Assess the blame (If Any)

[joshs]

All white, Imps

 

N:AJxx AQJ KQJT Ax

 

S:T8xxx xx A KT9xx

 

 

Auction:

 

East Opens 1H (Precision)

South Passes

West bids 1N (Semi-forcing)

North x's

 

East Bids 2H

South Bids 3S

West Passes

North bids 4H

 

East passes (alerted as x would ask for another lead)

South bids 5C

West passes

North bids 5S

 

East passes

South bids 6S

West passes

North passes

 

East x's

All pass

Down 1...

[Bbradley62]

Assuming West leads a H, play should go:

A♥

A♦

A♠

K♦, pitching ♥

out a spade.

 

Makes 6 unless either opp holds KQx or KQxx of ♠. That's a good enough contract that there's no blame if it happens to go down.

[MarkDean]

Assuming West leads a H, play should go:

A♥

A♦

A♠

K♦, pitching ♥

out a spade.

 

Makes 6 unless either opp holds KQx or KQxx of ♠. That's a good enough contract that there's no blame if it happens to go down.

When we have 29 HCP and RHO opened, it seems pretty likely he has KQ(xx) of trumps.

[gszeszycki]

I am unsure why N decided to bid 4h instead of 4n -----after hearing p has one key card and the opening bidder behind the powerhouse hand (and there being no huge benefit to being in a roughly 5050 slam and an impending heart lead through aqj) a reasonable course of action would be to sign off in 5s. Cue bidding is normally reserved for hands that lack controls everywhere N hand is well strong enough to take control.

 

I assign 100% blame to N for failing to use bidding tools properly.

[jdonn]

I would always overcall 1♠ as south.

5♣ is definitely an overbid.

6♠ is a huge overbid!

North did well to not even so much as cuebid over 5♣.

Full blame to south, to the extent there is blame depending how good you judge 6♠ to be after RHO opens.

[awm]

It may depend a bit on the partnership standards for a one-level overcall at these colors.

 

I'd say that the blame goes mostly to north though. Even trying for slam opposite a hand which couldn't overcall 1♠ at NV is rather pushy, and I'd be tempted to simply bid 4♠ over 3♠. If north is going to make a try, he basically needs south to hold two keycards (opposite ♠Q+♦A, there's a sure spade loser and it's hard to imagine escaping a round-suit loser; ♠Q+♦A+♣K seems impossible given the opening and the non-overcall). With this in mind, if north is going to try it seems reasonable to bid keycard right away.

 

From the south viewpoint, north's non-cuebid over 5♣ might imply that north is looking for trump quality; it's hard to imagine a slam try on this auction without control of either red suit so perhaps the sequence is saying "I don't want you to bid six on the basis of holding/lacking a particular red suit control, I'm worried about something else." But this is a rather subtle inference and south has a very maximum hand for a non-overcall, so I can see it being difficult to stop in 5♠.

[aguahombre]

Or, more simply put --by a simple person --- you might not agree with South's failure to overcall, but it should have kept you out of slam.

[kfay]

When I hold no trump honors and xx in the opponent's suit I tend to not go bananas.

[the hog]

I would always overcall 1♠ as south.

5♣ is definitely an overbid.

6♠ is a huge overbid!

North did well to not even so much as cuebid over 5♣.

Full blame to south, to the extent there is blame depending how good you judge 6♠ to be after RHO opens.

I agree with all of these comments.

[hanp]

Agree with Josh and PCLAYTON.

[gnasher]

Is there any hand with five spades that is not an overcall but is worth 3♠?

[pooltuna]

Assuming NS play Michael's, then S for not bidding 2♥ thereby denying that he holds that hand.

[awm]

I would always overcall 1♠ as south.

5♣ is definitely an overbid.

6♠ is a huge overbid!

North did well to not even so much as cuebid over 5♣.

Full blame to south, to the extent there is blame depending how good you judge 6♠ to be after RHO opens.

See I don't really get this.

 

Obviously the south hand is amazingly good given the non-overcall. In fact you would even overcall on this hand! How is it an overbid for south, who surely has the best possible hand given that he did not overcall, to cooperate with north's slam try?

[jdonn]

I would always overcall 1♠ as south.

5♣ is definitely an overbid.

6♠ is a huge overbid!

North did well to not even so much as cuebid over 5♣.

Full blame to south, to the extent there is blame depending how good you judge 6♠ to be after RHO opens.

See I don't really get this.

 

Obviously the south hand is amazingly good given the non-overcall. In fact you would even overcall on this hand! How is it an overbid for south, who surely has the best possible hand given that he did not overcall, to cooperate with north's slam try?

His hand is the best possible on strength. But it has two little hearts which is obviously awful. And it has no trump honors. It's not about strength, 3♠ already has a range that isn't particularly wide.

 

The one thing I don't get is the suggestions that north should bid keycard if he is going to try for slam. Why would he want to prevent himself from being able to stop in 4? That's crazy.

[awm]

It seems to me that north could easily have a hand like:

 

♠AKQx ♥Axx ♦Qxx ♣AQx

 

North has a fairly obvious slam try over 3♠. He doesn't want to bid keycard because slam could be cold opposite zero keycards (Jxxxx x KJTx Kxx) or have no play opposite one keycard (Jxxxxx x Axx Jxx). Over the 5♣ cue, 5♥ would sound like a demand for a slam bid if partner has a diamond control (but slam is poor opposite ♠xxxxxx ♥xx ♦Ax ♣Kxx to give one example). The actual sequence may show one (but only one) heart control combined with a diamond problem, needing either second-round control of both suits or a potential source of tricks in a minor along with some sort of diamond control.

 

The reason to bid keycard with the north hand is that the primary concern is south's trump quality. Trump quality is usually hard to determine via a cuebidding sequence. South's hand is already pretty narrowly limited (not good enough to overcall, but good enough to jump to 3♠) so bidding 4♥ purely to allow partner to sign off in 4♠ if he "doesn't like his hand" seems a bit far-fetched. It's very likely going to lead to a cuebidding sequence rather than an RKC sequence, which is certainly helpful opposite some hands (like my example hand) and not so helpful opposite the real hand. In fact I would argue that the sequence (no overcall, but jump to 3♠) virtually shows poor trumps which is a good reason for north to simply sign off in four spades (and justifies south bidding on over 4♥ in case north has a hand like the one above).

 

I can accept that some people don't like south's heart doubleton, but if south had ♠xxxxx ♥x ♦Ax ♣KJxxx, slam is still just as bad as on the actual pair of hands.

[joshs]

Well, I was south here, as some of you know. I remained unconvinced by the arguments here. Adam has argued my point of view, which is that having limited my hand by not overcalling 1S, and then bidding only 3S on this 7 loser hand after partner makes the takeout x, I have pretty much the best possible hand. My 2 small hearts was not a factor in whether or not this was a good slam. It was the lack of trump honors....Had partner had AKxx of trumps and Axx of hearts slam would be great.

 

From my point of view, there are 2 possible hands that can pass 1H and then jump to 3S.

 

1. A distributional hand, with a bad suit (the partnership style is moderately aggressive 1 level overcalls with decent suits, but not hyper-agressive just based on shape. Our michaels and 2N overcalls are sound. If partner has a weak NT, and I pass I can enter the auction later and play 2S, but if I bid 1S then partner will often cue bid me to the 3 level. In any case, both passing and bidding can gain, and I hardly think choosing to not make a marginal overcall can be used to blame a partnership for getting too high...

 

2. a 4 card suit and INV values, say 10ish or so. Now if I had this, the 1H opener was not just light and distributional, but it was a total and complete psych.

 

I think the question here is

a. how likely is case 2

b. If I have Q 5'th or 6'th how good is slam

c. how likely is that

d. can you bid in a way to get to slam when its pretty good, and not when its bad....

 

Now if you think a is a reasonable possibility, I have no problems with the slam try, but if its not, well I think you need to stick to bidding slams when all the partnership points are working after the opps open the hand....But I have lots of sympathy, the brain is just not used to holding that strong a hand, and hearing partner jump, and automatically work out what is going on....

[JLOGIC]

You got to a great slam. I don't understand this thread.

 

Assuming RHO has KQ of spades and 6-7 hearts, what are the odds he has KQ tight rather than KQx? Seems extremely high!

[cherdanno]

Assuming RHO has KQ of spades and 6-7 hearts, what are the odds he has KQ tight rather than KQx?

6 hearts: 45.8%

7 hearts: 55%

[JLOGIC]

Assuming RHO has KQ of spades and 6-7 hearts, what are the odds he has KQ tight rather than KQx?

6 hearts: 45.8%

7 hearts: 55%

blah FU. Fine it wasn't a great slam, but it wasn't a terrible slam. I mean are we really to the point where if this slam had been 52 % we would be like well bid and if it's 48 % we do an ATB?

 

Whenever there is a hand where slam is between 45-55 I think we should never be doing an ATB whether you bid it or not. I would not be unhappy at all to be in this slam, until cherdano told me the exact numbers, then I'd be mildly upset.

 

Your numbers are really surprising to me though for the RHO having 7 heart number, I would have thought 2 singletons with LHO is super unlikely. Your 6 heart number is not that surprising.

 

Just seems like much ado over nothing. Whenever a slam is this close you can construct reasonable auctions to bid it and not bid it. The reasonable auctions to bid it probably will take some slightly aggressive views, the ones to miss it will probably take some slightly conservative views. We can argue over which are better but at the end of the day I would not lose sleep over decisions that led to bidding this slam.

[jdonn]

Well, I was south here, as some of you know. I remained unconvinced by the arguments here. Adam has argued my point of view, which is that having limited my hand by not overcalling 1S, and then bidding only 3S on this 7 loser hand after partner makes the takeout x, I have pretty much the best possible hand. My 2 small hearts was not a factor in whether or not this was a good slam. It was the lack of trump honors....Had partner had AKxx of trumps and Axx of hearts slam would be great.

I think you are mixing up "strongest" with "best". I also stated earlier that xx of hearts was only one of the reasons you shouldn't get excited, the other was lack of trump honors!

 

I mean partner made one slam try below game, you used that to force all the way to slam with T8xxx of trumps, then considered yourself unlucky that partner's trumps weren't good enough?

[joshs]

Well, I was south here, as some of you know. I remained unconvinced by the arguments here. Adam has argued my point of view, which is that having limited my hand by not overcalling 1S, and then bidding only 3S on this 7 loser hand after partner makes the takeout x, I have pretty much the best possible hand. My 2 small hearts was not a factor in whether or not this was a good slam. It was the lack of trump honors....Had partner had AKxx of trumps and Axx of hearts slam would be great.

I think you are mixing up "strongest" with "best". I also stated earlier that xx of hearts was only one of the reasons you shouldn't get excited, the other was lack of trump honors!

 

I mean partner made one slam try below game, you used that to force all the way to slam with T8xxx of trumps, then considered yourself unlucky that partner's trumps weren't good enough?

I am not mixing up anything. Strongest is in the context of the auction (in the context of your bidding, the opps bidding and partner's bidding). Its elastic and changes each turn in the auction.

 

Exactly what hand should I have accepted with??? Also if your answer is exactly 1 hand, I dont accept that. You dont make slam tries so that partner accepts only with his best 0.02% (randomly chosen small number) of hands... So I expect to hear a range of hands...

 

You seem to first think that I should overcall. I think its marginal. I also think that T8xxx x Ax KT9xx is a better hand (at my first turn). If my actual hand was at the cusp for overcalling, then this hand is an overcall.

 

In any case the issues here were not about my 2 small hearts, partner has the heart A or shortness in this auction. Its about tricks, and strong trumps, and I already denied strong trumps...