[Cyberyeti]

VM1973, on 2011-August-26, 11:33, said:

He might have also bid 4♠ holding:
♠108654
♥K8732
♦A
♣97

Or he might be holding:

♠10865
♥K8732
♦AK
♣97

-----------------------------
I still think that holding more than an ace above an opening bid, I should have taken further action.

He shouldn't be holding any of those hands, as he has obvious bids other than 4♠ on them.

This is why it's wrong to bid on with the big hand.

[rduran1216]

aguahombre, on 2011-August-26, 00:31, said:

I really do hope you were joking as I was.

come on man haha

[FrancesHinden]

East forgot to open the bidding.

Once you got to open 1S in fourth seat I don't understand the problem with a splinter from North. You have enormous playing strength, why not tell partner you have a diamond shortage?
p.s. if you happen to play Drury you can distinguish two strengths of splinter by starting with/not starting with Drury

[awm]

I'll disagree with mikeh on this one.

A hand with a very good fit and shape like this is not necessarily so unusual. It seems quite useful to be able to distinguish a hand like this (which has sufficient playing strength that you expect to usually make 4♠) from the usual junk that a 4♠ preempt can be (say the same hand with one less spade and one more diamond). In addition, there is no real natural meaning for 3NT here by a passed hand -- what sort of hand wants to contract for game in notrump opposite a third-seat opener that couldn't open in first chair?

It seems basically without loss to use 3NT here as a 4♠ bid with mild slam interest opposite a better-than-normal opening. Then opener can ask for shortage, find out about the diamond shortness, and basically blast slam. Looking at the south cards, it's actually quite common for slam to make if partner has diamond shortage and at least one useful card (say the spade ace or heart king or even club queen). This is a fairly common conventional treatment (jump to 3NT over partner's 1M shows a "good 4M bid" allowing partner to look for slam if he likes); it's not some exotic method that deals only with this particular hand.

[MrAce]

I would bid 4♠ with north hand.

Seeing both hands, i could splinter and then show my void over 4 NT for happy ending. But we would then discuss another ATB topic, if pd held something like

KQJxx
Qx
Axxx
AK

[mikeh]

awm, on 2011-August-30, 00:54, said:

I'll disagree with mikeh on this one.

A hand with a very good fit and shape like this is not necessarily so unusual. It seems quite useful to be able to distinguish a hand like this (which has sufficient playing strength that you expect to usually make 4♠) from the usual junk that a 4♠ preempt can be (say the same hand with one less spade and one more diamond). In addition, there is no real natural meaning for 3NT here by a passed hand -- what sort of hand wants to contract for game in notrump opposite a third-seat opener that couldn't open in first chair?

It seems basically without loss to use 3NT here as a 4♠ bid with mild slam interest opposite a better-than-normal opening. Then opener can ask for shortage, find out about the diamond shortness, and basically blast slam. Looking at the south cards, it's actually quite common for slam to make if partner has diamond shortage and at least one useful card (say the spade ace or heart king or even club queen). This is a fairly common conventional treatment (jump to 3NT over partner's 1M shows a "good 4M bid" allowing partner to look for slam if he likes); it's not some exotic method that deals only with this particular hand.

My post was mainly about the futility of using unusual hands to justify adoption of esoteric single-measure hand evaluation methods.....the OP seemed to be using this hand as a basis for adopting zar points.

As for 3N, in my current partnership, we could in fact bid 3N here....it is light on hcp but the extra shape could justify it. And we play 4♣ over it as asking for shortness. However, unless opener simply blasted slam, we wouldn't get there. I would expect opener to find the diamond shortness and then to keycard. However, the shortness will more often be a stiff than a void, and we don't have a method of keycard that allows us to identify a void with 0 keycards.....and I've never heard of such a response structure. So how would you bid it? (I don't think it logical to suggest that N might bid on after keycard and a signoff....he doesn't know that opener lacks the diamond A....if opener held the diamond A, the void might not be much use if we are missing 2 keycards)

[phil_20686]

I dont mind a splinter if that is your agreement as a passed hand. If you play two way drury especially.

Otoh, I certainly feel strongly that I might be stealing on this board already. Particularly if I was playing timid opposition. Its hard to beleive my teammates didn't open in third (or possibly first) given quite how many spades we appear to have. The tactical advantage of getting 4S on teh deck on these boards is quite significant. I cannot believe that this is a normal auction. The oppos have too many points and and too many minor suit cards.

[gnasher]

mikeh, on 2011-August-30, 09:38, said:

As for 3N, in my current partnership, we could in fact bid 3N here....it is light on hcp but the extra shape could justify it. And we play 4♣ over it as asking for shortness. However, unless opener simply blasted slam, we wouldn't get there. I would expect opener to find the diamond shortness and then to keycard. However, the shortness will more often be a stiff than a void, and we don't have a method of keycard that allows us to identify a void with 0 keycards.....and I've never heard of such a response structure.

You mean you've never heard of Inclusion Keycard? After finding out about the diamond shortage, South bids 5♦ to ask for key cards, but treating a diamond void as an ace.

[aguahombre]

gnasher, on 2011-August-30, 10:11, said:

You mean you've never heard of Inclusion Keycard? After finding out about the diamond shortage, South bids 5♦ to ask for key cards, but treating a diamond void as an ace.

Could that get awkward if South has the diamond ACE and won't know whether North is showing a different bullet?

[mikeh]

gnasher, on 2011-August-30, 10:11, said:

You mean you've never heard of Inclusion Keycard? After finding out about the diamond shortage, South bids 5♦ to ask for key cards, but treating a diamond void as an ace.

No..I live a sheltered life

[ahydra]

If you bid 4S on those two hands you need to learn Jacoby Though the first one is a tough call - I'd probably bid 3S (or 4D if feeling frisky). The second is a 2NT bid. The third hand opposite the one in the OP gives opps 24 points - no game admittedly, but 1 off is fine against 130.

As for the original pair of hands - well I think as other people have said, you're just unlucky. If anyone would do more it's South with his 5 loser hand - don't underestimate the awesomeness of 5431 shapes - but pass is totally reasonable since who said North has to have a void diamond opposite four small...

ahydra

[gwnn]

aguahombre, on 2011-August-30, 10:25, said:

Could that get awkward if South has the diamond ACE and won't know whether North is showing a different bullet?

if South had the diamond ACE, he wouldn't USE inclusion keycard.

[JLOGIC]

MrAce, on 2011-August-30, 03:10, said:

I would bid 4♠ with north hand.

Seeing both hands, i could splinter and then show my void over 4 NT for happy ending. But we would then discuss another ATB topic, if pd held something like

KQJxx
Qx
Axxx
AK

You can and should imo play void showing splinters by a passed hand. You can either use them as 2 tiered (3M+1 is a singleton somewhere, others are void), or simply go through drury with your splinters that have stiffs and allow partner to ask you if he wants, or use 2N as a raise. You have an incredible amount of space/raises and a limited hand, so this should be simple to do, and a priority.

[MrAce]

JLOGIC, on 2011-August-31, 02:08, said:

You can and should imo play void showing splinters by a passed hand. You can either use them as 2 tiered (3M+1 is a singleton somewhere, others are void), or simply go through drury with your splinters that have stiffs and allow partner to ask you if he wants, or use 2N as a raise. You have an incredible amount of space/raises and a limited hand, so this should be simple to do, and a priority.

I agree of course, and in fact what u said should be in "must" list of all adv+ players imo. That said, i have to confess I dont have this with Aaron due to laziness.

Back to this "assign the blame" topic. If you look at the replies it first started with ZAR points, LTC formulas and then splinters with 3 hcp and 6-5 hand, and i tried to tell even after they find a xxxx suit vs their shortness and pd asks keycards, with standart methods, they will need to show the void in order to reach slam and that may not be always happy ending in a different hand opener may hold. And then Mikeh is told that it is not uncommon when we have a xxxx suit 17 hcp with a giant fit and opponents do not bid when they have at least the same strength we do. And then we are introduced to "inclusion key card" in a tone as if it is the most popular convention in the world and everyone plays or knows it.

At this point i lost my already small interest about assigning blame debates. As you said very well, it is one of those hands. I could have more sympathy if what OP asked was " how do we get to this slam" instead of asking us to assign the blame. No offense intended to Andy or other posters. Andy knows or at least i think he does, that i have mad respect to his bridge and himself in general although i havent meet him in real life. I just thought the topic went off its rail by the way they choosed to aproach this ATB topic.

After reading every and each of posters, i still think with std methods, i cant assign blame to North or South.

As ironic as it may sound, eventhough i thought it was unnecesarry to bring up in an ATB topic, inclusion keycard was one of my gains. I didnt know it, i havent heard of it before, and i loved the idea. Second thing was your suggestion about the unlimited space and tools that i can use by a passed hand to contrast my singleton and void hands, perhaps more. Thanks and i mean it.

[VM1973]

First of all, the hand was annoying because the slam is cold. I even had an extra trump at the end. And no, I don't buy the "I'm sorry there's nothing you could have done. Don't worry, you'll have company..." line of thinking. Nor did ZPs solve my problem as I said ... even assuming partner has 25 ZPs you don't automatically come up with the magic number for a slam.

I've decided, after some thought, that it was my fault. I held an Ace more than an opening hand. For those who doubt that or suppose that it's because I am calculating using ZPs I should point out that:

♠KQJ97
♥A
♦8654
♣AK5 = 17 HCPs + 9 length points = 26 (Rule of 20 to open... 6 points better). So, as I said, I have more than an ace more than an opening hand.

I've decided the best treatment is likely to be what was mentioned elsewhere recently... the reverse cuebidding where instead of bidding the suits you control you bid the cheapest suit you DON'T control. So a 5♦ bid saying, "I'm thinking about slam, but I don't control diamonds," would be the foreward going action likeliest to lead to the slam as North has that suit covered... in spades (literally and figuratively).

[gwnn]

VM it doesn't work that way. Just because you have an ace more than an opening bid, it doesn't make it your fault*. Opposite most 4♠ raises, you don't make slam, so your pass was percentage.

You need to accept that sometimes in bridge both sides make the percentage call and end up in the wrong contract. This will happen especially when both sides are on the top or on the bottom of their respective ranges.

*are you suggesting that all hands that are an ace over a minimum opening should bid over 1♠-p-4♠? That is very far from the truth.

This post has been edited by gwnn: 2011-August-31, 14:26

[gnasher]

I got the idea of Inclusion Keycard from Paul Lamford (who is a frequent participant in the Laws forums). The total number of Google hits for "Inclusion Keycard", "Inclusion Key Card" and "Inclusion Blackwood" is 6 on the web and 1 on rec.games.bridge, so perhaps Mike and MrAce can be excused their ignorance.

[mikeh]

gnasher, on 2011-August-31, 15:13, said:

I got the idea of Inclusion Keycard from Paul Lamford (who is a frequent participant in the Laws forums). The total number of Google hits for "Inclusion Keycard", "Inclusion Key Card" and "Inclusion Blackwood" is 6 on the web and 1 on rec.games.bridge, so perhaps Mike and MrAce can be excused their ignorance.

And at least one of the hits was to a post by Andy on July 18th, so it seems partially self-referential

Maybe 10 years from now, when players muse over who invented this ubiquitous and invaluable convention, and when, those of us who recall this thread will be able to smugly announce that we used it as early as the summer of 2011!

[MrAce]

gnasher, on 2011-August-31, 15:13, said:

I got the idea of Inclusion Keycard from Paul Lamford (who is a frequent participant in the Laws forums). The total number of Google hits for "Inclusion Keycard", "Inclusion Key Card" and "Inclusion Blackwood" is 6 on the web and 1 on rec.games.bridge, so perhaps Mike and MrAce can be excused their ignorance.

Haha, very true, indeed i googled it and still it was not easy to get a hold of it.

[xxhong]

One interesting point is that even without HK, it's a decent slam. So you should ask what do you bid with Txxxxx xxxxx - xx over partner's 3rd seat 1S. Most methods deal with HCP oriented evaluations, not shape oriented evaluations.

VM1973, on 2011-August-25, 14:24, said:

---

Assess blame for the failure to reach 6.