[mikeh]

Playing with a friend at the club, in a 20 table duplicate, you pick up x x AJ987xx AKJ9

All vulnerable, LHO is dealer and opens 4H. Partner, a good player, bids 4S and (unsurprisingly) RHO passes. Your bid and why?

[DavidKok]

I have a tongue-in-cheek rule. When discussing a hand, if you tell me which 9s you held, you overbid. Here I even see an 8 and a 7!

Spoiler

Anyway, I bid 6♦.

I think it's going to be a gamble. I have some gadgets here, but they won't convey that I have a strong 7-4 at all. If we're going to bid, I think we should just bid what we hope we can make.
In my agreements 4♠ here can be quite weak. It is so often correct to bid 4♠ over 4♥ - for it to be wrong, both games have to fail (or one has to fail by a lot). For this reason partner's 4♠ could, for example, be ♠KQxxxxx, ♥xx, ♦x, ♣Qxx, opposite which 4♠ seems reasonable but any higher contract is doomed. However, there is no room to investigate whether partner has a weak 4♠ or a stronger one. Preempts work. I think we have too much strength, too much shape, and too many controls that I think passing or bidding 5♦ are both big gambles. Jumping to slam certainly isn't risk-free, but I do think it is the lesser risk.

[mike777]

6D seems
clear

These hands always remind me of a famous interview of a lady here in the USA who was called the Queen of ACBL bridge clubs,
I think her name was Helen S. She had a zillion points. Her advice, never bid slams at your local club.

[jillybean]

Who is your opponent? Is 4♠ preemptive or one of the 4M bids you see in the MBC?

[mikeh]

 jillybean, on 2025-November-08, 09:59, said:

Who is your opponent? Is 4♠ preemptive or one of the 4M bids you see in the MBC?

Lho is a slightly above average club player. Partner s a much better player and, if anything, tends to be conservative

[jillybean]

Do you have any agreements at the 5 level?
This hand has too much potential to bid 6♦ but where else can we go, what is partner going to do over 5♥?
I'm tempted to bid 5♥ and see what happens, it's only a club game.

mike777, on 2025-November-08, 09:54, said:

These hands always remind me of a famous interview of a lady here in the USA who was called the Queen of ACBL bridge clubs,
I think her name was Helen S. She had a zillion points. Her advice, never bid slams at your local club.

This seems backwards

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2025-November-08, 11:15, said:

Do you have any agreements at the 5 level?
This hand has too much potential to bid 6♦ but where else can we go, what is partner going to do over 5♥?
I'm tempted to bid 5♥ and see what happens, it's only a club game.


This seems backwards

Only if you want to become a better player, able to compete in tougher games. The average club player is, in my experience, hopeless at slam bidding and often little better at declarer play. Therefore, while bidding and making slams will get you great results, bidding and failing will be awful. A competent player can routinely score at least 60% in most club sessions without risking a zero by bidding good but not cold slams.

I’m not the least bit interested in that sort of thinking but of one’s desire is the rack up black points, its not a bad idea.

[P_Marlowe]

I would pass.

You could easily convince me, that this is to tame, that I am a chicken.
It is, as it is.

The hand is to complicate for me.

[Zelandakh]

Is 5NT for you and JV Pick-a-Slam or GSF? It seems to me that if partner has solid spades, we want to be in 6♠ but if it's just 5 decent spades, which is perfectly possible for a pressured 4♠ overcall, not then a minor suit slam is likely to play better. If we don't have tools to differentiate, we might be better off just going low so I think system is a relevant factor here.

[WasWinM]

I want to know how good the spade suit is. There is no running only advancing from the 4S overcall so I advance with 5D. If partner rebids spades I’ll raise to 6. If partner bids 5H I’ll bid 6C thinking 7D is now possible.

As to the 4S bid, it can be pretty weak in 4th position but I’m nit sold on a direct seat 4 over 4 as speculative.

[shyams]

I'm seriously considering bidding 4NT as Key Card Blackwood.

Partner rates to have a great spade suit so I see no reason to try exploring a fit in my suit.

The singleton trump will prevent them from cashing two heart tricks. The rest is up to declarer.

[mikeh]

Zelandakh, on 2025-November-08, 16:51, said:

Is 5NT for you and JV Pick-a-Slam or GSF? It seems to me that if partner has solid spades, we want to be in 6♠ but if it's just 5 decent spades, which is perfectly possible for a pressured 4♠ overcall, not then a minor suit slam is likely to play better. If we don't have tools to differentiate, we might be better off just going low so I think system is a relevant factor here.

Kudos for taking the time to find out who I was partnering. JV is one of my favourite people…I can say that because he is never on the internet. We play on average maybe twice a month, and occasionally at local sectionals..we won two events last sectional. But we play an extremely basic 2/1 and have zero system notes (I have 160 pages in my main partnership) and rarely discuss methods. So I don’t know how he’d take 5N. Plus, while I’ve often used 5N as pick a slam, in my experience there’s always been two recognized possible trump suits or one suit and 6N as options. I’m not convinced that 5N would get him to bid 6D on say AKQxxx xx Kxx Qx.

6 D, otoh, will surely get him to bid 6S with a no loser spade suit: how can it be right to play in 6D then? He did have AKQJxxx in spades…AKQJxxx Qxx x Qx. Spades were 5-0…ugh.

[DavidKok]

Zelandakh, on 2025-November-08, 16:51, said:

Is 5NT for you and JV Pick-a-Slam or GSF?

It's Pick-a-Slam for me, and would in my opinion not be a good bid with that agreement.

It sounds like 6♠ is a good single dummy contract, just an unlucky split.

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2025-November-09, 07:27, said:

It's Pick-a-Slam for me, and would in my opinion not be a good bid with that agreement.

It sounds like 6♠ is a good single dummy contract, just an unlucky split.

I’m intrigued by the idea that there exists a hand where, on this auction, 5N is pick a slam. Can you suggest one? Maybe a strong 2=1=5=5?

[DavidKok]

I think other strong hands with 2 spades can qualify, even with less shape in the minors. Say we are 2=3=4=4 - partner isn't guaranteed to have a four card suit for a 6m bid, but it might be the only way to find the contract if partner does have one.
Or, more extreme, let's say I have 2=4=5=2. Now I can pull 6♣ to 6♦ to offer a choice of slams, indicating spade tolerance. Some hands might even be able to offer choice of slam between 6m, 6♠ or 6NT (e.g. 2=3=3=5 or perhaps even 1=4=3=5, intending to bid 6♥ or 6NT over 6♦).
All these hands have less extreme distribution than this 1=1=7=4 hand.

You could put some or all of these through 5♥ instead, reserving 5NT for more shapely hands. I personally do not.

P.S.: just to be clear, this is not guaranteed to find an 8-card fit, or the best one if there are multiple, always. It's just a tool to help split hands with multiple places to play from hands with more extreme wishes for one strain. Also, if it isn't clear from my description above, I do not have an exact list of which hands are suitable for 5NT. I just know what my continuations over it are, and hope partner uses it wisely if and when it comes up.

[mycroft]

Heh, I got luckier yet, a score I don't think I've ever achieved before (see other thread).

For David:

Spoiler

It's worse than that, he missed a 9 (the spade) and even a 10 (the heart). :-)