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Checking that I'm not the crazy one


Phil

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I would bid 3. I'm not looking for slam, I'm setting up a force and letting partner make a good decision if they are going to bid 4, whereas if I just bid 4 I won't have any idea what to do. I think partner should know that's often what these bids are for in competition. If he happens to have some great hand and go to slam on his own from there then it might make, though I'd probably not want to be there. But most likely he would bid 4 then pass my 4 bid.

 

Obviously his real hand was silly. As are the comments that this is the wrong forum for this hand.

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I think PhilKing has been remarkably polite to you. You are the one who is showing your ignorance if you think we all "know very well" that double shows the pointed suits or that it might have 3 hearts not strong enough to double in the first place, because it's not what it means when I double. I play double specifically as 3-suited with short hearts and sound opening values, as do a lot of other people. You want to play it differently, good for you.

 

Sorry, i have to reply to this nonsense.

 

And what difference does it make if opponents play just like you (and me), 3 suited take-out ? At best it supports me, not the slam ambition, since you will be giving a heart and a club or two if doubler has 3 suit take out, with the hand Phil contructed (Jxx Axx void AKxxxx). You can't even see this eventhough i explained it previously, and yet giving lectures about ignorance ? :)

 

I am so sorry that PhilKing dissapointed you for being polite to me.

 

@PhilKing : You are a great player man, i think i mentioned that before too, but i disagreed with you on this hand, if you think i hurt your feelings the way i wrote my replies, you can curse at me or do something that will make Frances happy, i will still respect you and your bridge. If it was not someone who i think is a decent player, that made the slam suggestion, i probably wouldn't even reply.

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Everybody from a good beginner to a world-class expert like Justin bids 4. Jeff Rubens in Secrets of Winning Bridge attributes this rule to Ely Culbertson: "invite slam if a perfect minimum will make it cold." The actual hand opposite is to be sure perfect, but is nowhere near as weak as a reasonable minimum. Cherry-picking is fine, if you confine the cherries to minimum hands--it's too much of a parlay to play partner for perfect cards and extra values.
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Everybody from a good beginner to a world-class expert like Justin bids 4. Jeff Rubens in Secrets of Winning Bridge attributes this rule to Ely Culbertson: "invite slam if a perfect minimum will make it cold." The actual hand opposite is to be sure perfect, but is nowhere near as weak as a reasonable minimum. Cherry-picking is fine, if you confine the cherries to minimum hands--it's too much of a parlay to play partner for perfect cards and extra values.

 

Actually what PhilKing constructed was a perfect minimum (regarding the hcps)

 

xxx Axx x AKxxxx

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You would open xx/AKxx/xx/AKxxx with a 12-14 NT? Whether this hand would raise to 2 or 3 seems to me a matter of style as much as anything, and might depend on other parts of the system in use. As an example, those using the MLTC will evaluate this hand as 5 losers, far too strong for a simple 2 raise. Sometimes there is more than one correct answer to a problem.

 

Edit: just noticed the forum - perhaps I should not mention MLTC here.

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Mr Ace was only kidding with me a bit for cherry-picking.

 

But I can't think of anything polite to say about the raise to 2. If their partner also uses WMWPC (wooden Milton Work point-count), they could stop in 2 with play for six clubs:

 

Axx Jxxxx x Qxxx

 

and game is cold opposite:

 

Qxx xxxxx Q xxxx

 

The opponents failure to bid marks them both with balanced eleven-counts. And that's not even cherry-picking - partner has two wasted queens.

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You would open xx/AKxx/xx/AKxxx with a 12-14 NT?

No, he means that playing a 12-14 notrump, 1-1;2 is often a strong notrump with 4-card support, so xx AKxx xx AKxxx would be in range for this sequence. This makes perfect sense if you live in a country where Kaplan-Sheinwold's influence is strong, but rather less if you come from Acol-land.

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Sorry, I do not get it. The conversaton went:

 

"2 is the normal bid with this hand... if you are playing a 12-14 NT"

"No, in that case the hand would have opened 1NT"

 

You are correct that this makes no sense to me, coming as I do from Acol-land. How can "in that case", referring to "if you are playing a 12-14 NT" mean a strong NT? That is quite aside from the logic of what is actually being discussed. Is the range of a 2 raise really from 10 points and some shape all the way to 17 points (semi-)balanced? Could we not use a 3 rebid to cover some of those to allow Responder to stop in 2 once in a while? I guess I need to read up on K-S one day.

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I don't understand any of the conversation on this thread:

 

mikeh: did you seriously "seriously consider" 3H? Surely no one does that stuff in real life.....

 

jdonn: Are you seriously bidding 3S? should that not be like "I would usually like to be in slam if you have no wasted spade hands". How is partner meant to guess that xxx Kxxx KQx AQx is not even good enough to risk 5H, and that is max for a 2H bid. If they bid 4S partner will surely drive you to the five level with a bunch of hands now. Sure, it would nice to be able to show a raise that is only interested in game, and wants to set up a FP over 4S, but I do not have a convenient bid for that in my arsenal. If I thought about it, I would probably used 3N for that.

 

Other Slam triers: LOL? Ok, i realise that slam can be cold if partner has xxx AKxx x KQJxx, and that this is not a totally unlikely scenario, but don't we bid 3H with that now? If partner has only three hearts, slam can be bad even if he has prime cards, like xxxx AKx x AQxxx, Surely he will drive a slam with this monster, and it looks incresibly likely that you will have two club losers now. All I see from a slam try is a lot of pain at the five level, when partner cannot believe quite how much we don't have our bid...... Perhaps, if you have the system where you can find out partner has singleton diamond, and then make a mild slam try, but all of these hands give partner only four cards in the point suits, which added to our three, gives them 19 cards, and rho didnt make a one level overcall, so they all need lho to have a very poor looking 65 hand, in which case, how I am I making any finesses?

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Sorry, I do not get it. The conversaton went:

 

"2 is the normal bid with this hand... if you are playing a 12-14 NT"

"No, in that case the hand would have opened 1NT"

Sorry, I thought you were replying to akwoo's post; I hadn't noticed the Hog's contribution.

 

That is quite aside from the logic of what is actually being discussed. Is the range of a 2 raise really from 10 points and some shape all the way to 17 points (semi-)balanced? Could we not use a 3 rebid to cover some of those to allow Responder to stop in 2 once in a while? I guess I need to read up on K-S one day.

As I understand it, K-S features sound minor-suit openings and 1m-1M;2M is usually a four-card suit. Just think of it as "foreign".

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I don't understand any of the conversation on this thread:

 

mikeh: did you seriously "seriously consider" 3H? Surely no one does that stuff in real life.....

 

 

When you use quotation marks, that suggests that you are quoting something someone wrote.

 

When you 'quote' someone and then ridicule what you have quoted, you owe it to that person to have quoted them accurately.

 

I suggest you, and anyone foolish enough to accept your post as accurate, to re-read my post.

 

I make enough posts that contain hastily or poorly thought-out comments that I don't need someone like you attributing statements to me that I did not make.

 

The OP suggested that something had happened or been suggested that seemed 'crazy'. I went looking for what that might be, and I came up with a 'crazy' idea that I described, while immediately rejecting it for reasons that I described and that seemed salient. I then made the 'obvious' 4 bid.

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Everybody from a good beginner to a world-class expert like Justin bids 4. Jeff Rubens in Secrets of Winning Bridge attributes this rule to Ely Culbertson: "invite slam if a perfect minimum will make it cold." The actual hand opposite is to be sure perfect, but is nowhere near as weak as a reasonable minimum. Cherry-picking is fine, if you confine the cherries to minimum hands--it's too much of a parlay to play partner for perfect cards and extra values.

It was my recollection that this quote applied to game bids, not slam bids. In other words, "invite game if a perfect minimum will make it cold." The same may apply to slams, but the odds are different, since you may wind up getting too high and going down in game.

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The OP suggested that something had happened or been suggested that seemed 'crazy'. I went looking for what that might be, and I came up with a 'crazy' idea that I described, while immediately rejecting it for reasons that I described and that seemed salient. I then made the 'obvious' 4 bid.

 

Exactly! I was doing the same thing from the other extreme. However, I never even came up with a crazy suggestion. :(

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I reread the whole thread and I could not find any decent players suggesting a 2H rebid on that hand, except in the context of a system in which 2H shows a strong notrump opening. Who are these "some decent players" you are talking about?
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