[bravejason]

Playing SAYC or similar:

Partner deals and opens one heart. Opponents pass throughout. You have a heart void, but 4 spades, so you respond with one spade. Partner raises to two spades. When you re-evaluate your hand now knowing that you have a spade fit, how do you account for the void knowing that your partner has length (5 cards) and possibly strength in that suit? Do you increase or decrease the value of your hand and by how much? Does it matter if your hand is weak, strong, or powerful? If you downgraded your hand immediately after hearing partner's opening bid, did you upgrade after finding the trump fit?

Similar situation, but this time partner deals and opens with one of a minor. Opponents pass throughout. You have a void in partner's minor suit, and 4 or 5 of a major, so you respond with one major. Partner raises to two. When you re-evaluate your hand now knowing that you have a major suit fit, how do you account for the minor suit void knowing that your partner possibly has length or strength in that suit? Do you increase or decrease the value of your hand and by how much? Does it matter if your hand is weak, strong, or powerful? If you downgraded your hand immediately after hearing partner's opening bid, did you upgrade after finding the trump fit?

Would it matter if your first response was a two level minor suit that was subsequently raised (e.g., 1 spade - 2 diamonds - 3 diamonds)?

Fundamentally, I'm asking these questions to try to get a feel for how people evaluate their hands when they know that they have both a trump fit and a void in one of partner's suits. It seems wrong to take full credit for a void in a suit in which partner likely has high cards since you have wasted or duplicate values, but it also seems wrong to pretend the void didn't exist either since the ability to ruff a potential loser is still there. I'm looking for the middle ground here.

[Phil]

Is it asking too much to tell us our hand?

[Kaitlyn S]

I think it's a general hand evaluation issue that goes with several hands. I think you're asking how much I count for the void. Let's get one thing clear, a void in the long trump hand is worth less than in the short hand. Let's ignore partner's suit for a minute and talk generally.

S-AK32
H-
D-A543
C-A5432

S-QJT987
H-652
D-K2
C-76

You will note that the void is in the short trump hand so that if you can trump all three hearts, you'll get a total of nine trump tricks and will take a total of 12 tricks. Don't ask me how to bid six!

S-AK32
H-652
D-A54
C-A43

S-QJT987
H-
D-K62
C-7652

Note now that if you manage to trump all three hearts, you will only get a total of seven trump tricks (dummy's 4 trump plus your 3 ruffs) so 10 tricks is the limit. Same high cards, but where you took the ruffs matter.

Teachers of beginning bridge take that into account by only adding shortness points when your hand is going to be the dummy (because you assume you'll have less trump than partner.) The declarer counts his length but not shortness.

This is a bit simplistic. In my second example, if I trade one of South's small clubs for a heart, now nine tricks is the limit. You could in theory say it was the fourth club ruffed in dummy that gave you the tenth trick instead of ruffing three hearts, but that's irrelevant, the point is that more distributional hands are generally worth more regardless of where you're trumping; it's just that trumping in the short trump hand is so much better for taking tricks.

You could in theory count shortness in either hand for a 4-4 fit but that's simplistic too. For one of the hands will have to draw trump (unless you can play on a complete crossruff, which is rare, and not desirable if one of the side suits has several tricks) and once you start trumping in one hands, the opponents can potentially force you to ruff in the other and run out of trump. So both hands counting 5-3-1 shortness points is too optimistic.

Now to the question.

One way to take tricks is by setting up a long suit. If you are void in partner's suit, it makes it quite difficult to establish it. While the void gives you distribution, partner bidding the suit means he has high cards wasted opposite. I would not look fondly upon the void, especially if my trump suit was longer than partner's.

Consequently, some cards in partner's suit and a void outside is excellent; you have no losers in the outside suit and an excellent chance of establishing partner's suit for discards of the fourth suit (if he has length in his bid suit.)

I have more to say but unfortunately have to go.

[ahydra]

I tend to be cautious with a void in partner's suit unless holding very good shape or strength. The main reason is that with a void opposite, you have to trump a lot of stuff to set the suit up.

In the examples you gave you are in a 4-4 fit so are very unlikely to have enough trumps to establish opener's long suit. Thus if you have a close decision about whether to bid game, for example, taking the low road is probably safer. (Note that a void in partner's suit is a negative feature for 3NT also as communications will be difficult.)

ahydra

[helene_t]

When you have only a 4-4 fit, having a void in partner's 5-card suit is generally not great. You probably won't be able to ruff more than one or two of his hearts so usually you are still left with losers in his heart suit. A singleton or doubleton in his suit might be better since that would leave the opponents with fewer cards in the heart suit. This might allow you to establish the heart suit.

Also, some partners like to raise your spades with 3-card support. Then you probably can't ruff hearts without losing trump control.

On the other hand, the void could be useful if:
- you have very strong minor suit holdings and partner has strong 4-card support. You will be able to ruff hearts without losing trump control, since you don't need to ruff anything in dummy.
- you have strong trumps and have aces and kings (but not queens and jacks) in the minors. A cruss-ruff will play well.
- partner has KQJxx in hearts. You can try a ruffing finese.

[bravejason]

Thanks for the feedback. The comment about long trumps vs short trumps was especially instructive.

[Zelandakh]

 Kaitlyn S, on 2016-September-26, 20:49, said:

S-AK32
H-
D-A543
C-A5432

S-QJT987
H-652
D-K2
C-76
--
S-AK32
H-652
D-A54
C-A43

S-QJT987
H-
D-K62
C-7652

You managed to flatten the shapes in the minors from 4-2 and 5-2 to 3-3 ad 4-3 in your comparison, which hardly seems right. If you do it properly by switching both rounded suits you reach a different result:-

S-AK32
H-652
D-A543
C-76

S-QJT987
H-
D-K2
C-A5432

The point you are trying to make is a valid one but the example used to illustrate it is misleading. In fact it is rather difficult to create a "fair" example with solid 6-4 trumps and xxx in a side suit opposite a void. You pretty much always end up creating a ruffing value elsewhere. The best way is to provide the threat of an overruff:

S-5432
H-652
D-A543
C-76

S-AKQJT9
H-
D-K2
C-A5432
--
S-5432
H-
D-A543
C-A5432

S-AKQJT9
H-652
D-K2
C-76

Outside of such specially constructed deals the value of the void on such hands ends up more being to create zero losers in the suit than in the ruffing tricks themselves. And this value does not greatly diminish. So you have to be careful with such statements. The traditional advice of counting 3-2-1 for shortage in the long hand and 5-3-1 in the short hand turns out not to be as accurate as you think. It turns out that counting 5-3-1 for both is better than this, which in turn should warn you that the effect you are pointing out, while real, is perhaps not as significant in practice as might be expected from the prominence it is sometimes given. And for that reason I want to warn the N/B readers of the caveats of blindly following such advice. As always, better to think how it plays out on the hand in question where you have enough information to make such a judgement.

[jogs]

 bravejason, on 2016-September-26, 20:02, said:

Playing SAYC or similar:

Similar situation, but this time partner deals and opens with one of a minor. Opponents pass throughout. You have a void in partner's minor suit, and 4 or 5 of a major, so you respond with one major. Partner raises to two. When you re-evaluate your hand now knowing that you have a major suit fit, how do you account for the minor suit void knowing that your partner possibly has length or strength in that suit? Do you increase or decrease the value of your hand and by how much? Does it matter if your hand is weak, strong, or powerful? If you downgraded your hand immediately after hearing partner's opening bid, did you upgrade after finding the trump fit?

This question has perplexed players since the game began. Does opener have xxx or KQTxx(x) in that minor? None of us know.