The Good

[jillybean]

When mentoring beginners I suggest this is a cardinal sin.

 

These, and 99% of the hands I post here are those I have played with experienced partners. I'm much kinder when playing with newbies.

[pescetom]

Maybe but it's not a good grand without the Jack of hearts is it?

 

Quantitative logic (which rarely fails) says it should be.

Swap the ♥J for ♠J or ♦J and I imagine it still makes (clubs to squeeze with if necessary).

[pescetom]

Seems like an advert for confidently bidding a grand off an ace. 16+19 = 35

 

And just what do you think the probability of being off an ace is?

You can find it in a thread from a few months ago.

[TylerE]

And just what do you think the probability of being off an ace is?

You can find it in a thread from a few months ago.

 

It ain't zero. I'm just not understanding what you think you're gaining by not checking.

[pescetom]

It ain't zero. I'm just not understanding what you think you're gaining by not checking.

 

Time, a small possibility of Gerber misunderstanding or misbid, if missing clubs Ace the certainty you will lose it.

Although I misremembered the off ace probabilities for 16+19, it is actually about 8.5% on the South hand so worth checking.

[DavidKok]

The probability could be 1% and it would still strange to voluntarily jump on a slam auction when you have descriptive and asking bids available.

[pescetom]

The probability could be 1% and it would still strange to voluntarily jump on a slam auction when you have descriptive and asking bids available.

If you mean jump in general, then I might quote the following:

 

I guess I’m still at the novice/beginner level then. In my partnerships, we often (often is not the same as frequently or mostly…it’s shorthand, here, for ‘more than rarely’) use quantitative bidding once one player shows a strong balanced hand

 

Sure a quantitative jump invite/conclusion is not a blanket decision, it depends upon the precision with which we know the HCP of the strong balanced hand, our own hand and the scoring system as well as other obvious factors.

 

If you meant jump to contract rather than ask, I do agree that 8% merits an ask.

I will probably never earn a living from playing bridge and so can happily ignore 1% :)

[jillybean]

[hv=pc=n&s=skt4ha6dq94cakqj8&w=sj865h98dkt82c932&n=saq9hkqj42da73ct6&e=s732ht753dj65c754&d=n&v=0&b=1&a=1hp2c(gf)p2ntp3h(cue)p3sp4ntp5s(2+Q)p7nppp]399|300[/hv]

 

When do you stop cue bidding and move to KC ask in these auctions? Here we can keep cue bidding 4♣:4♦ but the 2nt bid has already told me partner has a ♦control

 

 

This auction is obviously somewhat contrived, I have a problem here with my 2♣/1M gf clubs or balanced. 3♥ would show 3 card heart support.

[pescetom]

When do you stop cue bidding and move to KC ask in these auctions?

Almost never: KC is only on directly after the first control-bid, except with beginners.

And Duboin-Madala played happily without even that for many years.

[DavidKok]

 

When do you stop cue bidding and move to KC ask in these auctions? Here we can keep cue bidding 4♣:4♦ but the 2nt bid has already told me partner has a ♦control

 

 

This auction is obviously somewhat contrived, I have a problem here with my 2♣/1M gf clubs or balanced. 3♥ would show 3 card heart support.

I would struggle with these hands. Going from quantitative to controls to key cards is a weird sequence. Generally you'd set a trump suit, then make control-showing bids, and if either side has enough information to pull the trigger they ask for key cards. This is very frequent, and can come after multiple rounds of control bids.

In the absence of a fit you more normally rely on quantitative bids, i.e. ask partner to re-evaluate the trick-taking potential of their hand in light of the fact that you can't support their long suits well. It is not very common to make control-showing bids on a quantitative auction. Some people treat 4NT quantitative as 'Optional Blackwood', there a positive hand gives a Blackwood response. Personally I play shape-showing answers and am very happy with that style. On those auctions you frequently have neither control bids nor Blackwood.

[DavidKok]

On the example hands we would bid:

 

1♥-2♣;

2NT (16+)-3♣;

3NT (3=5=3=2 minimum)-? and now South has a serious problem. Facing a combined 35/36-count we're always bidding a small slam, but there is no good way to ask for more information. I think South should bid 5NT (quantitative for 7NT) and North should reply 6♥ to emphasise the good heart suit, and South should realise with the ace in their own hand that 7 has good odds. No control bids, no key card (which is also why the decision isn't clear over 6♥ - it's still possible for the partnership to be off an ace at that point).

My agreements over this 3NT are quite lousy - at the very least we could play 4♥ as some kind of artificial positive noise to keep the ball rolling. But we don't.

[nullve]

On the example hands we would bid:

 

1♥-2♣;

2NT (16+)-3♣;

3NT (3=5=3=2 minimum)-? and now South has a serious problem. Facing a combined 35/36-count we're always bidding a small slam, but there is no good way to ask for more information. I think South should bid 5NT (quantitative for 7NT) and North should reply 6♥ to emphasise the good heart suit, and South should realise with the ace in their own hand that 7 has good odds. No control bids, no key card (which is also why the decision isn't clear over 6♥ - it's still possible for the partnership to be off an ace at that point).

My agreements over this 3NT are quite lousy - at the very least we could play 4♥ as some kind of artificial positive noise to keep the ball rolling. But we don't.

You could play Mulberry, e.g

 

4♣ = puppet to 4♦

...4♦ = forced

......4♥/4♠/4N/5♣ = key card asks in C/D/H/S, resp.

4♦ = stop signal

4M/5m = natural slam tries (NF)

4N = quantitative

 

. Or borrow from Zelandakh (as I do in situations like this) and play

 

4♣ = puppet to 4♦

...4♦ = forced

......4♥/4♠/4N = key card asks in D/H/S, resp.

4♦ = key card ask in C

4M/5m = to play

4N = quantitative,

 

since Opener's approximate strength is known, making the natural 4M/5m slam tries practically redundant.