On Apr 23, 9:25=A0am, Henry Lockwood <henry.lockw...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> Last night I was in the unusual situation of holding:
>
> AKJxxxx
> Q
> -
> KTxxx
>
> Partner, in second seat, opened 1NT (12-14). =A0RHO passed, and I
> started with a transfer to S. =A0Partner completed the transfer, and I
> rebid 3C (game-forcing with slam interest). =A0Happy so far?
>
> What are the best continuations from this point? =A0Obviously, on this
> hand I want to know about aces; if partner has the two relevant aces I
> want to know about the SQ to bid the grand. =A0On other hands e.g.
KQxxx/
> AK/x/KQxxx I'm still considering slam, and still interested in aces,
> but I also want to know which of my suits partner prefers.
>
> It seems to me that partner should bid S without controls, and should
> cue-bid otherwise. =A0Should we enter a control-showing auction even
> though we're not necessarily certain which suit to play?
> Alternatively, how can we carry on without risking getting too high?
>
> -----------
>
> On the night, the auction went:
> 1N-2H
> 2S-3C
> 3H-4D-(X)
> 4H-(5D)-6S
>
> By this stage, it was clear to me that we'd lost our way a bit; we
> were vul. vs not, and I just had to hope partner had one of the
> relevant aces. =A0We got lucky; partner did have both aces (he'd
> intended 3H as natural, showing a 4-card suit, and had taken 4D as
> 4sf, and 4H was a cue-bid) and the SQxx were offside. =A0One pair played
> in 6C making, one in 5DX the other way (1100, but not as good a result
> as it deserved), one more in 6S and a couple in 6NT (oops?). =A0There
> were a couple of pairs in 4S.
This is a wonderful hand either for a Roman 3S (showing S+C) or
Cappellettiesque 3S (showing S+m) slam curious response.
If I didn't play either of those, I'd want to do a 3D shortness
showing response followed by a 4C rebuttal (after partner predictably
rebids 3H) to show this specific hand. If partner bids 3NT (showing a
double stop in diamonds), you can confidently bid 4S since he now has
at least 6HCP in diamonds and just about CAN'T have the right cards
(needs exactly both round suit aces) even for a small slam.
This is a great hand for a double red-suit exclusion ace/king inquiry,
but it would be difficult to set up. Once you had set up the double
exclusion, you'd be able to find out about the relavent queens and the
red suit aces.
Only CA&Q, HA, and SQ keep you from bidding a grand straight away.
It's a tall order to expect a 12-14 1NT opener to have exactly these
cards (since this would imply at most DQxxxx), so you should set your
sights on finding the best small slam. Your problem is that you
basically have to be ready to stop in 4S as soon as you hear that
opener has any diamond controls.
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