Should slam be bid?

[BunnyGo]

Standard 2/1 in a team match;

 

http://tinyurl.com/8754rav

 

Edit: I was at the other table, but the bidders asked me to post it.

Edited February 19, 2012 by BunnyGo

[Cyberyeti]

We'd bid this (bear in mind I play a weak no trump)

 

1♦-2♦ (inverted F3♦, not denying 4M)

2N (15+ balanced GF, not sure what this means if you play a strong no trump)-3♠

4N (quant, 18-19 bal)-P or show keycards on the way to 6♦, really close decision 6D could be cold (Ax, KJ10x, AQ9x, Axx) or really poor (can be 2 hearts off the top, although quite often they'll disappear if not led) or 50-50 (missing an A and ♦Q(J)).

 

Effectively I think this is evaluating the E hand with similar info to what you had at the table assuming that 4 diamonds were guaranteed by W in your auction.

[ArtK78]

In the auction that occurred at the table, I think East should take another bid past 3NT. The 3♥ bid clearly indicated slam interest, and, while East is aceless, his hand is suit oriented, with secondary controls in each suit. The fifth diamond is a big card.

 

I don't know exactly what call East should make over 3♥, but I don't think that 3NT is adequate.

[fuburules3]

It seems to me that the hands fit reasonably well and slam is still only about 50%.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

1D - 1S

2NT - ??

 

1D should be 4 cards... maybe 5 cards.

2NT shows 18,19 balanced.

And Responder has 11 hcp w/3 kings:

K x x x

Q x

K 10 8 x x

K x

 

You are on the "cusp" for slam.

 

This is one of those "NT" auctions where I reserve 4C for Gerber.... and now is one of those rare times to use it .

When Opener replies 4NT = 3 Aces, he is bound to have some useful Q and J and/or ♥K to makeup his 18, 19.

 

Bid 6D on that 9 card fit.

[inquiry]

It seems to me that the hands fit reasonably well and slam is still only about 50%.

 

The slam is probably a little higher than that, even if you change the ♥Q to the ♥x. You have a certain spade loser, but east's heart can be throws on the 3rd round of clubs. Not losing a diamond trick when missing 4 to the queen (but having J and T) is somewhat greater than 50%, somewhere around 58 or maybe 59%. There is some handling charges for 4=0 split having to do with the last spade even if you manage to find the ♦Q, so I would reduce the chances a little bit, but still it must be greater than 50%. Science will discover the missing ace and missing queen of trumps, so to bid slam it has to be some kind of value based blast.

 

For the bidding, if we make a couple of assumptions for east.

1. West would not open 1♦ on a three card suit unless he was 4=4=3=2 (44 majors)

2. West will not have 4♠ because he didn't raise 2♠

3. Therefore we have at least a 9 card diamond fit (a so called super fit). This will put you in the slam region (18-19 hcp for partner plus your 11 is a total of 29 to 30. You have at least two more in distributional points (it depends upon how you add distributional points). This gets you to 31 to 32 "points" minimum, and partner could have distributional points as well. The hand is clearly worth a slam try.

4. IF east makes a slam try, west with wonderful fitting qj of spades in partners side suit, and then ace rich (all three) in the other suits would surely accept.

 

So slam should be bid. The way to bid it is based upon style, but I the one thing east can not do is bid 3NT. Some people play 4♦ over 3♥ here as blackwood. That is taking too much control, but if you play that, as east you could try a natural 4NT over 3♥ (if something else was blackwood). Or you could make a cue-bid of 3♠, and then cue=bid 4♣ over 3NT if partner thinks 3♠ was looking for good club stoppers. BTW, if you have minorwood available you probably stop short of slam because you are missing one key card plus the queen of trumps. Zar point counters might ignore this inconvenient truth and bid slam anyway.

 

============ mindless rambling about zar points below ====================

 

After your partner cue bids 3♥ (or shows value since you ahve the queen, it has to be at least the king), is it "safe to" try to blast to slam with a minorwood or kickback keycard check?

 

There is a little trick here for zar point counters only. Try to imagine a hand for your partner with the worse holding for zar points (max queens and jacks). If he had all the missing minor suit honors that you can not see plus the missing king (♠qj, ♥kj ♦qj ♣qj), and held only one ace, that is only 17 hcp, but two aces is (21 hcp). So in fact, your partner must have two aces (minimum) and if you throw all the missing queens and jacks in, he will have only 17 hcp. So this means your partner has two ace and the king of hearts, or three aces at a minimum. Given that he is likely has 4432 (or better still five diamonds), you can begin counting his minimum zar points. 10 distributional+16 (or 18) in aces and kings, plus a minimum seven more if he has the AAK (to get to 18 normal hcp) or a minimum of 6 more if he had three aces. This gives you a minimum zar count for partner of 10+16+7 = 33 with 3 kings, and 34 if he had 3 aces. You have a zar count of 26, plus two fit points in diamonds for the kt, plus superfit points for the 9 card fit, let be conservative and say just two. That is 30 for you plus minimum 33 for partner, which adds up to a minimum of 63. In theory, with zar points, 62 is the number to be in slam range (you could have these 63 and be off two aces, however remember).

 

So if you could check for keycards, you would find out you are off one keycard (must be an ace) plus the queen of "diamonds", but that your partner has a minimum of 34 zar points. Good news, bad news. Good news, you have enough value for slam, bad news missing the diamond queen, unknown news: does partner hold five diamonds and if not, does he have the diamond jack. Oh well, nothing is perfect.

[fuburules3]

The slam is probably a little higher than that, even if you change the ♥Q to the ♥x. You have a certain spade loser, but east's heart can be throws on the 3rd round of clubs. Not losing a diamond trick when missing 4 to the queen (but having J and T) is somewhat greater than 50%, somewhere around 58 or maybe 59%. There is some handling charges for 4=0 split having to do with the last spade even if you manage to find the ♦Q, so I would reduce the chances a little bit, but still it must be greater than 50%.

 

 

 

I agree that it is over 50%. My point was partner has about the best possible hand he could have for this auction and slam still is on picking up the diamonds. If you give partner the Q♦ instead of the Q♣ it has very little chance. I know it's easy to construct hands where it does/doesn't make, but it felt -EV to me. If I held the E hand, I don't think I would have really even considered slam. I'm in the minority here, so maybe I need to be a bit more optimistic with my hand evaluation.

 

Edit: I sort of lost you with the Zar points :unsure:

[JLOGIC]

3N is also sometimes on picking up diamonds

[han]

My auction might start:

 

1D - 1S

2NT - 3C (transfer to diamonds)

3D - 3NT

 

Now I think that west has such an amazingly suitable hand for diamonds that passing would be criminal.

 

I'm thinking that even in your auction west should not pass 3NT. True, west has already shown a little interest in playing in diamonds by bidding 3H, but I don't think that 3H is such a strong message (while a direct 3NT would be), and 3H didn't really tell much anyway.

 

I don't see much to blame in east's auction. ArtK78 claims that the east hand is suit oriented. I don't see it. He also claims that 3H shows slam interest. I definitely disagree with that. He also pointed out that east has no aces. I agree with him there.

[Fluffy]

what is 3♥ over 3♦?

 

if partner will rather bid 3♠ with 3 cards over 3♥ with good hearts, we can conclude that he is 2443 or 2353

 

Over a both shapes we have a good fitting 4252 wth kings. We lack only ♠A ♥AK ♦AQ ♣A, (with ♣Q as a ♥K substitue) asking for 5 of those cards in partner's hand is not too much, and 3Nt doesn't do justice.

 

I would bid 4♣ over 3♥.