[the_dude]

---

Playing with an occasional partner .. in the past we have agreed that 2♠ by responder is minimum (5-8ish) and his 3♠ bid is a good 6 card suit and forcing. We aren't on firm ground with reverse auctions tho.

If North now bids 5♠ .. is that a general slam invitation *or* a specific inquiry about club controls? I would think it was asking for a control in the 4th suit .. would like to confirm tho...

What better methods do y'all use for this auction. Do you have any specific agreements (lebensohl or otherwise) that would help?

[mgoetze]

I recommend the following pinned thread in the Beginner/Intermediate forum: http://www.bridgebas...everse-bidding/

With the recommended Lebensohl/Ingbermann method, your auction could start 1♦-1♠-2♥-2♠-3♠, and you could then get the cuebidding machinery going.

[JLOGIC]

Having to bid 3S sucks. You have AJx of clubs, and will often endplay partner out of 3N and into raising you on a stiff (or whatever).

That said it strikes gold here so what do i know. As you said, north should bid 5S. This denies a club control since with a club control north would bid 4C.

The real question is whether south should give his partner 6C over 5S. Missing the jack, it seems like grand will never be great though it could be good if solid elsewhere (unless partner has KJ doubleton), and might actually be pretty shaky if we need 4-2 diamonds and spades to come in. I might just be happy to reach 6 and bid 6S over 5S tbh, I could see people reaching 3N pretty easily. But partner does actually have KJ and the nuts outside so 7 is very good. Whenever I see people not bid 6C here it doesn't work out, so I guess the point is just bid your hand. Partner could have even had the DJ also for a 100 % grand! But KJ doubleton is a really unlikely holding to begin with.

[JLOGIC]

BTW I have always thought 2N leb followed by 3 spades to show 6 spades and a club stopper was a good treatment. With 5 spades you just bid 2S then 3N. That would help a lot here and help avoid 1D-1S-2H-2S-3C-3N-p which is not so crazy.

[the_dude]

mgoetze, on 2011-January-06, 13:58, said:

I recommend the following pinned thread in the Beginner/Intermediate forum: http://www.bridgebas...everse-bidding/

With the recommended Lebensohl/Ingbermann method, your auction could start 1♦-1♠-2♥-2♠-3♠, and you could then get the cuebidding machinery going.

Yes .. thank you .. I'm aware that you can play 2♠ as unlimited and forcing but AFAIK this is not the general treatment and I play with many partners that lack detailed agreements. I'm much more interested in what the general agreement is on 5♠ on this auction .. or how else a club control might be found .. Unless you are saying it's impossible if South does not start with a forcing 2♠.

[mgoetze]

Sorry, it sounded like you were (also) asking about that sort of thing. For discussion of 5♠ I will defer to Mr. Logic.

[JLOGIC]

Whenever you could have made a control showing cuebid their suit or the 4th suit, a jump to 5M would deny a control there. Quantitative jumps exist when this is not an option, thus you cannot be that specific.

For instance, if they open 4H and I overcall 5S, that does not show no heart control. It simply means I am too strong to overcall 4S. The reasoning behind this is that a 5H cuebid would not be a 1 suiter in spades, so it's not control showing.

In this auction over 3S, 4C is coming in spades. Partner has shown a strong 6 carder. If i had no club stopper and 1462 I would bid 4D (or 4S with stiff honor). If I had 5-6 I would bid 4H. If I had 2 spades I would raise in some fashion.

So if you are quantitative with a club control, you just bid 4C and have a cuebidding auction (and maybe keycard to follow, or maybe you can jump to 5S later...now this asks for good trumps since all suits have been bid!). With quantitative and no club control you can just bid a classic 5S directly, and expect partner to cuebid with the CA of course (though as I said, he might not want to on this hand!)

[the_dude]

JLOGIC, on 2011-January-06, 14:01, said:

Having to bid 3S sucks. You have AJx of clubs, and will often endplay partner out of 3N and into raising you on a stiff (or whatever).

That said it strikes gold here so what do i know. As you said, north should bid 5S. This denies a club control since with a club control north would bid 4C.

The real question is whether south should give his partner 6C over 5S. Missing the jack, it seems like grand will never be great though it could be good if solid elsewhere (unless partner has KJ doubleton), and might actually be pretty shaky if we need 4-2 diamonds and spades to come in. I might just be happy to reach 6 and bid 6S over 5S tbh, I could see people reaching 3N pretty easily. But partner does actually have KJ and the nuts outside so 7 is very good. Whenever I see people not bid 6C here it doesn't work out, so I guess the point is just bid your hand. Partner could have even had the DJ also for a 100 % grand! But KJ doubleton is a really unlikely holding to begin with.

Thanks .. I wanted to verify that there's agreement on what 5♠ is. And it seems to me that South (not knowing what is going on) should bid 6♣ and let the guy who has the source of tricks decide

JLOGIC, on 2011-January-06, 14:13, said:

Whenever you could have made a control showing cuebid their suit or the 4th suit, a jump to 5M would deny a control there. Quantitative jumps exist when this is not an option, thus you cannot be that specific.

For instance, if they open 4H and I overcall 5S, that does not show no heart control. It simply means I am too strong to overcall 4S. The reasoning behind this is that a 5H cuebid would not be a 1 suiter in spades, so it's not control showing.

In this auction over 3S, 4C is coming in spades. Partner has shown a strong 6 carder. If i had no club stopper and 1462 I would bid 4D (or 4S with stiff honor). If I had 5-6 I would bid 4H. If I had 2 spades I would raise in some fashion.

So if you are quantitative with a club control, you just bid 4C and have a cuebidding auction (and maybe keycard to follow, or maybe you can jump to 5S later...now this asks for good trumps since all suits have been bid!). With quantitative and no club control you can just bid a classic 5S directly, and expect partner to cuebid with the CA of course (though as I said, he might not want to on this hand!)

This is an excellent summary of the 5S bid .. thanks

[mike777]

the_dude, on 2011-January-06, 13:30, said:

---

Playing with an occasional partner .. in the past we have agreed that 2♠ by responder is minimum (5-8ish) and his 3♠ bid is a good 6 card suit and forcing. We aren't on firm ground with reverse auctions tho.

If North now bids 5♠ .. is that a general slam invitation *or* a specific inquiry about club controls? I would think it was asking for a control in the 4th suit .. would like to confirm tho...

What better methods do y'all use for this auction. Do you have any specific agreements (lebensohl or otherwise) that would help?

fwiw I play reverses ala root-pavlicek structured reverses, and also must bid 3s here.
Now I would just rkc over 3s. In theory pard need not have the a or k of clubs but he needs 9-10 hcp at least somewhere to bid 3s.

The other options would be to bid 5s to ask for a club control or bid 4s here and pard will go on and bid 4nt and then 5nt confirming all the keys and north can jump to 7s.

[kenrexford]

Just got thinking...

1♦-1♠
2♥-3♠
5♣???

Exclusion is probably the default here, but then a control-asking bid also makes sense. Then, I thought about the possibility of a somewhat Bluhmer interpretation, which then intrigued me. A Bluhmer can look like a CAB, it seems. Very similar in some practice, with the difference being description-versus-captaincy.

Not sure what to do with this thinking.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

A possible option is to bid 4C.

Since 4C is the only forcing and artificial bid, 4C should not promise a club control,
it should merely agree spades, and show interest.
Opener promised already controls in the red suit, this in not 100% certain, but he did
make a reverse, he also needs spades, so requiring a club control for the 4C bid, would
make the frequence of the 4C bid nearly nearly going to zero, but having a bid to agree
spades in a forcing manner will come up quite often.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[cherdano]

the_dude, on 2011-January-06, 13:30, said:

Playing with an occasional partner .. in the past we have agreed that 2♠ by responder is minimum (5-8ish) and his 3♠ bid is a good 6 card suit and forcing. We aren't on firm ground with reverse auctions tho.

So with 5 spades and 9+ points responder has to bid 4th-suit forcing? Which is also what he would have to do with forcing raises of opener's suits? I try to be open-minded about different methods but this does not sound good, I would recommend adding Ingberman and playing 2S as forcing.

[cherdano]

P_Marlowe, on 2011-January-07, 04:39, said:

Hi,

A possible option is to bid 4C.

Since 4C is the only forcing and artificial bid, 4C should not promise a club control,
it should merely agree spades, and show interest.
Opener promised already controls in the red suit, this in not 100% certain, but he did
make a reverse, he also needs spades, so requiring a club control for the 4C bid, would
make the frequence of the 4C bid nearly nearly going to zero, but having a bid to agree
spades in a forcing manner will come up quite often.

I don't think 4C promises a club control, if you have a slam try without a club control but you are not worth going to the 5-level, then there is nothing else you can bid.
However, here we do have a hand good enough to force the 5-level, so we should rather make the descriptive bid (good spades, very strong reverse but no club control - this must be almost exactly this hand).

[Lurpoa]

the_dude, on 2011-January-06, 13:30, said:

---

Playing with an occasional partner .. in the past we have agreed that 2♠ by responder is minimum (5-8ish) and his 3♠ bid is a good 6 card suit and forcing. We aren't on firm ground with reverse auctions tho.

If North now bids 5♠ .. is that a general slam invitation *or* a specific inquiry about club controls? I would think it was asking for a control in the 4th suit .. would like to confirm tho...

What better methods do y'all use for this auction. Do you have any specific agreements (lebensohl or otherwise) that would help?

For me too, the reverse is only one-round forcing. So 3♠ is OK.
But why in the hell would N have a need to bid 5♠ ? If he is looking for slam posibilites: 4NT over 3♠ is RKCB. With his hand, that is what I would bid. I cannot imagine a hand on which I would like to bid 5♠, knowing that partner could fall from his chair on this bid, or worse, get a heart attack. Please make it easy on partner....

[whereagles]

Many options here. Anything can work: a psychic 4♣, a practical 4NT, even 4♠.

But one thing I'm not going to do is to bid a muddy 5♠. Regardless of its merits, I won't do it until that sort of stuff is textbook material. Reason: I don't wanna give pard an headache.

In my notes I can bid an artificial 4♥ to show spade support, but that's just me I guess. (We always open 65s in the higher-ranking suit, so 4♥ is vacant as a cue.)

[xxhong]

Here, I play 2S as a relay to 2NT and sign offs (of course, opener can break the relay with gf values). So 2NT shows 5+ S and gameforcing. With this in mind, it would be quite easy to handle this hand:
1D 1S
2H 2N(5+ S, gf)
3C(the direction is unclear, 3NT is not an option, also no 3 spades, 6D or 5H) 3S(6 S)
4D(cuebid) 4H(last train, showing C control)
4N(RKC) 5S(two kc with SQ)
6D(DK, trying to find out whether partner holds DJ or HQ to bid 7NT) 6S
7D(DQ) 7S(denies HQ or DJ)

[Lurpoa]

P_Marlowe, on 2011-January-07, 04:39, said:

Hi,

A possible option is to bid 4C.

Since 4C is the only forcing and artificial bid, 4C should not promise a club control,
it should merely agree spades, and show interest.
Opener promised already controls in the red suit, this in not 100% certain, but he did
make a reverse, he also needs spades, so requiring a club control for the 4C bid, would
make the frequence of the 4C bid nearly nearly going to zero, but having a bid to agree
spades in a forcing manner will come up quite often.

With kind regards
Marlowe

quite on the contrary - IMHO - Playing BWS2001 with cue-bids, Kaplan style- I think that 4♣ would agree on ♠ and show a first or second control ♣.

[FrancesHinden]

It's not something I would impose on an irregular partner, but I also think 4C here should just agree spades and not show a control (and I was slightly surprised JLOGIC thinks it shows a club control).
You have no other way as opener to agree spades - 4D and 4H are both natural, 4S is non-forcing and 4NT is possibly a tad committal.

On the actual hand 4NT is probably the easiest to avoid confusion. How can partner not have a club control to jump to 3S missing all that other stuff (including 2 spade honours)?
Of course, playing 4C to agree spades 4NT becomes natural, too good for 3NT - if you want to keycard for spades, you bid 4C first.