On Apr 23, 9:25 am, 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). RHO passed, and I
> started with a transfer to S. Partner completed the transfer, and I
> rebid 3C (game-forcing with slam interest). Happy so far?
>
> What are the best continuations from this point? Obviously, 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. On 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. Should 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. We 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. One 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?). There
> were a couple of pairs in 4S.
This is a rather contested area of bidding theory. As there are many
permutations possible, I will give you my view.
The only way, unambiguously, for opener to make a slam try after 1nt-
transfer-acceptance-new suit rebid is to raise responder's minor to
the 4 level or to bid a new suit on the 4-level. In this case, that
would mean raising 3c to 4c or making some sort of jump rebid into 4d
or 4h.
Obviously, bidding game in responder's major does not have to have the
same slam-going implication. If 3c is clearly defined as GF in a weak
1nt context, then there would seem good reason to play that jump as a
picture bid; values concentrated in spades and clubs with no 1st or
second round control in either red suit (e.g., AQxx; xx; Qxx; KQxx or
the like).
3nt by opener must be available to express a negative opinion about
spades and responder's minor and so must be to play, perhaps with a
hand like xx; QJ9x; AQTx; KJx.
This leaves bids on the 3-level which should show stoppers and doubt.
Over responder's 3c rebid, there is room for opener to show diamonds
stopped by not hearts (Kx; xxx; AKJx; Qxxx) or hearts stopped without
diamonds (Kx; AKJx; xxx; Qxxx), but over a 3d rebid by responder some
room is lost and opener cannot clearly distinguish between both suit
stopped, the major stopped but not clubs, clubs stopped but not the
major. Some artificiality is required here, for example a bid of
responder's major substitutes for clubs.
So by my lights, opener's 3h rebid showing a heart stopper but not a
diamond stopper fits your hand perfectly. I propose the following
conclusion to the auction:
1nt 2h
2s 3c
3h 5d(exclusion blackwood, no suit clearly agreed)
5h = 0
5s = 1
5nt = 2
6c = 3 is impossible due to opener's 3h rebid
If opener shows no ace, you sign off in 5s and hope to make it
if opener shows 1 ace, you bid 6s (or 6c to offer opener a choice) and
hope to make it
if opener shows 2 aces, you can decide to gamble out the grand slam or
not
Relay type auctions, which I favor whenever possible, fail miserably
when asker is strongly distributional and/or has a void, so I doubt
that any such solution would work with this hand.
Henrysun909
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