Will you raise 5H to 6H?

[NickRW]

1) None of your hands are relevant. Many of them are not 5H bids for north, some not consistent with the opponents bidding.

 

2) lol double dummy analysis.

Seems you don't like to be wrong.

[Guest Jlall]

Thank you Ken.  At the risk of upsetting Justin, you're someone with a bit of imagination.

Lol. Why do you not take into account partner, who should expect the auction to always end when he bids 5H since he knows much about our hand and we know little about his, having imagination? You are not playing alone.

Well, because I would expect partner to double with anything much more in spades and to pass with anything much less in total. Indeed, partner can't get much less than the examples I've given. Also partner can't necessarily infer a void unless he has 3.

You realize that partner's decision on whether to bid or not is usually based on shape right? You don't seem to understand that you are not constraining partner's 5H bid well, and none of the things you are using to quantify what a 5H bid is (HCP?) other than amount of spade wastage are very relevant. Your constraints will include some hands that are slam tries, and some hands that are passes.

 

I agree that he does not know we have a spade void, that is the "extra value" of our hand. He does know we have shortness though, and that a void is very much in our range. If all he needs is a void for slam, he can try for slam.

[rogerclee]

1) None of your hands are relevant. Many of them are not 5H bids for north, some not consistent with the opponents bidding.

 

2) lol double dummy analysis.

Seems you don't like to be wrong.

You are being ridiculous. I think it is interesting that you can operate complicated bridge software but cannot see how silly your conclusions from it are.

[Guest Jlall]

1) None of your hands are relevant. Many of them are not 5H bids for north, some not consistent with the opponents bidding.

 

2) lol double dummy analysis.

Seems you don't like to be wrong.

Well that was convincing!

 

This is just so lol...... where do these people come from? I mean you are a complete joke, I am not sure why I am trying to explain why to you though. I don't care anymore.

[cherdano]

Why don't you show us some of the hands where you think the bidding will go like this and slam makes?

 

OK. Actually I've just done another run with GIB - this one with north bidding on hcp + controls outside spades + dsitrib as before = 19. One point less. This shows a 61% make for 6H. Here are the first 5, straight as they come out of the dealer:

 

[hv=n=skthakj64dk75cq96&w=saj43ht2djt98cj42&e=sq987652hq5d43ca8&s=sh9873daq62ckt753]399|300|This one is a make[/hv]

Not when I am declaring, I would play preempter for a singleton hear.

 

Dealer: ????? Vul: ???? Scoring: Unknown

♠ J7 ♥ AQ652 ♦ J975 ♣ AJ ♠ AK982 ♥ JT4 ♦ 43 ♣ Q94 ♠ QT6543 ♥ K ♦ KT8 ♣ 862 ♠ [space] ♥ 9873 ♦ AQ62 ♣ KT753

This one is

Ok, I might make this one, but probably I would not. It seems wrong to make a safety play in trumps.

 

So on 2 out of 5 hands, the double dummy analysis gives the wrong result. Add to that the fact that most of your hands are not 5♥ bids (or not 1♥ opening bids), and I think we have established that your simulation is pretty much useless. (Sorry if this sounds like an insult, but I don't know how to put it in different terms...)

 

I understand arguing for 6♥, but please leave GIB out of it...

[NickRW]

Well that was convincing!

Yeah, well, in retrospect my comment was uncalled for.

 

However, between the lot of you, you're not making any sense at all. One person says, effectively, "nah, east doesn't have a hand like that", so I change the east hand to satisfy that person and then another says, "nah, north doesn't have a hand like such and such". None of you are putting up examples of what you think is realistic for critique.

 

Nick

[Finch]

1) None of your hands are relevant. Many of them are not 5H bids for north, some not consistent with the opponents bidding.

 

2) lol double dummy analysis.

Seems you don't like to be wrong.

Oh come on Nick, of the first five hands you published

 

1. None of them is anything resembling a 5H bid

2. Of the three where you say 6H is a make, I would expect to go off on two of them

 

It's pretty obvious from our hand that this is a case where DD simulation will overestimate the number of tricks we can make single dummy, as we are likely to have guesses in at least one suit.

 

Anyway, trying to get something positive out of this discussion...

 

The argument about the parameters for the simulation should help us decide what the right action is as responder. In fact that's just another way of saying "what does partner need for a 5H bid"

 

Once we bid 3S, we set up a forcing pass over 4S.

Partner's 5H bid means

- I am not interested in defending 4S

- I do not have any extra values

- I do not want to bid 5m

 

What would a 5m bid mean? That depends on what a 4NT bid would mean... personally I play

- 5m as a natural slam try

- 4N as an ongoing move inviting a minor suit cue bid

 

but I bet very few other people posting here do, I imagine the popular vote is

- 4NT RKCB

- 5m cue bid

 

What hands bid 5H?

Clearly they either have extra heart length or nothing wasted in spades (quite possibly both). I don't believe we have absolutely promised 4-card heart support (unless we have some other systemic agreements we haven't been made party to) so I wouldn't expect a 5H bid without six of them.

 

If I were to do a simulation I would give partner

- 6 or more hearts

- no more than 4 controls

- no minor suit void

 

We also need to exclude hands that would have made a 4th seat pre-empt

 

I can't do a simulation at the moment, but typical hands that will come out of that will have good trumps and not that many high cards, which interestingly are also the hands that partner might have pre-empted on

 

xxx

AKQxxx

Kxx

x

 

6H is playable but not cold. Although actually I think this is a forcing pass.

 

Jx

AKJxxx

x

Qxxx

 

6H is playable but not cold (and quite likely to concede a club ruff if they find it)

 

I think this is quite tough. It's a long way from being the 'wtp' that some people seem to think, because many of the more normal 5H bids would have opened at the 3 or 4 level.

[Guest Jlall]

[reasonable stuff]

I think leaving out 5-5 hands for a 5H bid is wrong. I also think you are overrating the whole "partner didn't preempt in 4th seat" thing, although maybe you play that as stronger than me, but your one example of a 2H opener in third seat looked like an absolute max to me.

 

Also I think having 4 hearts is very very likely given that you are a passed hand who not only forced to game but chose the stronger option (3S rather than 4H) to do so.

[Guest Jlall]

However, between the lot of you, you're not making any sense at all. One person says, effectively, "nah, east doesn't have a hand like that", so I change the east hand to satisfy that person and then another says, "nah, north doesn't have a hand like such and such". None of you are putting up examples of what you think is realistic for critique.

 

Nick

You're really complaining that we don't like that your simulations do not resemble anything close to reasonable constructions for the unknown hands? Gee sorry, since you keep changing it we should not say anything!

[Finch]

[reasonable stuff]

I think leaving out 5-5 hands for a 5H bid is wrong. I also think you are overrating the whole "partner didn't preempt in 4th seat" thing, although maybe you play that as stronger than me, but your one example of a 2H opener in third seat looked like an absolute max to me.

 

Also I think having 4 hearts is very very likely given that you are a passed hand who not only forced to game but chose the stronger option (3S rather than 4H) to do so.

Maybe I wasn't clear, my examples were all supposed to be 1H opening bids not pre-empts (although the AKQxxx Kxx hand is arguably a super-maximum 2H opener, I can't remember the vulnerability).

 

I agree partner can have a minimum 5-5

xx

KQJxx

x

AJxxx

 

is possible... and that'ss a hand where slam is very poor.

Much more than that and it's a 5m bid.

 

Maybe it's these 5-5 hands that are the danger for bidding on as partner is more likely to be light in HCP.

 

I've been accumulating a set of hands over the past year where it's been unclear whether to bid slam or not, or to bid grand slam or not, in competitive auctions... and every time it's been right to bid. (There was another one in the USBF yesterday, both sides defended 6Sx-3 instead of 7Sx-4)

 

It seems automatic to pass 5H on the basis that we have no business raising, but we should at least acknowledge we will miss a large number of good slams by doing so.

[gnasher]

However, between the lot of you, you're not making any sense at all.  One person says, effectively, "nah, east doesn't have a hand like that", so I change the east hand to satisfy that person and then another says, "nah, north doesn't have a hand like such and such".

I can't speak for anyone else, but neither my comments nor my sentiments involved the word "nah". You told us your criteria, I thought them defective in some respects, and I said so, explaining what I thought was wrong with them.

 

Producing a good simulation can be difficult. Even for apparently trivial things like a one-level opening, a reasonable simulation requires both thought and a fair amount of time spent looking at the results and tweaking the criteria.

 

For this auction, where two passed hands have bid to the four-level and partner had a range of ill-defined actions available to him, making a good simulation will not be at all easy. It's not surprising that your early attempts produced unsatisfactory results. I am, however, surprised that examination of the hands produced by your simulation didn't cause you to revise the criteria.

None of you are putting up examples of what you think is realistic for critique.

That would be a reasonable criticism, except that until I suggested it this morning you hadn't posted any example hands either.

 

Anyway, you now have some examples provided by Frances and Justin (jlall). They look quite different from the examples you provided. If you think that your examples are more realistic than theirs, why not explain your reasoning?

[pclayton]

Sorry Nick, your examples of hands that bid 5♥ and the hands that are 'making 6' are a joke.

[Finch]

Make our hand

 

-

98xx

AQxx

A10xxx

 

and I think we have to bid 6H. Partner cannot realistically expect 3 first round controls from a passed hand.

 

So there are definitely hands on which it's right to bid.

[NickRW]

Oh come on Nick, of the first five hands you published

 

1. None of them is anything resembling a 5H bid

 

Most of the posters here, you included it seems, seem to be taking it for granted that the 3♠ bid sets up a forcing pass situation. I didn't, indeed don't, take it that way. To me a 4♥ call is merely competitive - this will make if we're lucky or push them on or 4♥-1 is better than 3♠ making by them. Whereas 3♠ says I have a hand worth 4♥ - bid more if you have more in the tank. It seems that much of the disagreement here is over that point, rather than anything else.

 

If you're playing forcing pass in this situation then I agree with other posters that this is probably a pass.

 

2. Of the three where you say 6H is a make, I would expect to go off on two of them

 

I didn't say I liked them. I was invited by another poster to post some hands. I picked the first five hands from a set where I didn't like the 5♥ call either even on my terms, but where 6H still seems to be better than a 50/50 bet. On individual hands DD analysis is often, "lol" as Justin put it. The value of DD analysis as a general tool to finding out the sorts of things that are possible or otherwise is not diminished by that. This has been copiously covered elsewhere to my satisfaction anyway.

 

Given that 12-15 6 heart hands are not in the set of hands that North can hold as, per the OP these would have been opened 2♥, I agree with you that it is genuinely quite hard finding hands that are plausible for all three other seats in this auction.

 

Nick

[NickRW]

Anyway, you now have some examples provided by Frances and Justin (jlall). They look quite different from the examples you provided. If you think that your examples are more realistic than theirs, why not explain your reasoning?

I think my reasoning is adequately covered in the answer to Frances.

[Halo]

Make our hand

 

-

98xx

AQxx

A10xxx

 

and I think we have to bid 6H. Partner cannot realistically expect 3 first round controls from a passed hand.

 

So there are definitely hands on which it's right to bid.

This is an interesting example, but personally I would open it, so it tends to confirm me in believing I would never raise 5H to 6H.

[gnasher]

Most of the posters here, you included it seems, seem to be taking it for granted that the 3♠ bid sets up a forcing pass situation.  I didn't, indeed don't, take it that way.

Then in answer to your original question, which was:

 

do you read this auction differently to me.

Yes, and the answer to it was in two of the posts that preceded your question.

Edited June 2, 2008 by gnasher

[Vilgan]

Most of the posters here, you included it seems, seem to be taking it for granted that the 3♠ bid sets up a forcing pass situation.  I didn't, indeed don't, take it that way.

Huh?

 

This statement boggles my mind. Suggesting it does not create a forcing pass situation would be very very non standard. I think the main problem in this discussion is a misunderstanding of what 3♠ means here rather than anything else.

 

3♠ showed shortness and a heart GF. If the auction went: 1♥ p 3♠ 4♠ all pass, someone screwed up. Likewise, 1♥ 2♠ 3♠ 4♠ all pass is the exact same situation. If pass isn't forcing here, what is partner supposed to do if he is fine with 5♥ but wants to give you the option to double in case you are very defensive in the side suits? Double and hope you overrule him? Bid 5♥ and hope its right? The ability to have a partner discussion on this hand outweighs the advantage (is there any?) of allowing it to go all pass after 4♠.

 

So yes, 6♥ becomes more tempting if you don't play the pass as forcing. But that is a serious system issue that needs to get fixed, not some great argument for why 6♥ is a great bid.

[Finch]

I think the main problem in this discussion is a misunderstanding of what 3♠ means here rather than anything else.

Quite possibly, because

 

3♠ showed shortness and a heart GF.

 

Very few people would say that 3♠ here showed shortage.

 

To put it a different way: suppose you had a heart GF without spade shortage, and want to set up a forcing pass, how else would you show it?

[kenrexford]

I have to echo the forcing pass concern and to underline, if not initiate, the concept that this auction is unusual by prior definition.

 

We already know, per systemic parameters, that Opener had the initial option of an intermediate 2♥ opening. Assuming this, we can conclude that 5♥ will not be based on those hands that qualify as intermediate.

 

I am also assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that a 1♥ opening could be based on a four-card suit with a roughly balanced hand. Even is that is not possible, a 1♥ opening could easily be based on, I would assume, a high-end weak two in hearts.

 

If that is accurate, I would imagine 2♠ to be (obviously) forcing 3♥, with an assumption that 3♥ might even fail by a trick on occasion.

 

In that scenario, which is unusual, I don't agree that a forcing pass in in effect, frankly. Not at these colors. If that assumption is accurate, then what are new suit bids?

 

I would expect, in this unusual (but sound) approach, that a new minor introduction is natural, showing a player 5-5 and isolating the strength. Sure, a 4NT call as somewhat quantitative or Last Train might make sense. However, it seems that Opener is entitled to rely upon system parameters here. If a 5♥ call cannot logically be a high-end weak two (perhaps a big "if" to some) and cannot be an intermediate bid, then it must show "stuff." If 5♥ shows "stuff," why use 4NT to show that which 5♥ shows?

 

In looking at some of the SIM hands, though, I have a serious question mark over my head. Some of these hands look like 1NT openers to me. I'm curious as to the agreements as to 1NT openings with a five-card heart suit.

 

It may be that 5♥ always will show some type of 54 maxi-minimum. If that is the case, I think the tendency is toward a good club secondary, making the slam likely turning on a diamond hook or trump hook/drop. The average hand I'd expect features good trumps and clubs.

[Vilgan]

Very few people would say that 3♠ here showed shortage.

 

To put it a different way: suppose you had a heart GF without spade shortage, and want to set up a forcing pass, how else would you show it?

Eh? As an unpassed hand I agree 100%. As a passed hand (with all opps also being a passed hand), what is the advantage of this again?

 

3♠ with a semi balanced hand (since I apparently don't have a fit jump either) on 10-11 hcp seems silly. Why not bid 4♥ (obviously to make given the passed hand status of everyone)? Its not like my X card suddenly disappeared if they bid 4♠.

 

Anyways, perhaps I am far off from standard here. At least we agree that 3♠ is a GF, but bidding it with some boring 10-11 hcp hand w/ trump support sounds does seem like it muddies the communication for when we do have a hand like the one in the OP. Or even a more mundane hand like x Qxxx AJxx KTxx where the shortness showing helps partner to judge that we should go to 5♥ and I don't have to just guess on my own when it comes back around to me.

[kenrexford]

Wow. I wonder what the obvious impact of Responder's failure to make a fit non-jump are... LOLOLOL

[Finch]

If that is accurate, I would imagine 2♠ to be (obviously) forcing 3♥, with an assumption that 3♥ might even fail by a trick on occasion.

 

In that scenario, which is unusual, I don't agree that a forcing pass in in effect, frankly. Not at these colors. If that assumption is accurate, then what are new suit bids?

What has a 2♠ bid got to do with anything, other than being insufficient?

 

3♠ with a semi balanced hand (since I apparently don't have a fit jump either) on 10-11 hcp seems silly. Why not bid 4♥ (obviously to make given the passed hand status of everyone)? Its not like my X card suddenly disappeared if they bid 4♠.

 

No, but sometimes it's helpful to invite partner to cooperate. What are you going to bid over 2S on, say,

 

xx

KJxxx

Axxx

Qx

 

that's too good a hand for an immediate 4H bid

It's nothing resembling a fit jump

[benlessard]

Huh?

 

This statement boggles my mind. Suggesting it does not create a forcing pass situation would be very very non standard. I think the main problem in this discussion is a misunderstanding of what 3♠ means here rather than anything else.

 

3♠ showed shortness and a heart GF. If the auction went: 1♥ p 3♠ 4♠ all pass, someone screwed up. Likewise, 1♥ 2♠ 3♠ 4♠ all pass is the exact same situation. If pass isn't forcing here, what is partner supposed to do if he is fine with 5♥ but wants to give you the option to double in case you are very defensive in the side suits? Double and hope you overrule him? Bid 5♥ and hope its right? The ability to have a partner discussion on this hand outweighs the advantage (is there any?) of allowing it to go all pass after 4♠.

 

So yes, 6♥ becomes more tempting if you don't play the pass as forcing. But that is a serious system issue that needs to get fixed, not some great argument for why 6♥ is a great bid.

 

Eh? As an unpassed hand I agree 100%. As a passed hand (with all opps also being a passed hand), what is the advantage of this again?

 

3♠ with a semi balanced hand (since I apparently don't have a fit jump either) on 10-11 hcp seems silly. Why not bid 4♥ (obviously to make given the passed hand status of everyone)? Its not like my X card suddenly disappeared if they bid 4♠.

 

Anyways, perhaps I am far off from standard here. At least we agree that 3♠ is a GF, but bidding it with some boring 10-11 hcp hand w/ trump support sounds does seem like it muddies the communication for when we do have a hand like the one in the OP. Or even a more mundane hand like x Qxxx AJxx KTxx where the shortness showing helps partner to judge that we should go to 5♥ and I don't have to just guess on my own when it comes back around to me.

I agree with these 2 post.

[neilkaz]

Make our hand

 

-

98xx

AQxx

A10xxx

 

and I think we have to bid 6H. Partner cannot realistically expect 3 first round controls from a passed hand.

 

So there are definitely hands on which it's right to bid.

Francis's example hand has the goods needed for slam..ie controls. We certainly have a max for an unpassed hand, but even here PD could simply be bidding 5♥ as a two way shot. However, I don't mind a 6♥ attempt with this max max for our previous bidding. But again wonder why PD didn't bid something other than 5♥ as a slam try ?