the issue was whether responder should have accepted the invite.

In this response system, what would you do with an invitational but semi-balanced hands with which you can't splinter but wouldn't open 1N? Say a 4225 16/17-pointer?

[hv=d=w&v=b&s=skq86hkt84datcaq3]133|100|Scoring: MP Opponents do not bid. P-1♣ 1♠-?? 3 questions: 1. What's your bid? 2. How do you re-evaluate your playing strength after finding the spade fit? 3. What are appropriate playing strength ranges for various spade responses here (2S, 3S, 4S)?[/hv]

Seems unlikely, but...if any of the Top 10 choose to opt out, I'd love to be on the waiting list as well.

Win diamond trick, then lead AS and another spade. Why is declarer playing diamonds? Why not lead up to his presumed KC, getting things set up to ruff a club in dummy? I'm probably missing something, and may be taking this line of reasoning too far, but...if declarer is pretty decent, the only thing that makes sense to me is that he started with a singleton diamond, has a bunch of club losers, and wants to do a dummy reversal. This probably means he has the KH so he's comfortable with transportation to dummy. If correct, he would be playing for a possible 10 tricks (5 S, 4H, 1D) with a hand like: KQJxx Kxx Q Jxxx (or maybe even xxxx) To blow this strategy up, we would want to lead AS and another trump. Even if I'm wrong about this, I don't see how the trump leads would hurt us...if partner has the KH, I think he's still going to win it eventually anyway.

I'm confused...did North pass initially, meaning it was South that opened 1S? This is only way I can be on lead here as West. But if North is a passed hand, how can 1N be forcing? I'm going to assume for the moment you mean that we are East... As East, I lead whatever heart my partnership has agreed is from an honorless 4-card suit. For my most regular partner, that would also be the 8♥. Other initial defensive preliminaries: I expect them to have 21-24 hcp, leaving partner with 2-5. I expect to take 4 tricks in hand (3 aces and almost certainly the QC...hard to imagine north doesn't have KC if clubs is better minor). Developing another trick in hand seems unlikely...best chance may if declarer is short in hearts and we can force him a couple of times to take trump control and make a long heart good (although dummy may have long hearts too). For that purpose, I plan to hold onto my AS as long as possible. Bottom line: hearts is the lead both to kick off the forcing defensive strategy and because we don't want to lead from any of our aces.

Jeff, so be both don't remember the auction...but I believe I (South) ended up as declarer in hearts. My conclusion is that you must have bid 1D initially...which I think is very reasonable as it's your stronger suit and you can easily reverse into hearts with your strength.

Why do you expect this? Would it not be standard to bid 1♠ with any just about any holding with a good spade suit here (even AKxxx of spades and nothing beyond that)? If nothing else, isn't this a good bid for lead direction if E ends up playing in diamonds or NT?

I'm going by memory (not always reliable), but I believe the North hand was: KQx Qxxx Qx KJxx They cashed their top diamonds right away, W had AQxx of clubs, and one of them (I believe E) had 4 trumps and a natural trump trick. So we lost 1H, 2D, 1C...I don't think there was any play for the game as the cards lay (which obviously doesn't mean bidding game is wrong).

Seriously? I finally learn to be extremely cautious valuing unsupported soft honors, and now I'm supposed to value two unsupported tens to help me come up with an opening bid?

That's not in the toolkit, although perhaps your point is it should be. We play Standard American with most common intermediate-level conventions. 4C would simply be a natural bid.

[hv=d=e&v=n&s=sa9hak94dt43ct742]133|100|Scoring: IMP P 1♣ 1♥ 2♥ ??[/hv] I liked my controls, my length in partner's first-bid suit, and the doubleton...so I bid 4H. Your call?

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=sk52hkq864dakqt6c&s=sajhat93d74cakq62]133|200|Scoring: IMP How would you bid this? Honestly, I don't recall our path to 6H, easily making 7. But seems like this grand should be biddable. Is this best? 1♣ 1♦ 1♥ 2♠* 4SGF. 1♠ is natural per our agreements 3♣ 3♥ 3♠* 4♦* Cue bids (is it right not to cue the club void in partner's suit?) 4N* 5♠* 1430; 2 keycard with QH. 5N* 6♥ Asking kings; showing 2 non-trump kings. 7♥[/hv]

[hv=d=e&v=b&s=s9432hjd82ckqjt43]133|100|Scoring: IMP (1♦) P (1♥) 1♠ (3♥) ??[/hv]

[hv=d=e&v=e&n=s95hakqj73dk8542c&s=sakqt6h4dq63cjt65]133|200|Scoring: IMP Bidding starts (P) 1♠ (3♣) Where do you want to be and how do you get there? Our auction was: (P) 1♠ (3♣) 3♥ (P) 3N (P) 4♦ (P) 5♦ (P) 6♦ Down 2 when E has all 5 trump, so slam and 5D are no good. Probably we should have suspected after the 3-level pre-empt. But seems to me there are several different places to play this if not in diamonds...what is best and why?[/hv]

I forgot to include this... If you pass, suppose you have an extra point...what would you bid then? And does it matter if it's an extra point in spades (KQTx) or diamonds (J754)?

[hv=s=skjt8hj72d7543c83]133|100|P (1C) 1D (1H) ?[/hv] Pass, 2D to show support, X to show spades...what's your choice?

[hv=d=e&v=n&s=skqjhktdakqjcakqx]133|100|Scoring: IMP 2C-2D* *Agreement is that 2H is a bust, so 2D shows something[/hv] Dealt this hand today at MPs with a pickup partner. But let's imagine it's IMPs so we want to push harder for slam. Is there a good way to explore a slam, or do you just have to decide whether or not to take the leap half-blind? Complete auction and dummy were: 2C-2D 3N-AP ♠xxx ♥Axxxxx ♦xx ♣xx Making 7 after I take the JC lead, opps hold up twice on QJ of spades, discard their club stopper while I'm running diamonds, and LHO is squeezed with AS and 3 hearts.

PART I [hv=d=s&v=b&n=st2hakq72djt97cj5&e=saj98753hjt9d63cq]266|200|Scoring: IMP Simple bidding: 3C - all pass[/hv] Partner leads the AD. Your agreements are A from AK(x...) and primary attitude signals. Do you play the 6 to encouarge and try to get a ruff? Do you play the 3 to discourage, because you fear an overruff and want to get a spade switch before declarer can drop spades on dummy's hearts? Or is it more complicated than either of those suggest? PART II [hv=d=s&v=b&n=st2hakq72djt97cj5&w=skh6543dak8542c82]266|200|Scoring: IMP Same hand, same bidding: 3C - all pass[/hv] Now forget East's hand. As West, you lead the AD, partner plays the 3, and declarer the Q. What do you do at trick 2?

[hv=d=w&v=e&w=shqj9862dj7ckqt85&e=sj9865hakdakcaj72]266|100|Scoring: IMP How would your bidding go? [/hv] Of 16 pairs playing it, only 4 were in slam, none in grand. http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/hands...8&username=bd71

USA/ACBL

So how much strength should a 2S bid in this situation suggest?

This intermediate chooses 2S. For those who doubled, isn't a double suggesting: 1. More tolerance for clubs than you actually have? 2. Likely shorter diamonds? 3. Likely only 4 spades? (Else why not bid 2S?) I guess I'm struggling to see why 2S isn't (1) almost the perfect bid, but (2) superior in every way to double. I say "almost the perfect bid" because it likely precludes the possibility of them playing in a doubled diamonds contract if that's the best place for us, but the negative double would seem to have that same flaw.

My most regular partner and I are intermediate players and rarely play against expert competition. We have judged that, particularly at matchpoints, we will hardly ever need to bid a grand slam to score well against this competition (this might even hold true if playing in an expert field). So we have an agreement that unless it's a "sure thing" (i.e. we can count 13 tricks with virtual certainty), we will simply not try to bid grand slams. Two questions: 1. Is this agreement something that needs to be shared with our opponents? (Seems like the answer should be "yes" since it can impact our bidding and thus may impact their inferences from our bidding.) 2. How and when should this be disclosed? (Our best guess is that any time we bid a small slam, we should mention this after the bidding but before the lead...but we're not sure here.)