[mike777]

Double !, on Aug 19 2009, 12:05 PM, said:

The opps pass throughout
the game is imp pairs
location BBO -MBC
your partner is a fairly regular partner of yours on BBO, skill level from adv to expurt, depending on opinion and how much sleep he/she's gotten  .
the vulnerability really doesn't matter (which means that I forget)

I am only giving the bidding, not the hands.  What is partner doing? what is partner looking for?  Any idea what Partner hand is?

Partner:  1♣,    You:  1♠
Partner:  2♦,    You:  2♠
Partner:  3♠,    You:  3NT
Partner:  4♦,    You:  4♠
Partner:  5♥  !!!!!

What is partner doing, what is partner looking for, any idea what partner's hand is?  (Hint:  Partner is not 4-suited) 
BTW: There were no conventional bids in this auction with the possible exception of your 2 spade rebid meaning only that you had 5+ spades.

Enjoy:  DHL

1) First off I also play 3s here as nonforcing. 3h here would be 4sf and artificial.
2) 2s for me shows 5+s and max of 9hcp, it is one round forcing but not forcing to game.


3) 3nt I would take as a mild slam try in spades, very often denying a club cuebid.

4) 4d cue denies club cue.
5) 4s sign off

6) 5h seems a bit much....I just rebid 5s i guess.

[the hog]

cherdanno, on Aug 20 2009, 12:36 AM, said:

Does not exist, 3♠ was non-forcing.

Agree. Partner has been smoking noxious substances.

[goodwintr]

Some people play that responder's 2S rebid is forced whenever he has 5+ spades, regardless of his strength: he could be weak, intending to pass if opener next bids 3C, but he could also be strong. (This was the Kaplan-Sheinwold understanding, I believe.)

Since on this understanding 2S might be any old five-card suit, opener's raise to 3S shows genuine support, and is forcing: a hand good enough for a reverse that includes genuine support for responder's five-card suit ought to stretch for a playable game almost regardless of what responder has. Putting it another way, once an eight-card major-suit fit is established, so that the deal is known not to be misfit, opener's reverse should be considered game-forcing even if it wasn't game-forcing before the fit was established.

3NT over 3S sounds like choice-of-games. 4D chooses spades and implies an enormous hand. 5H implies no heart losers and focusses on clubs, as others have said.

I strongly suspect that opener is overbidding, and maybe playing a different system from the above. What else is new?

[Phil]

Some of these constructions for 3♠ are quite hilarious.

[Double !]

The_Hog, on Aug 19 2009, 07:19 PM, said:

cherdanno, on Aug 20 2009, 12:36 AM, said:

Does not exist, 3♠ was non-forcing.

Agree. Partner has been smoking noxious substances.

I wish I had been smoking something good. The noxious stuff gives me headaches.

I apologize for not anticipating that there might be discussion about whether or not the 3S bid was forcing or not. I was under the impression that this Pd & I had agreed to play it as forcing. Wish I had indicated such in the original post. 'tis an interesting topic for survey.

As some have requested responder's hand, here it is: ♠ Q9876, ♥ Qxx, ♦ 7653, ♣ A. This hand may look familiar to some. That was why i was reluctant to post it initially.

Again, there were no conventional bids throughout the auction. For example, 3NT was not serious.

DHL

[Double !]

neilkaz, on Aug 19 2009, 04:02 PM, said:

Also, can PD manufacture a 2♦ reverse on less than 4 cards? (I realize that you may not know if PD will do this)

Yes, partner can manufacture a reverse on less than 4 (or 3, or) cards and he/ me has occasionally done so in the past. However, it can only be done when opener knows what strain the hand will likely play in, and can always over-ride any bid that responder makes: in this case, converting diamonds back to spades.

DHL

[mike777]

Double !, on Aug 19 2009, 07:59 PM, said:

The_Hog, on Aug 19 2009, 07:19 PM, said:

cherdanno, on Aug 20 2009, 12:36 AM, said:

Does not exist, 3♠ was non-forcing.

Agree. Partner has been smoking noxious substances.

I wish I had been smoking something good. The noxious stuff gives me headaches.

I apologize for not anticipating that there might be discussion about whether or not the 3S bid was forcing or not. I was under the impression that this Pd & I had agreed to play it as forcing. Wish I had indicated such in the original post. 'tis an interesting topic for survey.

As some have requested responder's hand, here it is: ♠ Q9876, ♥ Qxx, ♦ 7653, ♣ A. This hand may look familiar to some. That was why i was reluctant to post it initially.

Again, there were no conventional bids throughout the auction. For example, 3NT was not serious.

DHL

Given 3s is game forcing when I can have junk this seems an easy 4c cue over 3s....I got a good hand.

after 4c cue now over 4d I now give up with 4s.

[Cascade]

Indeed ♥ Qxx is hardly the robust stopper we need opposite a likely heart shortage.

Given that opener is limited by the 1♣ bid it seems that either:

1. Your 1♣ openings can be extremely strong for partner to be wanting to cue-bid a shortage when you have shown significant strength in hearts

2. Opener has a manufactured reverse with a fitting honour in hearts. I would pick 3=2=2=6 distribution.

Something like

♠ AKx
♥ Ax
♦ Ax
♣ QJxxxx

But the exact hand would depend on what you cue-bidding style is.

[cherdanno]

I changed my mind, I think there are reasonable hands for partner's bidding - s.th. like
♠A ♥AQx ♦KQJx ♠QJxxx.

[Cascade]

cherdanno, on Aug 20 2009, 03:49 PM, said:

I changed my mind, I think there are reasonable hands for partner's bidding - s.th. like
♠A ♥AQx ♦KQJx ♠QJxxx.

Do you often raise partner's five-card suits with stiff ace in support?

[cherdanno]

Cascade, on Aug 19 2009, 11:07 PM, said:

cherdanno, on Aug 20 2009, 03:49 PM, said:

I changed my mind, I think there are reasonable hands for partner's bidding - s.th. like
♠A ♥AQx ♦KQJx ♠QJxxx.

Do you often raise partner's five-card suits with stiff ace in support?

After a second look at the hand, yes.

[kenrexford]

Cascade, on Aug 19 2009, 11:07 PM, said:

cherdanno, on Aug 20 2009, 03:49 PM, said:

I changed my mind, I think there are reasonable hands for partner's bidding - s.th. like
♠A ♥AQx ♦KQJx ♠QJxxx.

Do you often raise partner's five-card suits with stiff ace in support?

What are you talking about? Partner mis-sorted his hand and has 6-card support.

[ONEferBRID]

Double !, on Aug 19 2009, 07:59 PM, said:

The_Hog, on Aug 19 2009, 07:19 PM, said:

cherdanno, on Aug 20 2009, 12:36 AM, said:

Does not exist, 3♠ was non-forcing.

Agree. Partner has been smoking noxious substances.

I wish I had been smoking something good. The noxious stuff gives me headaches.

I apologize for not anticipating that there might be discussion about whether or not the 3S bid was forcing or not. I was under the impression that this Pd & I had agreed to play it as forcing. Wish I had indicated such in the original post. 'tis an interesting topic for survey.

As some have requested responder's hand, here it is: ♠ Q9876, ♥ Qxx, ♦ 7653, ♣ A. This hand may look familiar to some. That was why i was reluctant to post it initially.

Again, there were no conventional bids throughout the auction. For example, 3NT was not serious.

DHL

Thx for Responder's hand.

Now, what was Opener's hand ?

[FrancesHinden]

If 3S was systemically forcing (I certainly don't play it as forcing - it seems a very useful bid to show a minimum reverse with three spades) then opener has some enormous 3046. I don't see how he can have a strong enough 3145. While I think he has one of the top clubs, he isn't cueing it because he wants us to concentrate on our minor suit holdings. May be

AKx
-
Axxx
KQJxxx

This assume we cue first round controls before second round ones. Partner was encouraged when we didn't cue hearts.

On responder's hand, I hate the 3NT bid. 4C seems normal, or 4S if you want to limit your hand. (I would simply bid 4S but that's because I play 3S as nf)

[lilboyman]

Partner has 6 Clubs, 5 Diamonds, 2 Spades and a Heart void. P was willing to play Spades if you had a 6 card suit. Your 3N confirmed a 5 card Spade suit. P now knows this probably plays better in one of the minors and show the 5 Diamonds with the 4 Diamond bid. After your 4 Spades P wants to show the Heart void and get you to make a choice between the minors. Probably, P harbors thoughts of slam in the suit of fit and must have two very good minors.

[bid_em_up]

lilboyman, on Aug 20 2009, 01:21 PM, said:

Partner has 6 Clubs, 5 Diamonds, 2 Spades and a Heart void.  P was willing to play Spades if you had a 6 card suit.  Your 3N confirmed a 5 card Spade suit.  P now knows this probably plays better in one of the minors and show the 5 Diamonds with the 4 Diamond bid.  After your 4 Spades P wants to show the Heart void and get you to make a choice between the minors.  Probably, P harbors thoughts of slam in the suit of fit and must have two very good minors.

If partner held 2-0-5-6, he should have bid 3♦ completing his distribution, and not 3♠. So this holding is out also, imo.

[Double !]

fwiw: i double-checked with my partner for this hand and, yes, we had agreed that the 3S bid by opener was forcing.

DHL

[peachy]

Double !, on Aug 21 2009, 09:59 PM, said:

fwiw: i double-checked with my partner for this hand and, yes, we had agreed that the 3S bid by opener was forcing.

DHL

What will opener bid, under your agreements, if he does _not_ want to force but he has spade support. I am not trying to poke holes in your agreed methods, but this hole is too big to ignore. How do you handle it, by just always going to game or by having higher requirements for a reverse than most people do?

[Double !]

I do not have a satisfactory answer for you. This is not a well-established partnership. In fact, there are a lot of hands that this P and I bid differently. Never really had time to discuss the issue that you raise. I just remembered once passing 3S or 3H on a similar auction and only making 6 because this particular P played the 3M bid as forcing.

A lot depends on which suits are involved, the shape of the hand, and the quality of the suits/ ie: trick-taking potential. I usually go with what my P prefers to play (even if I don't like it). So, if reverse followed by support is forcing with whomever my current partner might be, I just might be forced to lie and open 1NT even with a 16/17 count & 3451 or 3415 distro. (again, depending on suit qualities and locations of high cards.)
If 3S is nf, then i bid fsf just like everyone else. But, your question is quite valid and legitimate.
BTW: I never indicated that I have a preference one way or the other. Was just giving the parameters of what this particular partnership had decided. Since 3S was to be forcing and setting spades as trumps, this particular agreement permitted me to bid my hand in a way that made it clear that I needed club control and still not force the bidding to the 6-level.

I find the discussion about whether or not the 3S bid is forcing is quite interesting. Just goes to show that not everyone agrees on what bids or sequences are "standard".

DHL

[Double !]

Before you laugh and tell me that I'm insane, i would like to state the following:
I AM: Csaba said so!

The given bidding is how I bid the opener's hand in my previous post. I held:
♠ AKJ3, ♥ A, ♦ A, ♣ QJ76542. Once i chose to open the hand 1C (my f2f partner suggested 2C) and my partner responded 1S, I wanted to 1st of all get some idea of how many spades he had. Therefore, I created an artificial reverse of 2 D, knowing that he couldn't pass. After he rebid 2S, showing 5+ spades, i now wanted to create a way to find out how many club losers we had without getting past the 5-level. It was fortunate that this particular partner played my 3S bid as forcing. His 3NT rebid (I believe) was intended to show a balanced hand with something in hearts and to mark time as spades were pretty much agreed on as being the trump suit. My 4D bid (rebidding a stiff ace) was intended to give partner a chance to describe his hand further. His 4S bid essentially said that, opposite theoretically 3-card trump support, he didn't feel that he could go past 4S.
And that's OK because I had a game plan. But when I clearly asked for some sort of club control by bidding 5H, he obliged by bidding 6S.

Some have said that he should have shown the ace of clubs after I had supported spades. Some might also suggest that he might have bid 6C to show the ace. Well, he and I don't always agree on certain things.

So, we managed to get to 6S, making 7 with the club king onside, without any really conventional bids.

The fun part for me was being able to bid a stiff ace twice in the auction (partner couldn't alert that- he didn't know) and to bid a second stiff ace one time. To be honest, I couldn't think of another way to do it other than using 4th suit GF on my 3rd bid, but I was concerned that I might lose a valuable level of bidding by doing so.

Disclaimer: I was rather tired when this hand occurred. All insanities are hereby attributed to fatigue.

DHL