[BunnyGo]

This sequence came up today with another forum regular. I said I'd post it to ask the consensus as we disagreed about the "standard" meaning of this auction playing a basic 2/1.

1S-2C
3C-3N
4C

What's 4C? We agreed about the rest of the auction, but I said I'd post here to ask about the consensus for the 4C bid.

Followup question from the other regular, "over 3NT if 4C isn't Gerber, I have no other way to ask about Aces." If it is not gerber, how could one ask for aces? Do people play this as minorwood here if they play minorwood?

[mikeh]

To me, 4♣ suggests a hand with strong slam interest in clubs, and unable to ask for keycards. Many such hands might have splintered over 2♣, but splinters are often played as having fairly narrowly defined strength ranges and so this could ba a hand too good to splinter. Also, could be a very good 5=2=2=4, lacking a control in one of the red suits...thus unable to keycard. Not to mention that one shouldn't keycard unless one thinks that the answer will always allow one to place the contract (often after checking for the Q or Kings).

The solution to your partner's concern about asking for aces is to use a jump to 5♣ over any 3N signoff as keycard.

So here 5♣ would be asking for keys, and 4♣ commands cuebidding.

[jillybean]

Here's the full hand

---

I intended 4♣ to be gerber but realised after the 4♦ response it likely wasn't taken that way.
Using 5♣ as keycard makes me nervous, I have to be certain we can play at the 6 level. How about 4♣ starting a cue bid sequence and 4♦ kickback?

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2011-September-02, 11:59, said:

Here's the full hand

---

I intended 4♣ to be gerber but realised after the 4♦ response it likely wasn't taken that way.
Using 5♣ as keycard makes me nervous, I have to be certain we can play at the 6 level.

Not quite......you have to be able to play 5N or higher. As for being nervous, yes....and your hand was actually good for a 4♣ call (or an initial 4♣ raise of 2♣.....which is an old-fashioned sort of call, but which, if used as a 'picture bid' (5-5 or better, all significant values in the 2 suits, significant extra values)... can be useful).

A splinter might also have worked: 3♦ over 2♣: no way partner is bidding 3N now. He cues 3♥, and you end up driving to slam.

[JLOGIC]

Grunch from title: Not!

[jillybean]

Hey I know you experts have a much better meaning for 4♣ but playing with a pickup partner where your agreements extend only as far as
'2/1 udca' is expecting 4♣ to be Gerber really such a stretch?

[daveharty]

JLOGIC, on 2011-September-02, 12:29, said:

Grunch from title: Not!

To Gerber, or not to Gerber, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler at the table to suffer
The bids and misbids of outrageous conventions,
Or to take arms against a sea of complications,
And by opposing end them? To go set, to misplay,
No more; and by a misplay to say we end
Our partner's anguish, and the thousand terrible auctions
That the partnership is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To go set, to misplay;
To misplay, perchance to squeeze one's self -- aye, there's the rub:
For in that butchery of contracts what endplays may be missed,
When we have shuffled off these matchpoints onto the floor,
Must give us pause -- there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long a session at the club.
For who would bear the taunts and scorn of partners,
The director's wrong, the pseudo-expert's contumely,
The pangs of ignored suit preference signals, the Law's misapplication,
The insolence of opponents, and the spurns
That patient merit of the LOLs takes,
When he himself might his contract make
If only he could count to thirteen?

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2011-September-02, 12:34, said:

Hey I know you experts have a much better meaning for 4♣ but playing with a pickup partner where your agreements extend only as far as
'2/1 udca' is expecting 4♣ to be Gerber really such a stretch?

Have you seen the reputation G**ber has on this forum!!!!!! No self-respecting forum member would dare use it in any auction that might get posted here!


(Just kidding......I suspect that if you took this auction to 100 players at a Sectional or Regional, the majority would either take it as Gerber or express real uncertainty, with Gerber as a significant possibility so your assumption seems to me to be reasonable)

[helene_t]

Minorwood or kick-back should apply here if you play one of those, imho. That is probably a good idea since if South wants to cuebid she can just do it. So the natural 4♣ bid is somewhat redundant.

However I wouldn't take it as Gerber undiscussed, assuming we don't play minorwood.

[BunnyGo]

JLOGIC, on 2011-September-02, 12:29, said:

Grunch from title: Not!

LOL! Always the correct answer, and I learned a new word!

[P_Marlowe]

4C is natural, setting trumps, showing SI.

The alternative is Minorwood.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[han]

It would honestly not have occured to me that 4C can be Gerber here.

[BunnyGo]

daveharty, on 2011-September-02, 12:42, said:

To Gerber, or not to Gerber, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler at the table to suffer
The bids and misbids of outrageous conventions,
Or to take arms against a sea of complications,
And by opposing end them? To go set, to misplay,
No more; and by a misplay to say we end
Our partner's anguish, and the thousand terrible auctions
That the partnership is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To go set, to misplay;
To misplay, perchance to squeeze one's self -- aye, there's the rub:
For in that butchery of contracts what endplays may be missed,
When we have shuffled off these matchpoints onto the floor,
Must give us pause -- there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long a session at the club.
For who would bear the taunts and scorn of partners,
The director's wrong, the pseudo-expert's contumely,
The pangs of ignored suit preference signals, the Law's misapplication,
The insolence of opponents, and the spurns
That patient merit of the LOLs takes,
When he himself might his contract make
If only he could count to thirteen?

That's great! can you do King Lear's "Blow Winds" rant?

[wyman]

My meta-agreements with partner about 4m minorwood are typically that 4m = minorwood if we're in a GF auction where we've both bid m naturally (even if implicitly, as with a splinter or otherwise) before the 4m bid.

This would qualify.

My agreements about gerber are that 4c is gerber only in the auctions 1n (or 2N)-4c, 1n-2(d/h); 2(h/s)-4C [I think thats it anyway.] This does not qualify.

[VM1973]

Maybe you should take up Kickback. That lets 4♦ be ace asking. I definitely wouldn't take 4♣ as ace asking.

[jillybean]

LOL, I know forum members despise G****, unfortunately I don't play with you guys at the local club.

VM173 , I do play kickback just not without discussion.

[daveharty]

BunnyGo, on 2011-September-02, 13:41, said:

That's great! can you do King Lear's "Blow Winds" rant?

How about Spinal Tap's "Break Like the Wind" instead?

[mgoetze]

jillybean, on 2011-September-02, 12:34, said:

Hey I know you experts have a much better meaning for 4♣ but playing with a pickup partner where your agreements extend only as far as
'2/1 udca' is expecting 4♣ to be Gerber really such a stretch?

Yes. I mean, seriously, I played a RL pickup game recently, I opened 1NT, partner bid 4♣, and I went into a trance for a minute thinking about whether we had agreed anything, could he have a splinter for the NT suit, might he assume South African Texas etc. before I realised there is this funny convention some people play called G*****...

So anyway I don't play Gerber, but if I did, I would only play it in very specific situations, none of which involve us having found a fit (as you had here).

[jillybean]

mgoetze, on 2011-September-02, 15:58, said:

Yes. I mean, seriously, I played a RL pickup game recently, I opened 1NT, partner bid 4♣, and I went into a trance for a minute thinking about whether we had agreed anything, could he have a splinter for the NT suit, might he assume South African Texas etc. before I realised there is this funny convention some people play called G*****...

So anyway I don't play Gerber, but if I did, I would only play it in very specific situations, none of which involve us having found a fit (as you had here).

Fair enough, so how would you proceed in this auction after 3N?

[aguahombre]

As often is the case, it is hard to recover when we could have done better earlier in the auction. Any ace-asking bid by the hand with a small doubleton is not a good thing. So, 4C slammish over 3NT is the only reasonable bid. But, (see mikeh, above), 4C over 2C is so perfectly descriptive that responder can take over and just bid 6C --or devise another round of torture, then bid 6C.