slam or pass your call

[jdonn]

4NT was only a mild overbid, though clearly one. Of course slam is still bad with any of the three missing jacks included in partner's hand in which case his 4NT would have been minimal but automatic, which seems to reinforce that just bidding slam is too much.

[han]

I think 4NT was a serious overbid, even with an extra jack it is very minimal.

 

I don't know how I'd bid Mike777's 2-4-2-4 shape.

[skjaeran]

Dealer: South Vul: NS Scoring: IMP ♠ K62 ♥ A43 ♦ KQT96 ♣ K2  

 

West  North East  South

 

 -     -     -     1NT

 Pass  2♣    Pass  2♦

 Pass  4NT   Pass  ?

 

 

Here's a hand I played with Richard, your bid and why please?

Assuming 1nt is 15-17 do you want to be in slam across from:

 

AQ..KQxx...xx..AJxx

I'd not want to play at any level with only 12 cards in dummy..... :P

[skjaeran]

4NT was too much for the same reasons that I would have accepted the invite as opener: hand evaluation. 4333 shape should be discounted. A hand with lots of Q's and J's should be discounted. A hand with only 4 controls should be very careful when inviting slam: we generally want to have 10 controls to play in 6N, and it is a rare 1N that holds 6 controls, especially when we hold 2 Aces.

 

So I would have bid 3N. In fact, this is a perfect hand type for not even bidding stayman: just bid 3N over 1N

100% agree.

[Fluffy]

15 balanced don't try for slam, last time I checked my table, it said bal 33 for 6NT without a fit.

 

South would never bid 6NT with that hand, top tricks and 5 card suit make 6♦ appealing, if anything he could bid 5♦.

[ochinko]

Dealer: South Vul: NS Scoring: IMP ♠ K62 ♥ A43 ♦ KQT96 ♣ K2

 

West North East South

 

- - - 1NT

Pass 2♣ Pass 2♦

Pass 4NT Pass 5♦

5♦ here is natural, rejecting NT slam but suggesting ♦ slam if partner has help in ♦'s or specifically A♦?

I saw this in a lecture by Luis Argerich in the BIL, I believe:

 

Any call except Pass means accepting the invitation. 5 in a suit means a five cards suit, and 6 in a suit shows our lowest four cards suit. Partner has the final choice where to place the slam.

 

According to that my bid is 5♦.

 

But I agree with the others that the responder is too week to invite.

[asc]

5♦=1 A, Blackwood for me. 1NT-4NT is quantitive, 1NT-4♣ is Gerber,

1NT-2♣-2♦-5NT -say a 4-th(5-th) suite, so if my Partner had an invite to slam he could try 1NT-4NT-5♦ from me-natural

[mikeh]

I did a 40 deal simulation, the constraints of which were that responder had no 5 card suit, no singletons and 15-17 hcp. On 23 of them, 6N made. It wasn't, by any means, a case in which there were 23 hands with 12 top winners, but on 23 hands the cards lay favourably: ♦s behaved and/or a major broke 3-3 and/or a needed one-way finesse worked.

 

On 14 hands, 6N was down on any normal line.

 

On 3 hands, it was impossible to tell: for example, on one hand, the ♠s were AJ10 opposite K62, and we need 3 tricks to make the slam... I was not about to assume that we'd get that right.

 

While some may say that the 17 point hands are too good, I should point out that some of the no play boards were 17 while a good number of the cold hands were 15.

 

A 40 deal simulation may not be as useful as a 100 board one, but it does suggest that maybe those who passed 4N were a little conservative.

 

BTW, I use DealMaster Pro, which (from what I have read) is a pretty good simulator in terms of random hand generation... but I am no expert in how to build one of these programs, so if anyone has heard that it has glitches, let me know.

[jillybean]

15 balanced don't try for slam, last time I checked my table, it said bal 33 for 6NT without a fit.

33! :) I must have been watching too many late night young gun team games.

 

Seriously, I agree it was a bad hand to invite; we needed to do something differently so I pushed on. Please post the table you are using.

[Guest Jlall]

I did a 40 deal simulation, the constraints of which were that responder had no 5 card suit, no singletons and 15-17 hcp. On 23 of them, 6N made. It wasn't, by any means, a case in which there were 23 hands with 12 top winners, but on 23 hands the cards lay favourably: ♦s behaved and/or a major broke 3-3 and/or a needed one-way finesse worked.

 

On 14 hands, 6N was down on any normal line.

 

On 3 hands, it was impossible to tell: for example, on one hand, the ♠s were AJ10 opposite K62, and we need 3 tricks to make the slam... I was not about to assume that we'd get that right.

 

While some may say that the 17 point hands are too good, I should point out that some of the no play boards were 17 while a good number of the cold hands were 15.

 

A 40 deal simulation may not be as useful as a 100 board one, but it does suggest that maybe those who passed 4N were a little conservative.

Thanks! As I mentioned, simulation is by far the best method for this type of hand, even trying to do it at the table. I guess my 3 hand simulation was not big enough since this one is so close.

[jdonn]

I did a 40 deal simulation, the constraints of which were that responder had no 5 card suit, no singletons and 15-17 hcp. On 23 of them, 6N made. It wasn't, by any means, a case in which there were 23 hands with 12 top winners, but on 23 hands the cards lay favourably: ♦s behaved and/or a major broke 3-3 and/or a needed one-way finesse worked.

 

On 14 hands, 6N was down on any normal line.

 

On 3 hands, it was impossible to tell: for example, on one hand, the ♠s were AJ10 opposite K62, and we need 3 tricks to make the slam... I was not about to assume that we'd get that right.

 

While some may say that the 17 point hands are too good, I should point out that some of the no play boards were 17 while a good number of the cold hands were 15.

 

A 40 deal simulation may not be as useful as a 100 board one, but it does suggest that maybe those who passed 4N were a little conservative.

 

BTW, I use DealMaster Pro, which (from what I have read) is a pretty good simulator in terms of random hand generation... but I am no expert in how to build one of these programs, so if anyone has heard that it has glitches, let me know.

Mike would it be too much to ask to post the hands? I'm curious to see how bidding 5♦ would make a difference, as in sometimes you reach 6♦ and sometimes 5NT and sometimes 6NT.

[mikeh]

I did a 40 deal simulation, the constraints of which were that responder had no 5 card suit, no singletons and 15-17 hcp. On 23 of them, 6N made. It wasn't, by any means, a case in which there were 23 hands with 12 top winners, but on 23 hands the cards lay favourably: ♦s behaved and/or a major broke 3-3 and/or a needed one-way finesse worked.

 

On 14 hands, 6N was down on any normal line.

 

On 3 hands, it was impossible to tell: for example, on one hand, the ♠s were AJ10 opposite K62, and we need 3 tricks to make the slam... I was not about to assume that we'd get that right.

 

While some may say that the 17 point hands are too good, I should point out that some of the no play boards were 17 while a good number of the cold hands were 15.

 

A 40 deal simulation may not be as useful as a 100 board one, but it does suggest that maybe those who passed 4N were a little conservative.

 

BTW, I use DealMaster Pro, which (from what I have read) is a pretty good simulator in terms of random hand generation... but I am no expert in how to build one of these programs, so if anyone  has heard that it has glitches, let me know.

Mike would it be too much to ask to post the hands? I'm curious to see how bidding 5♦ would make a difference, as in sometimes you reach 6♦ and sometimes 5NT and sometimes 6NT.

Sorry, Josh: I didn't print the hands or save them... and I didn't look at the hands with a view to seeing whether bidding 5♦ would help.

 

I do recall that on some of the hands 6♦ was better.. I remember looking at one where responder was 4=2=4=3 and could score the 12th trick by ruffing a ♥, but AQxx in ♠s provided the 12th trick when the suit was 3=3.

[mikeh]

I did another 50 deal simulation, same constraints. I apologize for not knowing how to take the hands from DealMaster and plug them into this forum, and I am NOT going to copy them manually ;)

 

This time, I considered whether 6♦ made, as well as 6N. Interestingly, there was one hand on which 6N makes but 6♦ fails. As one would expect, however, there were more hands the other way: 6♦ makes but 6N fails.

 

This suggests that I was wrong to reject 5♦.. but the issue is not as clear as the statistics say, because some of those hands were such that (I think) 5♦ would have ended the auction, and so we would have got a worse score (by an imp or by a lot of matchpoints) had we bid 5♦, making 6.

 

And some of the slams that go down would be slams where I suspect a lot of players wouldn't have bid 4N as responder: some pretty weak looking 15 counts.

 

For what it is worth, with no subjective bidding assessment (i.e. I allowed all of the hands to bid 4N);

 

23 hands were cold in either slam

7 hands made 6♦ but not 6N

1 hand made 6N but not 6♦

1 hand was cold for 6♦ but I couldn't predict the result in 6N

1 hand was cold for 6N but I couldn't predict the result in 6♦

2 hands were such that I couldn't predict the result in either slam

15 hands went down in both slams.

 

So this more detailed analysis confirms that it is best to bid towards slam as opener opposite 4N... it suggests that moving via 5♦ is a slight winner... bearing in mind that in my view 5♦ would not lead to the (cold) slam anyway on some of the 7 relevant hands.

[jdonn]

Two points about that.

 

One is that I think 5♦ should be forcing, since it could be on a hand always accepting the invitation but just looking for a better strain.

 

The other is that it should allow responder to make a slightly more accurate 5NT or 6NT decision even without a playable diamond fit.

[BebopKid]

My bid is 6NT. Partner is asking if I'm at the maximum for my 1NT bid. I'm assuming you were playing 12-14.

[jtfanclub]

My bid is 6NT. Partner is asking if I'm at the maximum for my 1NT bid. I'm assuming you were playing 12-14.

I assume if you play a 12-14 NT, you don't open that hand 1NT.

[Halo]

I think the simulation indications + strong arguments for 5♦ forcing make this a very good demonstration of accurate natural bidding to a slam - been educational.