How To Bid The (almost) Certain Grand

[Fluffy]

I think you didn't understand me Timo, I meant bidding 7 at the locel club, where winning is not as important compared to the satisfaction of making a good bid to a good grand. On a european championship 7NT would be worth less than 60%.

[kenberg]

There are always two general approaches in responding:

1. What would be a good gadget, either agreed upon or invented on the spot?

2. How might I have been there playing at the club with a clone of myself with whom I have not had detailed discussions.

 

I will go with 2:

 

1♥-1♠

4♥

 

 

As E, at my second turn, I would not make a call that W might pass. Sure, maybe S has seven hearts and I go down. Could be. But after partner responds to my opening I plan to play in game and unless I have had a lot of fine point discussions, I bid 4♥.

 

Now over to W who thinks: Pard seems to think he can play in hearts w/o me showing any support. He seems to think he can take ten tricks after I have made a call I would make with a 6 count. So I will now bid RKCB.

 

After finding that we have all the keys including the Q, I bid 7♥. Of course I can make 7NT, but I bid 7♥ in case I need some spade ruffs in hand to establish a long spade.

 

Could this approach work out poorly? Sure. But unlikely. If we want certainty then no doubt we need some previous discussion. But I don't like 1♥-1♠-3♣ unless I have discussed with partner what happens next if partner raises 3♣ to 4♣.

 

 

So I think the answer to "How should club players with club methods reach the grand with certainty that 13 tricks are there" is that you can't. But I think that the simple auction that I give is quite credible.

[Winstonm]

If presented to the Bridge World panel 10 years ago or so, I think the majority decision would be to jump shift to 3C with this hand. After that, I do not agree with bidding 3S because of these reasons: A) partner has shown hearts and clubs and there is not much room in this hand for spade support. B) Partner could easily hold a long heart suit and have invented the JS to create a force.

 

In either case, the best bid by far is the false preference to 3H - this still leaves room from opener to bid 3S with modest support and only a 5-card heart suit.

 

None of that resolves the problem, though, that responder will always be fearful of a heart loser while opener cannot know about the two critical queens in responder's hand.

 

This hand is about secondary cards, queens and jacks, and secondary cards have to sometimes be assumed based on the nature of the auction. If opener makes a grand try responder has to ask himself if opener would really do that knowing that fit might only be AKQxxx against xx? Obviously not. At the same time, opener has to ask the same type questions - what would responder need in order to make a grand try not knowing about the AKQJxx heart suit?

 

I don't see this as a system problem but as a partnership and judgement problem - a lot of trust involved in reaching the optimum contract.

[Zelandakh]

I don't see this as a system problem but as a partnership and judgement problem - a lot of trust involved in reaching the optimum contract.

Well it is a system problem too, in that I would imagine Fluffy's tournament had some somewhat more advanced systems in play. Even with my one, East will trivially find out about ♠KQxxxx ♥xx ♦Ax ♣Axx opposite. That is considerably harder playing a basic 5 card major system without the bells and whistles.

[MrAce]

I think you didn't understand me Timo, I meant bidding 7 at the locel club, where winning is not as important compared to the satisfaction of making a good bid to a good grand. On a european championship 7NT would be worth less than 60%.

 

My bad http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/sad.gif

 

 

 

[kenberg]

Well it is a system problem too, in that I would imagine Fluffy's tournament had some somewhat more advanced systems in play. Even with my one, East will trivially find out about ♠KQxxxx ♥xx ♦Ax ♣Axx opposite. That is considerably harder playing a basic 5 card major system without the bells and whistles.

 

I would say that the evidence supports you here. No one reached the grand when this was played. Of course there are some club games and there are other club games but usually there will be at least a few pairs of pretty sound judgment but still with limited systemic agreements. Apparently their judgment was not enough.

[Winstonm]

Well it is a system problem too, in that I would imagine Fluffy's tournament had some somewhat more advanced systems in play. Even with my one, East will trivially find out about ♠KQxxxx ♥xx ♦Ax ♣Axx opposite. That is considerably harder playing a basic 5 card major system without the bells and whistles.

 

Perhaps with a quite sophisticated relay system, but I did not think this post was about system details but about how very good players reach optimum contracts without such frills - and I assure you from my years of playing that the top players used to do this all the time, well before relay systems were even invented.

 

What it took then and still now is total trust in partner's bidding and an ability to change perspectives - to put oneself in partner's shoes to imagine the hand he is bidding.

 

IMHO, of course. :)

[JLOGIC]

There are 56 combos of AKQxxx missing 5 of them. AKQJxx is ~37.5 %, AKQTxx is ~26.8 %, AKQxxx is ~35.7 %

 

Let's say you are 97 % opposite AKQJxx.

 

Let's say you're 74 % opp AKQTxx

 

Let's say you're 68 % opp AKQxxx

 

That's about an 80 % grand. These are estimates, I have ignored that possibility that spades break very badly and you go down but to counter that I have ignored the possibility of partner having 7 hearts (since arguably he should not bid 3H with AKQxxxx and an ace and a king, though apparently this partner would).

 

If Art really thinks it is a sure 85 % for bidding slam, then to answer his question of why risk it, it is because your expected score is more than 85 % from bidding a grand. I mean, obviously you would bid a 99% grand if you get 85 % for playing slam. How far is the cutoff? Well, it partially depends on how of the non game people are in grand vs just small slam, but you should not bid an 80 % grand.

 

That being said, it is difficult to believe that a hand like this is the type of hand where you will get 85 % of the matchpoints for playing slam. People who say that rarely have data to back that statement up, because it is difficult to analyze which are the types of good grands that the field plays game vs which are easy for them. Hands where people have a lot of highcards, multiple sources of tricks, and a lot of keycards are the types of hands that people bid slam often on. You might have to estimate the field but one needs to be careful of pulling numbers out of thin air like "on this hand, I will get 85 % for bidding a small slam." We are all biased and risk averse people will inflate that percentage and it matters a lot.

 

I think a better practice is to strive to bid 80 % grands. Yes, partner might have AKQxxx and we are on 3-2 trumps. Partner might also have AKQJxx of trumps and we are basically cold.

 

All that being said, if you want to involve partner in a grand bidding decision during a keycard auction, the most important thing to do is to tell him you have all the keycards. Most players know if you ask for keycards opposite an unlimited partner and have them all, you must bid 5N to tell him that. Surprisingly, those people don't realize that if you ask for the queen, and partner shows it plus some king, you should do the same thing.

 

Here, we queen asked and partner showed it and we signed off. Partner is out of the game. He does not know we have all the keycards. The bid to say we have all the keycards in this case is 6D, the only bid between slam and the current bid. Admittedly, partner is not unlimited here, and he might *gasp* bid the grand without the trump J if he has something extra like KQx of clubs. If you really think you need to be 85 % to bid a grand then you will bid few grands, and rightly so. But the point about bidding 6D or in general making a try after queen asking is an important one in general, many people do not seem to realize that partner does not know we have all the keycards and thus can never bid 7 himself even if it was a spot where he could count 13 if he knew we had them all.

[ArtK78]

If Art really thinks it is a sure 85 % for bidding slam, then to answer his question of why risk it, it is because your expected score is more than 85 % from bidding a grand. I mean, obviously you would bid a 99% grand if you get 85 % for playing slam. How far is the cutoff? Well, it partially depends on how of the non game people are in grand vs just small slam, but you should not bid an 80 % grand.

 

My point was that the OP knows his club. In actual fact, bidding the small slam was worth 12.5 out of 14, or 89%. So, he is correct that the odds of making the grand have to be pretty close to 100% to warrant risking 89% to gain 11%. And, of course, in a club game, gaining 11% on a single board may not matter at all, while 89% of a full board may be the difference between 1st and 4th.

 

In any event, that is something to consider when bidding the grand. I believe that we can all reach a point in the bidding of this hand where it is very likely that there are 13 tricks available. Once you reach that point, you have to make the determination of the rate of success of taking 13 tricks and whether it is worth possibly throwing away a cold small slam to bid the grand.

 

In matchpoints, there are very few things worse than going down in a grand when you find that more than half of the field didn't even bid the small.

 

This is aside from another point - perhaps you will make one more trick in the small slam than other pairs. If making 13 tricks is not trivial, this comes into play.

 

I agree with your point about the 6♦ bid over 6♣ as unambiguously guaranteeing all of the key cards, assuming that the trump queen ask did not already do so. As 6♦ is clearly a grand slam try, the partnership must have all of the key cards.

[cherdano]

This is aside from another point - perhaps you will make one more trick in the small slam than other pairs. If making 13 tricks is not trivial, this comes into play.

Are you still talking about the hand posted above, or are you now into some generic rumblings?

 

Btw, if you bid 6♥ you also lose to everyone bidding 6NT...

[ArtK78]

Are you still talking about the hand posted above, or are you now into some generic rumblings?

 

Btw, if you bid 6♥ you also lose to everyone bidding 6NT...

This is a practical consideration given that the quality of bidding and play in OP's club seems to be low.

[cherdano]

This is a practical consideration given that the quality of bidding and play in OP's club seems to be low.

Maybe you should think for a second before auto-replying.

 

We are talking about taking 12 top tricks here. I presume we aren't here to debate how to get 90% in a field that doesn't know how to play a trump suit of AKQxxx vs xx for 6 tricks.

[petterb]

Assuming that the trump queen inquiry promises that the partnership has all of the keycards (this is not true in all partnerships)...

Surely no one plays that the trump queen ask promises all keycards when you can still stop below slam level in the agreed trump suit.

[Lovera]

I, instead, want to start from 4♣(=cue) because this hand is adapt for my topic "Most had been told ..." in Expert (see). In this case 4♣(=1 or 2 round first cue and cards in opposite self-supporting heart suit) starts 4NT Bw for controlls (5/+ controlls -A=2, K=1) bidding by E and,than, the answere of 5♦(=3 controlls) reveals 1A+1K (it is being excluded 3 kings) and E can count almost 12 tricks with the Ace of club by partner (having E king in this suit) already at this time.( My topic http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry863943(Lovera)

[Cyberyeti]

Except that 3♥ is not forcing, and West can't afford to make a nonforcing call on his cards.

 

Opposite QJ10xx, xx, Qxx, Jxx you may already be too high with 3♥, sure it's not ideal to bid 3♥ but it's not silly if you don't have better methods.