[Jinksy]

Suppose you're playing a natural(ish) system, and have these three auctions:

1♦ 2♦* / 3♠

1♦ 2♦* / 4♠

1♦ 2♦* / 5♠

* inverted, unlimited

On my current agreements with most partners, 3♠ would be a splinter, therefore 4♠ would be voidwood, and 5♠ is undefined.

First off, is that about what most people here would have as their typical agreements?

I've been wondering recently if using 4♠ as voidwood is really sensible. There are a number of hands with a spade void that aren't strong enough to slamforce opposite just the requisite number of aces, that have to kick off with a splinter. But splintering with a void is dubious at the best of times, esp for a minor, and even more so in some of my partnerships where we play Turbo, which leaves you without any ability to show a void when signalling keycards.

Since in many voidwood auctions you're forcing to small slam anyway (you're obviously strong enough that you don't care much about P's input), would it make more sense to play 5♠ as voidwood here and 4♠ as just void showing, asking P to evaluate his hand much like a normal splinter? I think I've heard of people doing this, but don't know how common/effective it is. If you have extra strength you can cue on past P's signoff anyway, and he might get another chance to show you his KCs.

I'm not looking for anything very complicated here, since these hands are too rare to give much chance of remembering anything counterintuitive, though interested in other possible ways of solving the same set of problems.

[wank]

why can't you just splinter and repeat it later?

[Siegmund]

Whatever meaning you give to 4S its going to be incredibly rare. Do you have a better idea than exclusion? (I have never leapt higher than 4m in my life after an inverted raise. I've never bothered to give this bid a meaning at all. But if a partner had agreed exclusion and this sequence came up that's how I would take it.)

I don't play exclusion at all with very many partners. None of its uses is exactly frequent, and in the "common" auctions like 1S-3S, 4C-4D, 5H, there are competing meanings which sometimes make more sense in the context of the cuebidding style.

Before anyone played exclusion, odd jumps one level higher than splinters were control-asking bids. Now those I have actually used one or two times in the 20 years since I learned about them.

[fromageGB]

I can't remember when I last used voidwood.

My standard method is to show a shortage then if you ace ask with the normal bid is your normal 5-ace ask, but if you skip that bid and bid the next one it is a 4-ace ask. In your example if that is all opener wanted, it would go 1♦ 2♦ 3♠(singleton or void) 3NT/4♣/4♦ (whatever partner shows you) then 4♥ = kickback-type 5-ace ask, while 4♠ = kickback-type 4-ace ask (voidwood).

In this particular case the voidwood ask is the same suit as the shortage (Wank's suggestion), but that method takes too much space. For example, 1♦ 2♦ 4♣ 4♦ 5♣ as voidwood takes away all your room. 4♠ as voidwood allows more room and possible escape in 5♦, as well as space for discovering all the kings.

This post has been edited by fromageGB: 2015-August-21, 08:44

[Jinksy]

wank, on 2015-August-19, 15:50, said:

why can't you just splinter and repeat it later?

What do you do if partner cues the suit for you (or bypasses it, whichever he would do with KQxey holdings)?

Even if you get to cue it again, how is partner supposed to react with such a holding, when he's relying on that suit as a potential source of tricks?

And what if he's got a holding such as Axx, and a marginal hand for slam exploration? Once he finds out you've got a void (/if he's lucky enough to and doesn't cue the ace himself), his hand falls apart, but now he's shown encouragement and he might not have a good way to put the breaks on, especially if someone's already given some kind of keycard count (after the first OP sequence, we'd play a 4♦ cue as Turbo).

[johnu]

A jump to 5♠ as exclusion RKC is silly. What if you are missing 2 cashing aces (or an ace and the king of trumps)?

Jinksy, on 2015-August-21, 10:29, said:

What do you do if partner cues the suit for you (or bypasses it, whichever he would do with KQxey holdings)?

If partner cue bids 4♠ over 3♠, your void probably isn't going to be worth much. How can partner bypass 4♠ after you have bid 3♠? 4NT - probably RKC???, 5♦ - partner isn't interest in a possible spade void.

Jinksy, on 2015-August-21, 10:29, said:

Even if you get to cue it again, how is partner supposed to react with such a holding, when he's relying on that suit as a potential source of tricks?

Partner might bid 3NT over 3♠, at this point, spades honors are stoppers, not a source of tricks. In any case, the splinter has revealed massive duplication.

Jinksy, on 2015-August-21, 10:29, said:

And what if he's got a holding such as Axx, and a marginal hand for slam exploration? Once he finds out you've got a void (/if he's lucky enough to and doesn't cue the ace himself), his hand falls apart, but now he's shown encouragement and he might not have a good way to put the breaks on, especially if someone's already given some kind of keycard count (after the first OP sequence, we'd play a 4♦ cue as Turbo).

Play better methods? If partner shows a void with 4♠ over 4♦, just sign off with 5♦ and hope.

[gszes]

How would you bid the following Qxxxx x void AKQxxxx? if you are like me you would begin with 1d and then lo and behold p bids 2d inverted what to do what to do:) hmmm i remember we eliminated 4s as voidwood a while back and replaced it with natural for hands just like this minimal power huge distribution and surprising length in spades (hearts or clubs) phew thank goodness we agreed to that change. Now my voidwood at the 5 level serves a much better purpose and my simple 1d 2d 3d sequence can show extra values with slam interest. If i have a void i can always show a singleton and repeat to show a void if NT seems wrong (wank).

[fromageGB]

gszes, on 2015-August-31, 16:54, said:

How would you bid the following Qxxxx x void AKQxxxx? if you are like me you would begin with 1d and then lo and behold p bids 2d inverted what to do what to do:)

IF I had 5 spades, 1 heart, no diamonds, and 7 clubs, and I opened 1♦, I would probably realise I had lost all my marbles, and shoot myself.