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What is it worth?


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In general I find situations like this hard to judge:

 

AQ9

AK743

A5

AK8

 

Imps/none. 2nd seat.

 

(3) - X - (pass) - 3

(pass) - 4 - (pass) - 4

(pass) - ?

 

4 was a strong raise to 4.

 

What now?

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Pass. Partner shows only a couple of hearts, nothing more.

You will lose a diamond so to make a slam partner must bring K Q Q.

That would be a perfect hand. You won't find the perfect hand very often.

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Pass.

 

The range of partner's possible hands on this auction is wide, but the top end should not include slam. I would guess that we are going to make between 8-11 tricks, with 10 being the most likely result.

 

Partner would need quite a few cards in the right places to make a slam. That is why I think it is right to pass. You did more than force to game - you made a slam try opposite a possible blizzard. And partner said no.

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Pass. Pard should make a forward-going move with two honors, so slam rates to be on a losing finesse at best opposite xxx xxxxx xx Qxx.

 

Of course we could also be facing xxx xxxx xxx xxx where even 10 tricks will be a challenge, although I would not expect three hearts since pard will leave in the double with some really abysmal hands.

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I'm really bold or crazy in this sort of situations and usually get to 6, either by keeping on trying or by just jumping to the slam. It's certainly not a good approach, especially with this hand, terrible things could happen, some of the most obvious are that KJ of spades are badly placed or the K lead might be even ruffed by preemptor's partner!

Our hand has LOTS of points but as someone said once, points don't take tricks, and in this hand we might even be playing against a 'mirror' hand and then there might be no way to make the slam.

 

Of course, you could say that this is a very pessimistic approach but being over-optimistic is just as bad. I think this all boils down on partner's style or level. By bidding 3 partner showed a really bad hand (0-9 ?), but would he cue-bid on:

 

Kx

Qxxx

xxx

JTxx

 

or could he have:

 

xx

Qxxx

xx

QJxxx

 

Both of which give us a fairly chance of making 6 (I believe...).

 

So partner's style is important, he should cue-bid on most hands where slam is on, and since he didn't cue-bid and I'm oh so crazy I'll give it a try again with 5, or 5 if the other cue-bid could sound some-how natural.

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but would he cue-bid on:

 

Kx

Qxxx

xxx

JTxx

Yes, this is a 100% 4 call.

 

or could he have:

 

xx

Qxxx

xx

QJxxx

 

Slightly tougher, but I think 5 is OK. Of course this is easy knowing the mousse across.

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or could he have:

 

xx

Qxxx

xx

QJxxx

 

Slightly tougher, but I think 5 is OK. Of course this is easy knowing the mousse across.

I think that's too double dummy, partner would automatically sign off with that hand. In fact move a club to hearts (edit: I meant diamonds, trying to create a hand that's even worse than this one) and slam is still all but cold. So I'll risk 5. Frankly I don't know what I would do with the hand above opposite that bid either, but I'll at least give partner a chance.

 

I'd be shocked to see 4 go down, and consider it pretty unlucky if 5 went down.

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You're very control rich and partner has no steps between 4 and the signoff (4) so his 4 call doesn't tell you very much (specifically, the information content, expressed by the Shannon entropy associated with partner's action set over 4, is low).

 

I think you need to give partner another chance.

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I'm bidding 5, which I believe in this situation should show control bids in everything, not looking for any specific cue from partner, just overall suitability of his hand. If it goes down, then it goes down.
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I am not moving.

 

On double, partner will be 4 with a good-looking 10-count. Thus on 4 he would surely move with a good looking 8-count.

 

So, even if 6 is more likely to make, than 5 is to go down, it will only be by a small margin. (And yes, I expect everyone to be in at least 4.)

 

There is another problem, however:

 

It is far from certain that partner will do the right thing, if we move on.

 

He might easily bid a bad slam, or stay out of a good one.

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I tried 5 which led to a not quite good enough 6, down 1.

I think a crucial point here is that partner will have a tough time moving towards slam over 4. There are no in between bids available and we have all the 5 key cards. But it's close to try again over 4.

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