[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP

EW stay silent through-out the auction.

This is a hand that seems ideal for a relay system, as the trick is to find the club fit and get out of the known spade fit. It is also reasonable easy to get to clubs if south to make (gulp) a natural 2♣ response to 1♠ showing a real club suit.

---

7C is a 10, 6N is 7, 6S is 4, 6C is 3, 5N is 2, 5S is 1


7CN bluecalm/redds
7CS elianna/awm
7CS jlall/hanp
7CS karlson/threenobob
7CS tlgoodwin/timg
7CS tylere / bid_em_up
6NN lobowolf/bkjswan
6NS mbodell - javabean
6SN ant590 - crayzeejim
6SN East4Evil/sohcahtoa
6SS Flycycle/Wackojack
6SN kristen33/jillybean
6SN rogerClee/cherdano
6CN hrothgar/Free
6CS jdonn/gib
4NS olegru - driver733
4SN kfay/jchiu
4SN sallyally/joylson
4SN Siegmund/MSchmahl
7NN gnasher/catch22
7NS peachy/lg62

[Wackojack]

Of course 7C is lovely and flamboyent but should it score 3 more than 6N? 1/3 of the time when clubs split 4-1 or 5-0, 7 clubs will go off whereas 6NT is a laydown and will likely score about 67%. By that reckoning 6N should score about the same as 7clubs.

[JavaBean]

Wackojack, on Aug 23 2010, 05:54 PM, said:

Of course 7C is lovely and flamboyent but should it score 3 more than 6N? 1/3 of the time when clubs split 4-1 or 5-0, 7 clubs will go off whereas 6NT is a laydown and will likely score about 67%. By that reckoning 6N should score about the same as 7clubs.

4-1 clubs doesn't hurt unless diamonds are 7-1.

[awm]

Wackojack, on Aug 23 2010, 05:54 PM, said:

Of course 7C is lovely and flamboyent but should it score 3 more than 6N? 1/3 of the time when clubs split 4-1 or 5-0, 7 clubs will go off whereas 6NT is a laydown and will likely score about 67%. By that reckoning 6N should score about the same as 7clubs.

4-1 clubs are not a problem on this hand.

It's true that 5-0 clubs or 5-0 spades (or for that matter, 7-1 diamonds or 8-0 hearts) present a difficulty, but these are all extremely low probability especially given the lack of opponent bids.

[bluecalm]

Quote

Of course 7C is lovely and flamboyent

!???
Flamboyant ? It's just 90+% contract with 13top tricks barring some crazy breaks.
Imo the question is if 6NT should get that much but apparently people had difficulties finding clubs so 6NT would score some matchpoints. I think that if the field is very strong it should be more like 4points (80% pairs 6nt, 20% pairs 7c) than 7.

In our field 6NT would get exactly 70% for example hence the score...

[Wackojack]

mental block

[Mbodell]

This one was my fault that we play a relay system but didn't find 7♣. I choose the wrong way to investigate and then had to use all my room to hunt for the ♦Q to choose between 7nt and 6nt and forgot that 7♣ would be pretty good (although I also didn't know about the ♣J so didn't know how good). Also, I think, that 7♣ for us over 6nt would have been a relay, not to play, given we had relayed to 6nt (which denied the ♦Q).

Really I should have key carded in clubs and then searched for the diamond Q on the way to 7♣.

[gnasher]

We had an interesting disaster on this one. (We had a number of uninteresting disasters too.)

We bid

1♠-2♣ (natural / artificial, various)
2♥-2♠ (artificial, 15+ / balanced 11+)
3♣-4♣ (natural, not 5-5 but can be 6-4 / natural)
4♦-4♥ (cue bids)
4NT-5♣ (Keycard / 0 or 3)

At this point we seem to be in fairly good shape. Opener already knows that 7♣ is a good contract, and we have two whole levels available to investigate alternatives. ♥K or ♦Q is enough for 7NT, so:

5NT       (King-ask, promises all the keycards)

Responder, thinking that the question was whether to bid 6♣ or 7♣, pictures KQxxx xx Kx AKQx, where opener can't bid 7♣ because he might be opposite Ax Axxx Axx Jxxx. In this scenario, the third spade is enough for grand slam, because we no longer need to use a trump to ruff the spades good, so:

     -7♣

Opener, expecting either ♥K or ♦Q opposite, can now count 13 top tricks, so:

7NT

Oops. I'm not sure how we should have avoided this problem, though one answer would be to stop playing matchpoints.

[cherdanno]

Andy, if responder had ♥K, why wouldn't he show it by bidding 6♥? He also knows it's matchpoints.
My reasoning about the ♦Q will probably sound less convincing - if the 4D cuebid shows a king, then responder could arguably show the ♦Q by bidding 6D. If he thinks it might be shortness, then the ♦Q is not great asset for bidding 7♣.

Of course, opener might find another excuse to bid 7N - responder's most likely extras are, I suppose, a 5th trump.

I guess a systemic solution would be a way to show a double fit with slam try over 3♣. The 6th round of bidding is kind of late to show a 3-card fit for opener's 5-card major.

(This post is fairly long because it's really a pretty interesting problem. And I sympathize, also having played a multi-purpose 2C/1M with artificial followups.)

[inquiry]

I forgot to give Eugene Hung credit for this hand. This is one he sent me, I think he played it and wanted to see how people did.

Thanks Eugene.

[gnasher]

cherdanno, on Aug 24 2010, 02:24 AM, said:

Andy, if responder had ♥K, why wouldn't he show it by bidding 6♥? He also knows it's matchpoints.
My reasoning about the ♦Q will probably sound less convincing - if the 4D cuebid shows a king, then responder could arguably show the ♦Q by bidding 6D. If he thinks it might be shortness, then the ♦Q is not great asset for bidding 7♣.

4♦ could have been shortage, but with KQJxx xxx x AKQx I don't think opener should take control over 4♥ - I'd just bid 4♠ and leave it to responder to make a decision. So your suggestion for showing ♦Q probably works.

Quote

This post is fairly long because it's really a pretty interesting problem.

You don't know the meaning of the word "long".

[eyhung]

Thanks, Ben -- yes, I ran into it on a bidding practice table and I thought it would make a nice hand for the par contest, with lots of potential traps yet biddable.

[Fluffy]

Andy: I think it is wrong for south to bid 7♣ on that auction.

south can picture also

♠KQJxx
♥xx
♦xx
♣AKQx


(add a red queen if you want)

where the 3rd spade is useless. Add to that that third spade when spades break 4-1 ain't that great either and you get to an overbid IMO.

[gnasher]

Fluffy, on Aug 24 2010, 10:51 AM, said:

Andy: I think it is wrong for south to bid 7♣ on that auction.

south can picture also

♠KQJxx
♥xx
♦xx
♣AKQx


(add a red queen if you want)

where the 3rd spade is useless. Add to that that third spade when spades break 4-1 ain't that great either and you get to an overbid IMO.

North has cue-bid diamonds. so he can't have xx.

[bluecalm]

Here we were lucky because our system bid the hand for us:

1♣ - 2NT
3♥ - 3♠
4♣ - 4♦
4NT etc.

1♣ = 16+
2NT = 12-13balanced
3♥ = spades
4♣ = natural slam try
4♦ = cuebid setting clubs
4NT = rkcb in ♣

Then opener can count 13 tricks.
My partner forgot 2NT is 12-13 (he thought it's 12+) so he even made an attempt towards 7NT but that was rejected lacking fifth club (he thought I would accept with queen more or something but I obviously couldn't have that).