5. Show partner where your values are concentrated and that you have a big hand (and implicit spade shortness). You don't want to turn +650 into -200 by unilaterally bidding the slam. Partner should bid 6 with a stiff club and anything positive about his hand.

That is what I was taught the 1M 4M direct response meant.

w/w imps, we have

s: A3
h: KJ8764
d: AQJ86
c:

we open 1h, partner makes it 3h, rho doubles. what's our best way to go from here, 4d?

Five controls and a void in another "4-loser" hand, but missing
the boss trump; still, partner is expected to have an "8-loser"
hand, so slam is likely. [ I take 3 as a limit raise. If it's
(inverted) Bergen, then it depends on agreements, but slam is
still possible. ]

Bid 5 if that is played as some form of Exclusion Blackwood.
Partner may only have four card support, so there's still about
a 40% chance opponents have the A and if so, you could
lose a spade trick (LHO leads a spade and dummy doesn't table
both the K and A).

If partner has the A, unless he has wasted values in clubs, 6
should be a good contract. When you bid 4, partner might
misevaluate a hand such as

xxxQxxxxxAKJx

and bid six, thinking his hand is gold.

Disclaimer: Assuming 3H = limit raise.

I would bid 5C if it was Exclusion of course, but playing pickup I would probably just shoot 6H. If partner has the example hand bigpooch gave, or a similar hand, what high cards are left?

S: KQJ
H: A
D: K
C: Q

If you don't give RHO the HA (and give it to LHO), he will have 11 points and an aceless hand and would probably not double. If you give him the HA it's still a pretty dubious double over 3H:

KQJx A Kxxx Qxxx

I mean he might double that I guess. It's far more likely though that partner has his points in hearts. If we give partner something like:

xxx AQxx xx KJxx

Then RHO can have something like:

KQJx - Kxxx AQxxx

A much more likely candidate for him to be takeout doubling the limit raise.

If 5C just means "I have a club void, slam or no?" then I don't like it, because all we really care about is trump strength. Partner is going to really hate the hand I gave him above:

xxx AQxx xx KJxx

if I bid 5C to just communicate that I have a void. I definitely want to be in slam on this hand. While it needs the diamond finesse, the DK is a massive favourite to be onside given RHO's double.

yeah. i think in this one we only ended up in four when seven made, d'oh. i definitely need to read stuff on slam bidding, although clever gadgets don't tend to work with random partners

The problem is not slam bidding (at least not a sophisticated version), but hand evaluation. When I saw your post, I immediately wondered whether I could intelligently find a grand when it was there -- whether I would bid slam was never in doubt. ChrisV agrees; BigPooch is more conservative but he's bidding the slam more often than not. I think the other experienced players will also agree: this hand is clearly in the slam zone, and may be a slam drive.

The problem is not that you lacked knowledge of tools, it is that you didn't see what we are seeing -- that this is a slam hand -- or at least weren't sure about it. If you're looking for a book to help you, I strongly recommend Klinger's Modern Losing Trick Count. I've recommended this before when we were talking about game bidding, but it will help your slam evaluation greatly as well.

By the way, the hand is fascinating, and I'll get into the details later. Against heavy preemption, which could easily happen, you're going to have to guess whether to double six spades or seven clubs, or bid seven hearts, and even if the opponents stay silent from here on out you have to think about the grand.

I'm going to look more at how likely a grand slam is with 64's hand; I will always be bidding six, even though I realize it could fail. (As bigpooch says, opponents' two tricks would be HA and a spade; no other way of going down in slam is at all likely.)

Assumptions for analyzing a grand:

• Either partner has the heart ace, or I will find out that he does not before I bid a grand. We assume that if he lacks the ace we have stopped in six.
• RHO has fairly normal shape for his double, as he can't have excess strength. He does not have Qxx of hearts.
• Partner has a legitimate limit raise with four-card or better support; I'll consider only four cards exactly; with five, we're slightly better off.
• LHO does not have the diamond king. (He could, but it's very unlikely.)
• RHO does not have Qxx of hearts.

It's actually best if partner doesn't have the heart queen, because then he has to have two side suit cards. If his hearts are AQxx, he may have only one side suit king or queen.

The relevant outside cards are the spade king and queen, the diamond king, and the top three club honors.

If partner has the spade king, seven is cold (given my other assumptions). We can find that with exclusion blackwood followed by a king ask. Without such tools, we can find it with regular blackwood, an assumption that partner's ace is in hearts rather than clubs (not perfect, obviously), and a specific king ask.

If he has the spade queen-jack, seven will probably make when you finesse against RHO's king.

If he has the DK, the slam is probably a good one; there is only a problem if he has the following shapes: 5=4=x=x (almost impossible), 4=4=3=2, 3=4=4=2, and some really odd ones like 2=4=5=1. 4=4=3=2 and 3=4=4=2 are unsalvageable unless opps err at trick one by (1) LHO leading a club from the queen, (2) our ducking in dummy, and (3) LHO playing the ace from his AJ. This might happen if we showed a spade void in the auction. Failing this, there can be no squeeze, even when partner has the CK and SQ, and the club ace can never be ruffed out.

On the other hand, when partner has the diamond king and four spades we still make slam when he has only two or one diamond, and when he has three spades we still make it when he has only three diamonds.

If he has the club ace it's cold.

If he has the club KQ it's cold if RHO has the ace (which is nearly certain). It works similarly when he has the club KJT (when RHO has the AQ) or even KJ98 with RHO holding the AQT.

If he has the king but not the queen, it feels like there are squeeze possibilities (when he has a spade threat also), but they all fail, as far as I can tell.

The club queen alone will be worthless, unless he has QJT lying under the AK.

How to asses all this? There are eight big cards unaccounted for: SK, SQ, HA, HQ, DK, CA, CK, CQ. For his limit raise partner really shoudl have three of these.

If partner is known or assumed to have the HA, the following 21 possibilities are left:

1. SK + SQ (great)
2. SK + HQ (great)
3. SK + DK (cold)
4. SK + CA (great)
5. SK + CK (great)
6. SK + CQ (great)
7. SQ + HQ (poor -- only when he also has the spade jack)
8. SQ + DK (good -- most distributions)
9. SQ + CA (great)
10. SQ + CK (poor)
11. SQ + CQ (poor)
12. HQ + DK (good)
13. HQ + CA (cold)
14. HQ + CK (bad)
15. HQ + CQ (bad)
16. DK + CA (great)
17. DK + CK (good)
18. DK + CQ (good)
19. CA + CK (great)
20. CA + CQ (great)
21. CA + CQ (great)

(There are also 35 combinations where we are missing the heart ace).

Twelve with which we definitely expect to make seven (though only two are guaranteed), plus four with which we are a favorite; five where we are a dog. Not quite biddable without better information.

If we also want to consider the case in which partner has only two big cards, we have these in which he has the heart ace:

1. SK (good -- not great, becasue the odds are greater that RHO has teh DK)
2. HQ (bad)
3. DK (good)
4. CA (good)
5. CK (bad)
6. CQ (bad)

(plus fifteen combinations without the heart ace). Three good, three bad.

If we have only simple Blackwood available, we find six of the twelve very good grands, and miss all the fairly good ones. Unfortunately, these are the unlikely possibilities, because they give RHO an aceless hand. If we assume a one-ace response shows the heart ace, we will get to all the good ones if we have a specific king ask, but will be stuck if we can only ask number of kings unless partner has two of them (three cases). We will also get to a bad grand every time pard has the club ace but not the heart ace. This actually might be +EV at matchoints, but it would take a very understanding partner. before I'd try it.

If we have RKC available, the results are almost the same.

If we use exclusion blackwood or exclusion keycard, we do better. We miss three of the six great cases in which pard has the club ace, but these cases were less likely. Of the remaining fifteen cases, six are great and four good, and we find all of them while staying out of the bad ones. (I'm assuming we have a way of finding kings after the exclusion ask.)

The disadvantage of going slowly is that competition is more likely. If the opponents reach 6S it will probably be a good sacrifice unless partner finds a club lead, and he won't. Seven clubs, on the other hand will probably be a bad sac for them, as you should score five tricks a lot of the time (though if they bid it a heart void with RHO is more likely, and now the sacrifice is a good one unless partner has a trump trick or the spade king.)

LHO has about a zero count, so he almost can't act over a jump to 6H. He probably won't act over 4NT, but I suppose he might, particularly if he's 5=1 in the majors or holds six clubs. (It would be great if he doubled a 5C bid and they found a bad sacrifice as a result.)

I'd be at a disadvantage here with some partners, as my ace ask on this auction is 4S, which is easy to double and could lead to the good sac. OTOH, with those same partners I have 5C exclusion available, so never mind.

----------------

Bottom line:

Do not under any circumstances let the auction die below 6H.

If 5C is exclusion blackwood, use it. If 5C is some other form of slam try, do not use it. (ChrisV explains why in his post.) For similar reasons, I wouldn't bid a natural 5D.

If not, I think I'd blast 6H at IMPs. I'd probably do the same at matchpoints, but I might also try regular blackwood/keycard. Over a one-ace response, I don't know what I'd do -- probably proceed as if the ace is in hearts, while watching RHO's face closely.

Do not bid on over a 6S or higher sacrifice unless you have already established that the grand is a good one.

One more issue I brushed over: what if we're missing the heart ace -- will bidding slam be safe? Because of RHO's double, which has to based on shape plus holding most of the outstanding high cards, partner is a pretty big favorite to hold it, but what if he doesn't -- is the risk in six significant?

If partner's trumps are not headed by the ace he is more likely than otherwise to have three outside cards. There are 35 possibilities:

1. SK, SQ, HQ (great)
2. SK, SQ, DK (cold)
3. SK, SQ, CA (great)
4. SK, SQ, CK (great)
5. SK, SQ, CQ (great)
6. SK, HQ, DQ (cold)
7. SK, HQ, CA (great)
8. SK, HQ, CK (great)
9. SK, HQ, CQ (great)
10. SK, DK, CA (cold)
11. SK, DK, CK (cold)
12. SK, DK, CQ (cold)
13. SK, CA, CK, (great)
14. SK, CA, CQ (great)
15. SK, CK, CQ (great)
16. SQ, HQ, DK (fairly poor -- you may be able to dump dummy's spades on diamonds without losing a trick, but probably not; otoh, LHO may not lead a spade)
17. SQ, HQ, CA (fairly poor -- makes on a heart or club lead, plus weird stuff)
18. SQ, HQ, CK (bad)
19. SQ, HQ, CQ (bad)
20. SQ, DK, CA (good)
21. SQ, DK, CK (fairly poor)
22. SQ, DK, CQ (fairly poor)
23. SQ, CA, CK (fairly poor)
24. SQ, CA, CQ (fairly poor)
25. SQ, CK, CQ (bad -- pretty much need SJ)
26. HQ, DK, CA (good)
27. HQ, DK, CK (poor)
28. HQ, DK, CQ (poor)
29. HQ, CA, CK, (fairly poor)
30. HQ, CA, CQ (fairly poor)
31. HQ, CK, CQ (bad)
32. DK, CA, CK (great)
33. DK, CA, CQ (great)
34. DK, CK, CQ (poor)
35. CA, CK, CQ (bad)

19 of 35 good, 8 with some (< 50%) chances, 8 really bad. But some of the bad ones are improved is we have the spade jack, which I didn't factor in too much. Also, opponents may not lead a spade, in which case we are almost always making

And if the slam is a bad one, the opps may still "sacrifice" over it.

All things considered, blasting to slam is not a bad way to go.

This is pretty much the usual way to play it.

Using the jump to four for strong hands makes slam bidding very difficult, so nobody does that any more when using otherwise-standard bidding. (By contrast, partnerships using strong club systems will frequently make the jump with strong hands without slam interest).

In general, a preemptive jump to four makes sense only when responder has five trumps, because it's uncommon for the preemptive value to outweigh the likelihood of bidding yourselves out of a good partscore when responder has only four trumps -- the offense to defense ratio is rarely high enough for a quick jump to four to be better than slower investigation.

In general, a hand with five trumps but no side singleton or void will not be offensively-oriented enough to justify the jump. 5-3-3-2 is a pretty poor shape for preemption; 5-4-2-2 is better, but the partnership's fit in the side suit can be critical to how well the hands fit, and it's easy to investigate, thus reducing the advantage of preemption. Also, when responder has a short suit the likelihood of opponents' competing is increased, making the jump to four a better idea.

Voids, on the other hand, aren't as common for the jump to four. For one thing, voids are much less common to begin with; for another, voids are so powerful that many of responder's void-bearing hands should be played more slowly, because of the slam potential inherent from a whole lot of trumps and a void. There will almost always be a second five-card suit, too (unless responder is exactly 5-4-4-0), again making slam too exciting a prospect to ignore.

Yes, if my partner opened 1H and I held -- QJxxx xxxx xxxx or -- QTxxx xxx xxxxx I'd usually jump to 4H, but those are the sort of hands it takes, and those are a lot less common than the ones with singletons.

I was too pessimistic that a spade lead would often set a
small slam - it seems to be a favorite even without the A!

It's very likely LHO will lead a spade since by inference RHO has
spade honors unless LHO has something like QJ(T/9) (and
even then, LHO might lead a spade). If dummy has a stiff in
spades, LHO will be bidding five/six spades so the Exclusion
Blackwood call gives partner the information he needs.

Without the A, is six really okay? Many cases that are
"rosy" are when dummy has the K (and to a lesser
extent combinations such as QJx and QTx with LHO leading
away from the jack) in cases 1 to 15; however, not all of the
cases are equally likely. Take an "ideal" distribution for RHO as
4=1=4=4, then dummy's average distribution is approximately
3.1=4.1=1.8=4.0. Dummy's hand is "limited" to between an
excellent 8-count to an awful 12-count so 9-11 in high cards
is a reasonable range; however, RHO has an opening hand, so
he's going to have on average one or more extra "critical"
cards compared to dummy (and of course, one of them is the
boss trump!). In any case, assume that LHO can't have any
king and that the "cover cards" will be in dummy or in RHO's
hand in proportion to expected suit length.

According to my calculations, dummy will produce the K or
a QJ(x..x) or QT(x..x) about half of the time. Even
without these spade combinations, dummy could have the A
with either the K or a stiff diamond to pitch a spade. The
probability of the dummy having the A is about 1/2 and there
is a probability of the dummy having either the K or a stiff
at about 40% (but obviously these two probabilities aren't
independent!). Thus, the chances of having one of these
"great" holdings is about 60%. Almost all of these holdings will
result in a cold slam or "great" chances, so bidding at least a
small slam seems correct since it's likely on average that slam
will be made more than 5/6 of the time on these holdings and
there are also "slim" chances for all the other possibilities. Of
course, if there is a tiny chance LHO could hold the K, all
of the above needs to be analyzed more carefully!

There is one extra ugly scenario (besides a spade lead when
opponents have "good enough" spades) where declarer is set:
when LHO leads a diamond!

Another point is that it's likely the "field" will be in slam, so not
bidding it will be bidding against the field.

huge thanks for the input so far.

as was played, i redoubled (?), lho bid 4c, partner bid 4h and it was left there.

partner held:

s: 964
h: AQ53
d: 9
c: A8754

Pooch, Chris and so forth have done this hand pretty well, but I want to chime in that I am never stopping short of slam.

If partner has the heart king, or it is onside, then slam is good unless his shape is 3=5=1=4, 2=5=1=5, or a few others that are wildly unlikely. (I am assuming partner has five trumps and splinter because that's what he promised. I'm assuming his shortness is not in spades because if it is, your opponents will bid six spades over your slam most of the time, so you definitely need to bid it.)

If partner has the queen of diamonds you will usually make seven -- but if he has that card and the spade king, he's at the top end of his range, and if he lacks the spade king you could still lose to it. It might be worth jumping to 6D -- I wouldn't bother with five, as competition could be a nasty problem. With the king of hearts and Qxx+ of diamonds, he should probably bid the grand. Against weak opposition I would bid just 5D, as partner will again take offensive action with the hand he needs, and I am less worried about my opponents' having full information.

About the worst hand he can have that still has the diamond queen is xxx Kxxxx Q xxxx; that's not a very big risk. Also, with that hand he wouldn't bid on over 6D, but might over 5D. OTOH, if you bid just 5D he might raise with xxx Kxxxx xxxx x, which would be ungood. All in all, I like 6D best. Were it not for the 4S bid I would try exclusion blackwood, followed by a 6D bid, which would achieve the desired result while being sure we aren't missing the heart king. You can't always have it all.

The way I play, partner is too strong for his 3H bid -- this is a seven loser hand with two aces, a stiff and primary support, and is worth a splinter (4D) if you play them. Note that it's not clear whether you'd have gotten to the grand if he'd bid that.

Also, your partner bidding 3H and then 4H, after you'd redoubled but before the 4C contract had swung around to you, was an error with literally any hand, and absurd with his actual holding. He should have doubled at his second call if he's going to start with 3H.

Redouble should mean you are excited about the idea of defending, and with a second five-card suit that will pretty much never be the case.

True, though it's only a problem when the diamond is a stiff, and LHO has the "long" trump. Not a big risk.

I think this hand is a big point in favor of the LTC approach to slam bidding -- if the losing trick count says a slam may be there, and there's no good reason to think it's not, bid it.

Easy to say, but not too important in this case. The usual reasoning is that you (the person doing the thinking) should make the field bid in close cases so as not to negate your advantage in the play -- but that assumes that (1) you're a better declarer than the field, and (2) the play will be nontrivial. While (1) may be right, the play of this hand rates to be straightforward -- for example, there are almost no dummies which produce squeeze possibilities. So I think it's best here (and, frankly, most of the time -- staying with the field is overrated imo) simply to do what will be right more often than not.

Figuring what the field will probably be doing, and the effect on the expected matchpoint outcome, when there is competition (or when there are alternative strains) is more difficult, but if we think there may be pairs settling for penalties that are less than the value of our game -- very unlikely on this hand -- we shoudl err toward the conservative side.

Bet 64 didn't think this hand would generate as much talk as it did. Bridge is cool...

Mmmph.

At different colors, I like 3D, or more. Opps have a fit, but they haven't found it yet; they're about to when RHO reopens. You'd probably bid on over a 2S contract, so you pretty much have to bid 3D now and hope that partner understands that with a good hand you'd have bid 2H. You don't go higher, despite all the trumps, because of the otherwise bad fit.

Please to be playing transfer advances...

Why anything but pass? Partner is still there, and will probably be able to judge better than you. If he doubles, you will bid 4H, and if that's a bad result (which it will be) you get it adjusted because you were misinformed in the auction (as I suspect you were -- playing a passed hand jump raise as limit just doesn't happen except in novice games). If you are concerned about missing a making four-level contract, why? Partner couldn't make a two-level overcall, so you aren't making whatever you bid now.

If it gets passed out and you are setting it, you may again get an adjusted score because of misinformation. And if the information is correct, you aren't setting it. You have been offered a freeroll; take it.

Even without the Q, the hand would be worth a splinter;
sure, it's then only an "eight-loser" hand, but with two aces,
the adjustment is one less loser in an eight-count and having
that fifth club is an asset. With the actual hand, it's closer to
a "six-loser" hand, so it's a gross underbid by about two levels.

Erk. No. Redouble here means the same thing as in:

1H X XX

i.e. You have high cards outside hearts and you're suggesting to partner that you penalty double them in something. Redouble should be played like this (rather than as "I have a good hand") for a few reasons. One is that you're not giving partner any specific information about your hand, just that it is "good", which won't help him if he is trying to decide whether to penalise or bid more hearts. Another is that you're failing to preempt LHO in an auction which could well end in a sacrifice.

A (fairly contrived) example of a redoubling hand:

AJx
xxxxx
AQ
AQJ

Yeah you have definitely not done enough there. As atakdog suggests, you probably need to work on hand evaluation. There are two ways to approach evaluating this hand. You can either visualise various hands from partner and figure out how the hand is likely to play out, or you can just count your losers, which in this hand would tell you that you probably only have a heart and spade loser, one of which partner will most likely cover.

Re what redouble means, it's actually pretty different from in 1M X XX because a fit has already been established. When that's the case, redouble either has a specific conventional meaning (don't worry about this, as it's not relevant here) or indicates a strong desire to defend. Two types of hands would redouble on your auction: a dead minimum that would not be accepting the game invitation, or a defensively-oriented one that had extra values beyond accepting game but that would not seriously consider making a slam try. Basically, if you think you can make exactly nine tricks, or exactly eleven, then doubling the bad guys at the four level can make sense instead of playing your major suit fit; your redouble says that one of those looks from your perspective to be the case.

In fact, I think it's the 1M X XX meaning that confused matters, because you have been taught to think of redouble as a general strength-showing call. In fact, a normal redouble shows either a strong desire to defend, or (as in the case of 1M X XX with values but no great fit for partner's suit) a desire to bid but no clear direction.

Alright MP tourney with FCBL

r/r

My hand

T7
K5432
A9
KQ98

FCBL's hand

AKQJ2
8
87
AJ743

Bidding goes

West Me East FCBL
1H P P 2H
P 2S P 3S
P 4S P P
P

Making 6 easy, but is it biddable, or even 6C for that matter? I felt my hand was incredibly strong based on how the bidding went.

FCBL ought to bid 3C as his invite, not 3S. After the club fit is revealed, your hand is pretty strong. If partner has the SAK or the SA and a heart void, 6C will be making a ton. After 3C you should bid 3D, cueing the ace. After that there are a number of reasonable sequences, but all of them should involve FCBL showing further slam interest and end in one of you bidding RKCB (which will be for spades since that's what FCBL still thinks you want to play). If it's FCBL, I would ignore the RKC and just bid 6C.

My initial reaction was that 2S over 2H is not the right bid, but after thinking about it for a while I don't think you can do any better without discussion. 2NT shows the values etc quite well, but fails as a practical bid. Partner will presumably expect that 3C would not be forcing, which puts him in a bit of a bind.

Michael's is a mini-maxi bid, generally. You should expect partner to either be preemptive: 0-7 or a really bad 8, or to have some serious cards, really good 14 or 15+. Random 10 and 11 counts that are 5-5 should just bid their suits or pass.

Since FCBL is in the pass-out seat, he would probably not come in here with a really weak hand. You can anticipate him taking another bid (it is matchpoints, but if you couldn't say anything, you either have points and hearts, or no points, and either way it's right for FCBL to pass with a weak hand).

Regardless, since the actual hand he holds is a maxi-, he's taking another bid. I'd bid 2N as you, showing the heart stop and good values. He'll show his minor: 3C. Zing! Now you're off to the races. I'd bid 3H as a game force, he'll bid 3S. You can cue 4D, he'll cue the stiff heart, and you can't help but find 6C now after a quick ace ask.

Just as an aside, I've definitely played with people who think that 2N here asks partner to bid his minor and says nothing about values or a heart stopper. Personally, I think it shows a hand roughly like yours. (But if you are playing this way, I think the auction goes roughly the same: 2N-3C-3H-3S-4D-4H-ace ask-6C.

There is one other detail about this hand: At MPs, 5C is almost always wrong. If you're not thinking 6C, you've gotta be thinking 3N here. As for 6S, the bidding system's we're used to don't allow us to easily end up in 5-2 fits (for a relatively good reason). Your partner has to bid this hand as though he's 6-5 or 6-4and be insistent on spades if you're going to end up there. Personally, I don't see it.

Edit: As to ChrisV's comment that partner would consider 3C nonforcing, this is why I would definitely play that 1X - p - p - 2X shows a real hand. If partner has a 7 count and is 5=1=2=5, he can just overcall the spade.

6S is down on a diamond lead. 6C is cold (barring pathological breaks).

Yeah 6N > 6S for sure. 6N is also down on a diamond lead, which is not unlikely on this auction. 6C is the right place to be.

Yeah forgot 6S is down on a diamond lead

Anyways, something that I had never encountered before that left me clueless

MPs w/w

xxxxx
A
KJx
Axxx

Bidding goes

LHO P RHO Me
P P 2d (Mini Roman)

What the hell do I do against that???