A bid about limli raise

[phil_20686]

1) Its normal for the west hand to start with a double.

 

2) Its reasonably normal for the east hand to bid 3S as a pre-emptive raise. Red vs green with no shortage some might consider it wrong for a 3S bid and bid 2S. You would much prefer Jxxx x xxx Axxxx for example. I think that would be textbook. Given the existence of a cue no one of any experience would play 3S as a limit raise. All invitational or better hands with spade support would bid 3D over 2D undiscussed. With discussion, its popular to have more ways to raise spades here, 2N for most experts would be some form of a spade raise. Most common is to split them by trump length, 4 card raises through 2N and 3 card raises through 2N. I prefer to split by Offense to Defense ratio, so broadly that means split by trump length but with some scope for e.g. KQx x AKxxxx xxx to go through 2N, and Kxx KJx KJx Qxxx to go through 3D. The idea being to choose the bid that makes partner most likely to do the right thing when sacrificing/doubling.

 

3) After the three spade bid 4N was wrong. Not only because you won't find out if you have a diamond control, but also because you don't yet know much about partners hand. If you think Qxxx Qx Ax Axxxx was in range for partners hand you are good for grand. Then again QJxx QJx Jx QJxx gives you no play at all at the 5 level. Jxx Qxx Jx AQxxx has the right number of tricks etc but two quick diamond losers. A 4c cue bid showing the ace/king of clubs and inviting partner to show a diamond control is just the normal way to bid this hand. If partner bids 4H or 4S you just pass as you know that you will lose two diamonds.

 

4) 5S is a very bad bid. If you find out you have the right number of key cards for slam, you should bid slam. Bidding keycard when you aren't intending to bid slam after you find out that you have all but one keycard is very bad. In this case you even had the chance to ask about the spade Q by bidding 5D. If you have bid keycard, and have 4 key cards and the trump Q, you should always bid slam! You could have missed lam here opposite QJxx QJx x AQxxx when it is literally against the wall. In this particular case you would have escaped as partner does not have the spade Q, and you would have stopped at the 5 level.

 

5) North's 2D bid was also wrong. He should either bid 3D or pass. 2D wrongly advertised his strength and didn't adequately disclose how good his hand when declaring if partner also has an unbalanced hand.

 

6) Bidding Micheals with the west hand over 1D would be ludicrous. You claim that you saw a high level expert player bid micheal's on a 5-4 hand like this, I can assure you that you did not. Bidding Micheals with AKxxx AKxx would be more or less prima facia evidence that they are not in fact an expert. Unless they were randomising. What is much more likely is that you saw a situation that looked like Micheals but was actually part of a more sophisticated over-call structure, so that although it looked like Micheals his partner was in fact expecting to see exactly the 54 distribution he had, probably with the five card suit known. It is, in general, very bad to bid micheals when you are less than 5-5. Its especially very bad to bid it with 6-4, which some beginners do when they interpret Micheals as being "ten cards in the majors".

 

7) A large number of players on this forum would be counted as strong tournament players, and there are a bunch of people with international experience from around the world. At least one person with multiple international caps has commented on this thread, so perhaps a little more humility is in order. By coming to the forums to post hands and learn you are taking your first steps into a much wider world. You can learn a lot here about how to really play. I have. And we are a pretty forgiving bunch, as lots of us had very high opinion of our bridge skills until we started posting here and learned that we didn't really know anything.

[Zelandakh]

6) Bidding Micheals with the west hand over 1D would be ludicrous. You claim that you saw a high level expert player bid micheal's on a 5-4 hand like this, I can assure you that you did not.

It depends a little on the generation Phil. The original Michaels convention was 5+-4+ in the majors over 1m or 5+oM-5+m over 1M and it was used that way even at high levels.