This is why most people play 1c/2c is the forcing club raise, so you have the most room possible to explore for slam, and 1c/3c is the weak club raise. Inverted Minor auctions are something I am still a little murky on. Most inverted minor sequences get kind of tricky and require involved partnership agreements. It is clear after partner opens 1C, that you really want to be in slam.

If you are familiar with splinter bids, 3H is the perfect and obvious response. It shows a singleton heart, a game forcing hand, and club support (and, incidentally, fewer than four spades since you'd look for spades first with 4+). They are more commonly used over major suit openers, but are at least as effective over minor openings.

After that the bidding would likely go:

1C - 3H
3NT (lots of heart stops, no interest in slam) - 4C (I don't care)
4D (cuebid) - 4S (cuebid)
5C (please leave me alone) - 6C (good luck partner).

6NT is obviously better in that it doesn't risk a wacky ruff, but 6C should do fine.

EDIT: Opener might bid 4NT (natural IMO, but easily confused) over 4C and that might get you to 6NT. He might also just bid 5C over 4C, but really once you've bid 3NT to show wastage in hearts, 4D isn't overstating things.

For Chuck, not really Al. With my usual P, the auction would go:

Auction 1: (BAD)
1C-2C; (this shows an opener for us. j/s in o.m. shows a limit raise)
2D-2S; (cheapest stopper)
2N-3C; (heart stopper and minimum, sets trump and starts cuebidding)
3D-4C; (first or second rd diamond ctrl, minorwood)
4S-6C; (2 keycards w/o CQ, to play)
All pass

or

Auction 2: (GOOD)
1C-2C; (this shows an opener for us. j/s in o.m. shows a limit raise)
2D-2S; (cheapest stopper)
2N-3C; (heart stopper and minimum, sets trump and starts cuebidding)
3D-3S; (first or second rd diamond ctrl, spade ctrl)
3N-4D; (not much more to say maybe 3N is right, diamond ctrl)
4H-4N; (heart ctrl, RKC)
5H-6N; (2 without, to play)
All pass

(1) is bad because if partner is missing the DA, a diamond is coming through you regardless of the contract, so 4C as an ace ask is bad here. Better is to see what specific cards partner holds and possibly avoid a 6X-1.

In (2) you can place partner with the HK, DA, CK, and something else, because he's not particularly shapely. It's unfortunate but possible that he has 2 jacks. If partner has either red queen, 6N is cold. Partner does not have 4 spades, as he would have raised my 2S to 3S. 1c-2c does not deny a 4cM. So we'll never score 4 spades. We have 6 clubs, 3 spades, AK diamonds, so if partner has a red queen OR if we get a heart lead OR if the HA is right, or if partner has DKJx and we get a diamond lead OR ... we take 12 tricks. And ruffs really don't help us (eh maybe partner is 3=4=2=4 but I'm not banking on it), so I'm bidding 6N here.

For a MP (or IMP) top.

edit: Splinter is possible here, but imo it eats a lot of good bidding room.

Right. I misread.

3 is a limit bid in SAYC AFAIK, showing 4/5 card support and 9-11 HCP. So that's out.

This is a good hand for inverted minor raises, where 2 shows club support and 10+ HCP (forcing). But you don't play that either.

So given that, you have a monster that wants to keep the bidding going to find out how high you want to go.
I just start with 1. That is forcing, and not particularly likely to get partner supporting. Partner will now bid 1NT or 1. This isn't helping much. There's a case to be made for just blasing 6NT there, since it likely has play.

Over 1, I'll try 1 (!), over 1NT, I'll bid a quantitative 4NT. I think all these auctions get us to 6NT.

Actually, I think you're right through 4S, but after that pard should try to sign off in 4NT rather than 5C; we may manage to bid 6NT at this stage (because pard pretty much can't have an opening bid without the heart king, add if he has anything else we rate to be in very good shape.

At matchpoints this is likely; at IMPs I suppose not.

You probably have a good point there.

If you aren't going to use it here, may as well take it out of the system and keep it as a preempt or something.

Seems to be a fair debate about this now:

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=35397

wow, Bob Hamman ended up getting texted about it

Al, don't get mad when it appears people are slowplaying winners. Very rarely does anyone actually slowplay online. Usually there is a lot of thinking on how to get an extra trick after playing the winners, which is a big part of bridge. Often if you just play winners without working out a plan you can screw yourself in the end.

Yeah I had this exact discussion with him the other day. Also, if you think that everyone's out to get you, you won't do well at live bridge with all the hesitations and other things that can be perceived as UI in the auction.

I am training myself to be more Zen about these things, but I still want to strangle opps in the auction when the whole thing feels like I'm getting fixed.

I feel that way a lot -- which is what I'm trying to stop.

"Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil."

Hamman has a company insuring prop bets. This is like the sweetest job ever.

There are many pleasures in bridge, and for me, one of the greatest is being in defense and setting a contract before declarer even gets to making his first trick.

The thing I hate most is players who slowplay obvious winners and I take your point. I really do. It is not players who are thinking out how to get where they wish to be but genuinely rude players.

I have seen guys playing the last card to the last trick sloooowplay that winner (and on one occasion that loser) when the contract depended upon the last trick.

Today, mid-contract, I had to remind a persistent offender who was slooowplaying the last card to the trick in question that he had no trumps and no higher diamond so he should play. And he did.

Do these players think they are stretching out the drama or something?

You really don't get it at all. That discard might be hugely important. Ok, probably not, but you guys are beginners, and he might legitimately be thinking about whether or not the discard matters.

Regardless, it's wildly inappropriate to call him rude and tell him to play faster.

Here's a hand I played once

AKQx
Kx
KQJx
xxx

xxx
Axxxx
x
AKJx

The contract was 6NT. A poor contract, but you got to do what you got to do.

The lead was a diamond to the jack and ace. Opponent returned a club which I won with the ace. I played 3 rounds of spades with LHO pitching a diamond on the third round. I then played a club to the jack followed by the king of clubs both opps following. When I played the 13th club, LHO pitched a heart, and I pitched the low diamond on the board, and RHO pitched a diamond.

I returned to the dummy with the Kh, and cashed my diamonds with RHO pitching a heart on the last diamond. Then when I played heart back to my hand, LHO played the jack, and RHO the queen, making a small heart good.

Now here is the question Al. This hand took me as long to play as any hand I have ever played. Was I just cashing winners and got lucky at the end, or was there something else going on?

Clearly there was something else going on.

But the behaviour I am talking about is persistent and at points in the hand where it does not ring true.

I am surprised you reprised this in your last but one post.

Have you been thinking about this subject recently?

Is he hiring?

Al, you never know what is going on with online players. Phone calls, other distractions, could be anything.

I cannot believe that someone would purposefully yank your chain.

This.

scapromotions.com

There is no "careers" section, so I'd imagine you'd have to contact them directly. They are, of course, in the Dallas area.

iirc he hires the occasional bridge player — but you have to be good, as in Greg Hinze good. (I think he did hire Hinze for a while.)

btw, as I have mentioned before, he's an absurdly nice man. Hinze's pretty nice too

Jeremy Fournier just completed an internship with him.

A short while ago we were discussing inverted minors (yes, a good idea, but you need some 2nd-round agreements to avoid accidents) and splinters in response to minor openings.

There are two approaches to splinters after a minor opening. The posters in this thread so far all were from the "it shows support for the minor, a singleton in the bid suit, and three of the other major." There is another way to play them -- that 1C-3H promises 4-1-4-4 / 4-0-4-5 / 4-0-5-4 shape. After that kind of a splinter, opener now rebids 3S, 4C, or 4D to set trump and start cuebidding toward slam, or rebids 3NT, 4S, 5C, or 5D to end the auction. I personally prefer that approach, and start with the inverted raise on the 6331/5431 hands. Thou shalt ask thy partner which way he playeth it, before putting in on thy convention card.

For IMPs, BBO.

R-W (Us, Them)

__W___N___E___S
__(P)__P___(P)_1d
__(P)__1h__(P)_5d
__(P)__P___(P)

I am South and have:KQ7 ---- AKJ87652 J8.

I open in the last seat. When partner shows some points, I know we are on at least 20HCP but the hand is very distributional. There is no second suit to show. I usually underbid in these circumstances so I bite the bullet and bid game in diamonds.

The opening lead finds partner with: A96 KJ52 4 K9653.

What should my reasoning have been? What should my second bid have been?

How good was partner's bidding?