[mike777]

If you were writing a book with a chapter about bidding or not trying to bid slams at MP what points would you want to suggest?

For example someone might suggest something extreme such as:

"Give up on bidding slams, you will come gain more than you lose"

What do you suggest?

Or assume you are playing as a Pro at MP, what would you suggest about bidding or not bidding slams at MP?

[CSGibson]

Bid slams when you think you would make them. Investigate for slam when you can picture partner with a minimum hand fitting with the bidding thus far that would make slam cold.

[rogerclee]

I have noticed this huge trend in slam bidding where you cuebid everything as long as it's below game and you can construct a perfecto maximum where slam makes, since cueing is "free". I don't really understand why people do this; slam bidding is just so much easier when your cuebids say "I have a pretty good hand."

[P_Marlowe]

Well since you did post this in the B/I section, my main advice:

Before one starts with serious slam (investigation) bidding,
one should have a firm understanding about game (investigation)
bidding. And until you this firm understaninding exist, one can
stop reading the lines, which follow.

Slam bidding is fun and exiting, game bidding is boring.
But one needs to understand, that the boring stuff pays your rent,
and your meals, the exiting stuff is luxury.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[han]

Tough to win tournaments if you automatically get a poor score on the slam hands.

[P_Marlowe]

han, on Apr 21 2008, 09:47 AM, said:

Tough to win tournaments if you automatically get a poor score on the slam hands.

But it is possible, while it is impossible to win
tournaments if you regular get poor results on
all the non slam hands.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[helene_t]

In the fields beginners/intermediates usually find themselves, you get good matchpoint results if you can bid and make a slam, so you should not worry about which slam pays the most. Above all, don't bid a grand slam unless you are absolutely confident that it makes.

[jtfanclub]

For beginners?

Slam points in MPs is pointless. Don't even try.

I'm completely serious.

1) Most people will bid slam when it's 50%, so on those there's no point in bidding slam in MPs, and you'll win when they end up at the 5 level and make 4.

2) Even if slam makes 100% of the time, if you're a beginner, you aren't going to make it 100% of the time. What is an excellent slam for an advanced player is often going to be a terrible slam for a beginner.

3) Psychologically, slams are killers for beginners. Whether it's bidding 6NT off two aces, getting rebids wrong after a 2♣ opener, or getting to a makeable slam and not finding a squeeze, these are things that will drag on for hands or even days. Euphoria is nice, but it isn't worth much for making contracts. On the other hand, getting depressed about a slam (or worse still, trying to 'catch up') can destroy an otherwise pleasant night of bridge.

I played with a beginner a couple of years ago, where we got to a good heart slam with a 9 card fit missing the queen of hearts. The bidding and play suggested that the opposing hands were reasonably balanced. Partner tried the AK of trumps, hearts were 3-1 in a finessable position, and we went down 1 as a result. Partner was inconsolable...if she had only finessed! Never mind that the odds were in favor of the drop. Meanwhile, we ended up dropping a couple of boards because she was still thinking about the slam. We did just fine in the final results, but I'm sure she went home thinking about that slam instead of the final results. And what did she learn from it? Nothing.

If you're playing with a rule where you don't try for slam unless it's really, really clear that you have it, you blame the rule if you miss a slam, you shrug, and you move on.

I would say that slam bidding is for Intermediates or better only. At least at MPs.

[han]

How are you going to get better as a beginning player? By avoiding all slam bidding and therefore also all slam playing? Or by trying to bid like an expert?

If you try to bid like an expert you will sometimes make terrible mistakes and get to 6NT off two aces. That seems like a useful situation, you will likely learn from it. Slam auctions are very educational, you will have the most information available to try to picture partner's hand, a useful skill for all aspects of bridge.

If you try to bid like an expert you will sometimes get to slams that are interesting play problems. Again, this seems useful, even if you go down while the expert might have made it.

If you decide not to bid slams until you are a good slam bidder, how will you ever become one?

[manudude03]

I would say there are 4 things you need to ask yourself when considering slam:

1. What do you need partner to have to make 7 easily? The reason I mention making 7 is that it is often the case that one of the cards needed will be next to impossible to find (like finding a club queen to find a spade slam). You will then be able to make 6 should this card be missing. Unless you find out otherwise, always assume your partner is a minimum (but allow for maximums obviously). Don't go straight to Blacky just because your partner was able to respond to your 19 count.

2. Can (s)he realistically have it? If not, forget about slam completely and make a sign off bid in game. Don't even think about 25 combined point slams, they are usually very luck reliant and rarely over 30% chance to make. You want to be at least 80% sure its on to even consider.

3. Do you have enough values to get you through should the splits be imperfect. If you are considering a slam that requires a 2-2 split to make, forget it in MPs.

4. If partner can have what you need, go through the bids slowly and get the information you need. If partner doesn't show a required A or K, sign off.

[P_Marlowe]

han, on Apr 21 2008, 11:12 AM, said:

How are you going to get better as a beginning player? By avoiding all slam bidding and therefore also all slam playing? Or by trying to bid like an expert?

By getting the priorities right.

Meaning by knowing how to bid game on a consistent basis.

I am not saying that you should avoid all slam bidding, but if
a B/I player asks, how do experts bid a given slam, most of the
time they will hear about conventions, which are useful, ...
but only for slam bidding.

If you want to bid slams successfully, you need to learn how
to create a gameforcing auction below game level, this is
the main key to sucessfull game bidding and also to slam bidding.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: For that matter, even in this scenario play problems will occur
quite often, espesially if you regular reach games, which have a
success rate of 40% (or lower).

[whereagles]

Last week-end I played an open pairs tournament. Here's two hands:

1. NV

AJx
KJ9x
KJxx
xx

Pard has 18-19 and no 4 or 5 card major. If you invite slam on this one, you go down for a near-bottom. If you don't invite, you'll score 11 tricks, which is good for about 65%.

2. V vs NV

K98x
AJx
K8x
AQx

Pard opens 1♣ and RHO prees with 3♥. If you bid something other than a straight 3NT, you'll get to a hopeless 6NT which grants you exactly 0%. 3NT +2 would score about 60%. These two boards made a 3% difference in the final score.

Morale of the story? Don't bid slams unless you know exactly what you're doing.

[jtfanclub]

han, on Apr 21 2008, 11:12 AM, said:

How are you going to get better as a beginning player? By avoiding all slam bidding and therefore also all slam playing? Or by trying to bid like an expert?

In MPs, every game is slam playing. If 4♠= is a bottom and 4♠+2 is a top, you'll learn how to take 12 tricks.

Before you can start bidding chancy slams, you have to have two things:
1) the ability to play the hands as declarer (no point in bidding a slam if you can't play well enough to make it).
2) Enough hands under their belt that they can shrug off a failed slam, especially a good slam that got unlucky.

I don't agree that beginners, or even intermediates, should bid like an expert. For example, I cannot stand Bergen raises. It's not that they're bad for Mr. Bergen, I'm sure they're great for him. But the intermediates who play it think the difference between the calls is hcp, which is a crusher. If all hands with 4 card support and 9 hcp are 3♣ and all hands with 4 card support an 10hcp are 3♦, well, it ain't much of a convention any more. Until you know how to evaluate hands....

IMHO, the main problem with the intermediates I play against is playing far too many conventions without understanding when the conventions should be used, the followups, etc. I'd say half of the people I play with at the local club would be better off if they completely forgot Jacoby 2NT, Splinters, cue bids, support doubles, and anything more complex. Blackwood, Stayman, transfers to the majors over 1NT, takeout doubles, maybe 1NT forcing. When they're good at that, then add the other systems one at a time.

[jdonn]

I don't know what pmarlowe is talking about in this thread, it would be ridiculous for a learning player to completely ignore a basic aspect of bridge.

My advice would be if you think slam will have a reasonable shot, bid it, don't even get hung up on the form of scoring. At any form of scoring go for the safer slam, don't run from a safer slam in a minor to a riskier 6NT even at matchpoints, since just making any slam is almost always a good score.

[P_Marlowe]

jdonn, on Apr 21 2008, 01:01 PM, said:

I don't know what pmarlowe is talking about in this thread, it would be ridiculous for a learning player to completely ignore a basic aspect of bridge.

My advice would be if you think slam will have a reasonable shot, bid it, don't even get hung up on the form of scoring.
<snip>

And what makes you know, that in a given sequence
slam will have a reasonable shot?

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: Maybe this counter question makes it clear, what
I am talking about.
One could it also say this way, "It is important to know
how to walk (or for that matter, standing on one owns
feets), before one trys running."

[pclayton]

I think "don't bid slams" only holds true in a very weak club game. In those fields, slams are only bid if it is completely obvious to do so. They are seldom bid on a superfit, but are frequently bid when a quantitative auction can be held and someone can count to 33 points.

Playing in a tougher game, a weak pair rates to get chopped up anyway, so they might as well try to sharpen their slam bidding judgment by trying them if they think its right to do so.

[jdonn]

P_Marlowe, on Apr 21 2008, 01:14 PM, said:

jdonn, on Apr 21 2008, 01:01 PM, said:

I don't know what pmarlowe is talking about in this thread, it would be ridiculous for a learning player to completely ignore a basic aspect of bridge.

My advice would be if you think slam will have a reasonable shot, bid it, don't even get hung up on the form of scoring.
<snip>

And what makes you know, that in a given sequence
slam will have a reasonable shot?

You are asking the wrong question. You should be saying 'how do you learn when slam will have a reasonable shot?', and the answer is, by trying to bid slams when you think it's right.

[Gerben42]

The only advice I have for MP is to only bid a grand slam if you can see about 14 top tricks. When you are an expert, you can lower this to seeing only 13 top tricks.

A good time to bid slam is when you see that 3NT was making, you have a minor suit fit and you are already higher than 3NT. Then bidding 5♣ wont get you many points, but maybe 6♣ will.

[gwnn]

I would write something like

"read Woolsey's world famous book on MP, there's not much to add to it"

[helene_t]

Let's say you are considering accepting partner's quantitative 4NT and assume everyone in the field will be facing the same decision. Slam has a probability p of making. What must p be for the slam being worthwhile?

If everyone in the field is making the same number of tricks, the answer is obviously 50%.

As the other extreme, if a fraction p is making 12 tricks and (1-p) is making 11, and assume a fraction q bids the slam (the bidding and the number of tricks being independent), then (on a scale top=2 MP):

If you bid the slam, you have a probability p of getting 2-pq matchpoints and (1-p) of getting (1-p)q matchpoints. Expectation is 2p-qp^2+q(1-p)^2

If you don't, you have a probability of p of getting 2(1-p)+p(1-q) and (1-p) of getting 2q(1-p)+(1-q)(1-p). Expectation is 2p(1-p)+p^2(1-q)+2q(1-p)^2+(1-q)(1-p)^2.

So the award for bidding slam is (-q+q+2-1+q-2q-1+q)*p^2 + (2-2q-2+4q+2-2q)*p + (q-2q-1+q) which reduces to 2p-1.

So you should still apply the normal >50% strategy, it doesn't matter if the other noobs make the same number of tricks as you do or whether they bid it or not.

Probably this conclusion could have been reached by a simpler argument