[lalldonn]

What's right with 5NT?

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Hanoi5, on 2012-December-12, 16:26, said:

What's wrong with transfer at the two level and then a cue-bid, asking for KC in hearts and asking for specific Kings afterwards?

Unless you have a different agreement, "standard" for a new suit at the 3-level is NOT a cuebid for ♥ per se ..... 3-new suit is natural, ostensibly a 2nd 5 card suit ( or very good 4 cards ) , GF .

EDIT: Perhaps you mean a 4-level new suit-jump rebid.
That would be a self-splinter for ♥ as trump showing a good 6+ cards ♥.
Here , I guess you could rebid 4C!.... but partner isn't going to take that as a stiff Ace. But maybe he'll make a courtesy cue of 4D .... then what ?

[Antrax]

lalldonn, on 2012-December-12, 17:01, said:

What's right with 5NT?

It finds the right level if you intend to play in NT. This might be a good spot to state that my question is honest, it's not a form of saying "5NT wtp".

[jillybean]

Partner's hand?

---

Beautiful!

[MrAce]

1NT--4♦
4♥--4NT (rkcb in hearts)
etc--7

[PhilKing]

Antrax, on 2012-December-12, 22:14, said:

It finds the right level if you intend to play in NT. This might be a good spot to state that my question is honest, it's not a form of saying "5NT wtp".

What's wrong with it is that you can make about 14 or 15 tricks opposite a dead minimum with the right honour structure. Whether partner is max or min is not particularly relevant (although grand will clearly be laydown if partner accepts).

It's just a hand for setting hearts asking for key cards (various methods are available). As Manudude pointed out, as long as partner has the heart ace, you can just bid grand - there is almost no way you do not have 13 tricks.

[ArtK78]

jillybean, on 2012-December-12, 09:44, said:

I expected it to be a boring, flat board too but it turned into a 5.5/8

So that means the board was played 9 times, and 3 pairs failed to bid 7NT. That is about what I would expect.

Look at the discussion in this thread. Several posters did something other than ask for the missing ace and bid 7NT if partner had it. Is it any wonder that 3 random club level pairs failed to bid 7NT?

[billw55]

ArtK78, on 2012-December-13, 07:39, said:

So that means the board was played 9 times, and 3 pairs failed to bid 7NT. That is about what I would expect.

Look at the discussion in this thread. Several posters did something other than ask for the missing ace and bid 7NT if partner had it. Is it any wonder that 3 random club level pairs failed to bid 7NT?

At a club game, I am impressed so many did bid it.

[jillybean]

billw55, on 2012-December-13, 07:46, said:

At a club game, I am impressed so many did bid it.

The hand is from one of the better club games, mostly very experienced "A" players and a couple of pro's.
I thought it would be a completely flat board and was surprised when 3 pairs missed it.

Our auction was 1N 2D 2H 4S* 4N 7N but I was very tempted just to put the 7N card down.

[Antrax]

So 4♠ is kickback for hearts? How do you bid if responder has only five hearts?

[neilkaz]

jillybean, on 2012-December-13, 09:11, said:

The hand is from one of the better club games, mostly very experienced "A" players and a couple of pro's.
I thought it would be a completely flat board and was surprised when 3 pairs missed it.

Our auction was 1N 2D 2H 4S* 4N 7N but I was very tempted just to put the 7N card down.

As for the three pairs that missed it, did they play 7♥ instead or did some miss the grand entirely?

I remain shocked at how often even "good" players butcher very strong hands. It is absolutely trivial to either Gerber or transfer then key card and after finding one ace, if not sure of the grand, you'll find three kings when you ask for them and even the cat sitting on my desk can count 14 tricks and knows to bid 7NT. Good that you didn't yield to temptation and blast 7NT since PD who could have 14 hcp could be missing the ace. There are no bonuses for blasting or guessing when you might have 13 easy safe tricks when standard trivial methods allow you to make sure. (Off course in MBC, some self rated advanced yahoo would blast to 6♥ here, struggle thru 2 minutes of their slow declarer play, and get a vwdp from pd after taking 13 tricks).

Please allow me to ask a few questions about your methods after opening NT. Your kick back response is obviously 1430?

OK so you play Jacoby Transfer to ♥ and then 4♠ is kickback. I presume Jacoby then 4NT is quant with 5♥ as is standard. I also presume you play Texas. What is Texas then 4♠? Exclusion? What about Texas then 4NT (standard when not playing kickback is RKC).

But if transfering to ♠ then if Jacoby then 4NT is kickback, you lose the ability to transfer and then bid a quant 4NT with 5 ♠ to offer opener a choice. What are your methods after transfering to ♠? I presume they must be very similar to those after transfering to ♥ since it could be easy to forget or confuse.

.. neilkaz ..

[TWO4BRIDGE]

neilkaz, on 2012-December-13, 12:29, said:

What is Texas then 4♠? Exclusion? What about Texas then 4NT (standard when not playing kickback is RKC)?
.. neilkaz ..

1NT - 4D!
4H - ??
....... 4S! = kickback-RKC
....... 4NT = Voidwood ( excluding ♠A ) a la Meckwell
....... 5C = Voidwood ( excluding ♣A )
....... 5D = Voidwood ( excluding ♦A )

1NT - 2D!
2H - ??
....... 4NT = Quant
....... 4S = ?? ( I don't know what this is ?? )

[jillybean]

Hi Neil,

Yes, we play 1430 kickback.
I could have, (should have?) bid texas then 4♠ kickback. Transfer/texas then 4N is Q
I have read on bbf about all the various sequences available using jacoby, texas, kickback but we have not defined them all. These auctions come up so infrequently I'm not sure that I want to spend the time or if I have spare memory cells available. I have other sequences that I forget and are probably more important to work on.

As for the pairs that did not get to 7N - 2 were in 6 or 7 hearts, 1 didn't get to slam (710)

[Cascade]

jillybean, on 2012-December-13, 09:11, said:

The hand is from one of the better club games, mostly very experienced "A" players and a couple of pro's.
I thought it would be a completely flat board and was surprised when 3 pairs missed it.

Our auction was 1N 2D 2H 4S* 4N 7N but I was very tempted just to put the 7N card down.

Do you play Gerber?

If so I think

1NT 4♣
4♥ 7NT

seems to be about as sophisticated as you need.

[Vampyr]

jillybean, on 2012-December-13, 16:10, said:

I have other sequences that I forget and are probably more important to work on.

No one should have sequences that they forget. You may be playing too many conventions.

You might want to try to get rid of 80% of them and see, after a few months, if you miss any.

[jillybean]

Cascade, on 2012-December-13, 17:33, said:

Do you play Gerber?

Yes! This is one of the sequences I often forget to use.
I thought that we would be playing in some number of hearts or NT which is why I started with the transfer.

I bid and made 7N and still have things to learn from the hand, which is why I love this game!

[Cascade]

Cascade, on 2012-December-13, 17:33, said:

Do you play Gerber?

If so I think

1NT 4♣
4♥ 7NT

seems to be about as sophisticated as you need.

In a double dummy simulation, yes I know double dummy, there were 13 tricks in no trumps 986/1000 hands. This is why inviting a grand is poor. I suppose I should have compared with how many times 7♥ made. I might do this when i get home.

[jillybean]

Away at another tournament Wayne?

[ArtK78]

Cascade, on 2012-December-13, 17:33, said:

Do you play Gerber?

If so I think

1NT 4♣
4♥ 7NT

seems to be about as sophisticated as you need.

I thought that this was the consensus answer on this hand from the very first response. Ask for aces - if you have them all, bid 7NT; otherwise, bid 6NT.

That is why billw summed up this thread accurately as follows:

billw55, on 2012-December-12, 08:18, said:

Cool story. Boring bridge problem.

[Cascade]

ArtK78, on 2012-December-14, 07:17, said:

I thought that this was the consensus answer on this hand from the very first response. Ask for aces - if you have them all, bid 7NT; otherwise, bid 6NT.

That is why billw summed up this thread accurately as follows:

Sorry I must have skipped over some of the posts. Must have been a bad day I also skipped over the 14-17. Never to mind even opposite 14-15 the grand was 975/1000 in the simulation. And as I suggested earlier I looked at 7♥ and that was more likely to fail than 7NT presumably most often if not always on an adverse ruff.