Brian Davies
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Andrea, a three heart response is a non-forcing bid in Acol and can be passed. With 16 points, West needs to make a forcing response. If you are a relative new player you might not play a Jacoby 2NT response? West might respond 3C (forcing to game) and then bid 3H over the 3D rebid.
Now, if East starts cue-bidding, it would be best to bid the cheapest suit … 3S. It is a tricky slam to reach with the king and queen of clubs wasted values opposite the void.
Not sure about the acronym. L is a bit limp “Lack of cards” …
How about:
- S = Shortage in the suit bid
- P = Points
- L = Length in partner’s suit
But yes, the seminar was interesting.
John Carew: Bernard’s hand was 15, including a singleton, mine was 13 including a void. It certainly isn’t a silly bid, but I tend to agree that it is probably a shade light. The full hand was:
John Joseph was spot on: the lead has set up a club trick and removed one of South’s trumps. To make the contract, you need to play South for an original doubleton trump. Draw one round of trumps and cash the Queen of Clubs. Then cash the ace and king of hearts and cross-ruff the rest.
But it needs some correct assumptions and is not easy. At the club, seven of the twelve tables bid to 4♠; four bid to 3♠; and one table allowed the opposition to play in 3♦. Only one pair made 10 tricks in spades.
John, you are spot on … they led ace of clubs (an encouraging 10 from his partner), club to the king and a club ruff. You have lost three tricks and need to make the rest! The ace of diamonds is played at trick 4 …
Charles, in an uncontested auction, I would play that 4S denies a shortage and would be much stronger in terms of high-card points. We tend to also play this in a contested auction.
Thank you Bernard. I should make it clear that I wasn’t trying to criticise the players at the table – it can’t be easy with so many watching – I was interested in the issue.
Michael: It isn’t easy to do a full list. This is from our convention card:
(i) Doubles are for take-out unless: double of NT or escape from 1NT doubled; hand belongs to us & opponents sacrifice; we have previously redoubled opponent’s take-out double; we pre-empt & opponents overcall.
Looking at this now, I think that this is incomplete. For example, we play that (1♣)-Dbl-(1♥)-Dbl is definitely penalties. Another type, that is difficult to describe but “we know it when we see it” is when we fail to take an action on the previous round, but emerge with a double later – our previous pass must be based on length in the opponent’s suit.
You and your partner should agree the meaning of: 2♣-(2♥)-Dbl and 2♣-(2♥)-Pass. Many would play the double as penalty.
I believe that “Table” goes to all players and kibitzers at the table – so this is what you are after.
If playing in the Pogo club, “Lobby” goes to everyone in the Pogo club. Useful if broadcasting that you need one player to make up a four.
Hi Bernard,
Thank you for the detailed response on this.
Yes, I think that it is suggested that hands too strong for a splinter should go through 2NT. We don’t play this and our 2NT has the effect of denying a shortage – which I quite like. I think that we will stick with our methods for the moment!
Thanks Julian,
Spades were 6-2, but clubs were 5-1 and hearts were 4-1. Looking at this further, I agree that there is no play and the results are now on our club web-site and I can see that the double dummy analysis shows 12 tricks as the maximum. Most pairs only made 11 tricks. I don’t feel so bad about not making it now!
The club is a mixed standard and in a 10-table field, three bid grand slams, three bid small slams and four stopped in game contracts (one pair managed to go off in a 5H contract). I guess that this reinforces your comment in the second paragraph.
A couple of ideas:
When you add someone as friend, add a comment in the “Notes” field to say how you know them e.g. “Match Sept 2020”. You might forget to delete them as friends, but at least you will be able to remember later who they are and why they were added as friends!
It is also possible to have multiple log-ins. I use one Username for BMB and another for my club bridge.
Maybe I have misunderstood it, but I thought I had heard Bernard say that once NT had been bid, he plays that doubles are for penalties. Certainly Ninja53 believed that her Partner’s double was for penalties, although there is no way that her partner can have enough trumps.
There are many schemes of responses to a Jacoby type 2NT. We use Jacoby to show invitational as well as game forcing hands. This allows 1M-3M to be pre-emptive. Our response structure is:
– 3C any hand that would decline an invitational raise. Responder can bid 3M with the invitational hand type. If responder is still interested in a slam and wants to know about singletons, 1M-2NT-3C-3D is used as an artificial inquiry.
– Other three level bids show a hand that would accept an invitation and a singleton or void. Three of the suit opened shows a singleton club.
– 3NT shows a hand that would accept an invitation without any singleton/void.
– Four-level bids show a strong second suit – usually a 5-card suit.
– Four of the suit opened shows a very strong hand and a solid suit.
This sacrifices a bit of precision on slam hands, but gives us pre-emptive raise to three as well as an invitational raise.
Jan, just to emphasise that thus hand type is a problem with no easy answers. Bernard discusses a similar hand in one of the Charity Seminars (no. 36 – Transfers 3) – see the Q Plus hand.
Bidding first-round controls first and then second controls is an easy concept to grasp and seems superficially easier. But the problem is that your controls will not always be in a nice convenient order – you agree spades, but your lowest first round control is hearts so you cue-bid 4H. This is good news yo partner and he/she cue-bid a first-round diamond control. You have a singleton club and slam is looking good, except … you don’t know about the trump suit and it is too late to use (Roman) Key Card Blackwood.
Italian Cue Bids are more economical and keep the auction at a lower level. For this reason you can often combine Cue Bidding and Key Card Blackwood.
This is a development in bidding theory which is becoming ever more popular and normal. There will be hands which would have been easier bidding first round controls before second. But having switched to Italian Cue Bidding about 10 years ago, I have certainly experienced fewer problem hands and it has greatly helped our slam bidding.
