Avoiding a bad slam

[MarkDean]

Unless you play keycard at a low level its near impossible to stop at the 4 level. QJx is enough to cue-bid and south hand isnt minimum after the 2H response.

OK, I will bite, can you give me an example of a hand which opens 1♠, raises to 3♥ and is a minimum?

[mike777]

<!-- NORTHSOUTH begin --><table border=1> <tr> <td> <table> <tr> <td>Dealer:</td> <td> SOUTH </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vul:</td> <td> NONVUL </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Scoring:</td> <td> Unknown </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td> <table border='1'> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> QJx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> AKJxx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> Jx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> AKx </td> </tr> </table> </th> </tr> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> T9xxx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> QTx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> AKQx </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> x </td> </tr> </table> </th> </tr> </table> </td> <td>  </td> </tr> </table><!-- NORTHSOUTH end -->

 

Assuming you choose to open 1♠ with the South hand, is there a sensible way to stay out of slam? After 1♠ - 2♥ - 3♥, can you make a case for North not bidding 3♠? If he does, even if South tries to sign off in 4♥ how does the auction not continue 5♣ - 5♦ - 6♥?

 

It looks like the slam might be avoided if North doesn't bid 3♠, but is that really the right way to bid the hand?

 

As an interesting footnote, 6♥ is cold if the opps don't lead a spade. Unfortunately, West held a stiff spade which she led, and then even 5♥ goes down.

nonexpert response:

 

 

1s=2h

3h=3s

4d=5c

5h=p

[Fasteddy]

Why would you ever bid 3N non serious after partner bids 3S lol.

How about Ax AKJxxx Jx xxx?

[jdonn]

My final point, though, is that this same theme comes up over and over and over again on the BBF, as you and others have noted.  The common theme is a Responder with three-card support and 4-5 cards in the other major, with GF values.  Over and over again, bidding 2♣ with these hands makes the auction easy, whereas a traditional approach causes someone to post the problem and all sorts of strained nonsense and poor results.  Does that ever make you wonder?

It is not surprising that when responder has a fit for opener's major, and you create a virtually automatic 2♣ response and a virtually automatic 2♦ rebid, responder will always be able to agree the major on the 2 level and thus have a very good auction (since essentially you have bid 1♠ p 2♠ game forcing). It's like playing inverted minors, but you eliminate the invitational hands and don't particularly have to worry about 3NT. You would have good auctions that way! I think what one is forced to wonder is how much the 2♣ response costs when responder has clubs and how much the 2♦ rebid costs when opener has diamonds. I find these auctions difficult enough when the bids promise suits. We don't have a 5-3 fit in the major suit that is opened on every hand.

 

I actually don't think you will have terrible disasters like reaching non-fits or anything. I think it will simply hamper the evaluation of both players in the general sense on auctions that require a longer search for a fit and on quantitative auctions. It's all well and good to say both players know what hands are possible for the other player as I'm sure you will, but that is merely a necessary condition to such auctions working well, not a sufficient condition.

 

That is really my major qualm with your methods. I would be perfectly willing to accept you have better methods when responder has a known major suit fit with opener (I can truly not be bothered to consider it deeply but let's take your word for it), but that is hardly the greatest weakness in my bidding. In fact I'd say I do pretty darn well on such hands just as long as the partnership is fairly practiced. You have taken an area of bidding that is generally pretty easy and accurate, potentially made it extremely accurate, and in the process (almost by definition I would argue) made the more difficult auctions even harder and worse. There are just so many areas of my bidding that need a good kick in the pants before game forcing major suit auctions.

 

There is also a psychological downside to hear you explain it. I have never heard anyone but you vouch for these methods, or even mention them at all. That creates a lasting impression that Ken Rexford playing with Ken Rexford might be a brilliant bidder, but Ken Rexford playing with almost any expert I can think of would have serious negative synergy problems. While that is not an argument that the methods are inferior, it's a mental impression about what would happen in practice that is pretty difficult to erase. It further makes one wonder how much of the superiority of your methods is due to the methods, and how much is due to the fact they are clearly thought out in great detail and thus similar results could be achieved by applying similar thought to more standard methods.

 

Of course others may have different qualms, such as I know Fred has argued they are too informative on certain auctions where the information is of more use to the opponents (I largely agree with him there as well), but that is all just my take.

[JLOL]

Here we go!

[jdonn]

Here we go!

Lol I'm so dumb. Oh well let's see what happens...

[Codo]

What about:

 

1♠ 2 ♥

2♠ 3♠ (limiting, -14 HCPS/ SI)

4♣ 4♥ (non serious/ Serious w/o a diamond control)

4 NT 5♠ (RKC/ 2+queen)

pass 2 KCS missing

 

Seems quite easy to avoid this slam. What did I miss?

[kenrexford]

Here we go!

Lol I'm so dumb. Oh well let's see what happens...

Couple of things, of course.

 

1. Handling when Responder really has clubs, but not major fit yet. That part is easy. If responder's next call is to raise Opener's first major, he has a fit for the major. If he also has real clubs, he might make a picture jump of some variety. If Responder's next call is anything else, he had real clubs. This part if never difficult.

 

2. Handling when Opener has real diamonds. If Opener bids 2♦ over 2♣, he might have a balanced hand or he might have real diamonds. The proof of this not causing problems might be harder to explain, it is also perhaps easier to gut understand. But, it just doesn't cause problems.

 

3. Rexford with Rexford? This is the part that frustrates me the most. First of all, I have a well-respected partner who plays this stuff also. Second, many people in our circle play the same thing, or some variety of it. I don't know other circles well enough to say who plays what. But...

 

a. 2♣ as some sort of quasi-artificial bid is fairly common

b. 2♦ as also quasi-artificial is less common but has some fairly strong players doing this, or doing this undiscussed. I've seen it whipped out in vugraphs of WBF events, for example.

c. 2NT as a weak "denial" cue has been around for years as part of the original italian cue structure, which we in the U.S. have borrowed incompletely; my version is just purer as to honors and not so much as to strength

d. 2-level cues are also part of the original Italian structure

e. Serious (of non-serious) and LTTC are almost standard now

f. picture jumps are fairly standard, if not understood or used as much as one should, with my tweaks uncommon because most don't discuss parameters or want parameters as much as I do, perhaps because they don't use true old-school italian cues.

 

Because of all of this, "my" methods are really no more than a blend of others' sometimes inconsistent ideas put together in a consistent manner (IMO) with definitional tweaks that make sense when looking at the entire structure and not just at a single bid (avoidance of redundancies and complicated redundancies). A modernization of the old school version, modified by modern conventions and treatments both by the addition of the latter and tighter definitions of the former because of the latter.