Story from the club

[nick_s]

Last night, while waiting for the director to distribute boards and start play, one of the opponents shows me this hand:

 

♠ xx

♥ AJTxx

♦ AJxx

♣ xx

 

Pard opens 2NT she says. I say I'll transfer.

Pard responds 3H. Now what? 4D, I say.

 

I bid 5H she proudly announces. Huh?

This is a new convention I picked up at the last tournament she tells me. I respond as if partner had bid RKCB, so I'm showing 2 keycards and no QH. We got to the cold 6 hearts.

 

That's an interesting idea I say and try to politely change the topic. This hand looks so unsuitable for something like that that it doesn't seem worth trying to explain. I mean: you don't know if you have a fit; you don't know if you're missing AK of either black suit...

 

Regardless, with a different and more suitable hand, does anyone think this idea has merit? What do 5-level bids mean in this sequence anyway?

[Phil]

Meckwell plays this, but I doubt they'd do it with this hand B)

[kenrexford]

Yeah, on the right hand, in the right sequence, "immediate answers" is coming around.

[mikegill]

We play something sort of like this.

 

In these auctions, we play:

 

4M = 3-card support for major (we always superaccept with 4), denies a good hand for slam with 4+ in the minor

cheapest non-4M step = bad hand for slam in minor, after which 4n, 4M, 5m are to play, and the cheapest other step is keycard in the minor.

next step+ = responding to keycard in the minor

 

so here:

4♥ = heart support, usually a bad hand for slam. This allows responder to bid keycard for hearts, or cuebid looking for slam. If opener has a great hand with 3-card heart support he can always respond to keycard in diamonds then correct to 6♥

4♠ = bad hand for slam, denies 3♥ (or a hand that doesn't want to show them e.g. ♠ AKJx ♥J42 ♦Q4 ♣AKQ2)

4N = 1/4 keycards, ♦ fit, good slam values

...etc

 

 

To make this really work we play the keycard step responses are 1/4, 2/5, 3w/o, 3w that way responder isn't forced to slam opposite 2+Q.

 

You can play this whenever responder makes a natural 4m bid, like after stayman-response-4m, or 3s->3n-4m or whatever - responder is just showing a different minor-suit length depending on the situation, so opener evaluates accordingly.