What now?

[jjbrr]

my point is that you should never jump to 6♠ over 4NT unless you expect it to be the right spot given my range of hands. And I'll always have ♦ tolerance to bid 4NT. Therefore we sometimes miss the 6-2♠ slam, but we'll end up in the ♦ slam which will always have a fit. I'm skeptical you think we can have perfectly accurate bidding in this auction.

[PhantomSac]

my point is that you should never jump to 6♠ over 4NT unless you expect it to be the right spot given my range of hands. And I'll always have ♦ tolerance to bid 4NT. Therefore we sometimes miss the 6-2♠ slam, but we'll end up in the ♦ slam which will always have a fit. I'm skeptical you think we can have perfectly accurate bidding in this auction.

I still don't know what you're talking about.

 

Jeremy said:

 

I'd try 4NT. No idea what it means, but it can't be natural. I hope it suggests diamonds with ♠ tolerance and better than 5♦ directly.

 

Jeremy also said:

 

with 3♠ i think it's crystal clear to bid 4 or more ♠. 4NT, in my mind, implies exactly 2. You may disagree with that, but that is what I meant by tolerance

 

(bold emphasis mine).

 

I simply questioned this assertation that 4N shows 2 spades. I wondered what one would do with a slam try that didn't have two spades. In my mind, 4N says nothing about spades, and simply shows a slam try in diamonds.

 

Jeremy later said:

 

i agree it says nothing about spades.

 

Ok cool, glad that was established.

 

Jeremy then said:

 

I'm skeptical you think we can have perfectly accurate bidding in this auction.

 

What? You're the guy who said 4N has the specific meaning of a doubleton spade, and diamond support, and a slam try. I'm the guy who said 4N has the meaning of diamond support and a slam try.

 

My meaning is less precise than your initial meaning (which you later agreed was wrong). How am I the one who is trying to have "perfectly accurate bidding."

 

You said something about partner not being able to bid 6S over 4N... well duh, I don't think 4N said anything about spades, so why would partner bid 6S? You said something about bidding 5H with spade support, how do you have a hand with spade support that is now trying for 6S/driving to the 5 level, but couldn't even raise to 2S to begin with?

 

You have said that there are very few hands with a stiff spade that can try for slam in diamonds, and asked me to give an example. I gave one, and you said:

 

if you bid 5♠ with that, im happy bidding 6♦.

 

if you bid 5♦, i pass.

 

edit: if you bid 5♣, i bid 6♦

 

I don't understand what that means? My point the whole time has remained that 4N says nothing about spades, so I don't know why partner ever bid 5S over it. I simply gave an example hand where 4N had a stiff spade.

 

I don't know why you think a doubleton spade is more likely than a stiff spade, a stiff spade with long diamonds is very strong on this auction, much moreso than a doubleton spade. As I said, a 4N bid is rare with any hand, but I can think of many more hands with a stiff spade that have upgraded to a slam try now than with a doubleton spade. Most of the time you had a trap pass of clubs anyways. It seems pretty moot though, as long as you agree that there are some hands where 4N is bid with a stiff spade, then you don't think that 4N shows a doubleton spade.

 

To reiterate the only points I've made are that:

 

1) I don't think 4N shows a doubleton spade, or says anything about spades (you agreed)

2) I think there are hands where 4N would be bid with a stiff spade (you implicitly agreed by agreeing with point 1).

 

I'm not sure why you think that those 2 points mean I think there can be perfectly accurate bidding? I think that 4N may or may not contain 0, 1, or 2 spades, spades is out of the picture, you're simply saying "I have a good 5D bid." I don't think partner will ever bid 5S or 6S over it.

[jjbrr]

OK. You've convinced me my spiel about it showing 2♠ was ridiculous.

[hanp]

I agree with Jeremy's unstated thought processes.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

Pass.

 

Most likely I would have bid 2S the round before, but Pass

is not wrong, ... now Pass.

Of ocurse if I like to live up to my name I may try to sac.,

which obvioulsy could be a phantom.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[helene_t]

I agree with Jeremy's unstated thought processes.

Typical Dutch polder politics. You are just trying to make everyone happy.

[Finch]

Originally my response was to bid 4NT showing a good 5D bid, but now I am wondering if we should just bid 6D and get on with it.

 

I'm certain we'll have 12 tricks.

 

I'm not particularly concerned that we are off two club tricks, because that seems unlikely given partner has such bad spades. My only concern is that we could be off two aces, partner could easily have KJ10xx Kx AKQxx x say. So I'd quite like to bid 4NT blackwood in diamonds, but sadly that isn't what it means...

 

I think I'll stick with the 4NT bid, but it's pretty close.

 

I think the passers don't understand how good a hand partner needs to double 2H in this auction. The actual hand was pretty minimum (although obviously improved a lot when partner showed a big diamond fit).