BBO Discussion Forums: Control bids (Slam exploration in general) - BBO Discussion Forums

Jump to content

Page 1 of 1
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

Control bids (Slam exploration in general)

#1 User is offline   Ranmit 

  • PipPipPip
  • Group: Full Members
  • Posts: 65
  • Joined: 2018-April-23

Posted 2024-October-31, 10:03

Do you know of any good material (articles / discussion / link to your CC if not IP) which systematically covers control bidding?

There seem to be different versions (showing only first round control first vs showing first or second round control) and I am not quite sure how to evaluate which is better. Also, when does one stop control bids and shift to keycard ask? I have seen some examples of control bidding online which continue into the fifth level, and I have no idea how they knew how many trump controls they had without keycard.

Add to this interesting conventions like kickback or Exclusion BW, which seem useful but only make sense if we can clearly distinguish between these and control bids.

(For context I have been playing bridge for 10+ years now, but mostly online casually. Plan to play in the North American Pairs Flight C at the Spring NABC, so would like to get a robust system in place. Right now my partner and I are mostly winging it :) )
0

#2 User is online   DavidKok 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 2,533
  • Joined: 2020-March-30
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Netherlands

Posted 2024-October-31, 16:52

Ken Rexford, Cuebidding at Bridge said:

When I set out to write this book, the motivation was not truly to reinvent the wheel, but perhaps that was, in a sense, the result. I researched multiple sources for clues as to what ‘Italian-Style Cuebidding’ means. (By ‘Italian’, I mean that approach to cuebidding that has its origins in the theory of the Italian Blue Teams of World Championship fame.) The works of Giorgio Belladonna, including Cuebidding to Slam, coauthored by Claudio Petroncini, published in 1990 and translated by Daniel Neill of Kentucky in 2004, served as a starting point, perhaps reflecting the ‘old school’ theories of the originators. For the ‘modern’ perspective, I reviewed a series of three articles by Fred Gitelman, “Improving 2/1 Game Force”, published originally in Canadian Master Point magazine.

Neither of these two texts showed me a functional wheel and the theories were at points inconsistent with each other. In short, it was a mess. Just look over Vugraph Archives to see for yourself. The professionals might all agree what to open, what to respond and what to rebid, but their cuebidding sequences diverge on to all sorts of strange paths.

I delved deeper, reading brief notes in bridge books, reviewing system notes for many of the great players and conducting online research. My online studies referenced numerous lesson notes, commentaries and the like. I even posed questions on bridge forums for the masses to respond to. Finally, I turned to professional friends of mine, discussing the issue between rounds over cigarettes. My major source here was my friend Kenneth Eichenbaum of Columbus, Ohio. The result was a mismatched collection of majority views, minority views, insane views and sometimes no opinions or views at all.


The full answer is: people are making it up as they go, even at very high level. There are numerous sources out there with partial insights - I've even written on this topic myself over the years - but then there are other sources which will claim the opposite. Currently there is no coherent approach to control bidding, or at least none that sees significant play. Beware anybody trying to sell you the cure for slam bidding problems.

Personally I have some suggestions that I think are very valuable and help me bid many good slams where the field will fail.
  • Have good agreements about which auctions set up a game force. Have many such bids available in your system at a relatively low level in the auction.
  • Do not jump with strong hands. Taking it slow gets you more information. This may not only prove vital for finding a good slam or staying out of a bad one, it will also make it easier for partner to later evaluate their hand in context of what they have already shown. If we look at it from a purely information-theoretic perspective, we have 32x more auctions starting with a non-jump bid compared to those starting with a jump in the same strain. Provided that the cheaper bid is forcing, and if our intent is to maximise the amount of information conveyed, we should therefore only jump on approximately 3% of hands. In practice the number is higher - people use the bidding space far from optimally, so 5% or even 10% is tolerable. Any more than that and you're preempting partner on strong auctions.
  • Hand evaluation is vital for slam bidding. More tools or gadgets are nice but won't get you there by themselves. In my experience, the most common hand evaluation skill level lies somewhere between 'could be better' and 'atrocious'. For slam bidding in particular this is very important.
  • Keep in mind that asking for key cards is a tool for staying out of bad slams, not a gadget for finding good ones. You should only ask for key cards once you are confident you can't learn anything important instead. I pair this with the rule 'jump bids do not ask for aces', which rules out most forms of Exclusion, Kickback and also means 4NT is not RKC on many auctions. Most people are far less extreme in this, but I believe their slam bidding is proportionally worse for it.

1

#3 User is offline   mycroft 

  • Secretary Bird
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 7,420
  • Joined: 2003-July-12
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Calgary, D18; Chapala, D16

Posted 2024-October-31, 18:08

Fred's 2/1 notes are still the best introduction I could give you to control bidding. They are available among other places at Pete Matthews' Articles page (scroll down, or search for "Fred").

It's not *easy*, and don't bother reading the second (or third) one until you are *very* comfortable with the first, or it will just explode your head.

But basically, 1st and 2nd, with serious (or non-serious) 3NT, and keycard to ensure you're not off two aces after you find out you're not off two tricks in any one suit is a solid start.

I (and many others) don't agree with (or believe better systems supersede) some of his other ideas, but the cuebidding part is solid.
When I go to sea, don't fear for me, Fear For The Storm -- Birdie and the Swansong (tSCoSI)
2

#4 User is online   akwoo 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 1,375
  • Joined: 2010-November-21

Posted 2024-October-31, 20:51

I go with:

0) The most important skill in slam bidding is visualizing what specific hands partner could have (given the bidding so far) that would make slam a good contract.

1) Control bids show first or second round control.

2) Bidding keycard means you only need to know about partner's number of keycards to decide what contract to be in.

3) Bypassing keycard means you need some other piece of information, and have run out of room to find it below keycard. It is partner's job to figure out what that piece of information is, but usually it is possible to figure that out. Most often keycard is bypassed either because the bidder has a void in the suit they're bidding, or because they still think it's possible the partnership is off 2 quick tricks in some suit. (But sometimes it's because they need to know about certain kings and or queens.)

3.5) It can be a nice agreement that, if you bypass keycard, the bid bypassing keycard shows first round control, not second. You might play that this applies only if you haven't made a previous control bid. But you will also find hands where this agreement makes things worse.

4) If I ever get into a partnership that plays (non)serious, I'll tell you. But even disregarding what partners are capable of dealing with - I do rather like having 3N to play as an available option at MPs. Even with a known 5-4 fit.
0

Page 1 of 1
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

1 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users