How do you like your hand?

[lamford]

I totally disagree with Wank that it should also be narrowly limited vs ALREADY narrow limited hand such as 12-14.

I think what Wank means is that it should be assumed to be narrowly limited, and you sign off if unsuitable. Of course the responder can move again with a slam force and may be bidding exclusion at the 5-level.

[MrAce]

I agree with wank that the splinter should be narrowly defined and I think it should be six-losers, counting Qxx as 2.5 losers, and probably only a no-loser or one-loser suit. In principle it should make slam opposite the perfect 11-count (or perfect 14-count playing a strong NT). Of course AQxx is better than AJxx in a side-suit.

 

 

Splinter is narrowly defined ONLY vs unlimited or wide range limit bids, such as 1♥---4♦ where 1 ♥ can be 10 hcp or 21 hcp.

I totally disagree with Wank that it should also be narrowly limited vs ALREADY narrow limited hand such as 12-14.

In my example above I gave you guys an 11 hcp splinter but a void. With a singleton it may have a totally different strength vs 12-14 limited hand.

Sometimes you decide to go slam already but make your splinter vs 12-14 to see if pd likes it, and if he does you may get turned on for grand.

 

Now let's change your original hand to something that would actually fall in love with ♦ splinter.

 

Jx

AJxx

xxxx

AQJ

 

and make pd hand even stronger than the example I already gave.

 

AKQT9xx

xxx

Void

Kxx

 

Are you happy to be in slam? Or let's make him

 

AKQTxx

Qxx

x

Kxx

 

Are you happy being in slam? I can give you more void hands too vs your xxxx ♦ if you want it

 

AKQTxx

xxxx

Void

Kxx

 

Are you happy being in slam? I can keep on constructing more hands by playing with the ♥ honors as well, while i still give you perfect xxx(x) ♦ holdings vs stiff or void and you will still not be happy in slam and sometimes being even at 5 level.

 

No, I disagree with wank about the "greatness" of splinters. They are very overstated in general and it has nothing to do with the abuse of splinters. Look at the hand I originally constructed with 11 hcp and ♦ void in my previous post vs these examples.

You simply can not afford to play "narrow limited splinters" vs ALREADY limited hands. It just does not make any sense to me.

 

Now look at this

 

xxx

Ax

KQxx

Axxx

 

Pd splinters in ♦ suit with

 

AKxxxxx

Kxx

Void

JTx

 

 

Now you are in much better shape than those other hands i gave you which are stronger and which ALSO fell in love with ♦ splinter. At worst you make on a split ♣ honors if they lead it. If they don't you claim by giving up a ♦.

Calling splinters "great" is a huge overstatement. Particularly if you are advocating "narrow limit splinters" vs narrow limit openings.

There is a reason why BBF and all other forums i read are full of sunk ships that tossed to splinter-berg. I admit they are abused a lot, but still there are lots of sunk ships due to "greatness" of the convention.

Simply there are much more factors which affects the outcome, other than so called "wasted values-no wasted values" that splinter convention focuses on.

 

EDIT: I edited and fixed because my first attempt came with a lot of php codes.

[Winstonm]

I have now agreed with my partner the following structure: 1NT-2x(major)-2M-4x(spl)-

cue = 0-1 points in SPL suit and ace or KQ of cued suit or

cue = max with Axx(x) in SPL suit and ace of cue suit

sign-off: all other hands

 

I agreed to play the following with my old partner Bob Holmes, now deceased. It was what he was comfortable with so I didn't argue. His idea was that the purpose of splinter was to find out if you were playing in what could be called a 30-point deck instead of 40 point, meaning that xxx, opposite x was the ideal holding and that all the HCPs in the combined hands became working cards. Yielding that one loser mean that if you held 27 out of 30 HCPs you probably had no worse than a finesse for slam. Obviously, this meant placing a range on the splinter, and we used opening hand strength for a simple splinter, while also keeping open the splinter and continued bid after the (expected) sign off with much stronger hands.

 

I don't claim that this is best or even good - it was just our agreement, meaning it was better than guesswork.

[Winstonm]

I have now agreed with my partner the following structure: 1NT-2x(major)-2M-4x(spl)-

cue = 0-1 points in SPL suit and ace or KQ of cued suit or

cue = max with Axx(x) in SPL suit and ace of cue suit

sign-off: all other hands

 

I agreed to play the following with my old partner Bob Holmes, now deceased. It was what he was comfortable with so I didn't argue. His idea was that the purpose of splinter was to find out if you were playing in what could be called a 30-point deck instead of 40 point, meaning that xxx, opposite x was the ideal holding and that all the HCPs in the combined hands became working cards. Yielding that one loser mean that if you held 27 out of 30 HCPs you probably had no worse than a finesse for slam. Obviously, this meant placing a range on the splinter, and we used opening hand strength for a simple splinter, while also keeping open the splinter and continued bid after the (expected) sign off with much stronger hands.

 

I don't claim that this is best or even good - it was just our agreement, meaning it was better than guesswork.

 

PS: Note that this is a splinter after a fit has been established - 1H-3S, 1S-4D, or 1C-1H-4D. The idea in a NT self-splinter would be to find out if you held at least 27 points outside the splinter suit, I would think, but we didn't use it as such.