[pescetom]

MP

---

One or both of you got carried away here and the ♦K lead with JT9 in dummy strikes chill into your soul.
But to your surprise, East covers with the Ace and returns small clubs, West contributing the 2.
How do you read the situation and what is your plan to proceed?

[mike777]

Thanks for posting
For starters will play west for QS, QH, QD
1-4-5-3
South needs to pitch 3D or set up 8D or 8H

I blame North for not bidding 4C
Which should wakeup South from his fantasy
😊 😁

[smerriman]

pescetom, on 2025-January-18, 11:51, said:

One or both of you got carried away here

Hard to see how North got carried away

Struggling to see any choice here, you need 4 tricks in hearts so cash everything but KJ8 and hope West has the heart queen and the T9 drop (possibly due to West getting squeezed with the diamonds too).

[pescetom]

smerriman, on 2025-January-18, 12:42, said:

Hard to see how North got carried away

The post wasn't about the NS bidding, I'm not even sure it is exact and I don't like any of it after the opening (we would have bid 3♥ transfer INV+, then 4♣ control-bid as mike777 suggested).
FWIW I do see 4♠ over 3♠ as somewhat strange, however one interprets 3♠.

But in some way they bid to slam, so now the play is the thing.

[johnu]

pescetom, on 2025-January-18, 11:51, said:

One or both of you got carried away here

North got carried away by South. North made a minimal raise to game instead of cue bidding, and even with a 17 HCP max, slam prospects are slim. I'll call South's 4NT just exceptionally optimistic. I've got one occasional partner who always want to talk in the post mortem about how we might have got to slam that required perfect cards, maybe less than killing defense, and still wasn't 50%. I usually just tell him it can't be sensibly bid.

[johnu]

mike777, on 2025-January-18, 12:41, said:

I blame North for not bidding 4C
Which should wakeup South from his fantasy

North has no honor in spades, only 9 HCP outside of clubs, and no useful distribution in the red suits. Why would North want to encourage South to make a slam try? The ♣K in North's hand is a minus for slam evaluation.

I would consider the following to be a decent representation of a 4♣ bid by North

---

And even with that hand, there's almost no play for slam.

Are you and pescetom arguing that if North "Doesn't" make a slam try that slam is more likely???

[mike777]

 johnu, on 2025-January-18, 19:48, said:

North has no honor in spades, only 9 HCP outside of clubs, and no useful distribution in the red suits. Why would North want to encourage South to make a slam try? The ♣K in North's hand is a minus for slam evaluation.

I would consider the following to be a decent representation of a 4♣ bid by North

---

And even with that hand, there's almost no play for slam.

Are you and pescetom arguing that if North "Doesn't" make a slam try that slam is more likely???

Only speaking for myself.
North is neither encouraging or discouraging South to make a slam try.
North is accepting game and remembering to cuebid something along the way JUST IN CASE PARD IS LOOKING FOR SLAM.


South is captain.
See captaincy.. 😊

Yes I would always bid 4C on this hand.
My comment was an attempt at humor, truthful humor.

[johnu]

mike777, on 2025-January-18, 22:22, said:

Yes I would always bid 4C on this hand.

I would only cue bid if I had a suitable hand for a potential slam. I already promised 15-17 HCP with the opening 1NT bid, and some kind of spade support with the raise to 4♠. 7 HCP in the opponents suit is usually not helpful for slam prospects.

[pescetom]

johnu, on 2025-January-18, 19:48, said:

Are you and pescetom arguing that if North "Doesn't" make a slam try that slam is more likely???

As stated in terms of Captaincy by mike777, North "Can't" make a slam try.
But my argument is differently nuanced because we bid the spades in transfer here as INV+. I don't have strong opinions about what the natural 3♠ and 4♠ in the auction should be and how a control-bid would fit in that context.

johnu, on 2025-January-19, 02:44, said:

I would only cue bid if I had a suitable hand for a potential slam. I already promised 15-17 HCP with the opening 1NT bid, and some kind of spade support with the raise to 4♠. 7 HCP in the opponents suit is usually not helpful for slam prospects.

But the fact that your 1NT already limited your hand in terms of strength and (to some extent) distribution is the point: now making a control bid is not a slam try (we can hardly have more than game opposite a minimum invite) but simply the most rational and constructive system choice to respond positively (bear in mind that we could have simply completed the transfer to show a negative). Now partner can make an informed decision and continue the control bid sequence if he has slam interest. In this case, as often, the cards already decided for him as he has no red suit control to bid and we will stop safely in 4♠, knowing that neither of us controls diamonds.

Another situation in which one can usefully play the same way is in responding to a trial bid after having made a simple raise of a major. Using a control-bid (and in this case also 3NT non-serious to express doubt about trump quality) as the positive response enables Opener to explore game/slam without Responder nuking an entire round of control-bidding by jumping to game.

[pescetom]

The post was about the play , sad that only two people had an idea.

smerriman, on 2025-January-18, 12:42, said:

Struggling to see any choice here, you need 4 tricks in hearts so cash everything but KJ8 and hope West has the heart queen and the T9 drop (possibly due to West getting squeezed with the diamonds too).

I think you need the heart Q in West in any case, so you might as well play small heart to the J after pulling the trumps in two rounds (West having only one). After that it's only a question of counting the discards, even if East hides his only remaining heart.

[pescetom]

Here is the full hand

MP

---

[smerriman]

pescetom, on 2025-January-19, 13:47, said:

I think you need the heart Q in West in any case, so you might as well play small heart to the J after pulling the trumps in two rounds (West having only one). After that it's only a question of counting the discards, even if East hides his only remaining heart.

While extremely unlikely, it's technically possible East has a singleton ♥Q as well as the singleton ♦A, so I think better to cash the top heart first.

[mikeh]

pescetom, on 2025-January-19, 13:47, said:

The post was about the play , sad that only two people had an idea.



I think you need the heart Q in West in any case, so you might as well play small heart to the J after pulling the trumps in two rounds (West having only one). After that it's only a question of counting the discards, even if East hides his only remaining heart.

We’ll, early on smerriman refer to the simple red suit squeeze. I’m not sure why you expected more suggestions. It’s, frankly, a pretty trivial problem.

[pescetom]

mikeh, on 2025-January-19, 15:17, said:

We’ll, early on smerriman refer to the simple red suit squeeze. I’m not sure why you expected more suggestions. It’s, frankly, a pretty trivial problem.

I would expect an Expert to find this trivial, an Advanced to spot the squeeze and an Intermediate to miss it (as did most of my club).
Which I think makes it appropriate and instructive for this forum.

[johnu]

pescetom, on 2025-January-19, 07:32, said:

As stated in terms of Captaincy by mike777, North "Can't" make a slam try.
But my argument is differently nuanced because we bid the spades in transfer here as INV+. I don't have strong opinions about what the natural 3♠ and 4♠ in the auction should be and how a control-bid would fit in that context.

Several years ago, there was a well known old timer who played on BBO that used to espouse the Captain-Crew dynamic, most of which was complete nonsense. So, how is the "Captain" with a really good hand supposed to know that his "Crew" was just following orders when they bid 4♣ with a hand that was not suitable for cooperating with a slam exploration as opposed to a hand that was actually really good?

pescetom, on 2025-January-19, 07:32, said:

But the fact that your 1NT already limited your hand in terms of strength and (to some extent) distribution is the point: now making a control bid is not a slam try (we can hardly have more than game opposite a minimum invite) but simply the most rational and constructive system choice to respond positively (bear in mind that we could have simply completed the transfer to show a negative). Now partner can make an informed decision and continue the control bid sequence if he has slam interest. In this case, as often, the cards already decided for him as he has no red suit control to bid and we will stop safely in 4♠, knowing that neither of us controls diamonds.

There is no transfer, just a natural 3♠ response so much of your argument is irrelevant. Second, with the actual South hand, why is South even daydreaming about slam, let alone making a unilateral decision to bid slam.

pescetom, on 2025-January-19, 07:32, said:

Another situation in which one can usefully play the same way is in responding to a trial bid after having made a simple raise of a major. Using a control-bid (and in this case also 3NT non-serious to express doubt about trump quality) as the positive response enables Opener to explore game/slam without Responder nuking an entire round of control-bidding by jumping to game.

The huge difference in this auction is that there is no serious/non serious 3NT available, since no fit has been found yet, and 3NT is to play. As far as "cue bidding" after a 1M-2M followed by a game try situation, that's mostly going to help the opponents with information leakage when you are only looking for game which is almost all of the time.