Do I suck?

[gdawg01]

[hv=s=sqhaqdakqj43cat85]133|100|[/hv]

 

Assume SAYC and for the purposes of this question, Geeber, RKC 1430

 

The scoring is Matchpoints, and both vul, if it matters.

 

You pick up the above hand and are trying not to drool over it when pard opens the bidding with 1C ! Our bidding went :

 

1C - 1D (me) - 1NT

 

At this point, we had no real "gadgets" available other than trying 4C and checking for aces and then kings, or RKCing. My worry with 4C was not being sure what pard would take it as (he told me later he would not be sure it was Geeber); as for 4NT, I thought he might take it as quantitative asking him to bid 6 or pass, and if he pegged me for 16-17 pts, he might well pass with a min 12-13 point hand. So I paused for 10ish seconds and bid .... 6NT, ending the auction. We were cold for 7 as pard held :

 

AKx Kxx xxx Kxxx

 

Ideas on what the heck to do with a hand like this? :-) I thought of bidding a variety of confusing (hopefully forcing) stuff like 3S, 4D etc. fwiw. Maybe I should bid an immediate 4NT and on hearing 5C (1 or 4 kcs), bid 5N and then onto 7NT from there.

 

Thoughts / criticisms appreciated!

 

-G

[aguahombre]

Auctions that start 1C-1D suck, just about as much as auctions that start 1H-1S suck. Hence, you might consider strong jump shift responses 2D/1C and 2S/1H. We have found them quite helpful if only used with slammish hands --not just game forcing.

 

I have no idea how to untangle these hands after 1C-1D-1NT. You would have to start with 2H to create a game force I suppose, then hope to land on your feet in the right slam later.

[jjbrr]

At the table I guess I'd probably bid a forcing 2♥, hoping to get partner to bid either 3♣ or 3♦, over which I can bid keycard. If he bids 2NT it's a little less clear how I should proceed. I hope you and your partner agree that 3♣ would be forcing now, and the auction shouldn't be too hard. If you're worried that 3♣ isn't forcing, then you're stuck wondering what 4♣ is.

 

If you're completely in the dark as to your agreements, I confess I think 6NT is a bit of an underbid. Perhaps 5NT over 1NT will get partner to bid 7 with a hand he likes?

[gdawg01]

Thanks, aquahombre ; the idea that you and Jeremy talk about of having an immediate force with 2H makes sense to me. So when you talk about strong jump shift responses (we play WJS so far for all such jumps), are you suggesting making these two 1C-2D and 1H-2S strong only, or playing SJS in general?

 

 

Good points, Jeremy.

 

I confess 5N crossed my mind too but again -- not having discussed it as GSF or anything - I did not bid it. However, the worst that could have happened is that pard would bid 6N I suppose.

[pretender]

I highly advise that if you are playing SAYC you also play strong jump shifts, which would solve the problem at the first turn (bidding 2D forcing to game showing very good suit).

 

If not, I would suggest bidding whatever is a forcing club raise in your system. At least you have ways to game force after that right? Or rather if partner does something and you now bid diamonds it's still forcing I'm pretty sure.

 

At the end point in your auction where partner bid 1NT, I think the best shots are to bid 5NT (invitation to 7) or 4C Gerber, followed by 5C Gerber for K, and 6C Gerber for Q.

[pretender]

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge. You have 22HCP opposite an opening hand. It's your job to find out the cards that you need to see if you should be in a grand slam. There's no point telling your partner about diamonds by bidding 1D if it doesn't help you reach your destination. You need to plan the auction before your first response, and be the captain in this auction.

[jjbrr]

Sorry for my ignorance, but you're leveling us with 6♣ Q ask, right? I'd like to LOL but I want to give you the benefit of the doubt first.

 

Obviously strong jump shifts solve the problem on this hand, but I'm not convinced you can't have a good auction without them. I feel confident I could get to 7NT after 1♣ 1♦1NT. Similarly, I don't think 1♥ 1♠ auctions are so terrible as long as you have some way to make a forcing bid at a low level when opener rebids 1NT.

 

I think, gdawg, this isn't so much a problem with the hand being difficult but rather with you and your partner not being on the same page with your agreements. I think you agree that most of the uncertainty on this hand doesn't come from the fact that the correct bid is unclear, but instead from which bids partner will and will not understand.

[jjbrr]

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge. You have 22HCP opposite an opening hand. It's your job to find out the cards that you need to see if you should be in a grand slam. There's no point telling your partner about diamonds by bidding 1D if it doesn't help you reach your destination. You need to plan the auction before your first response, and be the captain in this auction.

Sorry, but this is not sound advice. And I think you were serious about 6♣ Q ask.

 

lol.

[jdonn]

You should later bid 7♣ gerber for jacks so you know partner's whole hand. TY

 

Or for more serious advice still involving gerber, why not 4♣ then bid 7NT if you aren't off an ace? I bet there are 13 top tricks almost all the time, and I doubt you are worse than a finesse even when there aren't. Save yourself a headache.

[rogerclee]

I would just bid gerber and force to 7N opp an ace, since it is basically impossible for this contract to be worse than on a finesse given a normal opening bid style. Even hands like AJx KJx xxx KJxx, which I would call a pretty unlucky fit, make 7N very good, not to mention all the 9-11 counts that make 7N cold.

[aguahombre]

Answer to OP: Yes, just those two, and just with slammish.

 

2D/1C=slammish --single suited or diamonds and clubs.

2S/1H=slammish --single suited or Spades and Hearts.

 

But that is just us. Others might disagree. Mike Lawrence wrote it up to include slammish with the suit, both suits, or notrumpish, too.

[jjbrr]

My worry with 4C was not being sure what pard would take it as (he told me later he would not be sure it was Geeber)

Jdonn? Clee?

[gdawg01]

Jeremy,

That was indeed my quandary at the table : How to make a low-level forcing bid that we both accepted as forcing and then find out more..The point about us not being on the same page is quite valid :) This was a new situation for that, however, as we normally specialize in the "keep bidding on with known misfit until the other gives up" approach!

 

To continue -- after 2H, and pard bids 2N (should he not? Assuming we are on the same page etc.), I agree 3C is forcing. I must confess I still cannot see how we get to 7N from there though!

 

 

Girish

[jdonn]

My worry with 4C was not being sure what pard would take it as (he told me later he would not be sure it was Geeber)

Jdonn? Clee?

Well what can anyone say if we don't know what anything would mean? If I had to guess the final contract over 1NT I would guess 7NT anyway.

[rogerclee]

My worry with 4C was not being sure what pard would take it as (he told me later he would not be sure it was Geeber)

Jdonn? Clee?

Ok then I jump to 7N, the whole point of this hand is that inviting is absurd because there are 13 tricks so often.

[jjbrr]

Jeremy,

That was indeed my quandary at the table : How to make a low-level forcing bid that we both accepted as forcing and then find out more..The point about us not being on the same page is quite valid :) This was a new situation for that, however, as we normally specialize in the "keep bidding on with known misfit until the other gives up" approach!

 

To continue -- after 2H, and pard bids 2N (should he not? Assuming we are on the same page etc.), I agree 3C is forcing. I must confess I still cannot see how we get to 7N from there though!

 

 

Girish

After 2♥ I think opener should show his ♦ support then you have an easy 4NT RKC. If instead you argue he should still bid 2NT, then 3♣. Now he should bid 3♦, you bid 4♦ (still forcing obv), and he will cuebid a major and you bid 4NT RKC. If he decides to never support diamonds, you can bid 4♦ over whatever he bids and this should set trumps for RKC over his M cuebid again.

 

Something like that.

[gdawg01]

We need to get A LOT of this "simple" stuff sorted out :) Meanwhile, I seem to have missed a rare opportunity to bid 7N directly after 1N, sigh.

[pretender]

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge. You have 22HCP opposite an opening hand. It's your job to find out the cards that you need to see if you should be in a grand slam. There's no point telling your partner about diamonds by bidding 1D if it doesn't help you reach your destination. You need to plan the auction before your first response, and be the captain in this auction.

Sorry, but this is not sound advice. And I think you were serious about 6♣ Q ask.

 

lol.

I was serious about the Q ask in that when I was first taught Gerber years ago, you didn't use it unless the point was to be in NT. To bid Gerber and then be able to get out in a suit seemed contradictory (establish your suit and bid keycard).

 

How was my advice not sound? I basically just advised him to plan the auction before his reflex response. Wasn't that part of the problem? That he ended up in a situation where he couldn't make a naturalish bid that forced the auction? Why work on solving a problem that you're going to create when you should just not create the problem in the first place? To me a forcing club raise is the lesser of evils if you are worried about being naturalish. If you're not, then bidding 2H shouldn't have been a problem either.

[gdawg01]

Jeremy,

That was indeed my quandary at the table : How to make a low-level forcing bid that we both accepted as forcing and then find out more..The point about us not being on the same page is quite valid :) This was a new situation for that, however, as we normally specialize in the "keep bidding on with known misfit until the other gives up" approach!

 

To continue -- after 2H, and pard bids 2N (should he not? Assuming we are on the same page etc.), I agree 3C is forcing. I must confess I still cannot see how we get to 7N from there though!

 

 

Girish

After 2♥ I think opener should show his ♦ support then you have an easy 4NT RKC. If instead you argue he should still bid 2NT, then 3♣. Now he should bid 3♦, you bid 4♦ (still forcing obv), and he will cuebid a major and you bid 4NT RKC. If he decides to never support diamonds, you can bid 4♦ over whatever he bids and this should set trumps for RKC over his M cuebid again.

 

Something like that.

Ah, ok, thanks!

[helene_t]

Sounds like you don't have sufficiently solid agreements for sophisticated slam bidding. You did fine to reach slam at all. I mean, a random partner could easily pass you in a partscore if you build op slowly.

 

The correct way of bidding this hand in sayc is to start with a jump shift, then maybe do some cuebidding, then ask for aces (or keycards if you play rkc but there is no keycard asking in sayc). I wouldn't worry about it. Strong jump shifts should be way down the priority list imho.

[jjbrr]

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge. You have 22HCP opposite an opening hand. It's your job to find out the cards that you need to see if you should be in a grand slam. There's no point telling your partner about diamonds by bidding 1D if it doesn't help you reach your destination. You need to plan the auction before your first response, and be the captain in this auction.

Sorry, but this is not sound advice. And I think you were serious about 6♣ Q ask.

 

lol.

I was serious about the Q ask in that when I was first taught Gerber years ago, you didn't use it unless the point was to be in NT. To bid Gerber and then be able to get out in a suit seemed contradictory (establish your suit and bid keycard).

 

How was my advice not sound? I basically just advised him to plan the auction before his reflex response. Wasn't that part of the problem? That he ended up in a situation where he couldn't make a naturalish bid that forced the auction? Why work on solving a problem that you're going to create when you should just not create the problem in the first place? To me a forcing club raise is the lesser of evils if you are worried about being naturalish. If you're not, then bidding 2H shouldn't have been a problem either.

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge.

 

Bidding anything besides 1♦ that isn't RKC or 7NT will not improve anyone's bridge. I mean we've identified one hand where it literally doesn't matter what we bid as long as it's forcing and our final bid is 7NT, but sometimes it matters and bidding your AKQJxx at the one level is a great start!

[gdawg01]

@pretender :

 

The rationale behind bidding 1D was that since partner had opened, he was not going to pass this. I figured I would let him know about the diamond suit, then figure out what to do when his bid came around to me! With anything else, I would have probably responded with 4N RKC (yea, he might have construed this as support for his second suit but in this case, that would not matter as he would be in 7N :)) and found 7N; it was the 1N that exposed the gaps in agreements / how to force at a low level!

 

G

[pretender]

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge. You have 22HCP opposite an opening hand. It's your job to find out the cards that you need to see if you should be in a grand slam. There's no point telling your partner about diamonds by bidding 1D if it doesn't help you reach your destination. You need to plan the auction before your first response, and be the captain in this auction.

Sorry, but this is not sound advice. And I think you were serious about 6♣ Q ask.

 

lol.

I was serious about the Q ask in that when I was first taught Gerber years ago, you didn't use it unless the point was to be in NT. To bid Gerber and then be able to get out in a suit seemed contradictory (establish your suit and bid keycard).

 

How was my advice not sound? I basically just advised him to plan the auction before his reflex response. Wasn't that part of the problem? That he ended up in a situation where he couldn't make a naturalish bid that forced the auction? Why work on solving a problem that you're going to create when you should just not create the problem in the first place? To me a forcing club raise is the lesser of evils if you are worried about being naturalish. If you're not, then bidding 2H shouldn't have been a problem either.

I think bidding 1D is a reflex action that in general you should avoid if you want to improve your bridge.

 

Bidding anything besides 1♦ that isn't RKC or 7NT will not improve anyone's bridge. I mean we've identified one hand where it literally doesn't matter what we bid as long as it's forcing and our final bid is 7NT, but sometimes it matters and bidding your AKQJxx at the one level is a great start!

I agree. And I would bid 1D in my partnerships. But that's because both you and I are confident in our ways to force in the subsequent auction. Since gdawg had a problem with agreements that he can only discuss after the fact, my suggestion was that it was probably better to think about how the auction might proceed and come up with an alternative. Thinking about how problems might come up and avoiding them is usually better than dealing with them after, although the latter is probably more interesting in general and better for discussion forums.

 

I'm also curious what relevant information you think you can get after a 1D response that you can't get opposite a forcing club raise?

[jjbrr]

So you think the way to better bridge is to do things incorrectly? I respectfully disagree. There is nothing wrong with getting in the routine of doing things correctly, even if it leads to uncertainty in the rest of the auction. How else will he learn how to bid the rest of the auction correctly?

 

Relevant info? Lol. I'm glad your inverted minor agreements are so good!

[pretender]

@pretender :

 

The rationale behind bidding 1D was that since partner had opened, he was not going to pass this. I figured I would let him know about the diamond suit, then figure out what to do when his bid came around to me! With anything else, I would have probably responded with 4N RKC (yea, he might have construed this as support for his second suit but in this case, that would not matter as he would be in 7N :P) and found 7N; it was the 1N that exposed the gaps in agreements / how to force at a low level!

 

G

Let's get back to that auction though, gdawg.

 

According to what you said, if partner had responded 1H you would have probably bid 4N RKC, which might have been construed as RKC for hearts (likely) or clubs? or diamonds?

 

Well what if partner's hand is KJxx KJxx x KQxx? or AKxx JTxx xx KQx?

 

Do you know which key card you're missing? Would you still be in 7NT?

 

That's what I mean by perhaps planning the auction (or at least visualizing dangers) before making your first bid.