4S+6

[mikeh]

I'll disagree with mikeh on this one.

 

A hand with a very good fit and shape like this is not necessarily so unusual. It seems quite useful to be able to distinguish a hand like this (which has sufficient playing strength that you expect to usually make 4♠) from the usual junk that a 4♠ preempt can be (say the same hand with one less spade and one more diamond). In addition, there is no real natural meaning for 3NT here by a passed hand -- what sort of hand wants to contract for game in notrump opposite a third-seat opener that couldn't open in first chair?

 

It seems basically without loss to use 3NT here as a 4♠ bid with mild slam interest opposite a better-than-normal opening. Then opener can ask for shortage, find out about the diamond shortness, and basically blast slam. Looking at the south cards, it's actually quite common for slam to make if partner has diamond shortage and at least one useful card (say the spade ace or heart king or even club queen). This is a fairly common conventional treatment (jump to 3NT over partner's 1M shows a "good 4M bid" allowing partner to look for slam if he likes); it's not some exotic method that deals only with this particular hand.

My post was mainly about the futility of using unusual hands to justify adoption of esoteric single-measure hand evaluation methods.....the OP seemed to be using this hand as a basis for adopting zar points.

 

As for 3N, in my current partnership, we could in fact bid 3N here....it is light on hcp but the extra shape could justify it. And we play 4♣ over it as asking for shortness. However, unless opener simply blasted slam, we wouldn't get there. I would expect opener to find the diamond shortness and then to keycard. However, the shortness will more often be a stiff than a void, and we don't have a method of keycard that allows us to identify a void with 0 keycards.....and I've never heard of such a response structure. So how would you bid it? (I don't think it logical to suggest that N might bid on after keycard and a signoff....he doesn't know that opener lacks the diamond A....if opener held the diamond A, the void might not be much use if we are missing 2 keycards)

[phil_20686]

I dont mind a splinter if that is your agreement as a passed hand. If you play two way drury especially.

 

Otoh, I certainly feel strongly that I might be stealing on this board already. Particularly if I was playing timid opposition. Its hard to beleive my teammates didn't open in third (or possibly first) given quite how many spades we appear to have. The tactical advantage of getting 4S on teh deck on these boards is quite significant. I cannot believe that this is a normal auction. The oppos have too many points and and too many minor suit cards.

[gnasher]

As for 3N, in my current partnership, we could in fact bid 3N here....it is light on hcp but the extra shape could justify it. And we play 4♣ over it as asking for shortness. However, unless opener simply blasted slam, we wouldn't get there. I would expect opener to find the diamond shortness and then to keycard. However, the shortness will more often be a stiff than a void, and we don't have a method of keycard that allows us to identify a void with 0 keycards.....and I've never heard of such a response structure.

 

You mean you've never heard of Inclusion Keycard? After finding out about the diamond shortage, South bids 5♦ to ask for key cards, but treating a diamond void as an ace.

[aguahombre]

You mean you've never heard of Inclusion Keycard? After finding out about the diamond shortage, South bids 5♦ to ask for key cards, but treating a diamond void as an ace.

Could that get awkward if South has the diamond ACE and won't know whether North is showing a different bullet?

[mikeh]

You mean you've never heard of Inclusion Keycard? After finding out about the diamond shortage, South bids 5♦ to ask for key cards, but treating a diamond void as an ace.

No..I live a sheltered life B-)

[ahydra]

If you bid 4S on those two hands you need to learn Jacoby :) Though the first one is a tough call - I'd probably bid 3S (or 4D if feeling frisky). The second is a 2NT bid. The third hand opposite the one in the OP gives opps 24 points - no game admittedly, but 1 off is fine against 130.

 

As for the original pair of hands - well I think as other people have said, you're just unlucky. If anyone would do more it's South with his 5 loser hand - don't underestimate the awesomeness of 5431 shapes - but pass is totally reasonable since who said North has to have a void diamond opposite four small...

 

ahydra

[gwnn]

Could that get awkward if South has the diamond ACE and won't know whether North is showing a different bullet?

if South had the diamond ACE, he wouldn't USE inclusion keycard.

[JLOGIC]

I would bid 4♠ with north hand.

 

Seeing both hands, i could splinter and then show my void over 4 NT for happy ending. But we would then discuss another ATB topic, if pd held something like

 

KQJxx

Qx

Axxx

AK

 

You can and should imo play void showing splinters by a passed hand. You can either use them as 2 tiered (3M+1 is a singleton somewhere, others are void), or simply go through drury with your splinters that have stiffs and allow partner to ask you if he wants, or use 2N as a raise. You have an incredible amount of space/raises and a limited hand, so this should be simple to do, and a priority.

[MrAce]

You can and should imo play void showing splinters by a passed hand. You can either use them as 2 tiered (3M+1 is a singleton somewhere, others are void), or simply go through drury with your splinters that have stiffs and allow partner to ask you if he wants, or use 2N as a raise. You have an incredible amount of space/raises and a limited hand, so this should be simple to do, and a priority.

 

I agree of course, and in fact what u said should be in "must" list of all adv+ players imo. That said, i have to confess I dont have this with Aaron due to laziness.

 

Back to this "assign the blame" topic. If you look at the replies it first started with ZAR points, LTC formulas and then splinters with 3 hcp and 6-5 hand, and i tried to tell even after they find a xxxx suit vs their shortness and pd asks keycards, with standart methods, they will need to show the void in order to reach slam and that may not be always happy ending in a different hand opener may hold. And then Mikeh is told that it is not uncommon when we have a xxxx suit 17 hcp with a giant fit and opponents do not bid when they have at least the same strength we do. And then we are introduced to "inclusion key card" in a tone as if it is the most popular convention in the world and everyone plays or knows it.

 

At this point i lost my already small interest about assigning blame debates. As you said very well, it is one of those hands. I could have more sympathy if what OP asked was " how do we get to this slam" instead of asking us to assign the blame. No offense intended to Andy or other posters. Andy knows or at least i think he does, that i have mad respect to his bridge and himself in general although i havent meet him in real life. I just thought the topic went off its rail by the way they choosed to aproach this ATB topic.

 

After reading every and each of posters, i still think with std methods, i cant assign blame to North or South.

 

As ironic as it may sound, eventhough i thought it was unnecesarry to bring up in an ATB topic, inclusion keycard was one of my gains. I didnt know it, i havent heard of it before, and i loved the idea. Second thing was your suggestion about the unlimited space and tools that i can use by a passed hand to contrast my singleton and void hands, perhaps more. Thanks and i mean it.

[VM1973]

First of all, the hand was annoying because the slam is cold. I even had an extra trump at the end. And no, I don't buy the "I'm sorry there's nothing you could have done. Don't worry, you'll have company..." line of thinking. Nor did ZPs solve my problem as I said ... even assuming partner has 25 ZPs you don't automatically come up with the magic number for a slam.

 

I've decided, after some thought, that it was my fault. I held an Ace more than an opening hand. For those who doubt that or suppose that it's because I am calculating using ZPs I should point out that:

 

♠KQJ97

♥A

♦8654

♣AK5 = 17 HCPs + 9 length points = 26 (Rule of 20 to open... 6 points better). So, as I said, I have more than an ace more than an opening hand.

 

I've decided the best treatment is likely to be what was mentioned elsewhere recently... the reverse cuebidding where instead of bidding the suits you control you bid the cheapest suit you DON'T control. So a 5♦ bid saying, "I'm thinking about slam, but I don't control diamonds," would be the foreward going action likeliest to lead to the slam as North has that suit covered... in spades (literally and figuratively).

[gwnn]

VM it doesn't work that way. Just because you have an ace more than an opening bid, it doesn't make it your fault*. Opposite most 4♠ raises, you don't make slam, so your pass was percentage.

 

You need to accept that sometimes in bridge both sides make the percentage call and end up in the wrong contract. This will happen especially when both sides are on the top or on the bottom of their respective ranges.

 

*are you suggesting that all hands that are an ace over a minimum opening should bid over 1♠-p-4♠? That is very far from the truth.

Edited August 31, 2011 by gwnn

[gnasher]

I got the idea of Inclusion Keycard from Paul Lamford (who is a frequent participant in the Laws forums). The total number of Google hits for "Inclusion Keycard", "Inclusion Key Card" and "Inclusion Blackwood" is 6 on the web and 1 on rec.games.bridge, so perhaps Mike and MrAce can be excused their ignorance. :)

[mikeh]

I got the idea of Inclusion Keycard from Paul Lamford (who is a frequent participant in the Laws forums). The total number of Google hits for "Inclusion Keycard", "Inclusion Key Card" and "Inclusion Blackwood" is 6 on the web and 1 on rec.games.bridge, so perhaps Mike and MrAce can be excused their ignorance. :)

And at least one of the hits was to a post by Andy on July 18th, so it seems partially self-referential B-)

 

Maybe 10 years from now, when players muse over who invented this ubiquitous and invaluable convention, and when, those of us who recall this thread will be able to smugly announce that we used it as early as the summer of 2011!

[MrAce]

I got the idea of Inclusion Keycard from Paul Lamford (who is a frequent participant in the Laws forums). The total number of Google hits for "Inclusion Keycard", "Inclusion Key Card" and "Inclusion Blackwood" is 6 on the web and 1 on rec.games.bridge, so perhaps Mike and MrAce can be excused their ignorance. :)

 

 

Haha, very true, indeed i googled it and still it was not easy to get a hold of it. :)

[xxhong]

One interesting point is that even without HK, it's a decent slam. So you should ask what do you bid with Txxxxx xxxxx - xx over partner's 3rd seat 1S. Most methods deal with HCP oriented evaluations, not shape oriented evaluations.

[hv=lin=pn|VM1973,scarrosc,avci_mem,ATALIVA|st||md|2S79JQKHAD4568C5KA,SAH459JD27TQC68JQ,S34568TH2378KDC79,|rh||ah|Board 40|sv|o|mb|p|mb|p|mb|p|mb|1S|mb|p|mb|4S|mb|p|mb|p|mb|p|pg||pc|CQ|pc|C7|pc|C2|pc|CA|pg||pc|HA|pc|H4|pc|H2|pc|H6|pg||pc|SK|pc|SA|pc|S3|pc|S2|pg||pc|CJ|pc|C9|pc|C3|pc|CK|pg||pc|D4|pc|D2|pc|S4|pc|D3|pg||pc|HK|pc|HT|pc|C5|pc|H5|pg||pc|H3|pc|HQ|pc|S7|pc|H9|pg||pc|D5|pc|D7|pc|S5|pc|D9|pg||pc|H7|pc|C4|mc|12|]400|300[/hv]

 

Assess blame for the failure to reach 6.

[VM1973]

VM it doesn't work that way. Just because you have an ace more than an opening bid, it doesn't make it your fault*. Opposite most 4♠ raises, you don't make slam, so your pass was percentage.

 

You need to accept that sometimes in bridge both sides make the percentage call and end up in the wrong contract. This will happen especially when both sides are on the top or on the bottom of their respective ranges.

 

*are you suggesting that all hands that are an ace over a minimum opening should bid over 1♠-p-4♠? That is very far from the truth.

You just can't leave the party in peace, can you?

 

The question is not whether I make slam opposite most 4♠ calls, the question is if I am safe at the 5 level opposite most 4♠ calls and the answer, I believe, is yes. That answer means, to me, that I owe it to myself and to my partner to make a forward going, exploratory bid. You will note that I didn't say, "I have an ace more than I promised, so I must bid 6."

 

I will note, however, that if my partner had held:

♠Axxxx

♥xxxxx

♦-

♣xxx

 

then I think that hand has reasonable play for 13 tricks opposite mine.

[gwnn]

The question is indeed whether you can make slam often enough opposite 4♠ bids to justify looking for slam. Of course if you don't have 5-level safety, you shouldn't look for slam at all. However, 5-level safety is not a sufficient condition to be looking for slam. My criterion is good, provided you have a suitably defined notion of "most". For example, if you have a hand that makes:

5♠ 80% of the time (we assume 4♠ makes always, which is not quite true)

6♠ 10% of the time (we assume we accurately find slam all those hands, which is not quite true)

In this case we would have 5-level safety, but we shouldn't make a slam try. You win 11 imps 10% of the time but lose 10 imps 20% of the time.

 

I don't understand this comment on "can't leave the party in peace". It sounds like you think everyone had a nice time here and I came here and ruined it for you. I think if you think this is what is going on, you are wrong. You started a thread, there were numerous nice and helpful replies, and then you came back and told us that after you thought it over, you think you bear the blame. You didn't say "after reading your nice replies and thinking it over", or "thank you", or anything. You said that you don't buy into this "no blame" train of thought, but if you'd read some of the ATB threads, there are almost none that get to this particular conclusion. There are usually a lot of blame flying by, sometimes getting to the point of far exceeding 100%, e.g. 200%N, 100%S. So I think you should note that this is a rare occurrence here and people are usually very very happy to throw around blame even if perhaps there is none to be assigned.

[gwnn]

VM1973, I know you didn't directly say that every hand that has an ace above minimum must make a slam try over 1♠-p-4♠, but it sure sounded like a very important factor in your reasoning. I am sure you wouldn't make a slam try with all those hands, but please, if you write a post that looks like a reasoning, and gives only one reason why your pass is wrong, please don't blame me for assuming (slightly presumptuously) that that reason is your only reason.

[xxhong]

I actually think 3H as a fit showing jump is probably the closest bid to show the nature of this hand. If partner bids 4C, you can bid 4D and later 5D.

[hv=lin=pn|VM1973,scarrosc,avci_mem,ATALIVA|st||md|2S79JQKHAD4568C5KA,SAH459JD27TQC68JQ,S34568TH2378KDC79,|rh||ah|Board 40|sv|o|mb|p|mb|p|mb|p|mb|1S|mb|p|mb|4S|mb|p|mb|p|mb|p|pg||pc|CQ|pc|C7|pc|C2|pc|CA|pg||pc|HA|pc|H4|pc|H2|pc|H6|pg||pc|SK|pc|SA|pc|S3|pc|S2|pg||pc|CJ|pc|C9|pc|C3|pc|CK|pg||pc|D4|pc|D2|pc|S4|pc|D3|pg||pc|HK|pc|HT|pc|C5|pc|H5|pg||pc|H3|pc|HQ|pc|S7|pc|H9|pg||pc|D5|pc|D7|pc|S5|pc|D9|pg||pc|H7|pc|C4|mc|12|]400|300[/hv]

 

Assess blame for the failure to reach 6.

[VM1973]

VM1973, I know you didn't directly say that every hand that has an ace above minimum must make a slam try over 1♠-p-4♠, but it sure sounded like a very important factor in your reasoning. I am sure you wouldn't make a slam try with all those hands, but please, if you write a post that looks like a reasoning, and gives only one reason why your pass is wrong, please don't blame me for assuming (slightly presumptuously) that that reason is your only reason.

Well, you know, at one time I was playing with a very good partner (life master several times over) and I had an auction that went like this:

...................Me

1♥-DBL-Pass-1♠

2♥-Pass-Pass-Pass

 

Now it turns out that 2 hearts wasn't a great place for us. I didn't think it was my fault - after all, I had 5 spades and 6 points so I was, I thought, very minimum and I also felt that I had showed my hand with my first bid. However, my partner told me that I should have bid again because my first bid didn't show any points at all - zero. He said, and I remember this very clearly, "Anytime you have an ace more than you promised, you should take another call." Now maybe he was wrong or maybe it was a generalization that doesn't apply in all situations, but I will tell you that as a rule of thumb I have yet to see it go wrong.

[gwnn]

I would always bid 2♠ there with 5 spades and any excuse (a queen or a singleton, anything). The two situations aren't similar at all. Defending 2♥ is bad bad. It almost always pays to bid 2♠ over 2♥ and the same goes for bidding 4♠ over 4♥ (of course, this means that the 2♥ or 4♥ bids are made by normal, earnest people, trying to play there).

 

For the same reason takeout doubler should bid 2♠ over 2♥ on any hand with 4 spades (unless he is strong enough for 3♠ or 4♠). Defending 2♥ is a big no-no.

[mikeh]

As gwnn pointed out, the situation which provoked your partner to offer a 'rule' isn't at all analgous to the situation of the OP.

 

The issues surrounding competing for a partscore are different from issues surrounding slam bidding in uncontested auctions, and rules that assist in one area may have no utility in the other.

 

To turn to your proposition that opener, on the OP, has an Ace (or more) extra and thus should move: I think there is an undetected assumption underlying your argument....which is that when partner bid 4♠ he was promising that you would likely make 4♠ if you held a reasonable minimum.

 

Now, with his hand, that would be a fair assumption for him to make, altho it is trivial to construct good opening hands on which 4♠ fails.

 

But the point is that 4♠ doesn't promise or even suggest that your side will make 4♠. Of course there is hope that it will, and expectation that it will often make, but the 4♠ call is not only a bid of game but also, and importantly, an attempt to preempt the auction.

 

Thus holding an Ace or even a little more doesn't justify going to the 5-level. Partner may well and often will be bidding in the hope that you will buy the contract for down 1 or 2 when they have a game available.....your possession of extra values simply makes his decision even better. Imagine how you and he would feel if, just when you hold enough that they can't make anything and you make 4♠, you drive to 5♠ down 1 ;)

 

I fear you have fallen into the very common trap of analyzing your bidding decisions based on knowledge of the actual hands.

 

And please don't take offence at this, but the fact that you think that a 'life master several times over' is a 'very good player' says more about your inexperience than it does about the skill level of your partner. Becoming a life master, several times over, is not exactly a challenge in today's ACBL. Now, the player in question may in fact be a very good player, but my experience suggests that there is little correlation between the number of masterpoints and bridge ability, at least in the range of say 500-1500 mps. The club where I play has many players in that range, and not one of them is 'very good' (I don't think any of them read this forum B-) )

 

I find it ironic that you seem to accept the advice of this life master yet refuse to accept advice from players who are (I suspect) at least as far advanced compared to him or her as he or she is to you.

[VM1973]

As gwnn pointed out, the situation which provoked your partner to offer a 'rule' isn't at all analgous to the situation of the OP.

 

The issues surrounding competing for a partscore are different from issues surrounding slam bidding in uncontested auctions, and rules that assist in one area may have no utility in the other.

 

To turn to your proposition that opener, on the OP, has an Ace (or more) extra and thus should move: I think there is an undetected assumption underlying your argument....which is that when partner bid 4♠ he was promising that you would likely make 4♠ if you held a reasonable minimum.

 

Now, with his hand, that would be a fair assumption for him to make, altho it is trivial to construct good opening hands on which 4♠ fails.

 

But the point is that 4♠ doesn't promise or even suggest that your side will make 4♠. Of course there is hope that it will, and expectation that it will often make, but the 4♠ call is not only a bid of game but also, and importantly, an attempt to preempt the auction.

 

Thus holding an Ace or even a little more doesn't justify going to the 5-level. Partner may well and often will be bidding in the hope that you will buy the contract for down 1 or 2 when they have a game available.....your possession of extra values simply makes his decision even better. Imagine how you and he would feel if, just when you hold enough that they can't make anything and you make 4♠, you drive to 5♠ down 1 ;)

 

I fear you have fallen into the very common trap of analyzing your bidding decisions based on knowledge of the actual hands.

 

And please don't take offence at this, but the fact that you think that a 'life master several times over' is a 'very good player' says more about your inexperience than it does about the skill level of your partner. Becoming a life master, several times over, is not exactly a challenge in today's ACBL. Now, the player in question may in fact be a very good player, but my experience suggests that there is little correlation between the number of masterpoints and bridge ability, at least in the range of say 500-1500 mps. The club where I play has many players in that range, and not one of them is 'very good' (I don't think any of them read this forum B-) )

 

I find it ironic that you seem to accept the advice of this life master yet refuse to accept advice from players who are (I suspect) at least as far advanced compared to him or her as he or she is to you.

Well, I accepted his advice at the time because I was young and didn't know much and I just sucked up information like a sponge. The reason why I still accept it because it's never been proved wrong.

 

Now as for why I don't fawn all over the big name people here as you both seem to do is because I make a distinction between the opinion of an expert and expert opinion.

 

Expert opinion is something you pay for and it's not something that is offered off the cuff for free in an Internet forum. Even the best experts could make an off the cuff statement that later turns out to be wrong, ill-considered or gets retracted.

 

That just goes to show you that you get what you pay for.

 

Now as for the hand in question, it's clear that slam was possible and that I missed it. Surely I cannot expect my partner on the power of a mere king and some shape to contract for slam. As a matter of fact, my hand had substantial extras. No matter how you calculate it (LTC, MLTC, ZPs, Bergen's Rule of 20, BUM RAP +531) I had at least two kings better than an opening bid. Now kings are usually worth a trick and aces are usually worth more than a trick but at the table I decided that I didn't have enough because I assumed that my partner couldn't have the values for an opening bid (having passed initially) and now that I look at his hand and run some calculations it's clear that I was wrong. It *is* possible for a passed hand to reevaluate to an opening bid.

[mikeh]

Now as for why I don't fawn all over the big name people here as you both seem to do is because I make a distinction between the opinion of an expert and expert opinion.

 

Expert opinion is something you pay for and it's not something that is offered off the cuff for free in an Internet forum. Even the best experts could make an off the cuff statement that later turns out to be wrong, ill-considered or gets retracted.

 

That just goes to show you that you get what you pay for.

 

LOL

[han]

Agree with mikeh, that was a curious post.