Difficult to Handle

[kenrexford]

My friend gave me two hands where neither team found either making slam:

 

♠AKQxx ♥-- ♦AQ9xxxx ♣Q

♠x ♥KQxxxx ♦K ♣AJxxx

 

This is an obvious mess.

 

Both teams bidding these hands started the 5071 hand a strong 1♣. One Responder made the dubious call of 2NT, showing "13+ points." Not all that helpful. They reached an eventual 5♦.

 

The other Responder made a 1NT "positive with hearts" call. Opener elected with that pattern to start asking questions (?!?!?) rather than to start describing his hand. He eventually learned that Responder was 1-6-1-5, apparently, with 4 controls, which is equally "helpful."

 

Polled standard bidders uniformly Opened 1♦ and then rebid 1♠ (?!?!?), with one explanation that "I want to get out of the way," whatever that means. All that accomplished was partner getting in the way with a 3♣ call and no way to show the pattern and strength.

 

Of interest, my friend gave me just Opener's hand and asked for my auction using our new "Modified Nilsland." I opened 2♦ (22+ or 9+ tricks, 4+ spades, unbalanced). After a 2♥ artificial GF positive, I rebid 2♠ (5+ spades). After a 2NT pattern ask, I rebid 4♦, showing an extreme 5-6. A nice 5♣ cue yielded 5♥ (might as well try for the grand) and a sign-off at 6♦.

 

Responder, in the M.N. approach, might have considered a 2NT heart positive, but the result of that is a 4♦ 5-6 leap and the same end spot.

 

As the spades split 4-3 and the diamond 3-2, either slam makes. But, diamonds seems better, as it seems that relying on hearts not being 6-1 (and clubs not 6-1 with an uppercut possibility) is the better line.

 

Not a proof of anything, but cute.

[han]

Wow, 2NT as 13+ points must be one of the worst conventions I have seen. Apperently there are people who think seriously about system and then come up with something like that.

 

The hands are tough, because they are terrible misfits except for the diamond king which is of course great. It seems to me that this is more a matter of judgement than a matter of system. For example, a standard auction starting with 1D-1H-2S (loser counters would come to 2?) should leave you at least at least as well placed as in your auction, opener can bid 3S next to show a gameforcing 5-6.

 

Still, reaching slam with confidence is not trivial.

 

But if you judge the hand good enough to open 2D in your system then you would certainly rebid 2S after 1D-1H I'd think. I would rather use your 2D opener than a strong 2C opener though, which is asking for trouble.

[jdonn]

Slam looks sub 50% so I don't understand any of this. MAYBE if you read everything well and they lead badly often enough you can get it over 50 by divining the black suit positions but not by much anyways, so who cares if you miss this one? You don't always get good splits.

[kenrexford]

Slam looks sub 50% so I don't understand any of this. MAYBE if you read everything well and they lead badly often enough you can get it over 50 by divining the black suit positions but not by much anyways, so who cares if you miss this one? You don't always get good splits.

Slam is sub-par?

 

Suppose a trump lead. You lead the heart King and ditch a spade, evem if it if covered if you want. You then win a club on dummy and ditch the other spade, ruff a club back, and pull trumps.

 

So, you need a 3-2 diamond split and nothing wildly weird on the side. That intuitively seems better than 50-50.

 

It looks like a 3-2 split is about 68%. As a 6-1 seems to be about 7% and a 7-0 1% (total 8%). The chance of any side suit splitting poorly or of trumps splitting poorly seems to be 47%. But, a poor spade or club split (the 6-1 variety) is not always fatal.

 

So, this seems to be a fairly high percentage slam. Maybe 57-58% or so.