[thepossum]

Hi all

How would you go about bidding this. I usually open these 2C, try to show both suits and hope for a fit but others on here have suggested that 2C is not good for two suiters. Sadly I was not able to find the fit with the right suit in this case (an error on my part I believe around the 3-4 level). I will give a clue there is a small/possible grand in one suit but not in the other

Note: It was a small matchpoints tourney

Edit. Both non-vulnerable, third seat after two passes

regards P

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[smerriman]

Same advice as last time. Open 1♥, which will never be passed out, then make a forcing bid in clubs. Opening 2♣ gets you too high too soon; you need to bid your suits as early as you can. Since you can force to game starting with bidding 1♥, there's no advantage in bidding 2♣.

[thepossum]

Thanks Stephen

In this case there was no chance of 1H being passed out although many ended up being left in game, even after very strong later bids.

Is there never a risk of being left in 1H with hands like these. I know most auctions are very competitive these days so its unlikely

PS I should have said I was third seat after two passes and both non-vulnerable

[smerriman]

With 24 points, 12 spades, and 13 diamonds missing, try to construct hands for partner and the opponents where partner can't respond, your LHO can't double, neither opponent can overcall 1S or 2D, and your RHO can't make a balancing double (8+ with short hearts) or balancing 1NT.

Perhaps it's possible, but I suspect you'll find it quite difficult

[thepossum]

ok thanks

I'm still a bit unsure on the best way to bid it though, especially in the case of a misfit and problems trying to get North to show a preference for one of two identical suits (one major, one minor)

As a few extra clues for this hand, EW did not interfere (maybe good players could) and a 1H bid was followed by 2D and 2C was followed by 2D

Note the person who managed to get to the right slam did open with 2C and managed to bid the 3 and 4 level in such a way to find the fit and get a nice 100% compared to my 1 down 14 %

regards P

[Stephen Tu]

There's always going to be some amount of guesswork on this hand. You can't expect to get them all right. Auction goes something like 1h-1s-3c-3n-4c-4h, does partner have xxxx Kx KQxxx Jx where slam is quite good, or does he have KQxx xx KQxxx xx where 5 level is in jeopardy?
6-6 hands are super rare so normal systems aren't really catered to bidding them accurately. So all you can really do is show as much of it as you can, and at some point you or your partner have to take a guess. How can you find out if partner has CJ which might be huge but not DA which might be basically worthless? Most systems cannot diagnose these things at a reasonable level.
So anyway, the basic plan is to bid 1h, then 3c and 4c if partner doesn't raise hearts right away (lacking competition from the opponents; with vigorous competition you might end up bidding 4c and 5c or something like that). Now with some hands partner might be able to show real support for one of the suits and you can just gamble that he a couple useful cards and bid 6. If he just takes a reluctant preference to 4H, probably odds favor giving up, but one would might have to run a simulation to be sure of this.
Just because some guy happened to get to the right slam and opened 2c doesn't mean at all that he was being clever; he might have just gotten lucky. Is the slam a good one, high percentage, or does it require a favorable lie of the opponent's cards? Would he have gotten to the same slam if partner had slightly different cards but same bids, and would it still be good or would it transform to terrible if partner had a different combination of high cards that would choose the same responses?

The reason people don't open 2c is because it's unlikely to help you (pass out being so extremely rare), and it is more likely that you can bid hearts than clubs and clubs by the 4c level if you start with 1h level than if you start with with 2c (since opps may jack the bidding in spades and your first heart bid is at 4 level and you haven't mentioned clubs yet, or even if opps are silent partner may do something inconvenient by bidding spades or diamonds and again you don't get to bid clubs first time until 4 level).

[thepossum]

Here were the two hands

As you say the main problem was (1) that I was not able to get North to show a preference for clubs (maybe due to my bidding incorrectly), (2) Ace diamonds was rather wasted, (3) I could not find out about Kxx clubs, (4) did not know there was a void in hearts etc etc.

Maybe the probabilities are not good for this and its too hard to bid well but it seems to be a very good chance of small slam.

The person who bid to the club slam went 2C-2D-2H-3D-4C-4D-4H-6C - so North finally jumped to the small club slam

I went astray after 4D trying to get controls and took a punt on 6H

P

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[hrothgar]

Couple days back, during my lunch time bridge game, I got dealt

♠ AQT987xx
♥ VOID
♦ AKQT9
♣ x

LHO passed, partner passed, and RHO opened 2!C
I thought about things for a bit, and bid 5!S...

LHO doubled and there I played.
Contract ended up down 1.

Big pick up because RHO didn't think they could safely start introducing suits at the six level...

Admittedly, this is just an anecdote and things could have turned out quite differently, however, this is the sort of thing that happens WAY too often when you open 2♣ on distributional hands with no defense...

The opponents ALSO have distributional hands and if they start showing them, you're going to be forced to make the last guess

[gordontd]

thepossum, on 2019-March-15, 23:11, said:

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How about:

1H-1S
3C-3NT
4C-4D
4H-5C
6C

[Cyberyeti]

gordontd, on 2019-March-16, 03:02, said:

How about:

1H-1S
3C-3NT
4C-4D
4H-5C
6C

This is a very reasonable auction for many people, we can't follow it and would have a much more awkward auction (we play 1♥-1♠-3♣ as something like AQJxx twice and out NF so would have to go thru a GF 2N rebid which would get messy as you then can't afford the normal rebid to show clubs as that is 3N and can be passed).

[thepossum]

gordontd, on 2019-March-16, 03:02, said:

How about:

1H-1S
3C-3NT
4C-4D
4H-5C
6C

Looks quite a reasonable option over 1H. Unfortunately GiB selected 2D for those who bid 1H. However it does seem a good way to get to explore the options

P

[gordontd]

thepossum, on 2019-March-16, 21:12, said:

Looks quite a reasonable option over 1H. Unfortunately GiB selected 2D for those who bid 1H. However it does seem a good way to get to explore the options

P

In that case I suppose it might go:

1H-2D
3C-3D
4C-5C
6C

The fact that responder has overbid should make it harder to stay out of slam.

[thepossum]

Thx Gordon

regards P