6S isn't tempting, it is obvious. If partner has a good fit for my majors and no interest in defending 5C, then the slam must be odds-on. Also, if you can think of a hand that allows for a grand slam (AQxx, KQx, Axx, xxx), don't stop short of the small slam.

I think you made various mistakes on this hand, one of them is a classical blunder.

The classical blunder is: don't inquire for keycards prematurely, especially with a telling hand. When you are slamming, you have to ask yourself: do I have a telling hand or an asking hand? An asking hand has got something that really cannot be explained in the bidding (some freak distribution), so you must go and find out as much as possible about partner (ask partner). If you have a telling hand, you have values that can easily be relayed by cuebidding or responding to keycard inquiries (tell partner).

When your partner told you that he was 5/5 and strong (I play it the same, but in my case it is GF), you lost control of the auction by ASKING, when you had to be TELLING.

Your correct bid after 3C is 4C. You have excellent support for his club suit. Not only, that, you set the perfect pace for cuebids, because after partner's expected 4D, you can bid 4S, showing you have no support in hearts. Partner will know what to do. He can inquire with 4NT and if he signs off after your 5H, you know a keycard is missing. If he does a try for grand, you have an easy 7C with your spade suit and Kd.

After 4C reaching the grand slam isn't difficult.If you play RKC Lackwood (Exclusion RKC), partner can bid 5D, you reply 5NT (2 keycards)-7C.

If you don't play Exclusion RKC, you can still get there:

1H-1S
3C-4C
4D-4S
5D-5NT
7C.

Partner's 5D bid is a grand slam try, he has heard you skipping hearts, so he must have first control in both red suits. With your solid spade suit, all you need to know is AQc and you use Josephine GSF to find out.

Cliffs: Instead of taking control in a spot where you end up not knowing what to do, do it the other way and put your partner in a spot where he knows exactly what to do.

Gabe, thanks for replying. Really good post and I'll try to think about in this way.

For our auction, 1H-1S-3m is not GF for us, so we would treat 4m as invitational. As we bid it I am not sure if I have another option to treat the hand without signing off or making an invite.

If 4c is not forcing, you must really change your system. How often do you want to finish in exactly 4C? How else can you agree clubs for slam purposes?
The consequence of playing 3C as GF and 5/5 is that 2C can be a really strong hand and is practically round forcing.
If you insist on playing 3C as not GF and 5/5 then the correct follow up is that the only partscores available are 3C itself (you pass) or sign off to 3H. Anything else must be GF. You cannot use 4th suit as a general GF, it makes your bidding unclear. The 3D 4th suit in this situation is to be used for good hands with no clear follow-up. I have nothing to tell, other than us playing game. What do you have? Extra distribution? Diamond stopper? Secondary spade support?

Yeah, essentially that's why I bid 3D.

Anyways, rather than dissect our system I still am unsure of how to treat bidding keycard when partner responds with an odd number of keycards and a void.

You pretty much know partner's whole hand after 6D, right? Either 1606 or 2605? You're holding all the spade cards and partner has no diamonds so must have AKh, AQc, and almost certainly another [heart] honor, possibly both. 7C will still be a good contract opposite AKxxxx in hearts, moreso if we have the Tc.

Club game MPs. At the table, my partner was playing precision, and was max bearish on his hand despite having two bullets. If he has a red queen, seems like slam is on a hook, and with Qc (as long as not doubleton) seems like its good. We end up in 6S, and get an ominous T lead. What's the best line here, even it it looks like chances are remote? Also, this is a club game, I would sort of expect this to be close to hopeless at something like the blue ribbons.

A T x x
A 9 x x x
Q x x
x

Lead: T

K Q J x x
J T
A x x x
A K

Spades are 2-2 if that matters.

*scratches head* rise with the Q and hope some silly reason LHO led from KT9x?

You make when LHO has a singleton diamond, both heart honors and hearts break 3-3. So that's something.

I think at a high level event that's basically the only out.

I ended up pulling trump cashing two clubs pitching a diamond, and led a diamond to east's K. At this point I need to hope they lead a club (probably to avoiding leading away from the Kh), although I don't think there is any time this is correct. Vs avg club player though I think this gives a better shot at making?




Different hand, which I thought was pretty cool. We're playing IMPS and end up in 6. Maybe 6N is better since it might be rightsided, but we're here now.

A 8 7
A K J
T 9 5 4
A K T


Lead Q

J T 5 3
8 3
A K Q J 7 2
7




Do you guys see a better line?

Hugely disappointed in ACBL bridge bulletin in allowing a letter to the editor of

Oh

I swear this was random, but I got dealt AKQJT98765/A/A/A and my RHO opened 1H. Can you believe it??

Pretty sure it is more likely to win the lottery twice in a row than this happening.

I would bid 2H.

Seems like a flat board tbh.

Impossible DUCY?

7N might be better than 50% at the club level somehow.

Anyone planning to be in Columbus for nationals? Literally like a 30 min drive for me and I'll probably be looking for someone to play some events.

Game is dead right now.

bbo more alive than i've ever seen it, tbh

Yeah apparently their servers are being overloaded. Which I get. **** I was watching some known star hosted table in invisible mode. They were desperate enough for a fourth I ended up playing a few hands.

lol that was with me!

Yeah that is true. My local scene is not usually too big on BBO but a lot of folks are getting on there now.

Wow, this thread got buried

Weird bidding spot on one of the BBO free dailies just now, r/w RHO deals and opens 2s:

AJxx/AQJ3/AKQ74/-

What should I be doing here and what should be my plan? I'm figuring that partner really only needs as little as Kh, a singleton spade and not be stupidly stocked up in clubs and slam looks very good, but my first call's what I'm trying to work out. Double sucks if partner gets excited in clubs, I guess 3s ought to be michaels here but if partner has 3 hearts it could get a bit dicey, so I ended up overcalling 3d, thinking that with a weak two on the right it'd be pretty hard for both LHO not keep competing and partner to not keep bidding

you have 21hcp and a void, i think you need to start with a dbl. If he lebs or bids 3C you'll bid 3D (breaking the relay so you don't end up playing 3C). If he bids 3-red you'll bid 3S.

That's at least the start to my approach. When you've got that much you just have to start with a double.

ok, a "how to not get ****ed over by the BBO robots" bidding question. w/w, MPs:

x
AKQJT9x
xx
AJ6

Partner deals, bidding is:

1s - 2h
3d - 3h
3n - ?

Looking at the descriptions, partner's 3NT is implying a club stopper so assuming he has Kc, I think we want to be in notrumps as it's matchpoints, he probably has precisely a singleton heart and we'd have entries to dummy to cash all the hearts, he really doesn't need much at all for six to be pretty close to cold, but how do I get to the right spot? I couldn't see any way to check if we were off an ace, if I jump to six I'm probably promising the world and partner jumps to seven, in the end I tried 4NT which was a 17-18 point invite, which got passed, he shows Axxxx - x - AQJ5 - KTx, making six when defenders discarded down to Qx in clubs, and would have made seven as the Kd was onside