Cuebid Without Control?

[kenrexford]

I had a unique problem last night. My hand:

 

♠xxx ♥Axxxxx ♦10x ♣xx

 

Partner opened 1♦. I responded 1♥ (1♦-P-2♥ would be 8-11). Partner splintered 3♠.

 

At this point, partner could have as simple as ♠x ♥Kxxx ♦AKxxx ♣Axx, a mere 14-count in HCP strength, where the slam seems good. I need hearts 2-1 (78%) and diamonds 4-3 (68%) for a net probability of the slam making of 54.6%. If partner has AQ in diamonds, the lower slam odds get better if you add in the heart Queen or Jack, the club King or Queen, or the diamond Jack or even 9.

 

So, exploring the slam seemed wise, if there is a way to do it. The only plausible option I could come up with (and tried) was to bid 4♦. The end result was that the slam was bid but I guessed wrong which finesse to take (partner ended up with AQxxx in diamonds and AQJ in clubs). Partner freaked out when he saw my 10x in diamonds. It seemed to me, however, that a false diamond cue had the likely effect of encouraging movement from partner when movement probably would be right.

 

I thought this hand and sequence was an interesting discussion stimulus. If you agree, discuss!

 

 

 

[ewj]

Have you never heard of "last train" slam tries?

[Zelandakh]

1♦ - 1♥; 3♠

==

3NT = slam try

4♣ = serious without club control (or just wanting to ask about clubs before taking control)

4♦ = serious without diamond control, with club control (or just wanting to ask about diamonds before taking control)

4♥ = no slam interest

4♠ = RKCB (serious with controls in both minors)

[bluecalm]

1)There is 3N available

2)There is 5H available

 

I don't like faking cuebids. If I can't bid 3N I would bid 5H.

[whereagles]

I would just bid 4H.

 

Slam will be marginal unless pard has a spade void. And with a spade void he could venture 4S over 4H anyway, so there.

[hrothgar]

 

The only plausible option I could come up with (and tried) was to bid 4♦.

 

I thought this hand and sequence was an interesting discussion stimulus. If you agree, discuss!

 

1. What is the advantage of cue bidding in Diamonds, rather than clubs?

 

2. As I have noted in the past, I see nothing wrong with adopting a mixed strategy wrt cue bids (similar to Zia's so-called "sting cue bids"

 

3. If you genuinely believe that you have no option other than a 4D cue bid, then your cuebid means something else than "I have the Ace of Diamonds" (or potentially I have the Ace of the King of Diamonds)

 

4. What was your plan if partner asked for Aces?

[kenrexford]

Have you never heard of "last train" slam tries?

 

Yes, but this is a unique situation. 3NT, if serious, is way too big. Last Train, for me, cannot be bid by a person who is not serious. Hence, the problem. I agree that 4♦ is easy if simply Last Train.

[kenrexford]

1. What is the advantage of cue bidding in Diamonds, rather than clubs?

 

2. As I have noted in the past, I see nothing wrong with adopting a mixed strategy wrt cue bids (similar to Zia's so-called "sting cue bids"

 

3. If you genuinely believe that you have no option other than a 4D cue bid, then your cuebid means something else than "I have the Ace of Diamonds" (or potentially I have the Ace of the King of Diamonds)

 

4. What was your plan if partner asked for Aces?

 

1. My thoughts went as follows. First, I don't have a club control, and that might be rather important. Second, partner probably has a diamond control, so that fib is not immediately devastating. More importantly, however, I think the diamond cue has the greater chance of inducing the "correct" action from partner. In retrospect, however, it is possible that I am backwards on this. If I assume that partner probably has a club control, then 4♣ gives partner room to cuebid 4♦, which might allow me to hear what I need to move forward. I remain uncertain, which is why I posted this issue.

 

2. I agree.

 

3. I agree, in theory. But, I am not sure if the theory is sound.

 

4. Show one with the Queen. Makes for a funny sequence.

 

 

 

[hrothgar]

1. My thoughts went as follows. First, I don't have a club control, and that might be rather important. Second, partner probably has a diamond control, so that fib is not immediately devastating. More importantly, however, I think the diamond cue has the greater chance of inducing the "correct" action from partner. In retrospect, however, it is possible that I am backwards on this. If I assume that partner probably has a club control, then 4♣ gives partner room to cuebid 4♦, which might allow me to hear what I need to move forward. I remain uncertain, which is why I posted this issue.

 

Here's one potential issue

 

What if partner has the AK of Diamonds?

 

• You can't be showing an honor
  
• You shouldn't be showing shortness in his bid suit
  

 

You're going to force partner into a tank which is going to cause all sorts of trouble further on down the line.

 

If I were going to psyche a cue bid, I suspect that I'd chose 4♣

I think this has more ways to win (a club lead is likely to be the real danger) and less to lose

[aguahombre]

I like 5H. Partner might even guess what I have.

[bluecalm]

Yes, but this is a unique situation. 3NT, if serious, is way too big

 

Why would 3N be serious ?

It should be non-serious as you don't want to exchange information when you don't need it, so cue-bid = serious, 3nt = non-serious is just way better agreement.

[bluecalm]

Yes, but this is a unique situation. 3NT, if serious, is way too big

 

Why would 3N be serious ?

It should be non-serious as you don't want to exchange information when you don't need it, so cue-bid = serious, 3nt = non-serious is just way better agreement. As an added bonus you are bound to have a cuebid when you are serious and not necessarily so when you are non-serious. Do people really play inverted non-serious 3NT somewhere ? :)

[JLOGIC]

Why would 3N be serious ?

It should be non-serious as you don't want to exchange information when you don't need it, so cue-bid = serious, 3nt = non-serious is just way better agreement. As an added bonus you are bound to have a cuebid when you are serious and not necessarily so when you are non-serious. Do people really play inverted non-serious 3NT somewhere ? :)

 

You act like serious has no gain. Typically the serious bidder will be more able to take control/sign off opposite the right controls, so leaving room for partner to cuebid clubs is much more likely to be beneficial when you have serious. E.g. if you are going to bid 4C serious but really the most important card from partner would be a club control, it would be better to be able to bid 3N. Typically if you are trying for slam, even with non serious, you are not going to go down so the information leakage of the opponents knowing about a control that you have is very unlikely to cost a game swing.

 

Ofc it's a different story at MP. I wouldn't be that surprised if non serious was better at MP and serious was better at imps (that being said, I play non serious, but I think you're way too hard on serious!).

[bluecalm]

You act like serious has no gain. Typically the serious bidder will be more able to take control/sign off opposite the right controls, so leaving room for partner to cuebid clubs is much more likely to be beneficial when you have serious. E.g. if you are going to bid 4C serious but really the most important card from partner would be a club control, it would be better to be able to bid 3N. Typically if you are trying for slam, even with non serious, you are not going to go down so the information leakage of the opponents knowing about a control that you have is very unlikely to cost a game swing.

 

I agree with game swing argument to some extent. It's very unlikely. Although in many sequences serious/non-serious is needed to say which range we are. For example in very vanilla 2/1:

1S - 2C

2S - 3S

 

3N/cuebid is needed here to say if we are 12-14 or 15+ as bidding 4S every time we have 12-14 would be awful. Here if we have to cuebid with 12-14 range we are leaking valuable information.

I agree that it's no going to happen often and it's less important at IMPs. Still overtrick is an IMP :)

 

I don't agree with club control thing as it seems to me that while we are getting club control information we are often not getting a diamond one, also it's becoming standard to play that:

3S - 3N (non serious)

4D - 4H = club cue-bid

 

So we are only losing information if we have a club cuebid and want to know if partner has it as well.

On the other hand:

 

3S - 3N (serious)

4C -

 

We are not geting information about D control here (as 3N bidder).

Granted it's more likely that partner doesn't have both of them when we are serious but it seems like extremely minor point to me.

[gszes]

Partner has taken up a huge amount of bidding space because they

felt the splinter was the best way to represent their hand. The

mere fact we would do something (anything) other than bid 4h shows

slam interest.

Splinters are best used if they are close to being right if p

has the overwhelming majority of their expected HcP outside the

splintered suit. Using a splinter with a hand that is too strong

wastes a ton of bidding space because p will normally end up

rejecting your splinter because they will inevitably have wasted

values in your short suit.

The follow ups to splinter differ depending on how one is taught

but some principles can be applied universally. In this case a

simple 4h bid should show a hand that appears poor for slam prospects

(very weak wasted spade values etc). Once you accept that idea we have a

3N bid available as a hand that has some slam interest but cannot take

over the bidding and cannot make a bid like 4c or 4d because they do

not meet the partnership qualifications for such bids. I personally

like the 3N to be a generally positive hand for slam not strong enough

to take over and denying any short suit. So my 4 c/d bids are also

splinters (sometimes showing p you are short in their suit will keep

your side out of a poor slam).

The key is to remember that the 3N bid is a positive response to the

splinter with no limitations. Partner can then cue bid, try to sign off

with a singleton and a minimum, or just plain take over the bidding once

they know you have a positive hand for them.

[Jinksy]

You act like serious has no gain. Typically the serious bidder will be more able to take control/sign off opposite the right controls, so leaving room for partner to cuebid clubs is much more likely to be beneficial when you have serious. E.g. if you are going to bid 4C serious but really the most important card from partner would be a club control, it would be better to be able to bid 3N. Typically if you are trying for slam, even with non serious, you are not going to go down so the information leakage of the opponents knowing about a control that you have is very unlikely to cost a game swing.

 

Ofc it's a different story at MP. I wouldn't be that surprised if non serious was better at MP and serious was better at imps (that being said, I play non serious, but I think you're way too hard on serious!).

 

I hadn't thought of this (I play Frivolous for the reasons you're replying to). Typically though, if I have eg AQJxx in Cs in this situation and I want the K for either grand or small, I might bypass a C cue. If P signs off and I was hunting for small, I'll respect it. If he signs off and I was looking for grand, I might still investigate (or more likely just punt) small, and P should realise something like this is going on.

 

Most of the time this seems to work - the biggest risk seems like it would be that when he has the K, he punts 6 himself and I'm on a guess whether we have all the KCs. I've never had this happen though. Another problem with this approach would be that P has cued the suit two below the one I want to suggest and now bypassing the cue is harder to distinguish from a signoff. Usually you'll be safe at the five level if that's the case though. Maybe then the biggest issue is after a 4D cue, having to bypass 4N to seek a H control so that you lose the chance to ask for KC count.

 

Am I missing any major considerations?

[aguahombre]

What I want to show is that my hand will provide 6 tricks in Hearts if you have KXXX there; can you provide the other six (including two spade ruffs in your hand) considering I have no first or second round control anywhere? Does 3NT, then 4H get that message across?

[PhilKing]

Playing step 1 as non-serious when partner has limited his hand seems pretty bad to me. For me, 3NT is a trump cue bid, so I do that.

[fromageGB]

Playing step 1 as non-serious when partner has limited his hand seems pretty bad to me.

This is key for me. 3NT = non-serious when partner is unlimited, but 3NT = serious denying a club control when partner has limited his hand. "One-under denial" cue bids, or to be more precise, "one under the one you want partner to bid" cue bids.

[PhilKing]

This is key for me. 3NT = non-serious when partner is unlimited, but 3NT = serious denying a club control when partner has limited his hand. "One-under denial" cue bids, or to be more precise, "one under the one you want partner to bid" cue bids.

 

Lacking a top trump you can bid 4♦ to deny a club control as well. Classifying higher bids as non-serious, serious or whatever is the bad part. The point is that if partner has limited his hand and I make a try, I ain't just blowing smoke.

[Zelandakh]

You act like serious has no gain. Typically the serious bidder will be more able to take control/sign off opposite the right controls, so leaving room for partner to cuebid clubs is much more likely to be beneficial when you have serious.

This is why I think Frivolous + DCBs/Asking Bids is the best combination. You do not give away information on a declined slam try and can still obtain any piece of information you want when Serious.

[kenrexford]

The point of the post was for discussion, only. That said, as an aside, the particular partner I had would have taken 3NT as natural, something with wasted values in spades (maybe KQ109?). This does not necessarily further any discussion, but I thought I would mention it.

[dustinst22]

Why would 3N be serious ?

It should be non-serious as you don't want to exchange information when you don't need it, so cue-bid = serious, 3nt = non-serious is just way better agreement.

 

Eric Rodwell answered why he prefers serious 3NT here: http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/in-the-well-eric-rodwell/

 

I'm going to make the assumption that if Rodwell thinks it's better than non-serious, that non-serious probably isn't a "way better agreement" as you put it.

 

 

"I prefer Serious 3NT because, assuming that I make (at any point) the cheapest applicable bid, is that I save the most space with the strong hands. I am not too concerned about some cuebid helping them beat me in game when I was trying for slam.

 

Suppose I have Club control and partner just bid 3 Spades. If I have a weaker hand, why not Cuebid 4C to show my non-serious C control? I want partner to be in control in most such cases. Similarly, if I am Serious, especially if I lack a C control, why would I not want to hear partner (over my Serious 3NT) Cuebid 4C? If I have to bid 4D to deny a C control, partner is “seriously” hampered if he has to guess whether to go past game to show it?

 

NonSerious 3NT seems to be more popular than Serious 3NT but I have never understood why."

 

That said, Justin made an interesting point I think regarding MP versus IMPs. Maybe we aren't concerned in IMPs about giving away information with a cue bid when looking for slam, but in MP's where every trick is critical it becomes more damaging.

[bluecalm]

I'm going to make the assumption that if Rodwell thinks it's better than non-serious, that non-serious probably isn't a "way better agreement" as you put it.

 

I think he is wrong. He used C control argument:

 

If I have to bid 4D to deny a C control, partner is “seriously” hampered if he has to guess whether to go past game to show it?

 

Which is solved by agreement I mentioned (that 4H is C cue after 4D) which is used by Italian/Bulgarian and now most young Polish pairs as well.

While it's nice that you aren't too concerned about opponents beating you in game when you are serious it may well happen that you are both minimum and gave them information for free:

 

1S - 2C

2S - 3S

4D* - 4S

 

*-non serious cuebid which you make when playing serious 3NT

Both sides are minimum, the information was given for free to opponents.

 

So yeah, I think he is just wrong here.

[Zelandakh]

Eric Rodwell answered why he prefers serious 3NT here: http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/in-the-well-eric-rodwell/

As I mentuioned before the specific point he makes here is addressed by switching to DCBs/Asking Bids to go with your Frivolous 3X+1. It surprises me that this set-up is not used by more players. I suspect that has more to do with history and tradition than merit.