[thepossum]

Hi all

Recent hand in small MP tourney. I wasn't sure on my best strategy at first bid. Go straight for a no trump slam (via Blackwood to check controls) without showing any other suits or bid a 2/1 to check shape of partners hand and then go for slam. Also whether NT or H how to explore best chance of an overtrick if available. Also the lead considerations with a hope for a minor lead into diamonds or clubs

I figured with 22 points opposite 11+ that was essentially enough for a quantitative 6NT, since partner (GiB) is not known for opening light. However I still wanted to explore further for the correct slam and possible 7?

How would you approach this?

4NT, 2D, 6NT, something else?

regards P

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[ahydra]

Take it slow, like you said to find the best strain and possible grand slam. 2D.

ahydra

[BillPatch]

If you were sure that partner knew that you were playing 3♦ as a Soloway or a K-S jump shift, that would help the partnership clarify the bidding. GIB has dropped the Soloway jump shift at the 3 level. I assume this reflects a change in BBO Standard made because it had dropped in popularity among the 2/1 bridge community.

[rmnka447]

Bid 2 ♦ and see what partner does. 6 NT is a likely place, but with the right minimum, grand in ♦, ♥, or NT might be possible. You can never adequately describe your hand to partner so now it's right to get partner to tell more about their hand.

Unless partner opens some pretty bizarre hands, it's likely that partner isn't missing more than one of the ♥ AK and ♣ K to open.

[helene_t]

4NT is certainly not an option. Even if you play it as RKCB for hearts (as GIB does) you won't know what to do if partner has one or two keycards. Two keycards could be Jxxx-AKxxx-x-Kxx. One keycard could be Q-Axxxx-Qx-Kxxxx.

And zero is just too unlikely - not to mention that you don't want to play 5♥ if partner has only five hearts.

I can understand 6NT. You may decide that you won't be able to exchange the information needed to decided on grand slam anyway, so you may as well make sure that the contract gets rightsided and you don't leak information to opps.

But 2♦ is the normal bid. Partner might show extra strength or a diamond fit. Otherwise you can always bid 6NT later.

[smerriman]

You can't bid 4NT, since you don't know the right contract based on the response.

You can't bid 6NT, because that's an impossible bid. GIB has no idea what it means; you would never get to grand when it's making. (And 6NT might be down when 6D or 6H is making.)

You bid 2♦, so you can find out more about opener's hand.

[thepossum]

Thanks everyone

I did bid 2D and we landed in 6NT for just 57.1% There was an overtrick available if you could get a diamond lead and there was a grand available in H but I don't know how certain it was

Here are N and S

Not sure if my bidding is correct, and if I could have explored the heart grand better or gone for 7H after 6H. Top two scores were 6NT+1 (diamond lead) and 6H+1

regards P

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[helene_t]

2♥ only shows 5 in the GIB system, so you might bid 2NT after 2♥ and then learn about the 6th heart.

You can now see that to make grand slam in hearts, you need North have ♥J or the hearts to break 3-2 (or the Jack being singleton). Additionally you need the diamond suit to give 4 tricks, or the club finesse to work. As it happens, you can try to ruff a diamond and if that fails there's still the club finesse. But if North's shape is 2-6-3-2, your chances are smaller.

There's also the chance that North has ♦Q.

All in all I am not sure if I want to be in grand slam even if you know that North has six hearts and two keycards + queen. In a mediocre field, I think 6NT is fine. Of course, 6NT= loses to 6♥+1, but sometimes there's the same number of tricks in notrumps and in hearts.

BTW I am not even sure that North will bid 3♥ over 2NT. It might bid 3♣. It may go
1♥-2♦
2♥-2nt
3♣-3♦
3♥-?
and then you still don't know for sure if North has 6 hearts, I think a 3-5-1-4 shape is still possible.

So I think your bidding was fine. You gave North the chance to show ♣K, in which case you could have bid 7.

[Cyberyeti]

It's a decent grand in hearts, needs the ♦Q to come down doubleton or tripleton (3-3 + 1/3 of the 4-2s 52% ish) or the club finesse, but a club lead narrows your options. The impossible 7♥ by S is great.

[thepossum]

Thanks everyone

P