What's 6 spades, undiscussed?

[Jinksy]

I think it would have to be a hand with slam values and four spades, wanting to play in 6S if you have four of them (as well as your four hearts) and 6NT if you don't.

 

Interesting that this has the most support - it's what the guy apparently meant (I wasn't part of the partnership).

 

It doesn't seem very intuitive to me, though. I would just have taken it as a hand that wanted to play in 6♠ after hearing a 2♥ response to Stayman - probably a crisp but insubstantial 2-suiter that hoped to do a lot of cross-ruffing AQJxxx Kx Axxxx - or something.

[gordontd]

Interesting that this has the most support - it's what the guy apparently meant (I wasn't part of the partnership).

 

It doesn't seem very intuitive to me, though. I would just have taken it as a hand that wanted to play in 6♠ after hearing a 2♥ response to Stayman - probably a crisp but insubstantial 2-suiter that hoped to do a lot of cross-ruffing AQJxxx Kx Axxxx - or something.

Why would that hand use Stayman rather than transferring and bidding the second suit?

[Jinksy]

Why would that hand use Stayman rather than transferring and bidding the second suit?

 

Well if a second suit would be forcing and the hand is distributional enough to care about a 4-4 spade fit when it has the values for 6N, it feels like you could do that anyway with the hand with 4 spades. But even if not, I'm envisaging a hand (you might not agree it's this one) that has no particular interest in playing with the second suit as trumps, either because the second suit is too weak or spades too good.

[SteveMoe]

Let's see. After 1N - 2♣ - 2♥

 

3N shows 4♠ and offers choice of games.

4N shows spades and invites 6. (Depending on your agreement either 4♣ or 4♦ would show a balanced invite to 6♥ with 4-card support).

5N? - if choice of slams is on our card, this could show ♠ and a desire to play at the 6 level.

 

WHen it comes to jumps in the ♠ suit things are less clear:

3♠ shows a ♥ GF and demands cue bidding Some use this for a hidden splinter.

4♠ shows?? An invite to 6N w/o ♠ would never go through Stayman. So it must be a splinter perhaps void splinter.

5♠ shows?? Dangerously high for Exclusion - so perhaps this is the bid for the Choose between 6♠ and 6N.

6♠, well OK, if you insist this must be 4♠ cards and a desire to play 6 only? Not so sure given the rest of the tool kit.

 

I am allergic to unnecessary jumps to the 6 level.

[rhm]

I am allergic to unnecessary jumps to the 6 level.

I am not, but I am allergic if such jumps are based on some mystery logic made up on the spot.

Assume partner thinks 6♠ might be preferable to 6NT if opener has 4 spades.

Then he was still prepared to play 6NT in the much more likely case when opener had less than 4 spades.

 

Is that worth risking a disaster, where you might be able to win the postmortem?

I concentrate my efforts to win the deal not the postmortem.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Zelandakh]

Let's see. After 1N - 2♣ - 2♥

 

3N shows 4♠ and offers choice of games.

Agreed. There are alternatives, such as completing the splinter suite, but I do not know anyone that plays it.

 

4N shows spades and invites 6. (Depending on your agreement either 4♣ or 4♦ would show a balanced invite to 6♥ with 4-card support).

Well that is certainly the most common but if you use 2♠ as a range ask there are other alternatives, such as XRKCB for example.

 

5N? - if choice of slams is on our card, this could show ♠ and a desire to play at the 6 level.

Certainly it is either going to be PaS or an invite to 7NT - hard to think of too many alternatives.

 

WHen it comes to jumps in the ♠ suit things are less clear:

3♠ shows a ♥ GF and demands cue bidding Some use this for a hidden splinter.

And some use it as a simple splinter

 

4♠ shows?? An invite to 6N w/o ♠ would never go through Stayman. So it must be a splinter perhaps void splinter.

Obvious alternatives are RKCB (Kickback) and XRKCB.

 

5♠ shows?? Dangerously high for Exclusion - so perhaps this is the bid for the Choose between 6♠ and 6N.

Sounds sensible to me.

 

6♠, well OK, if you insist this must be 4♠ cards and a desire to play 6 only? Not so sure given the rest of the tool kit.

How about a hand like ♠AKQxxx ♥KQJT ♦- ♣AKQ? Obviously there are other (perhaps better) ways of handling this but it would be pointless to have both 5♠ and 6♠ show the same hand type!

 

I am allergic to unnecessary jumps to the 6 level.

The key word here is unnecessary. If you define your jumps to the 6 level well and provide alternative auctions for other hand types then they are not really unnecessary on the rare occasions when you hold the specific hand. If, after 1NT - 2♣; 2♥, you play both 2♠ as a range ask and 3♦ as showing 4 hearts, you have a huge array of auctions available and thereby great freedom in how you want to define these rare jumps. The optimal way then depends on the specific hands your system routes through 2♣ and the bundled meaning for the 2♠ rebid (usually either Baron or clubs). I would imagine that even a pick-up expert pair will usually manage to have some rudimentary discussion on a NT structure before starting play, which in turn might affect the logical conclusions (promisary vs non-promisary, for example, often makes a big difference).

[gordontd]

Let's see. After 1N - 2♣ - 2♥

 

6♠, well OK, if you insist this must be 4♠ cards and a desire to play 6 only? Not so sure given the rest of the tool kit.

 

You seem to have left out the one part of the tool kit that gives a clue - 2♠

[Vampyr]

You seem to have left out the one part of the tool kit that gives a clue - 2♠

 

It is not clear whether this was available to the pair. They may have been playing 1NT-2NT as artificial, so the 2♠ bid would be invitational with four spade.

[gordontd]

It is not clear whether this was available to the pair. They may have been playing 1NT-2NT as artificial, so the 2♠ bid would be invitational with four spade.

That was precisely my point.

[SteveMoe]

I would imagine that even a pick-up expert pair will usually manage to have some rudimentary discussion on a NT structure before starting play, which in turn might affect the logical conclusions (promisary vs non-promisary, for example, often makes a big difference).

 

Zel, I agree your adds and points made - precisely because we cannot really know what 6♠ means until we examine the remaining existing agreements. Thanks!

[nige1]

The main point is that, until proven otherwise, your CHO is actually on your side and at least TRY and think of a logical meaning. EVERYONE learns differently and we do the best we can. I like a treatment where if I open 6 (of anything) I want p to bid 7 with the A or K of trumps. I have discussed this with many people and few had thought of it but no one hated it. This 6s bid (showing 4 spades and POC to 6n) can be figured out if you quit watching cows jump or playing doodle bug while playing bridge:)

Interesting that this has the most support - it's what the guy apparently meant (I wasn't part of the partnership)...

There's some scope for confusion, but not much. Gszes assumes that partner is consulting you.and that seems right.

[Jinksy]

It still seems unclear to me. Partner is allowed to blast, especially opposite a limited hand (eg no-one would have batted an eyelid at 1N P 6S), and it hardly seems clear that, by checking for a 4cM, he's relinquishing that right.

[benlessard]

4S and enough strenght to play 6S/6NT, I tought this was standard.

 

I dont see what else it could be. Even if you play pick a slam 5NT followed by 6S should be even if you have 4S you may pick 6NT.

[Fluffy]

Those who think it shows 4♠ and a choice between 6♠ and 6NT are forgetting that partner just needs to bid 3m over 2♥ to know if opener holds 4♠, afterwards he can jump to 6 whatever.

[Stephen Tu]

Those who think it shows 4♠ and a choice between 6♠ and 6NT are forgetting that partner just needs to bid 3m over 2♥ to know if opener holds 4♠, afterwards he can jump to 6 whatever.

 

No, we are thinking:

- if it's not that, is there another logical meaning of 6♠, other than initial massive spade/club confusion?

- even though *we* remember that partner could have just bid 3m or 5nt to find out about 4♠, we play with less reliable partners who have blind spots or just forget rarely utilized options in the heat of battle, and just picked out a bid that made sense to them.

 

I know that 5nt should logically mean pick a slam, 6s or 6nt, but I've also never made that bid on this sequence in my lifetime of playing bridge. So people who learn differently may not have encountered that idea or thought it through, and it doesn't occur to them, only the 6s bid occurs to them, counting on partner to figure out, else why stayman first.

 

And as for 3m, it may not occur to partner to bid a 3cd/4cd minor to find out about 4 spades, since normally that shows 5+ suit. So again they miss this possibility in their mind and only see 6s as the option.

[gwnn]

Sounds to me like a hand that only wanted to bid 7S if we had 4 spades (but I'm not that confident of this that I'd raise it to 7 if I had 44 in the majors - unless it really is a great 17). That's a weird way of evaluating a hand but, to me, less weird than jumping in a 4-card suit to the 6 level and expect me to understand it. I'd pass without looking at my hand and be a bit irritated if partner bid like this on some balanced hand with 4 spades. That hand can just bid 6N and live with the possibility that we missed a 4-4 fit in spades as opposed to torturing partner with an undiscussed 6-level jump. :angry:

[benlessard]

Players are really overthinking on this one. Its a bid that you will see less than once every 5 years so its not going to have a convulated meaning, its going to be natural and straightfoward.

 

6S as a inv to 7 level just make no sense. So 6S is I want to play at the 6 level but dont know between 6S and 6NT. This should be obvious.

 

Yes its possible to bid 3m followed by 6S/6NT but who cares, I might want to play the hand because of finesse position, after all im likely to be stronger than opener.

[gwnn]

On the contrary: If I am guilty of anything, it is underthinking. Partner makes an undiscussed jump to slam so I pass. If pressed, I can try to explain his/her jump, but it's not really what I'd do at the table. I'd never bid this way and expect partner to get it. With the strong spade suit, I'd transfer, texas perhaps, and sign off. With the magical 4342 or whatever, I'd bid 6NT instead of risking a disaster.

[Stephen Tu]

On the contrary: If I am guilty of anything, it is underthinking. Partner makes an undiscussed jump to slam so I pass. If pressed, I can try to explain his/her jump, but it's not really what I'd do at the table. I'd never bid this way and expect partner to get it. With the strong spade suit, I'd transfer, texas perhaps, and sign off. With the magical 4342 or whatever, I'd bid 6NT instead of risking a disaster.

 

If 6S happens to make while 6nt is down 1, that's a disaster. So whatever you do, you risk disaster.

If partner just wanted to play 6s, why didn't he just do it directly over 1nt or say after Texas or Jacoby? With stayman first, it really can't be a one suiter. I mean what kind of hand is interested in 7 opposite 4 cd support only?

 

So I am going to assume that partner is just not aware of the 5nt pick a slam option, considering how rarely it comes up, or overlooked it, and 6s is the only bid that occurred to him to give choice of slams. If it turns out he just wanted to play 6s no matter what I had, I get to win the post mortem with wtf with Stayman first.

 

Besides, opposite some 1 suiter in spades, I think 6nt will have play more often than 6s in a 4-2 fit will.

[chasetb]

After thinking about it for a bit and reading this thread, I came up with something different but still might make sense:

- Partner has a 5422 Smolen hand, and is really interested in one of 7♥, 7♠ and 7NT.

 

I got the idea from Problem 7 (p. 31-33) of Bidding A Bridge Hand by Reese. The auction was different, but the idea is the same.

 

Having said that, I doubt I figure all of this out at the table, and I would NEVER do this!

[gwnn]

6S making while 6NT goes down is a disaster but it's rarely the case that 6NT has absolutely no play while 6S is cold (of course there are cases, I know). Worst case scenario usually is that we need one more finesse in 6NT. As opposed to that, we sometimes avoid going down due to a bad spade break or a defensive ruff. And partner has 4 spades next to his 4 hearts what, 30% of the time? If we take that, and allow a generous 1/6 edge for 6S, we are still only losing 5% of the time (these are just random numbers I admit). So overall, the prospect of us missing a spade slam is not what I'd call a disaster and I'd definitely settle for 6NT at the table, knowing that we'd almost always have a playable slam. Being in a 4-2 "fit" on the 6-level IS a disaster, far more so than needing an extra finesse some of the time. Yes I know about Texas. I just said I'd have used it.

[Stephen Tu]

6S making while 6NT goes down is a disaster but it's rarely the case that 6NT has absolutely no play while 6S is cold (of course there are cases, I know). Worst case scenario usually is that we need one more finesse in 6NT. As opposed to that, we sometimes avoid going down due to a bad spade break or a defensive ruff. And partner has 4 spades next to his 4 hearts what, 30% of the time? If we take that, and allow a generous 1/6 edge for 6S, we are still only losing 5% of the time (these are just random numbers I admit). So overall, the prospect of us missing a spade slam is not what I'd call a disaster and I'd definitely settle for 6NT at the table, knowing that we'd almost always have a playable slam. Being in a 4-2 "fit" on the 6-level IS a disaster, far more so than needing an extra finesse some of the time. Yes I know about Texas. I just said I'd have used it.

 

The thing is, partner may not be of the same mindset as you, thinking that "well if I bid 6s, partner is just going to auto-pass without thinking about what hand I can have for using stayman first". He may not think that you passing automatically is even a consideration in his thinking, he doesn't think it's a risk! He thinks you are on the same wavelength, that if something unusual occurs you will stop and think through what the logical meanings are, rather than just auto-pass because you don't want to think about it.

 

I think the odds of partner forgetting both texas and jacoby in order to set spades as trumps and play 6s are absolutely miniscule compared to the possibility of overlooking 5nt (or 3m on non-suit) as choice of slams. Texas and jacoby are super common conventions one uses all the time. Unlikely to be forgotten. Having a hand wanting choice of 6s or 6nt after stayman is really really rare in comparison, the 5nt bid just doesn't come up a lot (even though I know the bid, I haven't used this on this sequence in my memory for over 20 years), so it's easier by orders of magnitude IMO for partner to either not know or overlook.

 

And yes, even though 6nt will often have some play when partner was offering choice of slams 6s, so you can argue that partner should not have risked you auto-passing, by the same token if partner has a spade one suiter who bid stayman completely randomly, 6nt still probably has play. So I would always correct to 6nt not having 4 spades, and if it goes down while 6s would have made, I'll just ask partner why the hell he bid stayman first. I mean what kind of hand could possibly care about stayman if he wants to play 6s regardless?

[gwnn]

Unfortunately my previous reply got swallowed by the internet.

 

I mean from now on all we are going to do is

 

"but if he has a long spade suit, 6NT still could have play"

"but if I have 4 spades, 6NT still could have play"

 

So I'm not sure what we will gain from this. I have no idea if my partner is suitable for 6NT but I expect him to have bid it if he had been. I don't always just assume I am playing with clone-gwnn but I do expect some common courtesy (no undiscussed jumps to the 6 level on 4-card suits). To me jumping to the 6 level on a 4-card suit is orders of magnitude weirder than on a 7-card suit, whether or not they have bid stayman.

 

To conclude I'd like to mention that there was an ex-partner of mine who thought

1NT-2♣

2♠-3♥

was a GF hand with hearts (but somehow different from transfer then 3NT) and:

1NT-2♣

2♠-4♥

was a slam-invite with hearts.

 

I don't know how common this is (in fact I am pretty sure it is less than 1% of people) but there are probably other players out there who think that stayman then making a bid is a stronger version of the same bid. I totally, unequivocally hate this idea, but I hate it less than jumping to the 6 level on AJxx or something.

 

As I said, we are going around in circles now.

[nullve]

My response to this thread was to start a related one: http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/74086-undefined-bids-idle-bids-and-psychic-auto-controls/

[Jinksy]

Regardless of what it should be, if you're going to claim that 6♠ 'obviously' shows four of the suit, I feel like you should provide some kind of analogous auction whose meaning we might map it from. This isn't hard with the 'to play, and don't worry your head about what exact hards I have' meaning. I would certainly assume the latter if any of the following auctions came up undiscussed:

 

1♣ 6♠

 

1♦ 6♠

 

1♥ 6♠

 

1♠ 6♥

 

1N 6♠

 

1N 2♦ /

2♥ 6♠

 

1♦ 1♠ /

2♣ 6♠

 

2♦ 6♠

 

2♥ 2N* /

3♥ 6♠

 

I'm basically typing out semi-random sequences ending with a jump to the six level, and in all cases it seems clear to me that (without discussion) P is showing a desire to play the contract he's bid. It seems far more like 'overthinking' to claim that this auction is the one exception to the pattern.