Cuebidding and the ace of trumps

[smerriman]

Generally there are two main approaches I use to reach a slam. If keycards are all I need to know, use blackwood. If the response wouldn't help (2 losers in a suit, or a void and I need to know which ace partner has), I can start cuebidding.

 

What if I need to know if partner has the Ace (or King) of trumps?

 

[hv=sn=smerriman&s=SAK42HKQ83DAKQ96C&nn=Robot&n=SQHAJ74DJ83CAJT32&d=w&v=o&b=8&a=P1C(Minor%20suit%20opening%20--%203+%20%21C%3B%2011-21%20HCP%3B%2012-22%20total%20points)P1D(One%20over%20one%20--%204+%20%21D%3B%206+%20total%20points)P1H(3+%20%21C%3B%204+%20%21H%3B%2011+%20HCP%3B%2012-18%20total%20points)P1S!(Fourth%20suit%20forcing%20--%204+%20%21D%3B%203-%20%21S%3B%2012+%20HCP%3B%2013+%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%20to%203N)P2C(4+%20%21C%3B%204%20%21H%3B%202-%20%21S%3B%2011+%20HCP%3B%2012-18%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%20to%203N)P2H(4+%20%21D%3B%204+%20%21H%3B%203-%20%21S%3B%2012+%20HCP%3B%2013+%20total%20points%3B%20forcing%20to%203N)P4H(4+%20%21C%3B%204%20%21H%3B%202-%20%21S%3B%2011+%20HCP%3B%2012-14%20total%20points)P]400|300\[/hv]

 

Maybe there are other/better ways of getting to this point, but what now? If partner has the ace of hearts, I want to bid a grand slam; if not, I want to stop at the small slam. Bidding 4NT won't help me (unless there is a way to continue cuebidding after a 5D response); bidding 4S will allow partner to show the ace of clubs but by then it's too late to bid blackwood.

 

Perhaps this is the reason exclusion blackwood was invented - but are there any more standard approaches to figuring this out?

[kenrexford]

The answer is rather simple. Buy a baseball bat. Use that baseball bat to beat some sense into your oartner. When he wakes up, explain bidding to him.

 

If you had garbage, you would hear his 1H call and bid 4H. 4th suit and then 2H begged him to use the remaining 2 level, the entire 3 level, and the partial 4 level to discuss things. Instead, he blasted 4H, showing a club-heart two-suiter that a New York hooker would turn down.

 

If partner had made a helpful cue, like maybe 3C, you could cue 3D, and he could cue 3H. Not many people cuebid a trump Jack, so you would know that he hsd the heart Ace at that point.

[Stephen Tu]

Baseball bats won't do much if partner is a robot. Not everyone plays cue bids in trumps like Ken. In that case one either uses exclusion, or you use extended response structures to 5nt Josephine, 6 level responses to show trump honors but not 2/top 3.

[echo25]

Why don't you bid 5NT - asking high honors in trumps? Partner has an ace so he bids 7h.

[smerriman]

The standard meaning of 5NT is to ask for 2 of the top 3. I did actually choose to bid 5NT in case Gib's response could tell me something useful - but the response was simply a 6H 'denial'. Using 6C and 6D as StephenTu suggests to provide more information does seem like a good way to go in general.

 

And yes, that is true regarding the jump to 4H - even after 3H, using first-round control bids would allow 3S - 4C - 4NT to work as well. I guess my best option given the constraints of Gib would be to just bid 4NT and hope for two aces to save a guess.

[GrahamJson]

You can 5NT with step responses, much like Blackwood, I.e. 6C=no top honour, 6D=1 top honour, 6H=2. Problem solved.

[fourdad]

imo, the second that N bids 1H, S is the captain of the hand. At that point, the S hand values at 25 points + N at 13.

What is the problem?

 

Bid 4NT, pd shows 2 aces, bid 7.

How is this a bad plan?

[Cyberyeti]

imo, the second that N bids 1H, S is the captain of the hand. At that point, the S hand values at 25 points + N at 13.

What is the problem?

 

Bid 4NT, pd shows 2 aces, bid 7.

How is this a bad plan?

 

It's a bad plan when partner shows one ace.

 

Does he have ♥Axxx, ♣KQJxx or ♥Jxxx and ♣AKQxx

 

One of the normal step responses to 5N is

 

1: no top hon

2: Q

3: K or A

4: K or A and extra length

 

And you compress 1 and 2 if lacking space, so 1♣-1♦-1♥-5♣(exclusion) or 5N (GSF either now or delayed) should get the job done.

 

We actually use 5♠ as GSF with hearts agreed to allow room for the full set of steps

[rmnka447]

I agree with the step responses to 5 NT GSF. At the very least, 6 ♣ can be no high honor, 6 of agreed suit 1 high honor, 7 of agreed suit 2 or more.

The only time you have some problem figuring out if pard has a high honor is when the agreed suit is ♣

[ggwhiz]

Bidding problems with robots..... Really?

[silvr bull]

With partnership agreement, my Silver convention solves the op problem easily. After 1C-1D, and 1H 4S would be Kickback to ask for aces with Hs as trump. That leaves the jump to 4NT free to ask about trump quality. 4NT would also ask about trump honors immediately after a weak 2D or 2H, or an opening preempt of 3C or 3D or 3H (since 4S would be Kickback for H). The responses (with either C or D or H as agreed trump) would be 5C=0 (or 1 if opener has only a 3 card suit), 5D=1, 5H=AQ or KQ, 5S=A&K with no extra length, 5NT=A&K with more length than shown in the earlier bidding, and 6C=3. When S are the agreed trump suit, 4NT asks for aces, but a jump to 5C could ask for trump honors, with responses similar to the above. There is more about the Silver convention in the 2013 link below:

 

http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/59714-asking-about-trump-honors/

 

Good luck teaching the robot to bid Silver!

[Cyberyeti]

With partnership agreement, my Silver convention solves the op problem easily. After 1C-1D, and 1H 4S would be Kickback to ask for aces with Hs as trump. That leaves the jump to 4NT free to ask about trump quality. 4NT would also ask about trump honors immediately after a weak 2D or 2H, or an opening preempt of 3C or 3D or 3H (since 4S would be Kickback for H). The responses (with either C or D or H as agreed trump) would be 5C=0 (or 1 if opener has only a 3 card suit), 5D=1, 5H=AQ or KQ, 5S=A&K with no extra length, 5NT=A&K with more length than shown in the earlier bidding, and 6C=3. When S are the agreed trump suit, 4NT asks for aces, but a jump to 5C could ask for trump honors, with responses similar to the above. There is more about the Silver convention in the 2013 link below:

 

http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/59714-asking-about-trump-honors/

 

Good luck teaching the robot to bid Silver!

 

If you play 4♠ as kickback, it's more normal to use 4N as exclusion with a spade void, but I suppose you can bid 3♠ then 4♠ as that.

[Caitlynne]

This is a challenging hand for sure and it was a clear error for the weaker hand to jump to 4H - effectively preempting the unlimited hand of bidding space that might (and was) needed - but even so, there is a reasonable strategy/solution.

 

Just cue bid. Partner's ability to cooperate will focus attention on the trump suit.

 

After 4H, cue bid 4S. Surely 5C will follow and you can continue with a cue bid of 5D. Partner may bid 5H. And now you can continue again with a cue bid of 6D. You don't continue with 5S as this suggests you are leaving room for a cue in diamonds or clubs. 6D makes it clear you are worried about trumps while your trumps are strong enough to make 6H safe.

 

Well, with the Ace of trumps, raising to 7H is easy.

 

One more comment: The raise to 4H was the bid of someone who does not understand the Principle of Fast Arrival. Fast Arrival is appropriate only when partner has limited his/her values. You never jump to a sign-off in game if partner is unlimited because you don't want to preempt partner if partner has slammish values where the 5 level MIGHT not be safe.

[Phil]

I really don't consider using RKC to be a serious crime. If partner shows you two it's great news.

[allias]

The reason this particular hand is difficult is south at his second bid (the sequence shown would deny 4 hearts at this point)

 

As 1S is 4th suit force 2S would show first round spade control and agree hearts and initiate a cue bid sequence

 

North would now bid 3C to show 1 first round control.

 

Now an ace enquiry would reveal whether north held the heart ace (with a robot it may not help as it might show the ace it had already cue bid for all I know)

[Jinksy]

The reason this particular hand is difficult is south at his second bid (the sequence shown would deny 4 hearts at this point)

 

As 1S is 4th suit force 2S would show first round spade control and agree hearts and initiate a cue bid sequence

 

[Cyberyeti]

The reason this particular hand is difficult is south at his second bid (the sequence shown would deny 4 hearts at this point)

 

As 1S is 4th suit force 2S would show first round spade control and agree hearts and initiate a cue bid sequence

 

North would now bid 3C to show 1 first round control.

 

Now an ace enquiry would reveal whether north held the heart ace (with a robot it may not help as it might show the ace it had already cue bid for all I know)

 

2♠ would be a straightforward splinter for us, why should 1♠ deny 4 hearts, absolutely standard way of making a forcing raise and keeping the bidding low.

[allias]

2♠ would be a straightforward splinter for us, why should 1♠ deny 4 hearts, absolutely standard way of making a forcing raise and keeping the bidding low.

 

Two points: (1)3S is a splinter(double jump, as is standard practice)

 

(2)If a major is not supported immediately it implies no support

e.g. 1H 3H, 1H 1S 2S, 1S 2NT(jacoby),1NT 2D 3H, 1S 4c etc.

[masse24]

 

(2)If a major is not supported immediately it implies no support

e.g. 1H 3H, 1H 1S 2S, 1S 2NT(jacoby),1NT 2D 3H, 1S 4c etc.

 

1♠ does not deny support. Instead, it says, "We belong in game (or more), please further describe your hand. My next bid will tell you why I used an artificial GF."

[Cyberyeti]

Two points: (1)3S is a splinter(double jump, as is standard practice)

 

(2)If a major is not supported immediately it implies no support

e.g. 1H 3H, 1H 1S 2S, 1S 2NT(jacoby),1NT 2D 3H, 1S 4c etc.

 

May be standard for you, not in many many other peoples' worlds.

 

1♥-change of suit-any-4♥ is a very standard way of showing a 13 count with 4 hearts in old fashioned Acol for example where Jacoby 2N is not played with 4 card majors.

 

Round here 2♠ as a splinter IF 1♠ is 4SF (some play it natural) is fairly standard

[johnu]

Some may already play Kickback RKC, but there is also a Kickback Grand Slam (Non) Force.

 

If spades are trump, after 5NT,

 

6♣ - 1 step Trump ace or king

6♦ - 2 steps Trump queen or 2+ cards more than promised, or plus 3 or more

6♥ - 3 steps No honor but 1 card more than promised

6♠ - 4 steps No honor, expected length

 

Higher - 5+ steps 2 of top 3 or ace and 3 cards more than expected.

 

Additional asking bids after 1 and 2 step responses. The goal is to get to 7 with a 10 card fit missing the queen, or with a 12 card fit missing the king.

[Vampyr]

One more comment: The raise to 4H was the bid of someone who does not understand the Principle of Fast Arrival. Fast Arrival is appropriate only when partner has limited his/her values. You never jump to a sign-off in game if partner is unlimited because you don't want to preempt partner if partner has slammish values where the 5 level MIGHT not be safe.

 

How do you propose to explain this to the robot?

[msjennifer]

One is worried "if partner bids 5D over 4 NT then what?" In other words RKC or BW is not going to solve anything.One is only interested to find out if P has The HA and then if he has,to bid GS hoping hearts will behave or P will have HJ also.My suggestion is to use a bid of 5 NT over 4H asking for trump honors and as played by many the 1Step shows no top honor,2Step shows 1 top honor.So P will bid 6D to show one top honor and you then bid the Grand Slam in Heart.I know that this method is not useful if 2 Top honors are missing and the agreed suit is Clubs.One other way is to bid 4D over P bid of 1H to ask for "specific "Ace/Aces.( Since hearts are agreed 4 H shows no Ace and Heart Ace will be shown with a bid of 4 NT). I do not know much about them but may be the old fashioned Culbertson asking bids will help.

[smerriman]

Bidding problems with robots..... Really?

How do you propose to explain this to the robot?

 

I expect nothing beats a dedicated partner, but I've learnt far more playing with Gib than random pickup partners online, even if they're not perfect. Especially learning what they get wrong and what humans would do instead, like all of the ideas in this topic :) Thanks all.

[mike777]

 

 

Object it is not a shame to test theory....shame on you for suggesting that

 

 

If only we could be as wise as you are in theory