[jillybean]

Still uncomfortable bidding a non forcing 4♥, today we came up with this auction;

---

[smerriman]

jillybean, on 2023-February-03, 19:24, said:

Still uncomfortable bidding a non forcing 4♥, today we came up with this auction;

How would you bid as South with AJxx xx xxx xxxx? 3♥ seems clearcut, so without a fit, 3♠ can't be a cuebid.

[jillybean]

smerriman, on 2023-February-03, 19:34, said:

How would you bid as South with AJxx xx xxx xxxx? 3♥ seems clearcut, so without a fit, 3♠ can't be a cuebid.

North has made a jump in the red suits, South has supported hearts, what could 3♠ be?
If South has the hand you suggest, the auction will end in 4♥

[smerriman]

jillybean, on 2023-February-03, 19:44, said:

South has supported hearts given preference to hearts

North could be 3-5-4-1, simply trying to find a fit.

[jillybean]

smerriman, on 2023-February-03, 19:51, said:

North could be 3-5-4-1, simply trying to find a fit.

The auction started 1♥:1♠ 3♦, could North have a 3541 hand for this bidding?

[smerriman]

Sure - why not? A jump shift doesn't promise 5 cards in the second suit (in fact can occasionally be even 3, like in your other thread, though that's only when one suited).

[jillybean]

So you are saying that 3♠ here could be trying to find a fit, even after South has shown preference to hearts?

1♠ 1nt 3♣ jump to a 3 card suit suggested in the other thread was an artificial bid.

[smerriman]

jillybean, on 2023-February-03, 20:24, said:

So you are saying that 3♠ here could be trying to find a fit, even after South has shown preference to hearts?

Yep. With restricted space, 3♥ is pretty wide ranging - game before slam.

jillybean, on 2023-February-03, 20:24, said:

1♠ 1nt 3♣ jump to a 3 card suit suggested in the other thread was an artificial bid.

No, it was natural - mikeh mentioned an artificial convention, but in 'standard' bidding without that or other special conventions, you sometimes need to "lie" by reversing / jump shifting into a 3 card minor, which is what all the other commenters were referring to.

[DavidKok]

jillybean, on 2023-February-03, 20:24, said:

So you are saying that 3♠ here could be trying to find a fit, even after South has shown preference to hearts?

1♠ 1nt 3♣ jump to a 3 card suit suggested in the other thread was an artificial bid.

No, the real message is even less helpful.

1♥ "I have hearts" - 1♠ "I have spades and usually not hearts"
3♦ "I have diamonds and extra values" - 3♥ "I am not sure where to go over that. I cannot rebid my spades since I don't hold six (or more) of them, I cannot bid 3NT because my clubs are weak and I don't want to go past 3NT"
3♠ "I do not have great clubs for you but also do not want to go past 3NT. Maybe you can upgrade your club values a little in light of the fact that I do not have a nice 5-5 (I would have bid 4♣ or 4♦) or 6-4 (I would have bid 4♥), so by implication I have some, but not a lot, of club values?"

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2023-February-03, 19:24, said:

Still uncomfortable bidding a non forcing 4♥, today we came up with this auction;

---

How would one bid with Kxx AQ109xx AKQ x?

After 1H 1S this hand is far too strong to bid a non-forcing 3H. Yet it can’t raise spades. The normal action is 3D.

Responder, with say AQxxx Kx xxx xxx has an easy 3H preference (3H is not ‘support’…it’s a preference. It doesn’t deny 3 hearts but it doesn’t promise it).

Now opener bids 3S.

I crafted that hand for opener because it doesn’t hold any cards responder held on the actual hand. Other examples could include say AQx AKxxx AQxx x

It’s very dangerous to make up the meaning of bids based on your actual hand. One should, instead, ignore one’s actual hand and ask ‘what would this mean?’.

1H 1S 3D 3H 3S….


3D is gf, ostensibly 4 but might be a fake.

3H is a default bid, saying ‘I cant pass, because we’re forced to game. I can’t bid notrump. I either can’t raise diamonds or I prefer to look for the ten trick heart game….say 4=2=4=3. I either have real heart support with or without rebiddable spades or my spades are not rebiddable’

3S by opener shows three card support.

I think responder has a very tough rebid over 3D.

On the one hand, he has unexpectedly great hearts, so 3H seems normal, otoh, he has a spade suit that plays for one loser opposite a void !

Bidding 3S might be best, hoping to be able to pull 3N to 4H. Now that 4H bid is true support…else we’d pass 3N, bid 4D or 4S

And because we went out of our way to show spades, and delayed our showing real hearts, we must have a long, strong spade suit and slam interest. Without slam interest, we bid 4H over 3D. Or we might bid 3H then pull 3N, especially if we had a minor cuebid in mind.

Now that spade King is huge.

But I honestly can’t say how my partnerships would bid these hands. I mean, it’s easy to construct somewhat plausible auctions given that I can see both hands but, at the table, I think both players have several unclear choices and getting to grand requires lucky guesses.

[P_Marlowe]

jillybean, on 2023-February-03, 14:26, said:

Forcing?

No.

You could also bid 5H, I like to play 5M as quantitative invite.
It comes up.

You could also bid 6H, asking partner to choose between 6H and 6S.
You give up on 7. But at least you described your hand.


With kind regards
Marlowe

[jillybean]

mikeh, on 2023-February-04, 08:42, said:

Bidding 3S might be best, hoping to be able to pull 3N to 4H. Now that 4H bid is true support…else we’d pass 3N, bid 4D or 4S

I think this is where the auction gets to the level of agreements we simply don't have, having played once a week for 2 months. I don't have this level of agreement with my regular partners.

The splinter mistake saved the day. Perhaps we could use a primer on splinters?

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

if you are willing to forget about the spade suit, given that you have only a limited set of agreements,
you could also make a direct forcing raise for hearts, if you have this available.

If you are missing a game force raise of openers major, I would start adding this agreement, before discussing
splinter.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: I am not sure, we would be bidding the Grand, I did not give it too much thought.

[jillybean]

P_Marlowe, on 2023-February-04, 12:01, said:

Hi,

if you are willing to forget about the spade suit, given that you have only a limited set of agreements,
you could also make a direct forcing raise for hearts, if you have this available.

If you are missing a game force raise of openers major, I would start adding this agreement, before discussing
splinter.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: I am not sure, we would be bidding the Grand, I did not give it too much thought.

Yes, we have 4 card GF major raise via J2nt and 3 card GF major raise via 1M:2♣ but with South hand, we have to try to show this spade suit.
Noone did bid the Grand but I think it should be bid.

[P_Marlowe]

jillybean, on 2023-February-04, 12:14, said:

Yes, we have 4 card GF major raise via J2nt and 3 card GF major raise via 1M:2♣ but with South hand, we have to try to show this spade suit.
Noone did bid the Grand but I think it should be bid.

Ok, South decided to show the spade, which is sensible.
But with 3H he changed plan, and changing plan is like changing the a horse while it is running.
In other words he should stick to his plan and rebid 3S, and over 3NT, he should do something drastic,
he knowes the partnership has 30+ HCP. His options are 4H, 5H, 5S, 6H. Bids above 4NT will bury the Grand,
but you will get to the correct Small.

For whats it worth, I have no idea, how I would interpret 4H in the given seq. as North.

[jillybean]

Just checking my understanding,

DavidKok, on 2023-February-04, 02:49, said:

No, the real message is even less helpful.

1♥ "I have hearts" - 1♠ "I have spades and usually not hearts".

However, I could have a gf hand with spades and real heart support for you but too many points/wrong shape to make any sort of initial heart raise ?

DavidKok, on 2023-February-04, 02:49, said:

3♦ "I have diamonds and extra values" - 3♥ "I am not sure where to go over that. I cannot rebid my spades since I don't hold six (or more) of them, I cannot bid 3NT because my clubs are weak and I don't want to go past 3NT".

Or, I have club control but I also have slam interest I don't want the auction to end in 3nt?

DavidKok, on 2023-February-04, 02:49, said:

3♠ "I do not have great clubs for you but also do not want to go past 3NT. Maybe you can upgrade your club values a little in light of the fact that I do not have a nice 5-5 (I would have bid 4♣ or 4♦) or 6-4 (I would have bid 4♥), so by implication I have some, but not a lot, of club values?"

I'm a little lost here, does 3♠ promise any spades? What would opener do with 3550, 2551?

[jillybean]

smerriman, on 2023-February-03, 21:05, said:

Yep. With restricted space, 3♥ is pretty wide ranging - game before slam.


No, it was natural - mikeh mentioned an artificial convention, but in 'standard' bidding without that or other special conventions, you sometimes need to "lie" by reversing / jump shifting into a 3 card minor, which is what all the other commenters were referring to.

. Do you really mean reversing here?

[AL78]

smerriman, on 2023-February-03, 15:12, said:

This hand isn't worth a 2♠ bid even if you were.

It is lacking in HCP but it does have seven playing tricks opposite a 1♥ opener and it does get the suit off your chest and set up a game forcing auction.

[DavidKok]

Edit: I only realised this after writing everything below, but it's important enough it should go at the top. I think different partnerships will play this differently, and the auction is both confusing and ambiguous. Below I'll write what I think is standard here (which is not even identical to what I play here). There's a bit more clarification on goals and methods further down. In my opinion the two most important concepts to keep in mind here are that 1) there is insufficient bidding space to achieve all our goals, so we will have to make compromises. This is true regardless of methods after the 1♥-1♠; 3♦ start of the auction. Any method that claims to have neat solutions, or even just a neat list of which hand types make which bids, will most certainly have to give up on some goals (so figure out which those are!). And 2) these ambiguous auctions are the bane of beginners and experienced players alike. Usually the methods themselves contain many ambiguous bids, which in turn also makes them difficult to explain (and, if I'm being honest, often even experts will simply not have a clear view of what they think a bid should mean). This is simply a very weak part of standard bidding as well as of bidding theory in general.

jillybean, on 2023-February-05, 00:28, said:

Just checking my understanding,
However, I could have a gf hand with spades and real heart support for you but too many points/wrong shape to make any sort of initial heart raise ?

Yes, though with a balanced raise with SI I would bypass the spades and bid 2♣ instead (though this is not standard, even though I think it should be). I personally think you should only show the spades if you are prepared to rebid them. Unfortunately if partner jumps or the opponents interfere this means you won't be able to show both good spades and support, so be prepared to sacrifice one or the other. On the example hand I'd show the 7 spades and give up on hearts.

jillybean, on 2023-February-05, 00:28, said:

Or, I have club control but I also have slam interest I don't want the auction to end in 3nt?

A stronger hand with clubs would bid 4NT (quantitative), although e.g. a 5=2=3=3 or 5=2=2=4 hand too strong for a quantitative 4NT (approximately 11-13) might punt with 3♥ to get more information. 3♠ (6+), 3NT (to play), 4♣ (control bid for diamonds), 4♦ (diamond fit, denies a club control), 4♥ (weak hands with long spades and 3 hearts, wanted to show the spades along the way), 4♠ (weak hand with long spades and nothing else), 4NT (quantitative) and 5♦ (weak with long diamonds) are all highly descriptive (and there's a few other bids I skipped). 3♥ is the catchall bid for hands that don't meet any of these criteria, which by itself becomes quite descriptive.

jillybean, on 2023-February-05, 00:28, said:

I'm a little lost here, does 3♠ promise any spades? What would opener do with 3550, 2551?

With a 3550 I'd rebid 4♠. You've painted an excellent picture of your hand, if we belong in 5♦ instead partner might pull. If we belong in 4♥ in the Moysian that's rough, but partner will almost always have 5 spades for the 3♥ bid (after all: no 3♥ unless SI, with 5♣4♠ partner would rebid 3NT (if weak) and would have responded 2♣ instead of 1♠ (if strong), with 4(+) diamonds partner had the option to raise diamonds now or after so it's just 4=2=3=4-shape with weak clubs where we might prefer 4♥ to 5♦, and partner would have bid 3NT anyway on some of those hands). I think a 2=5=5=1 hand should rebid 4♦. Partner is initially showing doubt about their club stopper for 3NT, and we don't have it. So we should go past 3NT.
I think 3♠ actually denies spades. It shows a willingness to play in 3NT even when partner has some doubts about their club holding, so it promises some (but not a lot of) clubs along with the 5♥4♦ already shown. Usually this will be a 1=5=4=3 or 2=5=4=2 with so-so clubs, you might want to include a 1=5=5=2 in there.

As an important aside, one way to solve all of these problems is by playing Gazzilli. Any set of methods has hand types where auctions get ambiguous and/or you will not be able to get to the best contract reliably. In standard methods the strong jump shifts are such an example - experts will frequently make these bids on single-suited hands too strong for other rebids, and if responder has multiple messages to convey there will often not be enough bidding space left to share them all. The standard solution is to have multiple 'kicking the can down the road' bids which don't show anything in particular but clarify the hand only by failing to make a more descriptive bid. I personally consider this a great weakness of these methods, and one of the difficult to explain barriers to becoming familiar with a bidding system. Most bidding systems, 2/1 first and foremost, have several auctions like this and it can really confuse players (myself included), but I'll stop here before it becomes a longer rant.
Generally the solution takes the following form. In ambiguous auctions where no trumps have been agreed:

• Bids of game are offers to play, and show a hand that in context is happy to play in the denomination suggested. Both partners should strain to make game bids with extra shape and limited values.
  
• The cheapest bid is a punt, and only describes the hand through the negative inference of not being able to make a more descriptive call.
  
• Other bids show extra shape in the suit bid.

jillybean, on 2023-February-05, 00:32, said:

. Do you really mean reversing here?

Yes, for example a 1=3=3=6-hand with (18)19HCP (or more) will bid 1♣-1♥/1♠; 2♦ 'fake reverse'. In standard the 3♣ rebid shows approximately 15-17 and is NF, so stronger hands have to first force through a fake bid (either the jump shift at the 3-level or specifically a club-diamond reverse at the 2-level). It is generally not done to lie about a major suit holding so a 1=3=6=3 hand would fake jump shift with 1♦-1♥/1♠; 3♣ instead.

[jillybean]

What is SI?