[jillybean]

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What's your plan?

[Douglas43]

Open 1♣ and reverse into Diamonds.

[LBengtsson]

Douglas43, on 2022-November-05, 20:09, said:

Open 1♣ and reverse into Diamonds.

That is the easy bit. I have a feeling we have a jillybean bridge movie coming up (Having a complete guess here, it is not partner who bids his longest suit ♥ here and we have an uninterrupted auction, but the opps. throw in heavy interference in ♥ into your bidding machine. So, we may not even get to reverse with 2♦.)

[pescetom]

LBengtsson, on 2022-November-06, 01:25, said:

That is the easy bit. I have a feeling we have a jillybean bridge movie coming up (Having a complete guess here, it is not partner who bids his longest suit ♥ here and we have an uninterrupted auction, but the opps. throw in heavy interference in ♥ into your bidding machine. So, we may not even get to reverse with 2♦.)

If the opponents throw in hearts we should be able to show our contempt and progress in one of the black suits, without bothering diamonds. But hold onto your seat and order some popcorn

[jillybean]

LBengtsson, on 2022-November-06, 01:25, said:

That is the easy bit. I have a feeling we have a jillybean bridge movie coming up (Having a complete guess here, it is not partner who bids his longest suit ♥ here and we have an uninterrupted auction, but the opps. throw in heavy interference in ♥ into your bidding machine. So, we may not even get to reverse with 2♦.)

Much simpler than that!

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Partner would have bypassed a 4 card ♦ suit to bid a 4 card major.

[DavidKok]

2♥ or 3♥, depending on which one is a splinter. 4♣ (good club suit with 4-card diamond support) would also work but is not as common an agreement, and also doesn't help partner distinguish between the spade ace and the heart ace. Some might play 4♥ Exclusion here.

Also since 1♦ denies four hearts (maybe only if partner is below a certain strength/length requirement?) the opponents have at least 10 between the two of them. Awfully generous of them to stay silent.

[jillybean]

Partner may have 4 hearts but if so, he has longer diamonds.
The opps are very reserved, this was at a bidding table with no opposition bidding so unfortunately, EW will pass throughout.

[pescetom]

3♥ splinter, as DavidKok says, praying to hear 3♠ next (after which it's going to be a stuttering auction to get down to ♦Q and maybe third round clubs control).

[jillybean]

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[DavidKok]

If you have agreements that 3NT is artificial on this auction then that might be the right bid (for me it shows a spade honour, for others it might be Non-Serious or Serious). But with minor suit auctions 3NT is usually to play, so let's bypass it and bid 4♣. I am worried that partner might have something like ♠x, ♥Axxx, ♦Qxxxx, ♣xxx (or swap a heart for a diamond if you would respond 1♥ with that - I would), where 6♦ is fine (play two rounds of spades pitching a club, ruff out the club suit, draw trumps at some point) but we might have an issue trying for 7. That's the price I pay for not playing Exclusion.

[LBengtsson]

I guess after 4♣, partner bids 4♦, and then I bid 4♥ - that must show a void now imo. partner bids RKCB, you respond 5♦ (1430), partner then asks for extras with 5NT, you bid 6♣ and then partner must decide where the final contract lie.

I do not agree usually with the weak hand being the boss in the auction and bidding RKCB in an auction, but you have described your hand so its now up to partner to decide where the final contract is.

[jillybean]

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Over 4♣ you are going to get a 4♠ response. (corrected)

I see the key to this hand is the splinter, which we didn't have.

[DavidKok]

It's an interesting question exactly what 4♦ would show over 4♣, and what bypassing it shows instead.

At the table I would need some time to think when 4♥ comes back to me (Edit: see final paragraph for the corrected auction). Clearly a lot of points are riding on the next few rounds of bidding, and the auction thus far is completely consistent with my 'trap hand' example where we should settle for 6♦, but we might also have a cold 13 tricks opposite a slightly different hand. Some possible bidding plans include:

Bid 4NT (RKC Blackwood), where we will know what to do if partner shows 0 or 2, and with 1 we will just have to settle for 6♦ (I make it a habit not to gamble that partner's ace is the vital one).
Bid 4♠ (control), hoping partner can bid 4NT and we get to show our hand (for me: 6♦, an odd number of keycards with a void - unfortunately partner won't know about our good king of clubs). If partner bids 5♦ (weak) or 5♣ (last train) we can bid on, either with 5♥ (must show a void) or just blasting 6 opposite a signoff.
Jump to 5♥ now - either Exclusion (a bit late) or void-showing with a super positive. I think this is a fine plan since we are always going to at least 6 and we are not that interested in asking for key cards anyway. Partner will know how to value the ace of spades and queen of clubs, but might be discouraged by the lack of diamond AK. If skipping 4♦ denied those two cards that should not be an issue though.

I don't have an agreement about the difference between the immediate 5♥ or a delayed 5♥ after bidding 4♠. Partner showing a heart control should lower our expectations (speaking of: do you have an agreement that this shows an ace opposite a splinter? There is not much point showing a king) - the 'perfect minimum' for 7♦ now looks something like ♠Ax, ♥Kxx, ♦Qxxxx, ♣xxx and on a bad trump split that's not even all that easy. I think partner should be able to make a positive noise with most hands that give us chances in 7♦, so I am a fan of bidding 4♠ now. As an additional bonus since we've splintered earlier partner will know that this control bid is based on values, which will allow partner to judge that their 3♠ control is golden if based on an honour and lousy if based on shortness.


Edit: never mind, I wrote all of that before seeing the 4♠ bid (instead of 4♥). That is great news and should promise the ace, though I'm not scared of a void either. I want to find out about the minor suit queens, and one way to do it is by bidding 4NT, then when 5♣ (1/4) gets back to us bid 5♥ asking for the queen, and when 5NT (queen, no kings) gets back to us bid 6♣ (asking for general extras). Alternatively we can jump to 6♣, asking for club support, but it is unclear that we are looking for the queen and not the king. Lastly there's still the option of bidding 5♥ (or even 5♠), telling partner we've got all the key cards and want something extra. I think I will stick with Blackwood, but the other routes should work too if partner is alert.
If partner is holding something like ♠Ax, ♥xxx, ♦xxxxxx, ♣xx 13 tricks are cold and I'm not sure how to find it, though partner should show the queen with a 10-card fit, and might be able to judge that the doubleton in clubs (the king has already been denied so that's not an issue) is enough 'extras' on the 6-level, so the RKC plan might still work.

[jillybean]

This really shows more huge holes in our bidding, apart from not having a splinter available, we do not cue bid anything if partner has shown shortness there, hence the ♥ bid removed. I see that we should cue if we have an Ace in partners shortage. , 4♠ here can be A,K,s,v which again makes no sense, we must only show 1st round control.

This is how the auction should have gone

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[DavidKok]

I would have bid 4♠ over 4♥, and I think the South hand is perfect for 4NT Blackwood next round, putting us in a comfortable 6♦ shortly after. 6NT is a favourite to make (a heart, five diamonds and six clubs) but partner doesn't know about our sixth club so I don't think we can get there on the auction - even my void-showing response of 6♦ to 4NT is still compatible with a 4=0=4=5 hand. Now let us hope clubs aren't 4-0, or if they are that we get a Lightner double so we can run.

[pescetom]

Once I hear 3♠ nothing much is likely to go wrong using Italian methods. I would continue 4♣ hearing 4♥, then 4♠ hearing 5♦. That warns me she has only 1 keycard which must be ♥A, so we are losing a spade after all: it would take two rounds to discover both minor queens, so better to not risk 6NT and just sign off in 6♦.

Note that what is often touted as a major drawback of these methods - control-bidding a King opposite a singleton - caused no problems in practice. The real downside of our auction is that we will always get a spades lead from attentive opponents, whereas less precise methods might gain an overtrick.

[thepossum]

That's a 2C for me every day. Who knows where we end up


Just saw the hands. 6NT perhaps with a bit of luck - EDIT we found 6C with me bidding North and being pushy

[jillybean]

thepossum, on 2022-November-06, 15:16, said:

That's a 2C for me every day. Who knows where we end up


Just saw the hands. 6NT perhaps with a bit of luck

That's what we wondered, but I think 2♣ on this hand is just a filler for the holes in our system, and would introduce new problems.
This is a new partnership and we have a lot of things to work through.

[thepossum]

I have a rather simple and direct approach to bidding
Often it works, if it doesn't you move on to the next hand

[jillybean]

I'm putting some notes together to help agree on our cue bidding, what have I missed?

Italian style cue bids

1st round (Ace, void) and 2nd round (K, singleton) cues

If the first cue is above game level, we show a 1st round control.
A cue in partners known shortness is an Ace
A second cue of a suit confirms 1st round control, either in a natural cue sequence or after an apparent game try sequence.
(first example is true as the cue is also above game, should it necessarily show first round if it is below game as in the second example?)
1♥:2♥
3♣*:4♥
5♣*

1♥:2♥
3♣*:3♥
4♣*

3♣ ostensibly a game try, 4♣, 5♣ 1st round cue asking partner to begin cue bidding sequence.