single worst contract.

[gwnn]

AQx

AQxxx

 

Axxxx

 

opp

 

KT9xx

x

Q97x

KQx

 

1H-1S

3C-3NT

4S-4NT

p

ATB? imps.

[kfay]

North is insane, clearly.

 

I don't know why on earth I'd want to upgrade this hand to a gameforce just because partner bid 1♠.

 

Anyway, 4NT is definitely blackwood. How the heck else am I supposed to find out about aces? What hand could I reasonably have that would make 4NT a better contract than 4S?

[jdonn]

South is insane, clearly.

 

North can reasonably game force with his amazing shape and controls after 1♠. It's aggressive but not insane (you can construct hands for south that would pass 2♣ with slam on).

 

There is no way 4NT can be blackwood, or else is south just forced to pass on a lhand with 4 lousy spades?

 

And what was the 3NT bid? Why not 3♦? Then north could have bid 3♠ and we can probably work things out a lot more easily a level lower.

[manudude03]

Equal blame for me, South for not bidding 3D instead of 3NT, and North for not answering what is RKC for me (see below).

 

This auction seems very familiar for me (Romania- pages 17-18) with the exception that it was a 1NT response as 4 card kaplan inversion. My partner and I had a long discussion about it and we still couldn't agree (he thought it was natural, i took it as RKC). I still think it's RKC for spades, but on the basis that 4S should really be with 4 cards and a hand that couldn't splinter or bid 4S for some other reason.

[Jlall]

North's bidding is aggressive but fine, he can make game opp nothing and has a great hand for slam and might get passed out in 2C.

 

4N is not keycard.

[gwnn]

lol wayne @ S double. well maybe he was affected by the tournament standings :ph34r:

[jdonn]

I still think it's RKC for spades, but on the basis that 4S should really be with 4 cards and a hand that couldn't splinter or bid 4S for some other reason.

There are still people who jump shift in another suit holding 4 spades? What is this, 1957?

[Jlall]

I still think it's RKC for spades, but on the basis that 4S should really be with 4 cards and a hand that couldn't splinter or bid 4S for some other reason.

There are still people who jump shift in another suit holding 4 spades? What is this, 1957?

Bid around the shortness to show a hand too strong to splinter! /1957 master solvers impression

[Hanoi5]

4NT might not be KC but I'm not passing.

[mikeh]

anyone who thinks 4N is keycard uses keycard too often.

 

It is common, I think, to have the rule that if a player bids 3N as a suggestion to play, partner pulls, and the player rebids 4N.... that is TO PLAY.

 

So poor south has to decide whether to try for slam with his amazingly underbid hand without knowing how many keycards partner has.

 

 

Too bad...get over it... bidding slams without ace asking is a standard part of any good player's tool-kit.

 

More to the point...hasn't South EVER encountered a partner who jumpshifted with 3 card spade support? Wow. What bad things could happen over 3♦?

 

Was South such a hand-hog that he feared partner bidding 3N?

 

I think N overbid...yes, one can miss games by bidding 2♣....but I do think it is very slightly too aggressive...but I play with partners who would, I think, feel it was just good enough....so I don't place any real blame on that call.

 

S erred by the silly 3N and again, and egregiously, by the appalling 4N.

[jdonn]

4NT might not be KC but I'm not passing.

Why not, you have shown 12 of your 13 cards and partner would have to be loaded in diamonds to bid a natural 4NT. He knows so much about your hand and chooses a contract so why would you pull?

[manudude03]

I have the meta-agreement that 4NT is always keycard once both partners know about an 8+card major fit. As I said, I think 4♠ in that auction should show 4 of them and a hand that can't splinter or bid 4♠ for some reason, hence both players know that the fit is there and hence 4NT is keycard.

 

I suppose another equivalent to this is this auction I had in the trials for Romania:

 

2D-2H, multi, pass or correct

2NT-3H, 20-22bal, transfer

3S-3NT, non-superaccept, standard

4S-4NT,

 

This is a similar scenario where opener knows about the fit a round before responder does and now responder bids 4NT on which I trusted partner hadn't forgotten we play transfers after 2D-2M-2NT so answered RKC and got to our very good slam.

 

I remember a discussion with Helene at the club about this auction when I got back to England. She did point out 1 question which pretty much confirmed for me that the OP auction was RKC. The question was basically "Is 4♦ over 3NT just patterning out or CoG". As long as we have good reason to believe there's slam on and all the controls are there, we usually don't care if opener is 1534 or 2524 so for us it would be more useful to have 4♦ as CoG and 4♠ as setting spades as trumps.

 

Also as a final pointer, I always try and avoid 4-3 fits if I safely can. Possibly not the best policy, but its one less thing for partner to worry about.

 

ps. 1957 was 32 years before I was born and I haven't read much dating back to that time so I couldn't possibly comment about it.

[pirate22]

well having read it -----------I as partner--- the bidding should be

 

1ht---------p------1sp--------p

3cl(agree)-p------3d -------p (3d although good cl support,awaits pard next bid.

3/4 sp style-the 3d bid puts a damper on things- however-and 3d is 4th suit forcing or not?if 3sp employed pard will now bid 4cl-if 4 sp employed---pard has a decision,but his ht holding is bad------------------both hands have recieved the witche's warning------------4 spades should be the final contract.

Norths cl holding is A x 4 empty

regards have np-------------THE 3D IS THE KEY BID

[TylerE]

Never done this before but LOL. 4♠? Seriously? Slam in either black suit is over 50%

[kfay]

I had a really long post written out but I couldn't get my thoughts clearly organized so I'll just say:

 

For simplicity sake I do realize that importance of having 4N be to play on these auctions where 3N has been offered.

 

I think it's a bit of an oxymoron to call this hand a gameforce yet have 4N be to play on this auction since we need 10 tricks and to set up our POS suits partner is going to need some real power since we have no fit, which makes his hand at least approach GF values and the auction would probably only go this way with a GF if it were minimum and he were 4243 with a lot of diamond wastage.

 

He's backed into a corner on a lot of hands to bid 3NT when he holds 5 spades.

 

Mike, it's true that some people love to use keycard. But I think it's almost as common a problem that people decide they're too smart to use keycard.

 

Anyway, not really saying that I think it should definitely be keycard and probably under general metarules it's not, but thinking about it it seems to me that there are more hands where you all of a sudden really want to bid keycard than hands where I've got tons of diamond wastage and, also, I'm going to be able to set up this misfit for 10 tricks in notrump.

[jdonn]

I think it's a bit of an oxymoron to call this hand a gameforce yet have 4N be to play on this auction since we need 10 tricks and to set up our POS suits partner is going to need some real power since we have no fit, which makes his hand at least approach GF values and the auction would probably only go this way with a GF if it were minimum and he were 4243 with a lot of diamond wastage.

Unintelligible run on sentence of the year award winner.... KFAY!!!

[kfay]

I think it's a bit of an oxymoron to call this hand a gameforce yet have 4N be to play on this auction since we need 10 tricks and to set up our POS suits partner is going to need some real power since we have no fit, which makes his hand at least approach GF values and the auction would probably only go this way with a GF if it were minimum and he were 4243 with a lot of diamond wastage.

Unintelligible run on sentence of the year award winner.... KFAY!!!

lol

 

actually yeah while i was writing that i almost mentioned about the runons.

 

but i had spent time writing a previous post, then this one kinda sucked, and i thought about altering it or not posting, then i was just like 'F it'

[mikeh]

Mike, it's true that some people love to use keycard.  But I think it's almost as common a problem that people decide they're too smart to use keycard.

 

ouch!

 

He's backed into a corner on a lot of hands to bid 3NT when he holds 5 spades.

 

no he's not...not on ANY hand on which 4N would be keycard.

 

On almost all (I almost left out 'almost') hands that could take charge, via keycard, over a 4♠ call, 3♦ should be obvious.

 

He is only backed into 3N, rather than the obvious 3♦, if he has solid diamond stoppers such that he isn't interested in hearts, clubs, or spades nor whether partner has diamond help. It is precisely that type of hand that NEEDS to be able to bid 4N to play.

 

I suppose you could, if I challenged you, come up with a hand on which 3N is 'forced' yet 4N is not to play...but it won't be easy, compared to the obvious ones like Jxxx x KQJ10x Kxx. If you wouldn't bid 1♠ with that, fudge the spade suit to the worst with which you'd accept a 1♠ call as a reasonable alternative.

[Phil]

Unintelligible run on sentence of the year award winner.... KFAY!!!

I guess he couldn't hold his breath long enough and had to insert a comma. ;)

 

I count eight independent phrases.

 

Personally I don't get offended by poor usage since I am one of the top offenders around here.

[kfay]

Mike, it's true that some people love to use keycard.  But I think it's almost as common a problem that people decide they're too smart to use keycard.

 

ouch!

 

He's backed into a corner on a lot of hands to bid 3NT when he holds 5 spades.

 

no he's not...not on ANY hand on which 4N would be keycard.

 

On almost all (I almost left out 'almost') hands that could take charge, via keycard, over a 4♠ call, 3♦ should be obvious.

 

He is only backed into 3N, rather than the obvious 3♦, if he has solid diamond stoppers such that he isn't interested in hearts, clubs, or spades nor whether partner has diamond help. It is precisely that type of hand that NEEDS to be able to bid 4N to play.

 

I suppose you could, if I challenged you, come up with a hand on which 3N is 'forced' yet 4N is not to play...but it won't be easy, compared to the obvious ones like Jxxx x KQJ10x Kxx. If you wouldn't bid 1♠ with that, fudge the spade suit to the worst with which you'd accept a 1♠ call as a reasonable alternative.

sorry i wasn't calling you out, i was just commenting.

 

also yeah you're totally right with 5 spades and good diamonds he can bid 3♦. as usual when i am thinking about a lot of other things i forget the small easy stuff. which is why i usually look dumb when i get involved in a thread where a good forum poster disagrees with me.

 

ANYHOO!!! whoever thinks 4N is keycard is clearly wrong, imo ;)

[gwnn]

I really don't know why I bid 3NT at the table. But I have a reasonable excuse as to why I thought 4NT was keycard: usually I am the guy who takes 4NT as quantitative/to play to the horrors of my partner (not this one but my partners in general) and so I really really wanted this 4NT to be keycard and thought that p would take it as such. Now that I reread this sentence I realize that it is not really a reasonable excuse, but I wanted to show kfay that he is not alone (in writing completely indecipherable posts).

[gwnn]

Anyway 4NT made 5 and we lost only 10 across-the-field imps on this board.

[Fluffy]

3NT was so horrible, don't have the words to describe it.

[pooltuna]

3NT was so horrible, don't have the words to describe it.

Yep. South clearly should have chosen 3♦. Even though North was a little pushy with 3♣ most of the blame goes to South.

[skjaeran]

I most probably wouldn't have rebid 3♣ with the north hand, but I'd not fault anyone for making it - it's mostly a style question IMO.

 

Rebidding 3NT is bad, 4NT worse - 4NT is definitely to play.