[gszes]

your partner has held garbage all day and you pick up the following vul vs not in a close imp match typical 2/1.

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Those that heard partner bid 4h the previous round do not have this problem since N would have passed in fear responder has something like x xxxx xxxx xxxx. We have to feel confident responder has at least 1 useful queen for us but both? how would we go about looking for a grand?

[TylerE]

Why is south showing "less than 2 qs" with 2qs?

[neilkaz]

Why not now bid 6♣ which has to show interest in a grand I'd think after the previous sequence. Then South loves his hand considering the bidding and what little he's shown.

[apollo1201]

I’d close my eyes and bid 7. Partner just fell in love and has HQ with either additional trump length (so SQ should easily be ruffed out to establish the suit) or another good news for me that can only be the SQ.
Of course, partner is not expected to jump to the 5 level with a nondescript 14(35) or 24(34).

[cherdano]

apollo1201, on 2018-December-31, 03:41, said:

I’d close my eyes and bid 7. Partner just fell in love and has HQ with either additional trump length (so SQ should easily be ruffed out to establish the suit) or another good news for me that can only be the SQ.
Of course, partner is not expected to jump to the 5 level with a nondescript 14(35) or 24(34).

+1. Even if partner just has 2443 with HQ and xx in spades, grand is quite good - cold if both majors 3-2, plus lots of chances with 4-1 breaks depending on partners trump spots.

[Cyberyeti]

This makes no sense, partner denies 2 potentially useful Qs and has them then has to catch up, I agree ♥Qxxxx is likely so you hope he has any number of small spades other than 3 which is pretty likely (particularly if 4♠ would be 3 spades and crap). 7♥ for me too

[rmnka447]

Responder has essentially given a double negative and then is inviting slam with 5 ♥. The thing to realize is that responder can't know that opener has any more than a 4 loser hand but the hand actually has only 2 losers. So I think bidding some slam is mandatory.

I think cyberyeti is on the right track with being pretty sure that responder must hand something like ♥ Qxxx(x..). But responder has also effectively denied any help in the minors by making a second negative. With just ♥ Qxxx, responder would just bid 4 ♥. So, logically, the "extra" feature that would be slam positive must be some help in ♠ -- either shortness or ♠ Q or both.

IMO, responder has bid correctly unless you want responder to show a ♥ feature by bidding 3 ♥ over 2 ♠ with just the 2 Qs. I wouldn't. it's also correct sometime to just get out of the way of the strong hand and let that hand tell its story. So I'd say denying 2 Qs isn't an absolute.

I'd bid 7 ♥ also.

[gszes]

Cyberyeti, on 2018-December-31, 05:01, said:

This makes no sense, partner denies 2 potentially useful Qs and has them then has to catch up, I agree ♥Qxxxx is likely so you hope he has any number of small spades other than 3 which is pretty likely (particularly if 4♠ would be 3 spades and crap). 7♥ for me too

maybe it is semantics but denying 2 useful queens is not the same as denying two potentially useful queens. IMHO after 2c 2d 2s responder knows only of the useful spade Q and has no reason to suspect the heart Q is useful thus 2n:)

[johnu]

gszes, on 2018-December-31, 19:20, said:

maybe it is semantics but denying 2 useful queens is not the same as denying two potentially useful queens. IMHO after 2c 2d 2s responder knows only of the useful spade Q and has no reason to suspect the heart Q is useful thus 2n:)

What's a useful queen is the question, isn't it. A queen in a suit bid by opener is useful, but other queens? A queen in a short suit is more likely to be useful opposite some side suit length, but a queen in a longer suit is likely to be useful as a stopper in NT. And it depends on distribution and maybe jacks and spot cards. I don't know whether a queen outside opener's suit is useful.

[Cyberyeti]

gszes, on 2018-December-31, 19:20, said:

maybe it is semantics but denying 2 useful queens is not the same as denying two potentially useful queens. IMHO after 2c 2d 2s responder knows only of the useful spade Q and has no reason to suspect the heart Q is useful thus 2n:)

But partner can only have bid one suit, so by that logic you can NEVER have 2 useful queens unless you're requiring the J with the second one.

[gszes]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-January-01, 05:45, said:

But partner can only have bid one suit, so by that logic you can NEVER have 2 useful queens unless you're requiring the J with the second one.

That is correct at this point of the bidding which is the beginning of slam exploration. If all partner needs from you for slam is two useful queens they should be relatively easy to evaluate later in the bidding. The main point of keeping the bidding LOW (especially with really bad hands) is to try and give opener as much leeway as possible to describe their hand further. As more is learned about opener's hand, responder can then better evaluate how their hand looks in comparison. FWIW I would not consider a side QJ(xx) as a useful queen at this point of the proceedings.

[Cyberyeti]

gszes, on 2019-January-02, 08:43, said:

That is correct at this point of the bidding which is the beginning of slam exploration. If all partner needs from you for slam is two useful queens they should be relatively easy to evaluate later in the bidding. The main point of keeping the bidding LOW (especially with really bad hands) is to try and give opener as much leeway as possible to describe their hand further. As more is learned about opener's hand, responder can then better evaluate how their hand looks in comparison. FWIW I would not consider a side QJ(xx) as a useful queen at this point of the proceedings.

So the "less than two useful queens" designation is garbage, are you doing this with 3 or 4 queens ? as only partner's bid suit one is by this definition useful ? There must be a better way of describing it if this is what it means.

[kuhchung]

how about "two queens or worse"

why are we even quibbling about this? what do you suggest we bid instead of 2N then? should we have an agreement that is "exactly two queens"

and what apollo and cherdano said

[Cyberyeti]

kuhchung, on 2019-January-02, 12:29, said:

how about "two queens or worse"

why are we even quibbling about this? what do you suggest we bid instead of 2N then? should we have an agreement that is "exactly two queens"

and what apollo and cherdano said

I use a slightly different structure, and would have 3♣ as a bust so would bid 2N on this for not a bust but balanced, partner would now know I have something and I wouldn't have to catch up as much, and 5 hearts would be virtually certain to be both major suit Qs now.

What do you bid on the very slightly better version of this hand ? I'd have bid whatever that was.

[gszes]

I guess this all boils down to what you might imagine a 5h raise to mean. Would you consider say Q xxxxx xxx xxxx a reasonable 5h raise? how about x xxxxx xxx xxxx or
Q xxxx xxxx xxxx? I realize seeing both hands makes it tougher to imagine what responder might have for a 5h bid. I was just curious to see the thinking involved with further asking bids.