BBO Discussion Forums: 5 level decision - BBO Discussion Forums

All non-vul, IMPS.

You hold ♠Qx♥QTxxxx♦A♣AQTx

1♥-(p)-2nt(1)-(5♦)-??
(1) Jacoby 2nt

You play a standard forcing pass style where pass then pull a double is a slam try. What do you do over 5♦?

Stephen Tu, on 2014-March-16, 23:25, said:

I have some extra offense but not so much as I want to make a serious slam try so I bid 5♥. I think this is already a bid over which partner is encouraged to bid some more.

Cascade, on 2014-March-17, 03:39, said:

Did you try to place 12+ hcp in in pd's hand without too many diamond points ? It is actually pretty tempting..

Worst scenarios are AKJ spades K of clubs and J of hearts or J of clubs OR J of spades AKJ hearts and K of clubs.

Given the choices in the problem I went with pass
and pull over an x by partner to show slam interest.

Stephen Tu, on 2014-March-16, 23:25, said:

IMO Pass = 10, 6♥ = 8, 5♥ = 7, X = 6.

MrAce, on 2014-March-17, 04:09, said:

Your examples have no points in diamonds not not "too many diamond points".

Give partner the diamond king or queen and suddenly you are a card or half a card short of a decent slam. My partner without any diamond cards has another bid and knows I have something extra without diamond wastage. (Actually I consider the diamond ace some wastage hence I am a little stronger than a might be.) Partner should be able to imagine the stiff diamond and something like what i have or more likely something a little better outside diamonds with a small singleton diamond.

That is I think 5♥ encourages partner to bid on with a good minimum with nothing wasted.

Cascade, on 2014-March-17, 16:34, said:

I was trying to make a point. Your pd will not have ♦ K or Q when someone jumps to 5, white vs white and you hold A in that suit. You can of course wait for that to happen and cater for that day, it is totally your own choice. I won't and this is my choice

Having said that, i am still not sure if i should pass then pull or bid 5 now. As you can see i did not cast a vote and said "it is very tempting" instead of saying "passing then pulling is correct" Because even w/o the ♦ wastage pd can still hold hand types where we can not stop before slam and it won't be a good slam. But the number of hands that makes slam and pd will hard time to bid it, if we bid 5♥ is more imho.

Perhaps, we should ask ourself "how can a hand bid 5♥ in this auction and not be as good as this one" Obviously the bidder believes that we are likely to make it, white vs white. Bidding 5 over 5 when colors are not so attractive, it should show something, and maybe this hand we hold has it.

But if it shows an invitation hand then i am all up for passing and then pulling. And i think it shows exactly that.

To me both 5h and pass then pull show extra offense and encourage partner to bid 6 if he thinks he has the right stuff, with the latter sequence being stronger. I just don't know where exactly the dividing line between those actions is, and where this hand falls relative to it. Promote one of those Qs into a K and I think it's super clear to pass and pull, I was unsure about this particular one.

On the actual hand anything works, partner was bidding slam (good slam, makes, but wasn't cold) unless you double which I didn't really think was an option. Irrelevant though.

I would just pass then pass a double, based on current replies maybe I am totally misevaluating this hand?

Thinking about it some more maybe I am off, but would you guys agree that we almost always have a stiff diamond to make a forcing pass here? It is counterintuitive to me to not pass with stiff A when we are generally suggesting a stiff with our pass. I think we usually have a stiff since partner is unlikely to have a stiff D depending on agreements (no splinter, unless he's too strong to splinter). That said, I constructed some hands and the 5 level seems quite safe and +300 vs +450 is pretty likely, still it is counterintuitive to me to not take the money in that spot but mb it's right here.

As a nonexpert wow I must really misjudge this hand

My first concern was missing the grand I would always force to 6.

I assumed 2nt showed slam interest not just some random minimum game force.

ZI really don't see how pard will ever play me for this great of a hand is my main worry.
--

I am tempted to bid 5nt if that is gsf as I expect pard to at worst hold perhaps:


AJx..AKxx..xx....Kxxx
and don't know how to get to 7c

mike777, on 2014-March-17, 21:47, said:

It's strange to play 2nt as immediately showing slam interest. The idea behind 2nt raise is to leave room for opener to show features that make for good slams opposite some minimum GF hands if the cards are well located. If these min GF hands have to do something else like some higher bid (3nt or various swiss raises, etc.), you both lose that higher bid for other purposes, and make it harder to find these slams since you can't find like stiff vs. xxxx situations.

Making forcing passes or bidding 5H shows better offense hands than doubling which is what one does with worse hands to suggest partner not bid on with ordinary hands esp. ones with 2 diamond losers.

OK perhaps I am old....I was taught that 2nt did indeed show slam interest, never some minimum 12 pt hand

I play in a world where responder is often stronger than opener when gf

You suggest the opposite.

I grew up in a world where Barry Crane bid on crap and Ehaa was considered standard
Where Italy doubled for takeout on every hand it seemed.

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too put this another way this is a problem of what does an opening bid mean at the one level, not a 5 level problem.

For me this hand has extras lots of extras.
if for you this is a nothing opener ....ok.

I would just bid 6♥. It is easy to construct hands where 6♥ won't make. But I think that there are more hands where 6♥ does make where partner will not bid 6 after a pass and pull (my obvious second choice).

Rik

Trinidad, on 2014-March-18, 02:31, said:

Seriously, what sort of hand would you bid 5♥ on?

mike777, on 2014-March-17, 23:30, said:

Why does this matter? Using 2nt to gather more info at a lower level works fine if responder has stronger hands also. The idea is usually that it's easier to evaluate fitting cards when the unbalanced hand describes the shape, with the balanced hand asking rather than showing. There's no tremendous advantage in having responder promise an extra K or whatever. Don't you want to reach slams both when responder has extra values and opener is min and the right shape AND when opener has extra and shape and responder has the right values but minimum?

Quote

Again WTF are you talking about? Who said this is a "nothing opener", everyone agrees this has extra offense? Nothing openers DOUBLE, they don't make forcing passes or bid 5h freely. There are degrees of "extra", we are discussing how much extra each of the possible options should show, and where this hand lies among them.

MrAce, on 2014-March-17, 19:10, said:

This is so obviously fallacious - that partner will not have a top diamond honour. Effectively you are saying that no one ever jumps to 5♦ on a suit headed by KJ or QJ. That is simply not true and one does not have to wait for that long (relatively) to see these suits.

There is another thread at the moment involving the defense to 4♥ and the author later admits that he would never bid 4♥ on the actual hand held by declarer. The point being that there are people out there, including some quite good players, that play styles that are, to others, quite unsound and they will bid on hands that others, including you and perhaps I, would not bid on. Although in this case I wonder what you would bid on with KJ 9th or the like?

Do you really wait around for a solid suit headed by the ace or king to preempt 5minor in their game force auction?

Cascade, on 2014-March-18, 02:45, said:

A distributional minimum, or -to put it in an other way- a hand that is slightly too strong to open a weak two or a preempt. These are hands that want to play 5♥, don't want to defend 5♦ at all, and certainly don't want to encourage partner to get higher than 5♥.

Rik

Trinidad, on 2014-March-18, 13:05, said:

Really? How do you know you don't want to defend 5d? These hands might not make 5H, and 5d probably goes down easily when your side has the clear balance of HCP and you have the normal quick trick minimum for opening 1 rather than preempting.

Why not just pass and let partner decide what to do with these sort of hands, instead of possibly turning a plus position into a minus?

5H but I think I am stretching already.