[MickyB]

AJ
A
KT853
AJT86

IMPs, favourable

1S:2D
2S:3C
3N:?

1S:2D shows 5+cards, GF

Over 1S:2D - 2NT and 3C would have shown extras; 3D would have shown four cards any strength.

[wank]

4c. it seems like our best chance of a fit.

it's only when partner is 6322 that we don't have an 8 card fit. of course it can be wrong to play in your best fit anyway, but that's life.

[lamford]

 wank, on 2014-August-04, 07:24, said:

4c. it seems like our best chance of a fit.

it's only when partner is 6322 that we don't have an 8 card fit. of course it can be wrong to play in your best fit anyway, but that's life.

I know the hand, but that is what I would have bid at the table. As Kendrick says, "bid what is in front of your face".

[whereagles]

4♣ seems really obvious. If pard is 6322 he can bid 4NT now (misfit; to show club fit cue-bid 4♥).

[Cyberyeti]

 wank, on 2014-August-04, 07:24, said:

4c. it seems like our best chance of a fit.

it's only when partner is 6322 that we don't have an 8 card fit. of course it can be wrong to play in your best fit anyway, but that's life.

We seem to have an 8 card spade fit if he's 6322.

[wank]

 Cyberyeti, on 2014-August-04, 08:21, said:

We seem to have an 8 card spade fit if he's 6322.

i was referring to an 8 card fit in clubs. if partner is 6322 4c is going to be a failure.

[mikeh]

The downside to the 'obvious' 4♣ is that he may well be endplayed into bidding an ambiguous 4♦...ambiguous as to the degree of support. KQxxxx Kxx Ax Qx looks like a 4♦ stall to me, and where do we go from there? In particular, how do we get out of the inadequate diamond fit and into the excellent spade fit? I think this is such a significant issue that we should strain to avoid the problem.

It would be nice to play adjective bridge, and have our 4♠ call now taken as (very) delayed preference, but why should it not be a cue bid? A xx KQJxx AKJxx?

As it is, if we bid 4♣ and get the preference for which we were not looking, we can cuebid 4♥, but that probably only delays the problem for one round.

I therefore think that we should bid 4♠ over 3N.

Partner should be able to work out that we don't have 3 card support...we would have raised spades last time. We wouldn't likely be bidding this way with 2=2=5=4, and I assume we could have bid 3♦ forcing with 2=2=6=3 or the like.

I hope I am not being guilty of making my bids mean what I want them to mean when I say that 4♠ shows a strong, but not forcing, hand with Hx in spades, and short hearts.

I confess to being worried that partner may recognize I show strength and yet be unable to move, due to a lack of Aces, and downgrading heart cards. But with good(ish) spades, the diamond Ace and a club honour, he should realize he has working cards, especially if he owns a 6th spade. KQxxxx Kxx Ax Qx is a hand on which he should, imo, move.

[PhilKing]

Partner's possible shapes are:

5323
6323
6313

I think the first is most likely on the grounds that the the 63 hands would often bid 3♥ (or 3♠) over 3♣ to keep other strains in the game.

So when partner does have six spades, his spades should be weak and his hearts strong. Anyway, 4♣ is indeed the bid under our nose, over which 4♠ should be, of all things, natural.

If partner raises 4♣ to five, I will pot slam. Over 4♠ I pass.

[gszes]

I am a bit leary concerning the assumptions about opener's possible distributions.
If opener is miniumum I see no reason opener cannot have a hand like KQxxx Kxx x KQxx.

The bidding has not allowed opener to show clubs since 3c over 2s would have shown extras
and it seems wrong to show club support when 3n looks like a much better overall choice on
the next round. This is especially true when many pairs play 3c there as "stuff" in clubs
rather than showing a real suit.

4C

seems like the right way to go but now how does opener proceed?? It would seem opener has been
endplayed into a simple 5c bid. This aceless wonder has some potential but requires responder
to have 3 of the 4 first round controls and the singleton dia is not necessarily a great asset
(would probably have looked better if the spade Q was the dia Q==not on this hand naturally==).
FWIW the 5c bid should show something positive for slam else a simple 4n. change opener to
Kxxxx KQx Q Kxxx and I would not bid 5c (4n for me even though it suppresses 4 clubs).

[kenrexford]

What kind of an idiot bidding system does not allow Opener to ever confirm (or deny) holding a six-card spade suit?!?!? I started reading the posts and thought everyone had lost their minds until I considered the implied-if-not-stated reality that Opener's sequence has never clarified the spade length, bizarre though that might be.

I mean, why can't Opener simply bid 3NT with five spades and a heart stop, 3♠ with six spades and a heart stop, or 3♥ with 5-6 spades but no heart stop?

[Fluffy]

My thoughts were same as mikeh's, 4♠ should show this!, but then I also suspect partner might think otherwise.

For me 3♣ has a strong 5-5 tendency as I love to rebid 2NT to let partner pattern out and clarify since 2♠ is so ambiguous. This has its own problems of wrong siding I know.

I choose 4♠ for this reason: even partner has 3♣, we have communication problems as dummy will lack entries playing in clubs, but playing in spades our troubles are over, and we have more flexibility since we can pitch clubs on diamonds.

[gnasher]

 kenrexford, on 2014-August-04, 13:28, said:

What kind of an idiot bidding system does not allow Opener to ever confirm (or deny) holding a six-card spade suit?!?!?

The system that's played by about 98% of American tournament players? But I agree that this is an awful feature of most natural systems.

[gnasher]

 mikeh, on 2014-August-04, 09:24, said:

It would be nice to play adjective bridge, and have our 4♠ call now taken as (very) delayed preference, but why should it not be a cue bid? A xx KQJxx AKJxx?

It wouldn't be normal to cue-bid when there's no agreed suit and there are several possible strains. With that hand I'd bid 4♣, expecting to be able to cue-bid on the next round.

I think 4♠ is clearly natural. It's less clear whether it's forcing or not, but I think it should be, given the methods.

Responder's expected spade holding is Hx or HH. Opener's spades could be 10xxxx, so 4S might be a silly contract. Hence opener should be able to sign off in 4NT, and responder should promise sufficient strength for 4NT. If responder promises the values for 4NT, we may as well play 4S as forcing.

[MickyB]

 kenrexford, on 2014-August-04, 13:28, said:

I mean, why can't Opener simply bid 3NT with five spades and a heart stop, 3♠ with six spades and a heart stop, or 3♥ with 5-6 spades but no heart stop?

3♠ would tend to wrong-side no-trumps pretty horrifically. It would be better to have 3H and 3S/3N split by number of spades, with 3S over 3H asking for a stop.

[PhantomSac]

 gnasher, on 2014-August-05, 00:31, said:

It wouldn't be normal to cue-bid when there's no agreed suit and there are several possible strains. With that hand I'd bid 4♣, expecting to be able to cue-bid on the next round.

I believe Mikeh was talking about 4C 4D 4S possibly being A xx KQJxx AKJxx and not being natural. He did end up bidding 4S natural after all.

Quote

I think 4♠ is clearly natural. It's less clear whether it's forcing or not, but I think it should be, given the methods.

Responder's expected spade holding is Hx or HH. Opener's spades could be 10xxxx, so 4S might be a silly contract. Hence opener should be able to sign off in 4NT, and responder should promise sufficient strength for 4NT. If responder promises the values for 4NT, we may as well play 4S as forcing.

I disagree with this, just because we have the values for 4N or 5C does not mean 4S cannot be our best spot, I personally don't love the idea of playing in 4N if I don't have to and can play 4S. More importantly I think 4H shows the same thing as 4S but is stronger so we don't need 4S to be forcing.

[cherdano]

 kenrexford, on 2014-August-04, 13:28, said:

What kind of an idiot bidding system does not allow Opener to ever confirm (or deny) holding a six-card spade suit?!?!? I started reading the posts and thought everyone had lost their minds until I considered the implied-if-not-stated reality that Opener's sequence has never clarified the spade length, bizarre though that might be.

I mean, why can't Opener simply bid 3NT with five spades and a heart stop, 3♠ with six spades and a heart stop, or 3♥ with 5-6 spades but no heart stop?

 gnasher, on 2014-August-05, 00:16, said:

The system that's played by about 98% of American tournament players? But I agree that this is an awful feature of most natural systems.

I disagree. I think it's one of the advantages of 2/1 that you have a lot of leeway in these auctions, and that you can make your choices based on suit quality and strength of your stoppers. This allows you to get to 4S on good 5-2 fits with no heart stopper, or to play 3N with a weak 6-2 fit and a strong heart stopper. I think this is superior to, say, shape-based relay for choice-of-games purposes, but much inferior for slam purposes.

[mikeh]

 gnasher, on 2014-August-05, 00:31, said:

It wouldn't be normal to cue-bid when there's no agreed suit and there are several possible strains. With that hand I'd bid 4♣, expecting to be able to cue-bid on the next round.

I think 4♠ is clearly natural. It's less clear whether it's forcing or not, but I think it should be, given the methods.

Responder's expected spade holding is Hx or HH. Opener's spades could be 10xxxx, so 4S might be a silly contract. Hence opener should be able to sign off in 4NT, and responder should promise sufficient strength for 4NT. If responder promises the values for 4NT, we may as well play 4S as forcing.

See Justin's explanation of my post: in my view, 4♠ over 3N is natural, and I don't think anyone would argue the point.

As for it being forcing, I like the suggestion that 4♥ over 3N ought to be a 4♠ call with forcing values, and the direct 4♠ is merely encouraging, but I don't play with partners who could be relied upon to work that out at the table.

As for the argument that responder promises the values for 4N, so 4♠ should be forcing, I don't understand the argument. Since 4N, over 4♠, is merely rejecting the proposed 5-2 game in favour of notrump, it makes no sense for 4♠ to be forcing...it delivers the values for game opposite a minimum, and slam opposite a good hand....what if opener has a minimum with 6 spades and a single heart stop? Why should he be forced to 5♠?

I admit that I now have no real forcing spade bid. I suppose I could punt with some hands, strong enough to force to slam, by bidding 5N, but that only covers some of the hands on which I'd like to play 4♠ as forcing. Absent the 4♥ gimmick, I have to choose between meanings, and I opt for 4♠ encouraging but non-forcing.

[Zelandakh]

This is one of the few times I have disagreed with Mike. For me, after 1♠ - 2♦; 2♠ - 3♣; 3NT - 4♣; 4♦, 4♥ should be the slam move agreeing diamonds (4th suit at the 4 level) and 4♠ natural. The same logic (4th suit at the 4 level) leads to the already discussed result of 4♥ over 3NT being a good hand agreeing spades and it surprises me greatly that Mike's partners would not see it this way (are they all clients?).

I also agree with Ken about the follow-ups to 3♣. Micky's adjustment might be theoretically better but is probably too specialised to be generally useful. But here is another question. In this style where 2♠ is just a bucket for minimum hands, would it not make sense for some 5♦4♣ hand to rebid 2NT, thus allowing the 3♣ rebid already to show 5-5? Using 2NT in this way is not going to lose any 4-4 club fits because Opener will show the suit if they have it.

Without these refinements I think I would just start with 4♣. I agree with WE (and disagree with gsz) that Opener's 4♥ over this would be a decent club raise but disagree with WE that Opener should bid 4NT with 6322 - why not 4♠ to show the 6th card finally? This seems like the practical approach covering most basic scnearios without requiring partner to figure out some subtle (but "obvious") logic as to why another sequence has to show this hand.