[barsikb]

Dealer: North

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How would you bid it?

[nige1]

barsikb, on 2013-June-12, 08:28, said:

Dealer: North How would you bid it?

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I agree with barsikb that it's a hard hand to bid (Hands with voids often are). You are likely to end up in notrump or ♦ or get too high. Perhaps, on a lucky day:
1♣ - 1♦ -
1♠ - 2♥ -
2♠ - 4N -
5♣ - 6♠

• Some open the North hand 1♠ but I much prefer 1♣ (Admittedly, a 1♠ opener makes it easier to reach a ♠ contract without over-stating your strength).
• If you play strong jump-shifts, a good alternative to 1♦ is 2♦.
• 2♥ = Fourth suit forcing (Nowadays many play it as forcing to game).
• 4N = RKCB, setting ♠ and asking for key cards. Some would jump in ♣ intending it as "exclusion blackwood" but when partner has bid the suit, such bids are in severe danger of misinterpretation.
• If you play the 4130 version then 5♣ tells partner you have one.

[TylerE]

I'm not sure it's really possible to "overstate my strength" considering it's a 2 loser hand.

[iviehoff]

TylerE, on 2013-June-12, 09:59, said:

I'm not sure it's really possible to "overstate my strength" considering it's a 2 loser hand.

It's a bit short of entries though, especially opposite a partner with a void club.

I can just imagine the conversation between a pair of Walter Walruses at the club:
"You open 2C and you blame me for bidding 7N holding 9 quick tricks, 18 points and 3 Aces?"
"You telling me I can't force to game on my own with 11 tricks in my hand? If you have 9 tricks in your hand how come you didn't make 20?"

It is one of those hands that has a lot of tricks in the right circumstances but is nevertheless not very strong in a more general sense.

[TylerE]

Let me rephrase that, then.


I'm not sure it's really possible to "overstate my strength" after opening 1♣ or 1♠, considering it's a 2 loser hand.

[Cyberyeti]

5♠-6♠ ?

or variant 1♣-2♦(SJS)-5♠(spade control ask, will be this sort of hand)-6♠

[nige1]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-June-12, 10:24, said:

5♠-6♠ ?
or variant 1♣-2♦(SJS)-5♠(spade control ask, will be this sort of hand)-6♠

Cyperyeti's second suggestion is better than mine. Simple and effective: Open 1♣ and rebid 5♠

[billw55]

Beginner/novice advice: don't worry too much about such extreme rare hands. You will gain far more by correctly bidding common hands, than you will lose by incorrectly bidding ones like this.

[ArtK78]

All I can say about this hand is WOW.

Really, I am not too worried about getting this one right. There are no great principals at stake here. Bidding freak hands is always a problem, you just do what makes sense at the time.

If I could open the North hand one of either black suit and rebid 5 of the other black suit as NATURAL, I would do it. But I suspect that I can't do that.

I remember playing a match where my partner and I were defending 6♥. Declarer had 7 solid hearts and dummy had a strong hand void in hearts. My partner found an Ace lead and I had the King and they cashed. At the other table, the solid 7 card heart suit was in the dummy in a 6NT contract. There was no entry to the hearts, but my hand led one, giving declarer 7 tricks in dummy to go with the 5 in his hand.

[Cyberyeti]

ArtK78, on 2013-June-12, 11:11, said:

All I can say about this hand is WOW.

Really, I am not too worried about getting this one right. There are no great principals at stake here. Bidding freak hands is always a problem, you just do what makes sense at the time.

If I could open the North hand one of either black suit and rebid 5 of the other black suit as NATURAL, I would do it. But I suspect that I can't do that.

Well 1♣-1/2♦-4♠ would be exclusion if you played it, so what else can 5♠ be ?

[Antrax]

1♣-1♦
1♠-2♥*
2♠-3♠
5♠**-6♠

2♥ is artificial, forcing to game. That allows South's next bid to be a simple raise of spades, not fearing a pass.
Now North bids 5♠ and prays South remembers that it means "partner, please raise to 6 if you have ♠A or K, 7 if you have both". Even if South forgets, he can arrive it logically: North didn't cue bid and didn't leap to blackwood. That means he's not worried about controls and his hand is unsuitable for Blackwood. Looking at the two red aces, South can infer that North (known to be at least 6-5 in the black suits) has shortness controls in the red suits (or he'd be worried about quick losers there). So, probably at least one void, since two singletons are still two losers. Thus, even though North doesn't know South has red aces, what North must care about is trump holding.

[ArtK78]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-June-12, 11:14, said:

Well 1♣-1/2♦-4♠ would be exclusion if you played it, so what else can 5♠ be ?

I don't know. But someone will come up with something.

More importantly, don't be too sure that partner would interpret 4♠ as exclusion. It sounds natural.

[gordontd]

Nobody rebidding 2S?

[Cyberyeti]

ArtK78, on 2013-June-12, 13:41, said:

I don't know. But someone will come up with something.

More importantly, don't be too sure that partner would interpret 4♠ as exclusion. It sounds natural.

Unless I happen to be playing a strong club, it is never natural in a million years, I'd have opened 1♠.

[1eyedjack]

Although this hand is not an ideal example it is a useful opportunity to remind the beginner of the standard undiscussed meaning of the rare 5M opener: 11 playing tricks with 2 trump losers (and therefore no outside losers). The outside controls may be voids so you would expect to stick with that trump suit.

There are a few things that can go wrong with that approach on this hand, which mostly centre on responder having Spade shortage. Worst case scenario is you may lose trump control on a red suit force, and end up going down in 5S. To add insult you were probably making at least 5C, possibly more. Or you could suffer a Club ruff, which need not be at trick 1.

These bad things are not that remote. But they are not certain and in my view are sufficiently unlikely for 5S to be a practical bid, for want of a better approach. And other approaches have their own problems.

[iviehoff]

1eyedjack, on 2013-June-12, 22:32, said:

Although this hand is not an ideal example it is a useful opportunity to remind the beginner of the standard undiscussed meaning of the rare 5M opener: 11 playing tricks with 2 trump losers (and therefore no outside losers). The outside controls may be voids so you would expect to stick with that trump suit.

In fact a hand rather like this one came up in a Simultaneous Pairs (using specially prepared hands, not randomly dealt ones) I played about 30 years ago. On that occasion partner had a strong hand, but neither of the two top spade honours, so the recommended bidding was 5S - all pass. It was more or less impossible to keep out of slam on any other auction, and hardly a pair in the room kept out of it.

Of course anyone who knows the old fashioned standard 5M opening and is reasonably certain their partner knows it too has almost certainly agreed a more useful meaning for it.

[1eyedjack]

iviehoff, on 2013-June-13, 02:15, said:

In fact a hand rather like this one came up in a Simultaneous Pairs (using specially prepared hands, not randomly dealt ones) I played about 30 years ago. On that occasion partner had a strong hand, but neither of the two top spade honours, so the recommended bidding was 5S - all pass. It was more or less impossible to keep out of slam on any other auction, and hardly a pair in the room kept out of it.

Of course anyone who knows the old fashioned standard 5M opening and is reasonably certain their partner knows it too has almost certainly agreed a more useful meaning for it.

I played in that event and remember it to this day. At one of the tables in our room it was opened a precision 1C, ending in tears. Dummy's comment at the end? "How many points did you have?"

[PhilKing]

iviehoff, on 2013-June-13, 02:15, said:

In fact a hand rather like this one came up in a Simultaneous Pairs (using specially prepared hands, not randomly dealt ones) I played about 30 years ago. On that occasion partner had a strong hand, but neither of the two top spade honours, so the recommended bidding was 5S - all pass. It was more or less impossible to keep out of slam on any other auction, and hardly a pair in the room kept out of it.

Of course anyone who knows the old fashioned standard 5M opening and is reasonably certain their partner knows it too has almost certainly agreed a more useful meaning for it.

I played that sim as well. I am pretty sure that it was in the spring of 85, since I was in the second term of my first year at uni.

I had actually discussed 5M openings with partner, but he still raised to six with his AK AK(Mark Goodliffe - multiple crossword and sudoku champion these days). To be fair, the hand was poorly constructed, since I had eleven trumps making slam a fair bet. And if he held the queen of the third suit, he could work that out, but obviously the setter would make the trumps break 2-0.

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2013-June-13, 06:47, said:

I played that sim as well. I am pretty sure that it was in the spring of 85, since I was in the second term of my first year at uni.

I had actually discussed 5M openings with partner, but he still raised to six with his AK AK(Mark Goodliffe - multiple crossword and sudoku champion these days). To be fair, the hand was poorly constructed, since I had eleven trumps making slam a fair bet. And if he held the queen of the third suit, he could work that out, but obviously the setter would make the trumps break 2-0.

I also remember a constructed hand from a sim along the lines of void, AK, AK, QJ10987654 where partner has the archtypical 5♠ opener and you know to bid 7♣.

[barsikb]

Thank you very much for the valuable opinions. Sometimes I am in a place with bad Internet connection, like now. Will get back on Sunday ... With more questions