[kgr]

This came up in discussion with my partner:
(3S)-4H-(4S)-??
- DBL: We agreed to play this as point. Not pure penalty, but kind of optional. Do you think that is best?
- What is best use of 5C or 5D here? To play or cue?

[MrAce]

kgr, on 2012-February-07, 10:47, said:

This came up in discussion with my partner:
(3S)-4H-(4S)-??
- DBL: We agreed to play this as point. Not pure penalty, but kind of optional. Do you think that is best?
- What is best use of 5C or 5D here? To play or cue?

I play this double showing cards (hcps) and definetely not penalty, not penalty in the mean of "Pd pass regardless of what u have" So, if they bid this and i happen to hold KQT9 ♠ i can not dbl. This doesnt mean that i am making a pure take-out DBL either. Basically i am telling partner that i think this is our hand and we have too much value to surrender 4♠ without taking any action.

Use of 4NT, 5 minor or other bids vary depending on agreements. I am sure forum theoricians will tell you which is best, but imo whatever u agreed to is better than having no agreement for this type of auctions because these type of preempts, especially ♥ over ♠ or vice versa comes a lot. And it is not possible to cover all type of hands when the bidding comes in front of someone at 4 level.

You need to choose your priorities. For example for me the priority in this given auction would not be to try to find a better trump than ♥, although it is quite possible that we can sometimes. To me the priority in this auction would be that pd knows my intentions when i raise him to 5♥ via different ways and decides more accurate if/when they bid 5♠, or even when they are silent if we have more than just game.

[han]

Yes I think that's best. 5m should be to play here imo.

[JLOGIC]

X=takeout/cards
5m=natural

You could debate the meaning of 4N.

[Zelandakh]

X values
4NT take-out, typically either 2 places or competitive in hearts but a grand try without a spade loser also possible
5m natural
5♥ slam try
5♠ grand try with a spade loser (you can obviously reverse which route shows the spade loser)
5NT pick a slam

[whereagles]

I think these are more or less standard:

Dbl = take out
4NT = RKCB hearts
5m = natural, NF

You can make a case for something like what Zelandkh mentioned:

Dbl = values
4NT = take out
5m = natural, NF

Something to discuss with pard.

[Vampyr]

whereagles, on 2012-February-08, 03:49, said:

I think these are more or less standard:

Dbl = take out
4NT = RKCB hearts
5m = natural, NF

4NT RKCB for hearts is very interesting, but I would describe it as "extremely uncommon" rather than "more or less standard".

[MrAce]

Vampyr, on 2012-February-08, 10:52, said:

4NT RKCB for hearts is very interesting, but I would describe it as "extremely uncommon" rather than "more or less standard".

I am not sure 4 NT being used as RKCB is a bad idea and not sure if it is as uncommon as u think it is. If my memory serves well Meckwell playing this as RKCB (but i will check it again and correct it if i am wrong)

I know in the forums, auctions like the one here and auctions like 1♥-(4♠)-4NT 1♠-(4♥)-4NT are popular to show 2 suiters and all, but to be honest watching vugraphs i have yet to see a top pair in a top event to use it as 2 suited. Without agreement i would expect a pick up expert pdship to think that this is RKCB. I may be wrong of course.

I am not saying it should be used as RKCB, i am aware it is not common to hold a hand that wants to RKCB, but i also know holding 5-5 6-5 minors in these auctions are overrated. And even when u hold minors , you are basically aiming for the hands that makes 5 minor but not 6. On the other hand when they open 3♠ and pd overcalling 4♥ and other one is bidding 4♠, there is a good chance your sides fit can be ♥ with a lot of strength, which makes using RKCB reasonable.

Or maybe i am totally unaware of modern approach on this matter, which is a strong possibility.

[Vampyr]

MrAce, on 2012-February-08, 13:35, said:

Or maybe i am totally unaware of modern approach on this matter, which is a strong possibility.

Well, it's a strong possibility that I am too.

[Codo]

Serious question: Does anybody remember life hands where he wanted to bid 5 m as natural after such a start? I don't. (But I have never ever looked at the 9/4 hands which are posted here too. Maybe I do not play enough.)
So I guess there should be a better definition for these bids, like lead directing against 5 spade or showing different kind of supports for the hearts.

With my standard I would take them as controls heading for a slam, with a pick up, I guess I would belive in a real suit.

[han]

It's not so rare to pick up a good 7-card minor when the opponents have a big spade fit and partner has bid hearts. If they don't deal 7-card minors at your club then you'd better play 5m as a cue.

[cherdano]

Codo, on 2012-February-13, 07:40, said:

Serious question: Does anybody remember life hands where he wanted to bid 5 m as natural after such a start? I don't. (But I have never ever looked at the 9/4 hands which are posted here too. Maybe I do not play enough.)

I don't see why this should be so rare. It's obvious to bid 4♥ on a broken 6-card suit here, and there are many hands with a 5-card suit where it would get the majority of the votes. So why wouldn't I want to bid my 7-card minor here in preference to raising with Kx support?

[FrancesHinden]

MrAce, on 2012-February-08, 13:35, said:

I am not sure 4 NT being used as RKCB is a bad idea and not sure if it is as uncommon as u think it is. If my memory serves well Meckwell playing this as RKCB (but i will check it again and correct it if i am wrong)

I know in the forums, auctions like the one here and auctions like 1♥-(4♠)-4NT 1♠-(4♥)-4NT are popular to show 2 suiters and all, but to be honest watching vugraphs i have yet to see a top pair in a top event to use it as 2 suited. Without agreement i would expect a pick up expert pdship to think that this is RKCB. I may be wrong of course.

This is getting a bit off topic, but sometimes after I've played on vugraph I torture myself by reading the commentary. I've bid non-RKCB 4NTs a few times (I'm very much at the non-RKCB end of the player spectrum) and usually the commentators, who don't have any better information, assume it's RKCB when it isn't. Including once when I bid 4NT to play, partner passed it, and there was a page of 'oops'. Even after we had 10 top tricks.

FWIW I play 'Reverse Zelandakh' i.e. 4NT is both minors or a heart slam try, 5H is weaker. His was is technically superior, I think, but we aren't going to change anytime soon as it's too rare an auction.

[Codo]

cherdano, on 2012-February-13, 07:58, said:

I don't see why this should be so rare. It's obvious to bid 4♥ on a broken 6-card suit here, and there are many hands with a 5-card suit where it would get the majority of the votes. So why wouldn't I want to bid my 7-card minor here in preference to raising with Kx support?

Thank you for showing the upsides of a natural 5 m bid.
But I asked about the memory, not about the upsides- do you remember hands, where you wanted to or had bid 5m in such a not so uncommon situation?

Or to put it another way:
LHO has 6-7 spades, 5-9 hcps, partner 6+ Hearts 15(?)- 18(?) HCPS and RHO 3+ Spades up to 12(?) HCPS. (If you do not agree with the point range, use your own.

How often will you get a hand with different forms of heart raises and how often will you like to bid a long minor to play?

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the first thing to discuss with your p, maybe if pass instead of X is forcing or not.

From the corresponding answer followes a lot.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[benlessard]

I dont think you can play FP here because partner is under pressure and even RED vs W hes going to stretch for 4H. Since i like to stick to "best game before slam" approach I would play by default.

Dbl = values, mostly penalty (partner need a void to pull)
4NT = take out/ could be single raise to 5H
5m = natural, NF
5H strong 5H raise slam try.

Partner can have a 0643 and stretch to bid 4H on a good but not great suit becasue he feel X is too dangerous. So aiming for 5m at the cost of having few slam tries make sense IMO.

[han]

Codo, on 2012-February-14, 05:42, said:

How often will you get a hand with different forms of heart raises and how often will you like to bid a long minor to play?

I hope you know that this is not the right question to ask. In order to ask the right question, you need to weigh in how much it will cost you if you don't have 5m available. I'd guess that on average it will cost a lot more if you want to bid your long strong minor but you can't, than if you want to make a cuebid for hearts but you can't. The reason is that if you want to make a cuebid there are other alternatives (4NT, 5H, 5S, 6H) that may not be perfect but usually are not completely ridiculous. If you want to bid 5m to play and you can't, you often have no reasonable other call.

[ArtK78]

Codo, on 2012-February-14, 05:42, said:

How often will you get a hand with different forms of heart raises and how often will you like to bid a long minor to play?

I don't know how often it will come up, but I held this hand in a Sectional Pair game this weekend:

---
x
QJ9xx
AKQxxxx

At no one vul, LHO passed and partner opened 2♥ (which we play as undisciplined, 3-9 HCP at this vul). RHO passed, and I bid 5♣ natural. While this situation is not the same as the one set forth in the OP, consider that LHO had T9xxxxx Qx AKx x for his first seat pass, and RHO had AQJx KJxxx xx xx in 3rd seat. Now, admittedly, partner's hand (Kx Axxxx Txx xxx) is no where near sufficient to bid 4♥ over a 3♠ opening bid, but with some tweaking of the hand the auction might have duplicated the auction set forth in the OP. Then I would be sitting in fourth seat with 0-1-5-7. I would like to be able to bid clubs naturally here.

Note that LHO is a Platinum LM, so his pass in first seat is more of a style thing than anything else. I don't agree with it, but there are a lot of his actions that I don't agree with.

[Obviously, we won this hand in the bidding, but I was able to make 5♣ after the lead of the ♦A (A from AK). RHO, wanting a spade shift through dummy's Kx, played low from his doubleton diamond (standard carding). I muddied the waters by dropping the ♦J. LHO thought about this for a while, and shifted to a spade.]