Quantitative or not

[Stephen Tu]

Get a new p and dont play wih anyone who thinks is quant

 

= a recommendation to play with people who don't know how to bid. Puts a real ceiling on the skill level of your partners.

[neilkaz]

I would say that nearly all experts will play this as quant. If you play texas then you can bid 1NT - 2♦ - 2♥ - 4♥ as a balanced slam try. With every other hand you can either bid your 2nd suit or auto-splinter. If you don't play texas you can fake a suit. I had the following auction with a world class partner (not playing texas).

AQx Axxx Qxx Axx (my hand)

KT98xx KQ AK Qxx (partner's hand)

1NT (me) - 2♥ - 2♠ - 3♦ - 3♠ - 4♦ - 4♥ - 4NT - 5♦ - 5NT (specific kings) - 6♦ (having denied a diamond control earlier, I must be showing the queen) - 7NT (I can count 13 tricks)

At the other table they bid 1NT - 2♥ - 2♠ - 4NT (key card) - reply - 6♠. 15 IMPs to the good guys.

 

Yes, if you play Texas, this is quant and this is quite standard in the USA.

[phil_20686]

Never quant ever it agrees hts and should be fove ace if you pla it black.

Get a new p and dont play wih anyone who thinks is quant

 

I have been waiting for mikeh to make an epic post explaining all the reasons why this is obviously quantitative, but now that he has abandoned us I guess I will have to do it:

 

Reasons:

1) Good bidding systems give you good options for virtually all hands. If this is not quant then you need another way to show a balanced or semi balanced hand with 5 hearts and appropriate strength. There are other ways to do this. Maybe you play KERI. For a while I gave up on invitations and used transfer and 2N for this hand, and generally for all slam investigations that were neither 55 nor 6cM. But that is for bidding theory gluttons like yours truly. The overwhelmingly most common way to show 5M332 16 count is to transfer to hearts and bid 4N. Learning that partner has a 5cM gives you a big advantage in deciding whether or not to accept the invite.

 

2) Jumping to keycard early in an auction is almost never the right action. Its alwyas better to go slow and find out more about your hand. Its very difficult to construct responders hands such that we definitely 100% want to be in 6M opposite enough aces, and have zero chance of 7H and zero chance that you want to stop at 4M. There is no reason to reserve this bid for keycard when its almost never the right thing to do. Experts don't waste auctions!

 

3) Bidding is mostly experiential. Until you are a high level player you should seek to imitiate good players, rather than forging your own way. The overwhelming majority of good players will use this sequence to show a quantitative raise with 5M. This is likely for good reasons. Ergo: you should to.

 

4) Go with the flow: When playing in scratch partnerships the question is what is the standard agreement. On this auction, as a question of fact, it is standard to play it as quantitative, as least among those with a reasonable grasp of the fundamentals of bridge.