[cherdano]

As a free service for Mike:

kuhchung, on 2015-January-17, 04:29, said:

you could make a long series of asking bids, asking the opponents where the key honors are and the relevant suit breaks

once you get that info and bid the grand, they can trust you and take the save

I think this may answer your question "Seriously?"

[dicklont]

vinchy, on 2015-January-17, 01:51, said:

I am more interested in finding out about bidding styles ... [snip]

Vinchy, you and me have now had a valuable lesson from a lot better player.
Let's rest this and say thanks for the advice Mikeh.

[eagles123]

mikeh, on 2015-January-17, 07:31, said:

Seriously? You think that S should bid the grand if he knew every card in N's hand, but didn't know about the lie of the op's cards? Explain how he'd stay out of it if w held Qxx in trump? Or east for that mater, since he needs to ruff diamonds, lol

I think your sarcasm gauge is off Mike, or maybe mine is

[mgoetze]

mikeh, on 2015-January-17, 07:31, said:

Seriously? You think that S should bid the grand if he knew every card in N's hand, but didn't know about the lie of the op's cards?

Woah Mike, you need to calm down and reread what you're replying to.

[mikeh]

mgoetze, on 2015-January-17, 08:47, said:

Woah Mike, you need to calm down and reread what you're replying to.

It was 5 am, when I woke and couldn't get back to sleep, when I wrote that so my sarcasm gauge may well have been in the off position and I simply misunderstood, in which case I apologize.

[vinchy]

mikeh, on 2015-January-17, 07:27, said:

This post makes no sense at all. You really want to bid grand here? Please explain why.

Did you change the hand? I seem to recall both vul. I may be wrong there, but it looks to me as if you edited the hand to make it easier for ew to get into the auction.

It also looks to me as if you may be one of those unfortunate players who thinks that you need to bid every contract that makes, as the cards lie. I say unfortunate because such players end up as horrible bidders who never become any good at the game. Players with a future, as good players, learn early on not to think that way.

Any bidding method will have areas of relative weakness, even those played by world champions. The better the methods, the fewer those are. However, very, very few pairs have the time or the skill to develop or learn the best methods. The rest of us, even if we had the skill, don't play seriously enough to justify the effort. So we lesser mortals use methods that require les memory load, but have more areas of relative weakness. One doesn't maximize success, with any method, by forcing it to be able to bid every contract that is 'good', and it is madness to force it to bid bad contracts that happen to make.

If you are not "playing seriously enough" to have any ideas of bids that could (with whatever remote possibility) describe this hand, then don't post in this thread, let someone else do it. I was hoping to find players who would avoid the standard bidding - I am not saying that is how everyone here should play, just fishing for devices that could help in the describing the hands in this particular set.

Yep, I am definitely going nowhere in this game by simply trying to find out about different bidding styles - (note, not just mikeh's style and philosophy of bridge). Should stick to the bread and butter.

[vinchy]

Quote

South has a clear 1♥ opening bid, unless playing forcing club methods.

N has a simple raise, unless playing constructive raises, in which case he bids a forcing 1N. Note that while many players these days use 1N as semi-forcing, that doesn't mesh well with constructive raises.

S loves his hand and must make some call. However, his red suits are weak and it is trivial to construct single raise hands that offer no safety at the 5-level...think of KQx xxx xxx KQxx, a full 10 count, with lots of black winners and no dummy entry! Indeed, one can imagine failing in game with both red suits breaking 3-2!

So he makes a game try.....one of those help suit tries that were discussed in another thread of yours. He bids 3♦.

He is going to game regardless, but has slam ambitions if partner helps in diamonds, especially if he won't accept without both diamond help and an average or better raise.

As North, I wouldn't accept a game try. I like my diamond holding, but my trump are short and my hand is awful.

This is quite good.

Quote

1♥ - 1NT (forcing, just trying to end up in 2♥, who cares about those spades?)
3♦ - 4♥ (3 hearts, minimum)
4NT (RKCB, man not mouse. Although concerned about diamond losers) - 5♣ (1keycard)
6♥ - pass

A signoff from North, and then just ambition from South.

I do know it's very far-fetched but does nobody here have a device for:
1) Showing first-round controls of all suits, early
2) Showing a singleton Ace (or two)
3) Asking for the Queen of hearts

To think of such things would be better than accepting that there is limited bids for such a task with due consideration given to the less-than-optimal HCP and distributional concerns, I believe that is how the game develops.

[mgoetze]

Hi vinchy,

vinchy, on 2015-January-17, 10:27, said:

I do know it's very far-fetched but does nobody here have a device for:
1) Showing first-round controls of all suits, early
2) Showing a singleton Ace (or two)
3) Asking for the Queen of hearts

if you are interested in nonstandard methods, you should ask "how would you bid this with your system", not "how should this be bid", as in the latter case people will assume you want to know how to do it using standard methods. And of course, you would do better to present a pair of hands where slam is actually a good idea.

In my experience, pretty much noone has a convention to show (1) or (2), and almost everyone has one to ask for (3).

You may also be interested in my Systems Index if you are looking for new treatments to play: http://bridge.mgoetze.net/bbf.html

[vinchy]

mgoetze, on 2015-January-17, 10:50, said:

You may also be interested in my Systems Index if you are looking for new treatments to play: http://bridge.mgoetze.net/bbf.html

Looks great, will spend some time checking it out (when I do have sufficient).

[mikeh]

vinchy, on 2015-January-17, 10:27, said:

This is quite good.



A signoff from North, and then just ambition from South.

I do know it's very far-fetched but does nobody here have a device for:
1) Showing first-round controls of all suits, early
2) Showing a singleton Ace (or two)
3) Asking for the Queen of hearts

To think of such things would be better than accepting that there is limited bids for such a task with due consideration given to the less-than-optimal HCP and distributional concerns, I believe that is how the game develops.

Almost all posters here know how to ask for the heart Q. The fact that you don't confirms that you do not know much about bidding. I suspect you will take that as an insult, but hope that you don't. Nobody knows much about any topic of any level of difficulty until they have spent time learning about it. Many newbies come here thinking that they are good players, simply because they have no insight into how good it is possible to be. The better ones learn, and in time become good players and valued posters. The bad ones leave or, if they stay, remain the bad players they were at the start. Which way you go is entirely up to you.

As for the trump queen, google roman keycard blackwood, commonly referred to as rkcb.

As for the rest of your posts, do you really think that all I am telling you is my own personal style?

One of the benefits of posting or reading here is that you get very experienced players willing to share their experience with you. However, for that to be of benefit, the newbie had to be willing to recognize when one of those players is trying to help. You can google me. I am not the best player here, by a considerable margin. However, of those who post frequently, only a few have more international experience (representing their country) or more national titles.

However, since you clearly believe you understand the game better than do I, I won't try to help you anymore.

[vinchy]

mikeh, on 2015-January-17, 17:16, said:

Almost all posters here know how to ask for the heart Q. The fact that you don't confirms that you do not know much about bidding. I suspect you will take that as an insult, but hope that you don't. Nobody knows much about any topic of any level of difficulty until they have spent time learning about it. Many newbies come here thinking that they are good players, simply because they have no insight into how good it is possible to be. The better ones learn, and in time become good players and valued posters. The bad ones leave or, if they stay, remain the bad players they were at the start. Which way you go is entirely up to you.

As for the trump queen, google roman keycard blackwood, commonly referred to as rkcb.

As for the rest of your posts, do you really think that all I am telling you is my own personal style?

One of the benefits of posting or reading here is that you get very experienced players willing to share their experience with you. However, for that to be of benefit, the newbie had to be willing to recognize when one of those players is trying to help. You can google me. I am not the best player here, by a considerable margin. However, of those who post frequently, only a few have more international experience (representing their country) or more national titles.

However, since you clearly believe you understand the game better than do I, I won't try to help you anymore.

You don't really read that well, I do like your sharing but in this case if all you want to tell me is not to bother trying or finding new ways of bidding, I don't think I am learning much.

Yes I do know RKCB, but always curious if there are other ways of showing it, perhaps at an earlier round of bidding.

[ThymePuns]

kuhchung, on 2015-January-17, 04:29, said:

you could make a long series of asking bids, asking the opponents where the key honors are and the relevant suit breaks

once you get that info and bid the grand, they can trust you and take the save

My opponents always seem to play Reverse Tellmeeverything when these types of hands come up.

[manudude03]

If you went cuebidding the entire way, you might stumble into it, but it's a horrible grand. Something like 1H-2H-2S-3H-4C-4D-5D-5H-5N-6C-7H hoping to hit partner with Kxxx in hearts and Kx in diamonds, but from an imps perspective, given that this is about an 18% grand by my estimate, and assuming the opponents are always in 6. You will lose 17 imps 82% of the time while gaining 13 imps the other 18%. That gives you an average loss of 11.6 imps* per board you pick up the N/S pair of hands. That does not look like a good deal from my perspective. You would do a lot better just trying to get the bread and butter hands done right.

* Of course, this isn't entirely accurate since you will sometimes even fail to make 6, and the opponents aren't always even in 6.

[Phil]

The key to this hand isn't really the key cards (surprise!), its the combined diamond holding.

Therefore, something like 1♥ - 1N - 3♦ - 4♥ - 5♣ - 5♦ - 6♥ is plausible to me.

A small slam seems ok here. A grand is pretty ridiculous.

[Lovera]

Lovera, on 2015-January-16, 16:30, said:

..or better 5♣=King, 5♦=? Q, 5♥=no Q. But with 1NT range of force is 5-8 points (media 7) and to get grand with this hand i need only 5 points then where are remaining ones ? With 5NT probably bidding ends in 6♥=no King aside but i can obtain the same resulting with 6♦ for 6NT=Q or 7♥=King.

Here (media 7) meaning should be that opp have each 7 points but i think it is correct for usual hands and not for hands like those that required 2♣ bidding because this high concentration of points takes an analogue concentration of points in the hand of an opp. So standing the things i suggest this : it calculate 2/3 of remaining points in an opp and rest in the other (1/3=50% of 2/3) and this one should be compatibile with "symmethria law" by Easly Blackwood, bye.