[ggwhiz]

lamford, on 2018-May-21, 10:24, said:

On the actual hand my first SIM deal was xxx Ax xxx AKTxxx opposite my AKQxxx Qxx x Qxx. Slam was over 80% and my queen of hearts was waste paper. I reject entirely Forrester's claim that I thought I was playing a strong NT. And computer says "no" as well.

You need to remove immediate RKC bids from your SIMs and edit the results with care. Since you play 1st or 2nd round cues a follow up 5♥ cue by responder may well have a hole in the trump suit leaving an uncomfortable guess.

Not to mention wrong sided bandit 1nt openers. This one has 14 cards and requires both black suits to run on a heart lead or switch too often.

Just my 2 cents on something you are putting a lot of effort into and not meant to be overly critical.

[lamford]

ggwhiz, on 2018-May-21, 10:54, said:

You need to remove immediate RKC bids from your SIMs and edit the results with care. Since you play 1st or 2nd round cues a follow up 5♥ cue by responder may well have a hole in the trump suit leaving an uncomfortable guess.

I don't think the 1NT opener can use RKCB, and my intention with my actual hand was to pass 4S and move over 4H. That needs an agreement as to what 4H shows. I don't have the time or inclination to edit the results with care as one needs to do a large SIM to get an overall picture. The test was solely whether partner had 12-14 and whether he had 0-1 points in diamonds and two key cards. If all hands that meet that criterion cue 4H, and I close my eyes and bid 6S, slam will make double dummy 65% and that includes 12 counts like Jx AJxx Jxx AJxx where slam is dreadful. I don't think this hand should cue, but it would be included in the full SIM if dealt. I suspect that if partner cues when he thinks he is suitable, slam will be over 65%.

[cherdano]

lamford, on 2018-May-21, 10:24, said:

Any quacks in the splinter suit can go in the trash. And xxxx is better than Axxx as the aces are needed in the other suits.

You missed my point. Surely Jx AQxx Qxxx KQx is a better hand in support of a diamond self-splinter than Jx AJxx Jxxx KQx.
I also think you are way too strict about the requirements in the cue-bid suit. In fact, personally I much prefer last train in this situation - 4♥ over 4♦ means "somewhat suitable, but also not extraordinary unless planning to go on over 4♠". Says nothing about a control in hearts.

[gszes]

cherdano, on 2018-May-21, 12:50, said:

You missed my point. Surely Jx AQxx Qxxx KQx is a better hand in support of a diamond self-splinter than Jx AJxx Jxxx KQx.
I also think you are way too strict about the requirements in the cue-bid suit. In fact, personally I much prefer last train in this situation - 4♥ over 4♦ means "somewhat suitable, but also not extraordinary unless planning to go on over 4♠". Says nothing about a control in hearts.

I would use last train to show hands that held the ACE of the splintered suit since those hands will not play anywhere near as well as hands with that powered outside the splintered suit. If the splinter is reasonable then any minimum should be able to safely raise to the 5 level and any max to the 6 level with some super max taking over and bidding 4n (rkc).

[lamford]

cherdano, on 2018-May-21, 12:50, said:

You missed my point. Surely Jx AQxx Qxxx KQx is a better hand in support of a diamond self-splinter than Jx AJxx Jxxx KQx.
I also think you are way too strict about the requirements in the cue-bid suit. In fact, personally I much prefer last train in this situation - 4♥ over 4♦ means "somewhat suitable, but also not extraordinary unless planning to go on over 4♠". Says nothing about a control in hearts.

It may be better to play reverse last train here, so that 4H by opener is a puppet to 4S, either no interest or accepting. That releases 4S to be a non-forcing slam try. David Gold thought this was a good idea but a strain on memory.

I agree with wank that the splinter should be narrowly defined and I think it should be six-losers, counting Qxx as 2.5 losers, and probably only a no-loser or one-loser suit. In principle it should make slam opposite the perfect 11-count (or perfect 14-count playing a strong NT). Of course AQxx is better than AJxx in a side-suit.

[lamford]

MrAce, on 2018-May-22, 09:40, said:

I totally disagree with Wank that it should also be narrowly limited vs ALREADY narrow limited hand such as 12-14.

I think what Wank means is that it should be assumed to be narrowly limited, and you sign off if unsuitable. Of course the responder can move again with a slam force and may be bidding exclusion at the 5-level.

[MrAce]

lamford, on 2018-May-21, 18:42, said:

I agree with wank that the splinter should be narrowly defined and I think it should be six-losers, counting Qxx as 2.5 losers, and probably only a no-loser or one-loser suit. In principle it should make slam opposite the perfect 11-count (or perfect 14-count playing a strong NT). Of course AQxx is better than AJxx in a side-suit.

Splinter is narrowly defined ONLY vs unlimited or wide range limit bids, such as 1♥---4♦ where 1 ♥ can be 10 hcp or 21 hcp.
I totally disagree with Wank that it should also be narrowly limited vs ALREADY narrow limited hand such as 12-14.
In my example above I gave you guys an 11 hcp splinter but a void. With a singleton it may have a totally different strength vs 12-14 limited hand.
Sometimes you decide to go slam already but make your splinter vs 12-14 to see if pd likes it, and if he does you may get turned on for grand.

Now let's change your original hand to something that would actually fall in love with ♦ splinter.

Jx
AJxx
xxxx
AQJ

and make pd hand even stronger than the example I already gave.

AKQT9xx
xxx
Void
Kxx

Are you happy to be in slam? Or let's make him

AKQTxx
Qxx
x
Kxx

Are you happy being in slam? I can give you more void hands too vs your xxxx ♦ if you want it

AKQTxx
xxxx
Void
Kxx

Are you happy being in slam? I can keep on constructing more hands by playing with the ♥ honors as well, while i still give you perfect xxx(x) ♦ holdings vs stiff or void and you will still not be happy in slam and sometimes being even at 5 level.

No, I disagree with wank about the "greatness" of splinters. They are very overstated in general and it has nothing to do with the abuse of splinters. Look at the hand I originally constructed with 11 hcp and ♦ void in my previous post vs these examples.
You simply can not afford to play "narrow limited splinters" vs ALREADY limited hands. It just does not make any sense to me.

Now look at this

xxx
Ax
KQxx
Axxx

Pd splinters in ♦ suit with

AKxxxxx
Kxx
Void
JTx


Now you are in much better shape than those other hands i gave you which are stronger and which ALSO fell in love with ♦ splinter. At worst you make on a split ♣ honors if they lead it. If they don't you claim by giving up a ♦.
Calling splinters "great" is a huge overstatement. Particularly if you are advocating "narrow limit splinters" vs narrow limit openings.
There is a reason why BBF and all other forums i read are full of sunk ships that tossed to splinter-berg. I admit they are abused a lot, but still there are lots of sunk ships due to "greatness" of the convention.


Simply there are much more factors which affects the outcome, other than so called "wasted values-no wasted values" that splinter convention focuses on.


EDIT: I edited and fixed because my first attempt came with a lot of php codes.

[Winstonm]

lamford, on 2018-May-20, 17:11, said:

I have now agreed with my partner the following structure: 1NT-2x(major)-2M-4x(spl)-
cue = 0-1 points in SPL suit and ace or KQ of cued suit or
cue = max with Axx(x) in SPL suit and ace of cue suit
sign-off: all other hands

I agreed to play the following with my old partner Bob Holmes, now deceased. It was what he was comfortable with so I didn't argue. His idea was that the purpose of splinter was to find out if you were playing in what could be called a 30-point deck instead of 40 point, meaning that xxx, opposite x was the ideal holding and that all the HCPs in the combined hands became working cards. Yielding that one loser mean that if you held 27 out of 30 HCPs you probably had no worse than a finesse for slam. Obviously, this meant placing a range on the splinter, and we used opening hand strength for a simple splinter, while also keeping open the splinter and continued bid after the (expected) sign off with much stronger hands.

I don't claim that this is best or even good - it was just our agreement, meaning it was better than guesswork.

[Winstonm]

lamford, on 2018-May-20, 17:11, said:

I have now agreed with my partner the following structure: 1NT-2x(major)-2M-4x(spl)-
cue = 0-1 points in SPL suit and ace or KQ of cued suit or
cue = max with Axx(x) in SPL suit and ace of cue suit
sign-off: all other hands

I agreed to play the following with my old partner Bob Holmes, now deceased. It was what he was comfortable with so I didn't argue. His idea was that the purpose of splinter was to find out if you were playing in what could be called a 30-point deck instead of 40 point, meaning that xxx, opposite x was the ideal holding and that all the HCPs in the combined hands became working cards. Yielding that one loser mean that if you held 27 out of 30 HCPs you probably had no worse than a finesse for slam. Obviously, this meant placing a range on the splinter, and we used opening hand strength for a simple splinter, while also keeping open the splinter and continued bid after the (expected) sign off with much stronger hands.

I don't claim that this is best or even good - it was just our agreement, meaning it was better than guesswork.

PS: Note that this is a splinter after a fit has been established - 1H-3S, 1S-4D, or 1C-1H-4D. The idea in a NT self-splinter would be to find out if you held at least 27 points outside the splinter suit, I would think, but we didn't use it as such.