[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

a hand that I got wrong, maybe due to bad judgement.

You play a 5 card major system with a 11-14 NT, 44 in the
minors will be opened with diamonds.
Playing Team, red vs. green, you are in 3rd seat and hold

-
Axx
AJTxx
QJxxx

The auction

1D - (2S(1)) - 4C(2) - (4S)
5C (3) - (X) - XX - (5S)
X - (Pass) - ???

(1) weak jump
(2) fit jump, forcing to game
(3) Partner could have bid instead of 5C, kind of good / bad

Would you have bid 3S instead of 4C?
What do you think about XX?

With kind regards
Marlowe

[the_clown]

Hi,

I think it is clear to bid on. Partner decided that his hand is more suitable for offense than for defense,(he could pass if is not sure or he can double with a lot of wastage.) Now his double is a warning that he has a minimum hand for his opening bid. I dont need much to make 6♦, and since partner already showed a good hand for me, I would just bid it. I dont care that they doubled 5♣.

[P_Marlowe]

5C was the weaker bid, instead of going via 4NT

[jogs]

Would not have XX 5♣. Realistically you must know opponents are bidding 5♠ next.
Either bid 5♦ or 5♥. Bring partner into the picture. Have him help on what
to do against the likely 5♠ bid.

RHO makes a weak 2♠ bid and then doubles 5♣? His bidding is irrational.
Have no idea what's happening.

Would pass 5♠X. Don't know what's the best lead.

[Codo]

I had bid 3 or 4 Spade, whatever is your splinter.
I had redoubled too to show that this is really our hand.

Now I have no idea. Partner and RHO warned us that declaring may be wrong, OTOH, what do I need for a decent slam? xxx,xx,Qxxxx,AKx is no opening bid but a laydown grandslam....
Okay 6 ♦ for me...

[the_clown]

P_Marlowe, on 2013-January-08, 16:28, said:

5C was the weaker bid, instead of going via 4NT

I dont understand this agreement. In standard methods you can show the following 4 hand types:
- I have wasted ♠ values / No good support for ♣ - double
- a so so hand for offense - forcing pass, let partner whether to defend or declare.
- good hand for offense but no SI - 5♣/5♦
- slam try - pass and pull.
And you can bid RKCB if you are interested in slam and care how many KC partner has.

With your methods you give up on RKCB to be able to show a hand I dont undertand. Is it a weak offensive hand, or a hand, that would make a forcing pass in standard methods? If it is latter, I think it is really bad, since you will never be able to double them. (you are allowed to have Kx♠ and a stiff ♥ right?)

[P_Marlowe]

the_clown, on 2013-January-09, 04:48, said:

I dont understand this agreement. In standard methods you can show the following 4 hand types:
- I have wasted ♠ values / No good support for ♣ - double
- a so so hand for offense - forcing pass, let partner whether to defend or declare.
- good hand for offense but no SI - 5♣/5♦
- slam try - pass and pull.
And you can bid RKCB if you are interested in slam and care how many KC partner has.

With your methods you give up on RKCB to be able to show a hand I dont undertand. Is it a weak offensive hand, or a hand, that would make a forcing pass in standard methods? If it is latter, I think it is really bad, since you will never be able to double them. (you are allowed to have Kx♠ and a stiff ♥ right?)

The agreement does not come up often,so we dont have a lot of experience with it, and due to this fine tuning is missing.

4NT would show direkt SI, without interest in going for blood, similar to the reasons why some partnership invert standard pass /
pull - to clarify SI at once.
Without the already established GF, it would not show SI, but it would also a Forcing Pass.
That the Fit Jump to the 4 level generates a Forcing Pass sequence for us, is also a recent addition, and such a effects other
agreements.

That 4NT is Good / Bad followes actually from a Meta Rule about the meaning of a 4NT in contested auctions
(two places to play (kind of scrambling) comes first, good / bad comes 2nd, RKCB comes last).

Making a slam try with pass / pull tells nothing about the double fit, ... 4NT does not do this either (maybe implicit
=> fine tuning of partnership understanding).

With kind regards
Marlowe

[the_clown]

P_Marlowe, on 2013-January-09, 05:07, said:

The agreement does not come up often,so we dont have a lot of experience with it, and due to this fine tuning is missing.

4NT would show direkt SI, without interest in going for blood, similar to the reasons why some partnership invert standard pass /
pull - to clarify SI at once.
Without the already established GF, it would not show SI, but it would also a Forcing Pass.
That the Fit Jump to the 4 level generates a Forcing Pass sequence for us, is also a recent addition, and such a effects other
agreements.

That 4NT is Good / Bad followes actually from a Meta Rule about the meaning of a 4NT in contested auctions
(two places to play (kind of scrambling) comes first, good / bad comes 2nd, RKCB comes last).

Making a slam try with pass / pull tells nothing about the double fit, ... 4NT does not do this either (maybe implicit
=> fine tuning of partnership understanding).

With kind regards
Marlowe

Sry, I overlooked that in standard methods pass would probably not be forcing, since 4♣ should probably be forcing only to 4♦ which makes it a lot tougher.

I definitely like the fact that you have clear agreements in competitive auctions, even if the agreements are not optimal in some cases. If I understand correctly, your partner showed a minimum hand, and judged that declaring is right, and he bid 5♣ to show 4 cards (with only 3♣, he will surely have 5♦ and would not suggest 5♣). Since he has already limit his hand, the double tells me that he probably has ♠ card. I see no other reason to double, since I already know that he is minimum. My best guess is Kxxx Q Kxxx Axxx, Ax Kx KQxxx xxxx or maybe Axx K Qxxxx Kxxx.

I can not be sure that we can bid 5♠, and as Codo said we dont need much for slam, so I am bidding 6♦, although I dont expect to make it very often.

[mcphee]

Interesting partner found a fit jump in my 5 suit. I can not imagine his hand can be worse than the AK of C and the K of D. If I have not misunderstood the auction I would bid the Club slam. My long D should offer a H discard from partners hand. Bidding 6C is going to have them save in 6S I would think.

[mgoetze]

mcphee, on 2013-January-09, 06:59, said:

Interesting partner found a fit jump in my 5 suit. I can not imagine his hand can be worse than the AK of C and the K of D. If I have not misunderstood the auction

You have, though.

[mikeh]

When partner bid 5♣, I was already thinking of slam. We know, or at least ought to be able to infer, that rho doesn't have his double.

The redouble was fine: the overtrick (tho even your RHO was pulling his own double, if I read the situation correctly) makes up for the missed slam bonus. Now they pulled, to allow them to play 5♠ doubled is to allow them to have fooled you with the double. We know that partner is not strong in hcp, and yet he didn't open a 11-14 1N. Why not? Because he has shape. Yes, it is possible that the opps have 12 spades but I'd bet against it.

And if partner has 2-3 spades, then he has 0-2 hearts. I think this is any easy 6♣ and then we're probably playing there or defending 6♠.

[gszes]

While i think your 4c was a tad optimistic it has helped quite a bit with this hand.

Assuming 4n would have been clubs and diamonds with a distributional hand (noone
would care if it was the reds) the 5c bid can be made with say

Kxx KQx Qxxx Axx

bidding 5c here shows the min nature of hand and does not hide the club fit like a 5d
bid would have. Once 5s occurs and p x we must assume this is a way of showing
wasted values in spades while a pass would show no wasted values in spades.

Given these circumstances and your bidding methods I think pass is the right call.

[mikeh]

gszes, on 2013-January-09, 15:56, said:

While i think your 4c was a tad optimistic it has helped quite a bit with this hand.

Assuming 4n would have been clubs and diamonds with a distributional hand (noone
would care if it was the reds) the 5c bid can be made with say

Kxx KQx Qxxx Axx

bidding 5c here shows the min nature of hand and does not hide the club fit like a 5d
bid would have. Once 5s occurs and p x we must assume this is a way of showing
wasted values in spades while a pass would show no wasted values in spades.

Given these circumstances and your bidding methods I think pass is the right call.

Bidding 5♣ with this 3343 hand would be weird, even if we weren't playing the method stipulated in the OP, wherein this would be a clear 1N opening bid!

Since partner has a minimum in terms of hcp, he has shape. Do you still want to defend opposite a minor 2-suited hand? Really?

[gszes]

mikeh, on 2013-January-09, 17:09, said:

Bidding 5♣ with this 3343 hand would be weird, even if we weren't playing the method stipulated in the OP, wherein this would be a clear 1N opening bid!

Since partner has a minimum in terms of hcp, he has shape. Do you still want to defend opposite a minor 2-suited hand? Really?

My finger slipped and typed x vs the heart J anyway the point I was trying to make was in their system they have a 4n bid to show
2 places to play. The 4n bid can be used to show a minimum 2 places (which has to be the minors since hearts are irrelvant after no neg x)
to play hand with the minors and a 5c bid to show a min with club support and a 5d bid to show a min w/o club support. We would
not want to bury club support since we have no idea how high p might wish to go. Assuming the partners are using the information the
same way (it appears so since 5c was considered weaker than 4n) then when 5s is x I think it is right to pass.

[MrAce]

MikeH wrote what i was planning to reply, better than i would have, as usual.

I have to add one thing though, pd bidding 5♣ instead of 5♦ doesn't neccesarilly mean he wants to play in ♣, he may as well be showing us the double fit, predicting that we will be the one to decide whether we should bid slam or stay in game, or we will be the one to decide at the end if opps keep on bidding their spades.

Imagine yourself in the same seat trying to figure what to do, without knowing he has 4+ clubs, had he failed to show it.

[jogs]

Double fit is only promising 4-4 in the minors. From partner's point of view there may be more clubs than diamonds.

[lalldonn]

Um 6♣ bidders, why do you think the weak two bidder doubled 5♣???

I bid 6♦.

[PhilKing]

lalldonn, on 2013-January-11, 11:37, said:

Um 6♣ bidders, why do you think the weak two bidder doubled 5♣???

I bid 6♦.

Yes! Weak two bidder has a void diamond and the ace of spades. We are making gazillions of tricks in diamonds.

Hopefully partner has ♠Qx ♥Qx ♦Kxxxx ♣AT9x and we rack up an easy 13 tricks in Six Diamonds - preferably doubled, but I'm not sending it back.

[mikeh]

lalldonn, on 2013-January-11, 11:37, said:

Um 6♣ bidders, why do you think the weak two bidder doubled 5♣???

I bid 6♦.

I think you may be right, tho I also think that making a lightner double of 5♣ would be a silly action against anyone a little more on the ball than I was when I posted.

The auction wasn't over at 5♣. More to the point, why tell the opps to play in diamonds when you want them to play in clubs? If I was going to Lightner, I'd wait until the 6 level, especially since I have no way to know that a single ruff will defeat 5♣.

I think it makes more sense that the double be a striped-tail ape double, but I agree that it could well be a void in diamonds, so I am retroactively bidding 6♦ rather than my posted 6♣.

[JLOGIC]

I agree, a lightner X is a bad bid, most notably because partner will probably lead a diamond without the double if he has 4 of them (which is likely if they stay in clubs).

That said, people make bad bids sometimes. I would say I agree with lalldonn that they almost certainly made a lightner double. There is no reason to not take advantage of their bad bid.