Bidding Decision

[PhilKing]

That is where the problem lies-- say you hold A5432 543 A32 A3 (as opener and hear J2n) is this a 4s bid? if so you miss a pretty easy 7s.

 

No. In my view, jumping to 4M denies 2 aces. Doing so with three would be rather strange.

[lamford]

I think it is better to play 5H as "reverse last train", a puppet to 5S, either sign off or GS-try. That releases 5S to be a slam-try. If those are our methods, I bid 5S. If 5H is last train, I think I still bid 5S.

[Fluffy]

It seems that it is not standard but I bypass controls to show voids, so I would bid 5♥ previous round.

[benlessard]

No. In my view, jumping to 4M denies 2 aces. Doing so with three would be rather strange.

 

Do anyone remember a hand that had a lot of discussion.

 

It was something like

 

1S-2Nt-3C-3D-??--4S

 

J2nt, 3C was minimum with shortness, 3D was asking about where the shortness and opener showed H shortness responder had ♥AKQx and not that much extras so signed off.

 

Opener had

 

Axxxx

---

Axxx

Axxx

 

My view was that hands with 3 aces are never minimum hands when you are in the slam zone.

[ladydoc]

The bidding was wrong by north. He should bite the bullet and bid 6 spades, and learn a better system.

 

In our system with this hand we employ an "underjump" shift...

ie South opens 1 Spade, responders bid of 3 hearts says, limit raise, four or more spades, and a singleton or void somewhere. There now, you get a whole level of bidding to further describe. If opener wants to know where is your shortness he bids three spades, asking... You get to six legitimately if six is there.

[Zelandakh]

Imo splinters should be only voids or only singleton, not one or the other.

 

I prefer all my splinters in any auction are voids for a couple of years now and the results so far with this method are too good to be true.

You can achieve both easily enough Ben. Depending on whether you prefer efficiency of space or leakage you might use responses to a 1♠ opening of:-

 

3NT = any void splinter (4♣ asks, then 4♦♥ = that void; 4♠ = ♣ void)

4♣♦♥ = singleton splinter

 

or

 

3NT = any singleton splinter (4♣ asks, then 4♦♥ = that singleton; 4♠ = singleton ♣)

4♣♦♥ = void splinter

 

You can combine this with 1♠ - 3♥ as any maxi splinter or 1♠ - 2NT as any mini or maxi splinter to get complete coverage of all splinter ranges with separation between singletons and voids.

 

Of course you could also divide the hands up differently, for example by making the immediate calls above 3♠ all show a void:-

 

3NT = any void maxi-splinter (4♣ asks, then 4♦♥ = that void; 4♠ = ♣ void)

4♣♦♥ = void splinter

 

...and use, say, 2NT or 3♥ to handle singletons. This makes the direct splinters very rare of course but might be just the sort of structure that works for you.