[mr1303]

Scoring: MP

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How do you get these hands to a sensible contract? You don't play the Kokish relay (so if you want to show 25-26 balanced you have to bid 2C 2D 3NT).

[rogerclee]

2♣-2♦ (or 2♥ negative)
3NT - 4♦
4♥ - pass

[jdonn]

There doesn't seem to be much choice other than what methods would dictate for south to show a game forcing balanced hand and north to place it in 4♥.

[mr1303]

Well what about 6D? It appears to have reasonable play.

[mtvesuvius]

mr1303, on Mar 3 2009, 06:53 PM, said:

Well what about 6D? It appears to have reasonable play.

Except when the AQ♥ are offside or ♥ are 3-1...

[jdonn]

mr1303, on Mar 3 2009, 06:53 PM, said:

Well what about 6D? It appears to have reasonable play.

It's an ok contract, and opposite many hands could be absolutely cold. But north has no reasonable way to look. If you were playing kokish then we could talk.

It's like posting AKxx xx KQx xxxx, telling us our partner opened 1NT but we don't play stayman, then asking us how to bid to a reasonable contract. I would say I bid 3NT. If you say but our only game could be in a 4-4 spade fit then I would reply play stayman!

[Codo]

Who wants to be in 6 ♦ when you can be in 6 ♥? I would be in 4 HEart, expecting to make 12 tricks quite often.

[mr1303]

Well, when the traveller came round over half the room had bid and made 6D. I was wondering if there was some future in rebidding 3D after 2D? After all, you do have 150 honours. Especially since 2C 2D 3NT is such a bad bidding sequence.

[Fluffy]

I don't play kokish nor anything, I just use 2♣-2♦-2NT as 23-31 forcing. Preempting yourself is never a good idea.

You won't find 6♦ on this hand with anything but a strong club opening.

[whereagles]

Normal methods:

2♣ 2♦
3NT 6♥

North has 8 losers and a 25-26 balanced hand has about 7-8 cover cards. So it's a slam, I guess.

[jdonn]

whereagles, on Mar 4 2009, 05:54 AM, said:

Normal methods:

2♣ 2♦
3NT 6♥

North has 8 losers and a 25-26 balanced hand has about 7-8 cover cards. So it's a slam, I guess.

And how do you know that 3 or 4 of those cover cards aren't in black suits? In fact, isn't that where they are most likely to be?

[whereagles]

You don't. The nr. of cover cards is just an average. There is the usual statistical dispersion around it.

If you have bids that allow you to gauge to which side the dispersion lies (red/black suits), by all means use them. Since I don't think that's an easy task using normal methods, I'll just play the average game and go for slam.

[jdonn]

whereagles, on Mar 4 2009, 11:53 AM, said:

You don't. The nr. of cover cards is just an average. There is the usual statistical dispersion around it.

If you have bids that allow you to gauge to which side the dispersion lies (red/black suits), by all means use them. Since I don't think that's an easy task using normal methods, I'll just play the average game and go for slam.

Isn't that my point? The 'average game' would suggest that on average partner has too many cover cards in the black suits and not many in the red suits, so would suggest signing off.

You just made a reasonable argument, but then used it to reach totally the opposite conclusion that it suggested.

[whereagles]

No, no, that's not it. The averaging already takes into account that cover cards may fall into the wrong places.

When you say "xxx cover cards", means it will effectively cover xxx of the 1 or 2-suiter's losers.

[ArtK78]

Rather than argue what the expected number of cover cards are for a balanced hand of about 25 HCP, all we need to do is look at the actual hand. The big hand fits almost perfectly with the red suited hand, and 6♥ is still less than 50% (♥Q onside and hearts not 4-0, and no adverse ruff). Change the hand to:

KQJ
KQ
AKQJT
KQJ

A 27 HCP hand. The bidding might be the same. How good is 6♥ now?

On the actual hand, 6♦ is a worse contract than 6♥, in that you can be set anytime hearts are 3-1 (except when the A is singleton) or 4-0 if the 4 card holding is on lead. Even if you do not suffer a heart ruff, you still need the ♥Q onside (unless you play for 2-2 hearts with the ♥A onside and get it).

I would expect to arrive at a 4♥ contract. The fact that almost all of the pairs arrived at and made 6♦ is very surprising.

[oldman5757]

mr1303, on Mar 4 2009, 05:29 AM, said:

Well, when the traveller came round over half the room had bid and made 6D. I was wondering if there was some future in rebidding 3D after 2D? After all, you do have 150 honours. Especially since 2C 2D 3NT is such a bad bidding sequence.

I expect that is exactly what happened. If S rebids 3♦, N jumps to 5♦, and now, S will surely try 6 ♦, and get lucky. I'd be in 4♥.

[benlessard]

Not a good slam, you can get ruffed at trick 2 in 6H & in 6D plus you need the QH in RHO.