Spot the world class bidder....

[inquiry]

The bidding goes...

 

West North East South

 

 -     Pass  Pass  1♦

 Pass  1♥    1♠    2♠

 Dbl   2NT   Pass  5♥

 

You are to answer what your partner's 5♥ bid means.

 

Bonus, based upon your answer, you may want to say what you bid with the following hand.

 

[hv=s=skxhkq86dj7xxctxx]133|100|[/hv]

[Flame]

Since 3H is clearly GF and asking partner to cue bid, i see no point in playing 5h as a control asking of any suit. It could be asking or showing good hearts, but i voted for the asking to bid on a maximum hand. Anyway i would never bid 5H because for me the bridge table is not the place to test your partner, if we didnt discuss a bid i dont make it.

[EricK]

Can we have some system information?

 

eg. Do we know what the 2♠ bid showed?

 

Eric

[flytoox]

My personal opinion, world class player will not make such bid:) He will do it slowly to let pd to know what is goign on, he will not let pd to make a headache guess.

[the hog]

A

Axxx

AKxxxx

Ax

[Free]

This is something I call mini-Josephine: it asks partner to bid small slam with 2 tophonours and grand slam with 3 top honours. I don't see any other sensible meaning.

 

Since it has a specific meaning, I'll just bid 6♥...

[flytoox]

A

Axxx

AKxxxx

Ax

Ron, with this hand, Pd would bid 3S, showing shape and good H raise. 2S should show more like a balance raise, like 5422.

 

Anyway, my point is that try not to test pd whenever possible. Here pd jump from 2N to 5H, that takes so much space which he could use to explore the slam possiblity. That is why I say a world class pd shoudl not use such bid.

[inquiry]

Can we have some system information?

 

eg. Do we know what the 2♠ bid showed?

 

Eric

We are kibitzing.. the pair is playing a 2/1 GF... as kibitzers we can not ask what 2♠ bid means. The question is what do you think a world class bidder would mean if they bid this way. To fly, all four players as the table where this bid occurred had gold stars....but then, not all gold stars are truly world class i guess.

 

ben

[pclayton]

I'm not comfortable labeling these problems as "find the world-class call / play".

 

This seems to indicate (to me anyway) that world-class players would have a preponderous of support for a certain action. My experience that this is not the case; I think a US world class player may have an opinion about this call, different than a Pole, different still from anItalian.

 

I think by definition here, the posters aren't in any position to determine what a world class play or bid is. We can call it a 'well-reasoned' bid or even an 'expert' bid. But to characterize something as 'world class' is beyond our qualifications. If Zia, Michael, Jeff, Eric, Bob and Norby checked into our forums, then we could get some validations on what is 'world-class'.

 

Having said that, my years of reading the Bridge World tell me that 5♥ asks for trump control. Pard has a long strong diamond suit and a few hearts, but the hand was unsuitable for a 2♣ opening. void, Jxxx, AKQxxxx, AK sounds about right. I suppose its close between 6♦ and 6♥, since I'm worried about a ruff at T1.

[whereagles]

There is no "correct" meaning to the bid, though practice usually consagrates a meaning or two. In this case, I think 5H asks either good trumps or spade control. Since opener could use blackwood to find out about trumps, it seems better to use this as bid 5/6/7 with the corresponding spade control.

[flytoox]

my unwilling guess, 5H is asking about trump quality.

[bearmum]

I voted for "bid slam in H if you have a really good H suit --- as to be honest I can't see the reason for such a big jump (UNLESS it's asking quality of ♥)-- after the 2♠ cue I presume the 2NT showed ONE stopper in ♠

 

As to my bid I PASS 5♥

[LH2650]

Need a "None of the above" poll option. I think he is looking for this hand - good hearts plus one trick. The club K would be just as good as the spade K. By the way, I would have bid 3D instead of 2S.

 

Good hearts could have been determined by RKCB. Controls could have been found by bidding 3H instead of 5H.

[jdulmage]

This is something I call mini-Josephine: it asks partner to bid small slam with 2 tophonours and grand slam with 3 top honours. I don't see any other sensible meaning.

 

Since it has a specific meaning, I'll just bid 6♥...

I would have to agree with you on this one.

 

5♥ is clearly one of those (choose a slam) hands. It can't be anything else.

[whereagles]

Actually, this seems to be the kind of problem that you put to 100 world class players and get (at least) 50 different answers, LOL.

[bearmum]

Need a "None of the above" poll option.  I think he is looking for this hand - good hearts plus one trick.  The club K would be just as good as the spade K.  By the way, I would have bid 3D instead of 2S.

 

Good hearts could have been determined by RKCB.  Controls could have been found by bidding 3H instead of 5H.

I think "none of the above" is a really good idea BUT :P we were asked which answer was a "world class" bid (and I did assume that the bidders were indeed "world class" and so 5♥ was a good bid ) :)

RKCB only asks what Key cards in ♥ held [not length of the suit -the way I have played it for about 20 years :P] -- so I keep my original answer -- "BID 6♥ WITH A good (and presumably LONG) ♥ suit ;)

[the hog]

A

Axxx

AKxxxx

Ax

Ron, with this hand, Pd would bid 3S, showing shape and good H raise. 2S should show more like a balance raise, like 5422.

 

Anyway, my point is that try not to test pd whenever possible. Here pd jump from 2N to 5H, that takes so much space which he could use to explore the slam possiblity. That is why I say a world class pd shoudl not use such bid.

Strongly disagree.

[Flame]

The right answer is that 5H depend on the other bids in the system, if the system allow control checking the 5H wont be asking about controls, if the system allow trump quolity checking then it wont be about trumps either.

[cherdano]

As most other people, I think it should ask about trump quality. Unlike others, I don't think this is redundant with RKCB, since opener may have a void:

♠AK ♥JTxx ♦AKQxxxx ♣-.

Exclusion KCB with 5♣ won't help you here, since you don't know what to do over partner's 5♦ answer.

 

Since this is a world class partnership, I am sure they can establish hearts as trump on a low level and find out about a spade control below 4♥.

[Chamaco]

To my knowledge, there are at least 3 approaches to the 5-of a major bid:

 

1) invites small slam if pard has 2 of top 3 trump honors

2) invites slam if pard has a control in a critical suit.

This is usually opps suit (especially after they preempted or opened a weak 2)

 

3) In Gitelman style, it is "Lackwood", asking pard to bd small slam with 2nd round control in the LTTC suit or to respond keycards if holding 1st rnd control (and to pass without conrols in LTTC suit)

 

... and I am sure there must be many more I am unaware of :-)

 

 

Now, as far as I know, common is the combined use of 1) (with silent opps) and 2) (with opps bidding their suit), whereas 3) seems far from standard.

 

---------------------------------------

 

In my opinion, in this sequence, trump quality can be checked with RKCB, possibly preceded by trump agreements at 3 level via 3H (we are in a GF).

As most other people, I think it should ask about trump quality. Unlike others, I don't think this is redundant with RKCB, since opener may have a void:

♠AK ♥JTxx ♦AKQxxxx ♣-.

Exclusion KCB with 5♣ won't help you here, since you don't know what to do over partner's 5♦ answer.

I disagree with Cherdano here.

 

1) it is unlikely that we hold AK in opps overcalled suit, and pard has bid 2NT showing stoppers... that would mean they have overcalled on an empty suit in the sandwhich seat, that wd be possible in direct seat, but not likely from a gold star in the sandwich seat.

 

2) The 5 diamonds bid cannot come from 0 keycards (excluding clubs !! we have 2 keycards, what does pard hold ??), slam is certainly on, now the only doubt is about whether it is a grand or not, in any case I bid 6H (and please note that if we are missing a grand here, we would also miss it by using 5H as invitational with bad trumps).

 

Therefore, exclusion keycards WOULD be useful in this sequence, and on the other hand RKCB can take care of the trump suit issue.

 

I think 5H should be asking for a control in a critical suit: without the 2NT bid, such suit should be clearly spades.

 

Since the 2NT bid not necessarily comes from Ax(x) or Kx(x) holding, I am going to assume 5H asks for the spade control.

[Free]

Perhaps Ben can give us a clue :rolleyes:

[inquiry]

Perhaps Ben can give us a clue  :huh:

What makes you think I have a clue?

 

This is a real world hand, that I kibitzed, auction as given up to this point, and then some fun discussion after the hand by players and kibitzers.

 

In my younger days, this jump to 5HEART would ask for slam with a control in clubs. The reason being, after the spade "cue-bid", when support is shown, it use to turn the general cue-bid into a control cue-bid. A second meaning with jump to 5 of a major when oppenents have overcalled is to bid slam with control of their suit... and with the cue-bid no longer promising or denying control of their suit, would seem to fit into that category.

 

Now, in my older, and wiser days, I am in no hurry to leap to 5H's as my cue-bid just establish general force. And these days, I cue-bid Kings or Aces up the line, and I use last train to clarksville, so there is no need to jump to 5H if I am interested in club control. Over 2NT, I can bid a slam invitational 3H and see if we can cue-bid normally to slam. So, the "you must control" clubs bid slam hand is removed. It is refreshing to see so few picked 5H as bid slam with club control... I would think maybe Flame's excellent, and logical reason why 5H can't be asking for club stopper swayed a lot of the potential voters, since this was a popular interpretation at the table among kibitzers and one of the players.

 

So if you need a control in either black suit, you could merrily bid 3H and walk through cue-bidding situation (if of course, opponents remain silent). So what does that leave here? Since 3H is game force, and slam interest, 5H has to be bid slam with good hearts. The question becomes, how good of hearts should we have to have, considering partner must have a lot of controls and didn't use blackwood? I think, given we were forced to bid 2NT, and we might be considerably weaker than this, heart KQ8x has to be good enough (it was), and I might would bid 5NT (pick a slam) on way to six hearts as 7D might be possible.

 

I thought more votes for with club control would be here...i did expect the group of bid slam with a spade control...but logically, looking at KQ of hearts, how can partner be inviting slam with club or spade control, since you promised only xxxx in hearts with your heart bid?

 

Ben

[Free]

Perhaps Ben can give us a clue  :huh:

What makes you think I have a clue?

 

This is a real world hand, that I kibitzed, auction as given up to this point, and then some fun discussion after the hand by players and kibitzers.

Since you've kibitzed this hand, you might give us the full hand + history how it went further. That's what I meant actually...

[junyi_zhu]

The bidding goes...

 

West North East South

 

- Pass Pass 1♦

Pass 1♥ 1♠ 2♠

Dbl 2NT Pass 5♥

 

You are to answer what your partner's 5♥ bid means.

 

Bonus, based upon your answer, you may want to say what you bid with the following hand.

 

[hv=s=skxhkq86dj7xxctxx]133|100|[/hv]

most world class players wouldn't even have an agreement on this one I guess.

5H is extremely space consuming so it must be a picture bid showing extreme details

that no other sequences can show. That makes it a puzzle. With 4 hearts support

balanced, opener can just bid 3H over 2NT which is forcing, with 4 hearts support

shortness somwehere, she can bid 3S over 1S or 4C over 1S. With long diamonds

and 4 card heart support, she can bid 4D over 1S to show it. So 5H can't show 4 card

support in hearts because we have a neat way to show all these patterns at low level.

So it can only be strong diamond one suiter hands and grandslam invitation.

However, why can't opener bid 3D to show it? One problem is that 3D over 2NT doesn't

really set up trumps as diamond, it just shows a strong one suiter. So opener may not

have an easy way to set up trumps at three level. A possible way is to bid 3S over 2NT to set up trumps in D and then RKC later, but she may have a problem if she holds a void in heart and still want to RKC. Also, partner's failure to redouble 2S usually denies SA. A possible holding is something like this:S- H- DAKQxxxxx CKQJT9, so actually she uses 5H as an ERKC showing void in hearts and strong diamond suit.because she knows if partner holds CA, she'd like to play in 7D, something like: S- H- DKQJTxxxx CAKQJT

is also possible.

[LH2650]

RKCB  only asks  what Key cards  in ♥ held [not length of the suit -the way I have played it for about 20 years :P] --  so I keep my original answer -- "BID 6♥ WITH A good (and presumably LONG) ♥ suit  :lol:

If responder has bad, short hearts, he may be going down in 5. I would play opener for 5♥ and 6♦ if I could think up a hand that matched the bidding. Maybe Ax, Axxxx, AKQxxx, void, but that belongs in 7♦ opposite the actual responding hand, and I don't think I'd bid it this way. Several hands have been proposed by others that could belong in ♦, and I would expect a World Class player to cater to that. Also, the opponent's bidding seems to indicate a lack of distribution around the table.