[catatonic]

playing here with a partner who rated him/herself as expert I held the following at game all
♠Q97x
♥K9
♦Jxxx
♣9xx
no intervening bids

as dealer , partner opened 2NT
first decision for me , 3NT or stayman ? personally , with a weak 4333 hand I just raise even with a 4 card major , but with this sort of hand I prefer stayman
response from partner 3♠....goal !
obviously I raise
partner now bid 4NT and types ...aces ! ???? no option but to bid 5♣as per both cards for no aces
partner now bids 5♦
unsurprisingly I have no idea what he/she is doing but presuming this seeks information I decide to show my control with 5♥
what does partner bid now and with what hand ?

[petterb]

catatonic, on 2015-March-22, 07:41, said:

... no option but to bid 5♣ ...

I would pass 4NT since we can't make slam with my hand against a proper 2NT opening.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

5D ( next step ) asks for trump Q .
5H = ♠ Q and ♥ K .

Partner may not necessarily have all the key cards -- could be missing 1 -- but needs to know about the trump Q for slam. If you didn't have it, then 5S would have been your reply which he could pass.

[Zelandakh]

catatonic, on 2015-March-22, 07:41, said:

partner now bid 4NT and types ...aces ! ???? no option but to bid 5♣as per both cards for no aces

petterb, on 2015-March-22, 07:49, said:

I would pass 4NT since we can't make slam with my hand against a proper 2NT opening.

I would pass 4NT because of the UI. And I would make it clear to partner precisely why that choice had been made.

[Zelandakh]

To answer the actual question in the OP, 5♥ from you shows, as Don wrote, ♠Q and ♥K. From your partner now, 5NT would ask for minor suit kings. In theory, 6 of a minor asks about third round control in that suit (a so-called Specific Suit Ask) and 6♥ would be a general grand try but noone with any sense would bid like that in a pick-up partnership. Most of the time, I would expect the Asker to place the contract at this point and if not bid 5NT pretty much 100% of the time.

[BudH]

catatonic, on 2015-March-22, 07:41, said:

playing here with a partner who rated him/herself as expert I held the following at game all
♠Q97x
♥K9
♦Jxxx
♣9xx
no intervening bids

as dealer , partner opened 2NT
first decision for me , 3NT or stayman ? personally , with a weak 4333 hand I just raise even with a 4 card major , but with this sort of hand I prefer stayman
response from partner 3♠....goal !
obviously I raise
partner now bid 4NT and types ...aces ! ???? no option but to bid 5♣as per both cards for no aces
partner now bids 5♦
unsurprisingly I have no idea what he/she is doing but presuming this seeks information I decide to show my control with 5♥
what does partner bid now and with what hand ?

The only thing that makes sense if partner has not lost his mind is that he discovered an extra ace in his hand.

[KurtGodel]

BudH, on 2015-March-22, 09:36, said:

The only thing that makes sense if partner has not lost his mind is that he discovered an extra ace in his hand.

I think even if you find another ace you should just take your medicine and pass rather than speculate, even the 5-level might not be safe.

[catatonic]

sorry for the delay ...for some reason I haven't been able to log in !

the answer to the question is ...he passed !

♠Kxxx
♥AKJT9
♦AK
♣Qx

which , it goes without saying , came as somewhat of a surprise

what happened in the play I have no idea , I couldn't bear to watch

but my question is somewhat of a trap , the first question is can I do better ? I considered passing 2NT , but partner could have a much better hand so I though that wrong

if I bid was stayman best , or 3NT

when I got a ♠3 response should raise ? at red i though I must at imps

should I pass 4NT on the basis that partner has made a mistake ...body of opinion is that this is best

when he bids ♦5 i think 5♥must be correct , if he is trying to recover from an initial misbid it is what he wnats to know , bearing in mind he knows I am aceless and if we are already too high it probably doesn't matter !

but perhaps the most interesting thing is something I have never considered ...could it be correct for his first rebid to be 3♠on the basis that if I am slam minded playing in the 4 4 fit could be important , and if I don't have 4♠he can correct to ♥4 , could be a good agreement perhaps ?

I did take a peep to see what would be RHO's lead , with ♣AJTxx and ♠Ax the limit is 1NT while ♠4 means guessing trumps against any sensible defence

[Zelandakh]

Passing 2NT would be bad and I would also use Stayman. In answer to this your partner should bid 3♥. Over the actual 3♠ rebid, raising is correct. As I wrote before I would pass 4NT not because I think that is best but because his statement provides UI that suggests bidding on. After all, if he had written "oh sorry, I meant to bid 3♥" and then bid 4NT it would put a rather different light on it. In other words, your partner appears to have made dubious plays on each round. I would not worry too much about it - your actions were absolutely fine up to 4♠ and after this there is basically nothing to be learnt other than remembering to call the TD when you see ♥K in both hands.

[barmar]

He shouldn't have opened 2NT in the first place. With 5-4 majors, you should almost always open in the major. If you have fits in both suits, and partner has a good hand, there are ways to find your 4-4 fit; if not, you'll play in the 5-3 fit, which will probably be best.

[johnu]

catatonic, on 2015-March-27, 09:12, said:

sorry for the delay ...for some reason I haven't been able to log in !

the answer to the question is ...he passed !

♠Kxxx
♥AKJT9
♦AK
♣Qx

which , it goes without saying , came as somewhat of a surprise

what happened in the play I have no idea , I couldn't bear to watch

but my question is somewhat of a trap , the first question is can I do better ? I considered passing 2NT , but partner could have a much better hand so I though that wrong

if I bid was stayman best , or 3NT

when I got a ♠3 response should raise ? at red i though I must at imps

should I pass 4NT on the basis that partner has made a mistake ...body of opinion is that this is best

As Z points out, 2 ♥K's on the hand so fix one of the two hands.

As far as what to do, I can only think of this quote from WarGames, "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?" I would guess that your "expert" partner became an expert by reading a couple of bridge columns in the newspaper, or maybe kibitzed some lunchtime bridge games a few years ago.

[rmnka447]

As others have suggested 3 NT would be OK with a very flat hand. You do have a potential ruffing value in ♥, so Stayman would seem proper in this case. Partner has presumably shown a balanced 20-21 HCP hand with the 2 NT bid. With your 6 HCP, you seem to hold at least 26 HCP so the HC muscle is there for a 3 NT or 4 of a major game.

Your partner should rebid 3 ♥, not 3 ♠.

After partner's 3 ♠ bid, 4 ♠ is right. You have enough values to make game a decent shot and you have found an 8 card fit.

After that, the responsibility for what went wrong lies with your partner.

First, you know a lot more about partner's hand than partner knows about your hand. When you use Stayman, you become the captain of the auction. If you think slam may be a possibility, then it's up to you to initiate slam investigation.

Instead, your partner decided to try for slam by asking for As. Unfortunately, that's the wrong tool if partner's hand is as shown. It's wrong because the biggest concern about a slam is the possibility of 2 quick ♣ losers. If you reply 1 ace, partner has no way of knowing whether it's the ♠ A or ♣ A. In any case, once you show NO ACES, partner should settle for 5 ♠ because there are 2 proven losers.

(Note: Could partner have had ♠ Kxxx ♥ AQJ10x ♦ AK ♣ K10? That would resolve the ♥ K in both hands you showed. Using an A ask would be more understandable as there are not 2 quick losers anywhere. But even so, once 2 losers are found, then partner should settle for a 5 level contract.)

Partner's bid of 5 ♦ should suggest he holds at least 3 aces, further slam interest, and asks about the ♠ Q. So your 5 ♥ bid is right. But your partner should put you back in 5 ♠ where the running ♥ might be used to pitch losers from your hand. You might like playing 5 ♥ even less if you had something like ♠ Qxxx ♥ K ♦ Qxxx ♣ xxxx. 3 rounds of ♣ to start and partner's hand gets tapped in the trump suit. Now, you couldn't draw trump completely before playing on the other suits as it would exhaust trump and potentially set up an additional ♣ winner.

Unless you were playing in some place where the rules are relaxed, partner's explanation of the 4 NT bid is improper (unauthorized information). Normally, it's not right to use that information. So, I can understand Zel's comment about passing 4 NT. I'd probably do the same, but only because of the UI.

Ironically, without any prompting from partner, you should figure out that the 4 NT bid is an Ace ask. If anyone is going to make a quantitative move toward slam, it should be you as responder. You can't have enough to bid a quantitative slam if you simply sign off in game (your 4 ♠ bid). With ♠s agreed upon as a suit, therefore it should be an Ace ask.

In that context, without any UI, I'd respond to partner's request for Aces. I might have a hard time coming up with a hand that partner might have to make the request, but since bidding is a cooperative effort, I'd answer. If we got too high that would be on partner for asking. It's just possible that partner might have taken an unusual action by bidding 2 NT where it makes perfect sense to go on and request Aces.

With partner's actual hand, I don't think any move toward slam is justified. There's just too much needed in your hand for slam to be there. If you hold those values, you would be making a move toward slam. As it is, it looks like you need to find ♠ 3-2 and locate the ♠ A doubleton to make even 4.

[Zelandakh]

rmnka447, on 2015-March-27, 21:18, said:

Ironically, without any prompting from partner, you should figure out that the 4 NT bid is an Ace ask.

Sure about that? When partner bids 4NT we know there has been a misbid somewhere along the way. Has partner found an extra ace or 2? Or maybe their 4 spades turned out to be clubs. Without UI we do not know where the misbid occurred. However, if we take the 2 examples above, partner could bid 5♠ with the extra strength or 5♣ if those 4 extra clubs made the suit good to play. So what about 4NT? How about a hand where the misbid was 3♠ but the extra cards in another suit do not make it worth bidding, such as a 4333 that becomes a 2335 on closer inspection? That seems to me a perfectly reasonable misbid within this context.

[eagles123]

catatonic, on 2015-March-22, 07:41, said:

playing here with a partner who rated him/herself as expert I held the following at game all
♠Q97x
♥K9
♦Jxxx
♣9xx
no intervening bids

as dealer , partner opened 2NT
first decision for me , 3NT or stayman ? personally , with a weak 4333 hand I just raise even with a 4 card major , but with this sort of hand I prefer stayman
response from partner 3♠....goal !
obviously I raise
partner now bid 4NT and types ...aces ! ???? no option but to bid 5♣as per both cards for no aces
partner now bids 5♦
unsurprisingly I have no idea what he/she is doing but presuming this seeks information I decide to show my control with 5♥
what does partner bid now and with what hand ?

[catatonic]

sorry for that , his hearts are solid missing the K !

although the hand is a nonsense due to partner's action , for me there is an interesting point of the possibility of canape resposes to stayman .....perhaps it is just me that sees this as a step forward in bidding theory , or is it just that I have never heard of it before !

[steve2005]

Your partner lost it. Sure nice hand but not significantly better than he promised and what are his plans for slam with 2 ♣ losers opposite a pretty normal and to be expected 6 pts response.