[barsikb]

Dealer: WEst Vul: Both

---

What is the easiest way to reach 6C here?

[Antrax]

No opposition bidding.
1♥-1♠
2♣-2♦¹
2♥²-3♣

1- 2♦ is fourth suit forcing, in my partnership to game
2- 2♥ is the default rebid, denies 3 spades and denies a ♦ stopper
South agrees clubs at the 3-level and having a void, neither player looks forward to playing in NT. After the trump agreement, your mileage may vary, but essentially both sides will begin cue bidding their way to 6♣. North will show the sixth heart but S will have none of it.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Does a Club lead kill it ?

[Cyberyeti]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2013-July-06, 09:25, said:

Does a Club lead kill it ?

Not with the spade finesse onside. Win club in N, heart ruff, club to hand, heart ruff, diamond ruff, draw trump, heart Ax and you have a trump left to ruff and take the spade hook at the end.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-July-06, 09:50, said:

Not with the spade finesse onside. Win club in N, heart ruff, club to hand, heart ruff, diamond ruff, draw trump, heart Ax and you have a trump left to ruff and take the spade hook at the end.

Check your transportation . ( Aren't you using a 2nd Diam ruff to get back to North at the end ? ... thus, a trump short ) .

[aguahombre]

To answer the OP question: What is the easiest way to reach 6♣? Duly noting he didn't ask whether it should be bid ---

1H-1S
2C-2D!
3C-6C.

[Cyberyeti]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2013-July-06, 10:45, said:

Check your transportation . ( Aren't you using a 2nd Diam ruff to get back to North at the end ? ... thus, a trump short ) .

Err, no.

Tricks won by:

9♣
heart ruffed with 7
J♣ to K
heart ruffed with A
diamond ruffed low
K♣
A♥
Opps win heart - I've played 4 clubs and 4 hearts from hand

I have 2 winning hearts, 2 spades and a trump left, I will ruff a diamond return, cash the hearts and take the spade finesse at trick 12.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

You are right. Where I went astray was on the 1st trick. I played the ♣ K instead of the 9 .

( What if East held the 10 ? ) .

[Cyberyeti]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2013-July-06, 12:15, said:

You are right. Where I went astray was on the 1st trick. I played the ♣ K instead of the 9 .

( What if East held the 10 ? ) .

N declares, it's led into a tenace.

I didn't give our auction as we start non standardly 1♥-1♠-3♣ showing this sort of hand, 2 decent suits 5-5 or better, not a good hand NF but rarely passed.

[barsikb]

Thank you for the answers.

Antrax: "both sides will begin cue bidding their way to 6♣" Can you give me details on this please?

Aguahombre, yes, that's the easiest. It it reasonable, too?

[aguahombre]

barsikb, on 2013-July-06, 19:59, said:

Aguahombre, yes, that's the easiest. It it reasonable, too?

I think it is not unreasonable. Rebidding the 5-card second suit is a preferrence I have in game-forcing auctions when we are still looking for strain. Here, when that happens, responder can probably visualize that slam has chances. He also can figure there would be some kind of handling issues even if some scientific exploration resulted in a grand slam.

Opener is limited a bit because he didn't jump shift to 3C on his second turn, so it could be a good idea to just bid the small slam and not leak any more information.

[inquiry]

Martens has some interesting ideas on auctions that start 1♥=1♠=2♣ which are quite different from traditional 4th suit forcing auction. I think a discussion of them would be interesting, but sadly, it is not appropriate for this particular forum.

On this hand playing run of the mill 4th suit forcing, I would rebid 3♣ (not 2♥ or an "automatic 2♥), as suggested earlier. Therefore, I would suspect a reasonable auction would be exactly's aguahombre's or something similar. For instance if 4♣ raise is keycard ask, or if over 3♣ then 4♦ is kickback for clubs, or it would be nice if a leap to 4♥ over 3♣ was a shortage bid even in the suit partner opened, but few would dare that risking a misunderstanding. In fact, it is the void in hearts makes this auction difficult and which is why a leap to slam is useful (Asking keycards will always be screwed up because you will never know when opener shows his keycards if it includes the heart Ace or Not.

If you insist on a cue-bidding auction, however, it might go,

1h - 1s
2c - 2d
3c - 4c
4d - 4h
4N - 6c all pass

Where 4C agrees clubs, 4d and 4h are cue-bids, 4NT IS NOT BLACKWOOD, but rather last train, denying a spade control, but showing slam positive values which has to be good club honors. If 4NT is blackwood, then 4S would be last train and would be the bid above instead of 4NT, ending with the same problem for responder. Over the last train bid, the fear is opener is 2=5=1=5 without the diamond or (obviously) spade ACE so you are off two aces. This is why a leap to 6♣ over 3♣ makes a lot of sense. Now if you had the Martens method available, the auction would be much, much lower at club agreement, and the jump in hearts would clearly be shortage.

[Antrax]

Last train? Here?

barsikb, the reason I didn't continue the auction after 3♣ (or 4♣ if N rebids 3♣) is that from there it's largely a matter of (cue bidding) style. For me it would go something like 4♦-4♠; 5♦-5♥; 6♣ but this is due to a specific set of agreements ("roman" cue bids, no shortness cues in real suits). You might cue first round controls, and then it becomes different. If you can jump to show shortness, the auction is different still. The point is that part's a) open to interpretation and b) is difficult to mess up when you have 2/3 levels of bidding space and so many controls.

[barsikb]

Thank you, Antrax! Yes, many ways to do cuebidding and that requires lots of experience I think...