Wasted values?

[gnasher]

[hv=pc=n&s=s642haktdj87532ca&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1d(Unbalanced, usually 5)2h4h(Void)p]133|200[/hv]

 

IMPs

1♦ promised five cards unless 4=4=4=1.

4♥ agreed diamonds and showed a void.

4♠ and 5♣ would be cue-bids (up the line); 4NT would be Keycard.

 

What would you do?

Edited July 25, 2011 by gnasher

[qwery_hi]

[hv=pc=n&s=s642haktdj87532ca&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1d(Unbalanced, usually 5)2h4h(Void)p]133|200[/hv]

 

1♦ promised five cards unless 4=4=4=1.

4♦ agreed diamonds and showed a void.

4♠ and 5♣ would be cue-bids; 4NT would be Keycard.

 

What would you do?

 

5C. Slam rates to be better than 50% if partner can make a move over 5C.

[semeai]

5♣ looks good. Partner should have 5+♦, so we have few if any losers there, and partner should have fewer than 5 spades, so we can pitch two from partner's hand and then ruff one or two assuming we have a control in the suit.

 

I'm not strong enough to force to slam, as partner could have wasted middle diamond honors or club honors without a spade control.

[whereagles]

gnasher, can pard have a 4-card spade? That makes a bit of a difference.

[Cyberyeti]

In style do you cue bid after 4♥ with a minimum, or does it show extras ? And what's your cue bidding style ?

 

5♣ has the virtue of denying a spade control (and I'm much happier doing this if playing a 1sts and 2nds cueing style so I'm denying the K too.)

 

Partner can be as good as QJ10x, -, AKQxx, KQJx and you may not be able to make 5 with the spade ruff let alone 6, and need to play in no trumps.

 

I think I'd probably bid 5♣ as blackwood doesn't tell me what I need to know.

[gnasher]

can pard have a 4-card spade?

Partner knows that I could have a four-card spade suit, and he could have made a negative double. If he has four spades, he's chosen not to search for a spade fit. Whether he'd do that depends on his hand.

 

In style do you cue bid after 4♥ with a minimum, or does it show extras ?

4♥ invites me to evaluate my hand opposite a heart void, so I'd cue-bid with a suitable minimum. If partner wanted to force me to cue-bid, he would have done something else.

 

And what's your cue bidding style ?

Up the line, regardless of rank or nature. (I've added that to my original post.)

[whereagles]

If pard is expected not to have 4 spades, our hearts will be good for spade discards. Pard should have a spade control, but I can't bid 4NT because of the 2 keycard response, so I'll temporize with 5♣ hoping pard can take charge now.

 

If I suspect pard can have 4 spades, I'd probably settle for 5♦.

[han]

This is quite a good hand, despite the heart values. 5C seems about right on values, but it makes a spade lead more likely and it makes it hard to investigate a grand.

 

SO I think that 4NT is not unreasonable but I'd go with 5C.

[benlessard]

I play unbalanced D for quite a while now and i would probably make a slam move (still not sure now) but im far from being optimist like the others. The reason is that facing an unb 1d Partner will make much weaker splinter than in reg system. Hes favorite to have have 4S (when you have a void in opp suit and probably a 10 card fit show your void now beacause you wont be able later) and hes going to have only 4D (3046/4045) a fair amount of times.

 

The more important point is stop playing cuebids over a void showing bid. Just soff with wasted values and minimum hands and reply keycards with any worthwhile hands its simply way better. At first you will disagree with this statement but just keep a record of your hands and when you reach a 15-20 hands sample just compare. For me its was a bit of a eye opener just how bad cuebidding is in certain sequences. Im not saying responding keycard work wonders (having a void is ugly etc) but cue bidding is uglier.

 

In this hand for example here a 5C bid basically mean partner if you have a S control i want to be in slam wich is simply a terrible way to handle this hand. Over most void showing bids missing 2 keycards is a real concern.

[Phil]

I'm bidding 4N. If partner flops exactly ♠Kx or ♠KJx (and the honors are off) I am prepared to apologize. 5♣ could be OK, but we will have a hard time bidding the grand when its right after 5♣. I also do not want to focus on our potential spade problem, which 5♣ does.

 

This is quite a good hand really. My 'wasted' heart cards provide pitches for partner's losing spades. Axx void AKxxx xxxxx one time!

[aguahombre]

I also do not want to focus on our potential spade problem, which 5♣ does.

 

This is a classic difference in philosophy. I belong to the old school where we live with the information gleaned by our opponents, and try to help partner.

 

How strong this hand is for slam is greatly dependent on what a 1D opening showed. With my partner, who knows I might have held a 4-4-3-2 weak NT (and would have no reason to change her mind after 3H), her hand will not contain any less than 5 cards in the diamond suit and is highly unlikely to contain 4 spades; my opening bid has become quite suitable for a diamond slam.

[hrothgar]

This is quite a good hand, despite the heart values. 5C seems about right on values, but it makes a spade lead more likely and it makes it hard to investigate a grand.

 

SO I think that 4NT is not unreasonable but I'd go with 5C.

 

Anyone else tempted to cue bid 4♠?

 

This looks like a good hand for a "sting" cue bid

[aguahombre]

Anyone else tempted to cue bid 4♠?

 

This looks like a good hand for a "sting" cue bid

Very tempted. But decided on the stodgy 5C. Is AXX - AKXXX XXXXX too much "card placing"? How about AXX - ATXXXX XXXX?

[Phil]

How about AXX - ATXXXX XXXX?

 

Agua, if you are going to place cards, at least get the suits right :P

[semeai]

4♠, 4NT may be better than 5♣ in practice. It feels wrong to have either of these be "the answer" in theory, i.e. on the forums, for some reason, with it seeming much more objectionable if 4♠ is "the answer." Probably I should just get over that feeling.

 

Has Challenge the Champs or any other bidding competition ever included points for "never showing your spade weakness" or similar well-defined concepts?

 

I'd love to see something like "5♦ 10; 6♦ showing club weakness 8; 6♦ without showing spade weakness 4; 6♦ showing spade weakness 1" as the scoring on this hand, assuming we're off the top two spades and partner only has three of them.

[jschafer]

I'm bidding 5♦, if that means I'm a chicken so be it.

[nige1]

[hv=pc=n&s=s642haktdj87532ca&d=s&v=b&b=7&a=1d(Unbalanced, usually 5)2h4h(Void)p]133|250| gnasher writes "IMPs. 1♦ promised five cards unless 4=4=4=1. 4♦ agreed diamonds and showed a void. 4♠ and 5♣ would be cue-bids (up the line); 4NT would be Keycard."

 

IMO 5♣ = 10, 6♦ = 9, 4N = 8, 4♠ = 6, 5♦ = 5.

In spite of your poor trumps and massive duplication, you still have a bit in hand.

 

BTW, gnasher, for the last quiz you gave us, you did not reveal partner's hand or what would have worked, in practice.

Philosophers like matmat may argue that when assessing the quality of a bid, what works is not necessarily correct (and vice versa) but we result-merchants still relish our pound of flesh.[/hv]

[MrAce]

Andy i think there is a typo in the OP explenations of 4♦ or the 4♥ bid in bidding diagram.

 

Anyway, i am with Schafer on this one and i bid 5 ♦, my reasons are;

 

- You said pd is asking us to evaluate our hand vs ♥ void, and my 1♦ opener dropped to 5 hcp with a stiff Ace.

 

- You say if all he needed was a cue he had other way to do it.

 

- You say 1♦ showed 5+ ♦ unless 4441 shapes, so pd knows we cant be 4432 and might have stretched himself.

 

- We already wrong sided this. Perhaps wrong sided even for 5♦. Idk.

 

- All i know is there are hands that slam is cold, and there are hands it has no play. I will give priority to game since i have doubts. I just could not find a way to learn if we are lack of keycards without a RKCB, and if i RKCB i would not know how many ♠ we lose.

[aguahombre]

Agua, if you are going to place cards, at least get the suits right :P

I don't understand. Don't we usually show them in the normal order? Ok, so the second one must have the diamond queen because of 13 cards.

[gnasher]

Andy i think there is a typo in the OP explenations of 4♦ or the 4♥ bid in bidding diagram.

Thanks - corrected it now.

[Cyberyeti]

Anyway, i am with Schafer on this one and i bid 5 ♦, my reasons are;

 

- You said pd is asking us to evaluate our hand vs ♥ void, and my 1♦ opener dropped to 5 hcp with a stiff Ace.

 

- You say if all he needed was a cue he had other way to do it.

 

- You say 1♦ showed 5+ ♦ unless 4441 shapes, so pd knows we cant be 4432 and might have stretched himself.

 

- We already wrong sided this. Perhaps wrong sided even for 5♦. Idk.

 

- All i know is there are hands that slam is cold, and there are hands it has no play. I will give priority to game since i have doubts. I just could not find a way to learn if we are lack of keycards without a RKCB, and if i RKCB i would not know how many ♠ we lose.

There is a very good chance that your ♥AK are not waste paper. If you cue 5♣, partner knows the spades are open, if he has the ace, your hearts are probably working. You need as little as Axx, void, Axxxx, xxxxx to make the slam good even if trumps don't split, KQxx, void, AKxx, xxxxx is fine too. If partner bids 6 it's probably with the odds, I'm more worried about going off in 5. The only advantage to 5♦ is not telegraphing the spade lead.

 

Partner is unlikely to have 5 spades as he might have bid them, so spade losers figure to go west on the hearts as long as he has control, if 3♠/4♣ are fit jumps over 2♥, the odds of partner having 5 diamonds (or 5 bad clubs insufficient for a FJ) improves and both of these are good news.

[mikeh]

Lump me in with the 5♣ contingent.

 

The hand is way too strong to consider 5♦, even tho we may already be doomed to a minus score. Doesn't that say something about this game of ours....consider partner with Kxx void AKQxx KQJxx and we rate to go down on a spade lead. Then place him with Axx void AKxxx xxxxx and we rate to make 13 tricks....and here we are, guessing :rolleyes:

 

Since we are forced to 5♦ anyway and really need little more than Axx in spades to make slam, we have to make a move and we have to tell partner that our problem is in spades.

 

Yes, by doing so, we virtually ensure they make the best lead, but it's not like 4N is a panacea. What if partner bids 5♠ and gets doubled? And maybe West has a natural lead anyway.

 

Maybe we can't reach grand after 5♣, but were we ever reaching it with confidence after 4N, when partner could have Axxx void AKxxx Kxxx?

 

Meanwhile, by bidding 5♣ we avoid slam when partner has no spade control....and to me that is more important than worrying about whether we should bid 7. Btw, I worry about the Axxx in spades because the OP announced that partner might choose to suppress spades....and to me that would imply spades with no internal texture....probably with chumky clubs. After all Axxx void AQxxx KQJxx wants to play in diamonds, not spades, opposite Kxxx Axx KJxxx x.

 

 

Otoh, since partner rates to hold no more than 3 spades, I think the 'wasted values' thread name was a good piece of misdirection :D This hand is, so long as partner owns a spade control, extremely good, with zero wastage that I can see.

[jmcw]

Can partner really have a hand that is wide open in ♣?, as some have suggested. If you say yes, then I would like to know why he isn't just as likely to be wide open in ♠?. I say responder must have 2nd round control of ♣(with length) for his 4♥ bid to make sense. Similarly, responder needs to have a control in ♠ for slam to have a legitimate chance. In this scenerio, I expect partner's ♣ length to provide a parking place for my losing ♠'s, failing that the AK♥ might let me shake his losing ♠.

 

Practically, I would commit this hand to slam, I just don't see an intelligent way to stop short. I'm bidding 4NT and going to grand if he shows 3 keys.

[Phil]

I don't understand. Don't we usually show them in the normal order? Ok, so the second one must have the diamond queen because of 13 cards.

 

I have never held a trump fit of:

 

ATxxxx

 

across from

 

J8xxxx

[cherdano]

I am more pessimistic than others. I think partner is quite likely to have 4 diamonds only - it is much more likely than 5-card support a priori, and with a void in preemptor's suit and 4-card support for the unbalanced diamond I think he should splinter often. Also, any spade finesse we may need is likely to be off. 5♣ seems ok but I would rather bid 5♦ than commit to slam.