[Cyberyeti]

Dealer S teams, basically at our table N found out partner had ♠AKxxxx and bid the slam. Other table wasn't playing weak 2s but also bid 6 after finding out something similar.

Other table got a club lead, no chance -1, I got Q♦, drew trumps played a heart to the J, if this holds I can cash the red suit winners and exit with a club hoping the hand with A♣ doesn't have more than 2 diamonds, but the heart finesse loses so I should be 2 off, but RHO cashed the A♣ and folded his cards away uncontested by his partner, flat in -50.

Can you stay out of this one ?

---

[Hanoi5]

You can also play a club to see if you get a ruff and discard.

If there was a way for North to know how unvaluable his singleton club is, he'd stay out of trouble. Other than that I don't see any way for North not to get excited.

[billw55]

Cyberyeti, on 2012-April-23, 06:00, said:

Can you stay out of this one ?

Perhaps Ogust?

[rmnka447]

How many times out of a 100 weak 2 ♠ hands by South would it be wrong to bid 6 ♠ given that you find South with 2 keycards?

Not very many. It's unfortunate that the mirroring distribution dooms the hand, but the percentages strongly favor bidding 6 ♠.

Some slams that go down should be bid and some that make shouldn't be bid. That's because bidding is an imperfect art. Just chalk this hand up as one of these hands.

[Zelandakh]

I can think of a couple of ways. If North starts with a shortage ask then perhaps, similarly for some form of Ogust ask with a shortage ask follow-up. A possible auction might be:

2♠ = weak
... - 2NT = Ogust
3♦ = good suit, bad hand
... - 3♥ = shortage?
4♣ = singleton club
... - 4♠

Without some such specific agreement though I think it would be normal to think the slam was at worst on a finesse though, and even in the above auction Opener might hold AKxxxx/xx/xxxx/x if that does not qualify as a good hand in the context of your weak 2 style.

[Fluffy]

Assuming opener is NV:
2♠-2NT
4♣

Natural methods end up in splinter wich shows the problem to north, still there is room for ♦Q, or a 6-4, even ♦Jxx could be useful, all in all I'd say slam will make close to 50% if partner has ♠AK without club void so staying or not is not easy decision, don't think there is a way to investigate for ♦Q, maybe a bluhmer?

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Zelandakh, on 2012-April-23, 07:25, said:

I can think of a couple of ways. If North starts with a shortage ask then perhaps, similarly for some form of Ogust ask with a shortage ask follow-up. A possible auction might be:

2♠ = weak
... - 2NT = Ogust
3♦ = good suit, bad hand
... - 3♥ = shortage?
4♣ = singleton club
... - 4♠

Without some such specific agreement though I think it would be normal to think the slam was at worst on a finesse though, and even in the above auction Opener might hold AKxxxx/xx/xxxx/x if that does not qualify as a good hand in the context of your weak 2 style.

Here is another-- combining Ogust and Swedish-2NT :

2M - 2NT!
??
.. 3C! = bad hand, bad suit
.. 3D! = good hand ( or good suit ), no shortness
.. 3H! = good hand ( or good suit ), ♣-shortness
.. 3S! = good hand ( or good suit ), ♦-shortness
..3NT! = good hand ( or good suit ), other-major shortness

So for this hand:
2S - 2NT!
3H! - 4S

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On the other hand, if Opener had a doubleton-♦, slam may roll home ( discarding a ♥ on a long ♦ ).

A K 9 x x x
x x x
x x
x x

[aguahombre]

rmnka447, on 2012-April-23, 06:34, said:

How many times out of a 100 weak 2 ♠ hands by South would it be wrong to bid 6 ♠ given that you find South with 2 keycards?

Not very many. It's unfortunate that the mirroring distribution dooms the hand, but the percentages strongly favor bidding 6 ♠.

Some slams that go down should be bid and some that make shouldn't be bid. That's because bidding is an imperfect art. Just chalk this hand up as one of these hands.

I think we can improve on just calculating raw percentages, and try to find out whether THIS hand is a favorite to make slam. I said "try", not necessarily succeed.

How we try, depends on our methods. If the methods (2NT for instance) uncover a stiff club immediately, we get to subside; but, it might not be very common to use 2NT to ask for a stiff. It might be even less common for 4C/2NT to show one; a surprise second suit of 5+ is another possibility.

The method where a new suit is (sort of) natural, and asks for partner's length there, would work if Opener showed a doubleton; then I believe slam is odd-on favorite. Here, if pard shows 3 diamonds, we have to either find out or hope that he has or lacks the queen. This would be the route we would try; discovering opener has 3 diamonds, and calculating 37% that one of them is the queen..signing off.

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2012-April-23, 07:40, said:

Assuming opener is NV:
2♠-2NT
4♣

Natural methods end up in splinter wich shows the problem to north, still there is room for ♦Q, or a 6-4, even ♦Jxx could be useful, all in all I'd say slam will make close to 50% if partner has ♠AK without club void so staying or not is not easy decision, don't think there is a way to investigate for ♦Q, maybe a bluhmer?

This is 6♠/4♣ or 5/5 and a max by our methods (which are to play very wide ranging weak 2s so are particularly ill suited to this sort of hand).

We don't consider 4 cards in the other major any bar to opening 2♠ so AKxxxx, xxxx, xx, x is a possible opening bid and puts the slam on a 3-3 break or a finesse.

[aguahombre]

Cyberyeti, on 2012-April-23, 09:35, said:

We don't consider 4 cards in the other major any bar to opening 2♠ so AKxxxx, xxxx, xx, x is a possible opening bid and puts the slam on a 3-3 break or a finesse.

I would take those odds; anything above "or a finesse" is a favorite, IMHO. But I am not a math genius.

[Cyberyeti]

aguahombre, on 2012-April-23, 09:46, said:

I would take those odds; anything above "or a finesse" is a favorite, IMHO. But I am not a math genius.

Yup, by a long way, we consider anything that "can't be worse than a 3-3 break but might be a lot better" not a crime to bid.

[lalldonn]

Obviously if south can show a shortness then you can avoid it, and if south can't then you can't (reasonably) avoid it.

[Cyberyeti]

lalldonn, on 2012-April-23, 12:21, said:

Obviously if south can show a shortness then you can avoid it, and if south can't then you can't (reasonably) avoid it.

You can avoid it but still might not, 6331 is a terrible slam that improves to merely bad with the J♦, 6(42)1 either way is not bad.