[jillybean]

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Teams, playing 2/1, 2♣ is GF, clubs or balanced.

3♠ is unusual, not discussed but I understood it to be extra values, length.

[akwoo]

3♠ should set trump, though maybe your partnership agreement can be to allow 3N.

4♣ showing a club control seems correct.

[mikeh]

I would not expect to be looking at K109 of spades on this auction. I think it fairly standard, in 2/1, for 3S to promise a suit that partner really can’t hold here. AQJxxxx would be insufficient for me. But not everyone plays it the same way (a good thing or the game would be too boring to play).

Anyway, it absolutely has to set trump. Any other meaning is a very wasteful use of valuable bidding space. We have rights, of course, but no new suit here is natural. That includes clubs.

So we can bid 4C to show some slam interest or 4S to show a minimum game force.

I truly don’t like this hand for slam purposes our red suits suck and our clubs offer little prospect of a length trick. But partner might hold, for instance, something like AQJxxxx Ax Ax Qx where we have 12 top winners on any lie of the cards. So I bid 4C, followed by 4S over any red suit he bids at the 4 level.

4C is sort of a courtesy cue bid.

Having written this, an awful thought occurred to me. I think you said most people you play with and against think 4C is always ace asking. If you’re stuck with that awful treatment, all you can do is 4S.

Also, if your partner is the kind of player who thinks the way to show slam interest is to use keycard at every opportunity, I’d bid 4S.

[mw64ahw]

4♣ for me.

Counting hcps; North has them in the reds. A slam is on if North has more than the minimum with South contributing 2 keycards

[jillybean]

Fortunately, we had discussed 4♣ being a cue bid and only used for Ace asking in a NT auction.
Unfortunately we had not discussed 1M 3M as setting trump and further bids being a cue in support of partner's Major.

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As mentioned up thread, clubs are not going to set up and the red suits are terrible.
If there is a slam here, we have to be in it and I want partner to initiate the Keycard ask but I don't see how I can show slam interest without agreements above 3S.

Lead ♣4 - A - 2 (udca)

[DavidKok]

jillybean, on 2021-July-01, 04:58, said:

[..]I don't see how I can show slam interest without agreements above 3S.

This is precisely the point. Because you cannot, 3♠ has to convey that message already. Jumps in 2/1 are very rare and show extremely well-defined hands, because every cheap bid is forcing. North's 3♠ is a bad call with this many features to show.

[jillybean]

DavidKok, on 2021-July-01, 05:20, said:

This is precisely the point. Because you cannot, 3♠ has to convey that message already. Jumps in 2/1 are very rare and show extremely well-defined hands, because every cheap bid is forcing. North's 3♠ is a bad call with this many features to show.

Yes, I'm not arguing the point, but trying to justify the awful auction.

[mikeh]

3S was a terrible call. I do agree with the notion of ignoring diamonds here, even though it will lead to problems on some hands. Picture south as x xx KQJx AKxxxx and we’d like to be in 6D. But we live in spades more often and bidding 2D then spades understates the spade suit. With 6=4,I’d bid 2D over 2C.

After 2S, south can bid either 4S, to show a minimum response with primary spade support or 3S, which in 2/1, should show a hand too good for 4S. I think it close.

In either case, opener has an easy time driving to slam, the main concern being to find grand if south has Kxx xxx Kxx AKxx while staying in 6S opposite the actual hand or something like Qxx xxx Kxx AKQx

4S should persuade opener to just bid 6S, which rates to have play, even though one can construct hands where it’s not a great contract. 3S by responder, over a 2S rebid, is more difficult since responder will have at least as good a hand as he does and could easily hold better. Unfortunately for non-expert pairs, neither player has a hand on which keycard (even exclusion keycard by opener) allows the asker to know what to do.

4N was horrendous. Give opener AQJxxxx Qx AKx x and you’re down off the top on a heart lead if you bid slam while if he has AQJxxxx x AKx Qx you make slam on any lead.

Never, ever ask for keycards if you can picture a response that will leave you guessing as to what to do. Alternatives may seem difficult but this is an extremely important point. All too many people use ace asking, or keycard asking, as a crutch rather than for its proper purpose.

Keycard’s only real purposes are to allow you to stay out of slam when missing too many keycards OR to confirm that grand is good.

If you are thinking that ‘we may have a small slam here, but I’m not sure’…then you should ask whether all plausible answers to keycard give you a clear idea of whether to bid or avoid slam. If a plausible answer leaves you guessing: bid something else.it’s going to be uncomfortable until you get used to the idea and, of course, you need to find a partner who is willing and able to understand that keycard is not a way of expressing slam interest. You only use keycard when you are hoping to avoid a bad slam or find a grand slam.

[Winstonm]

I am late to this thread but I would likely have missed this slam on this auction as I would bid 4S over 3S as I don't see that I have any more than I announced with the 2C bid and my hand is not particularly slammish. That, plus when partner makes a bid that is undefined in the system I am playing, I have found from experience to treat it like a misfit and shut down the bidding as soon as possible in a reasonable contract.

[mw64ahw]

jillybean, on 2021-July-01, 04:58, said:

Fortunately, we had discussed 4♣ being a cue bid and only used for Ace asking in a NT auction.
Unfortunately we had not discussed 1M 3M as setting trump and further bids being a cue in support of partner's Major.

---

As mentioned up thread, clubs are not going to set up and the red suits are terrible.
If there is a slam here, we have to be in it and I want partner to initiate the Keycard ask but I don't see how I can show slam interest without agreements above 3S.

Lead ♣4 - A - 2 (udca)

The above is the auction I would have had about 6 months ago, but with a steady partner and lots of ideas from various forums we tweaked our approach sequentially as below:

• Moved to 4♣ as the keycard ask in the above sequence
  
• Put all limit+ 3+ support into a Jacoby 2NT style bid
  
• Modified the 2NT bid to show levels of strength.
  
• Switched to Italian Q bids & keycard showing rather than asking.

This would now result in the following auction for me
1♠-2NT (3+ limit+)
3♠ (shows 16/17hcp w. MLT<=6)-4♣ (slam interest with ♣ control & a ♠ honour)
4♦ (♦ control)-4♠ (denies ♥ control)
5♣ (1/3/5 keycards w. ♣-must be a void here- & ♥ controls)-5NT (we have all keycards, denies Q♠)
6♠ (sign-off)
Yes it could go down still, but worth a try

[jillybean]

When partner opened 1♠ imagined the auction would go;

1♠ : 2♣
2something: 2/3♠

Showing a 3 card spade raise, too good to jump to game. My hand is not great but this is teams and I can signoff over any red bid, partner
hasn't limited their hand yet. (<18)
I know 4nt is awful in the actual auction, it was like bidding blindfolded.

[pescetom]

mw64ahw, on 2021-July-01, 07:38, said:

Switched to Italian Q bids & keycard showing rather than asking.

Even with "just" this modification, you would have had basically the same auction (substitute 2♣ for 2NT), standard for us.

[Winstonm]

jillybean, on 2021-July-01, 12:45, said:

When partner opened 1♠ imagined the auction would go;

1♠ : 2♣
2something: 2/3♠

Showing a 3 card spade raise, too good to jump to game. My hand is not great but this is teams and I can signoff over any red bid, partner
hasn't limited their hand yet. (<18)
I know 4nt is awful in the actual auction, it was like bidding blindfolded.

Did you think it possible for partner to hold: AQJxxxx, AKQ, xxx? A good rule of thumb is to not embark on ace-asking unless all suits have been shown or are known to be under at least 2nd round control. With the hand I presented, a 5S response showing 2 with the Q won't tell you what you need to know, i.e, what are the loser situations in the red suits?.

[jillybean]

Winstonm, on 2021-July-01, 13:13, said:

Did you think it possible for partner to hold: AQJxxxx, AKQ, xxx? A good rule of thumb is to not embark on ace-asking unless all suits have been shown or are known to be under at least 2nd round control. With the hand I presented, a 5S response showing 2 with the Q won't tell you what you need to know, i.e, what are the loser situations in the red suits?.

I agree.