Plus, even the true rock-crushers can rarely make game by themselves - I think everyone agrees that AKx AKx AKx Axxx (25 HCPs!) is a 2C opener, but give partner a balanced Yarborough and it will make a whole 7 tricks.
The classic Acol 2C is explicitly not a game-force: 2C - 2D - 2NT is passable and most people would treat 2C - 2D - 2H - 3H and 2C - 2D - 2S - 3S as non-forcing as well.
The downside of opening 4S heavy comes the next time you open a “normal” 4S and partner puts you to slam on a balanced 9-count. Or doubles opponents’ overcall on an ace and a prayer because he expects you to have defensive values.
And this may be a difference between your opponents and mine, but I think you overrate the risk of opponents competing over a 2C opener, because that is where the four-digit penalties live.
Suppose RHO opens 2C and I bid 2NT for the minors on x x KQTxxx AQxxx (and realistically, how much better a hand could I have?). Next player doubles, partner gulps and comes out with 3C. This is doubled. Now what? If partner has 4 Clubs and a bust (it could even be 3 Clubs and a bust), 3C* is going for a packet and opponents probably cannot make slam.
Is a hand with 2.5 losers, versus the hand under discussion,
AQJTxxx
AK
Axx
x
which has four losers.
Plus, Cohen’s example hand has another thing going for it as a 2C opener - the AQxx heart suit. It’s not at all impossible that the right place to play is in hearts. So it passes the primary test, as he states - “I couldn’t stand it if it went 1S, all pass” - but it’s also wrong to say, “this hand belongs in spades”. So, you (could) open 2C.
But that’s the point of my comment. Absent a Namyats agreement to show the “heavy 4S” hand, IMHO it remains just that - a heavy 4S hand. Which is still a 4S hand. I do not see a virtue in opening a 2C bid “light”, because that just stretches the meaning of the unlimited opener versus the limited one.
Partner is not supposed to adjust by going to slam on a 9 count opposite a 4S opener. He bids as normal opposite a 4S opener, and if a slam is missed, you say, “sorry, I took a view on the hand to open in 4S instead of 1S or 2C”.
I admitted these types of hands are “cuspy” - a good 9, especially “…and a half if I squint”, trick hand could not be criticized for being opened 2C. It’s a judgment call. But my preferred style would be to default to opening a “heavy preempt” - where, mind you, we’re talking about opening in GAME, which is the purest form of a game forcing auction - in preference to a “light game forcing bid” that is ARTIFICIAL.
And, I feel that that hand under discussion is just a tad under what I would consider good enough to bridge the gap.
Maybe I should paraphrase my earlier summary as “I’d rather miss a close slam by opening a heavy 4S and shutting partner out, than reach a confidently bid bad slam by opening 2C”, how’s that?
(It’s also why I prefer to play Namyats / 3NT Gambling, so as not to have this scenario.)
Well the thing is, the more “shapely with light HCP” your 2C opener is, the more shapely and HCP rich your opponents hands tend to be. That’s the nature of dealing out all 52 cards to four people. And yes, bidding aggressively over an artificial strong club opener is fairly common in the game I play, especially if the opener is vulnerable and the overcaller is not.
Per your example, I would bid 2NT over 2C with that hand every time. Wouldn’t you?
If partner actually has a hand with 4 clubs and a zero count, how are the opponents not good for at least game in a major? Even if partner were 3-3-3-4 in shape, the opponents have TWO nine card major suit fits, and I have a four loser hand for partner and a double fit in the minors. At the THREE level!
I would say a pass is a replacement for the negative response and double shows some points. With the hand in question (K,xxxx,xxxx,Axxx) I would que-bid 3C.
And as for opening 4S with the powerhouse hand… definitely not. How can partner make reasonable decisions at the 5 and 6 level when on some preempts you have AK, Axx, x in the other suits, and in others you have x,xx,xx
Also, the strong 2C is slightly preemptive and may deter competitive bidding by the opponents.
I think we’re talking past each other here - I’ve already said that if you’re going to open 2C on this sort of hand you cannot treat the 2C opener as a game forcing bid. But even a strict Acol 2C is not a game force, so that’s not a huge sacrifice.
An advantage of opening this sort of hand 2C is that as well as more space to explore if partner has support you have option of stopping short of game if partner has nothing. And if opponents want to buy the hand at the 3-4 level, it may well be right to let them do it. Holding AQJxxxx Axx AK x, with no help from partner, I’d far rather try to take 4 tricks against 4C than make 10 tricks in 4S!
And of course if you don’t want to let opponents buy the hand, you can always bid 4S on the 2nd or 3rd round, by which time partner will have a better idea of your holding and hopefully can make a better decision at the 4 or 5 level. Of course, opponents will also have more information and sometimes this will let them find a sacrifice (or double) that they would not have bid over a straight 4S. Them’s the breaks.
(Put another way, the point of pre-empting is to remove bidding space and it only makes sense to do so if the hand belongs to opponents. Holding a strong 18-count - with spades! - you have no reason to think the hand belongs to opponents and hence no real reason to pre-empt)
Well, yes, at least non-vulnerable, but I was giving it as an example of a good 2NT hand to show that intervening on the rare “textbook” hand could be a gamble. I wouldn’t do it if the hand was a King weaker, which is a much more likely hand for an opponent to hold.
Vulnerable, I’d at least give serious thought to shutting up and letting opponents sail into game with every suit breaking badly. (And non-vul vs vul, at least, I’d also bid over 4S with that hand, so…).
You’re right, I was careless. I agree that if partner really has a 3-3-3-4 0-count, opponents showed poor judgement in doubling you rather than bidding their major suit game.
But in practice, depending on opponents system the double of 2NT is likely either to show a penalty double of the minors (and hence a decent club holding) or a take-out for the majors (and opener’s decision to double 3C shows something like a 2-3-4-4 shape). Either way, partner is more likely to be 4-4-2-3 than 3-3-3-4 and it could easily be something really ugly like 5-4-2-2. If partner has S xxxx H Axxxx D xx C xx (possible if opener is light), you’ve taken a big penalty to save opponents from going down in 4S.
On the first, I initially passed, my partner bid 1S (showing 5 cards in the suit), and I splintered to 4C, having a void in Clubs and good 4 card support and sufficient points. My partner then bid 4NT (Blackwood), to which I responded 5C - no Aces - which was passed round leaving me in a 2-0 fit. A rout ensued.
On the second, I made a weak jump overcall and my partner took it to be a strong overcall.
On the third, my RHO opponent opened 2D, showing both majors. I was 4-4 in the minors with 16 points so doubled for take-out. My partner bid Spades having Txxxx, so, having cover in Hearts (AJx), I bid NTs and we missed the huge Diamond fit that we had.
From your posts you are evidently a much better player than I am, so it is heartening to hear of disasters such as the first hand above - that could easily have happened to me! Perhaps your partner is more my level…
On the third, did you miss a diamond slam? If not, was NTs such a disaster?
Quartz - ouch. Regular partner or pick-up? If it was a pick-up, it sounds like you didn’t fully discuss a system beforehand - or someone forgot what had been agreed.
If it was your regular partner, I’d ask if he had something on his mind, because it seems like his head just wasn’t in the game.
Partner opens 1 NT (15-17) and you hold AKJ82 AQJ84 6 A6
This is the VERY first hand you’re playing with an unfamiliar partner but he seems reasonable. You’ve agreed Stayman, Jacoby, but NO Gerber. How do you proceed?
Having not discussed it, I’d probably bid 2D transfer. If partner super-accepts, bid 6 H. If partner responds just 2H, I’d jump to 3S. I’d think partner would have to read that as a game force and would bid either 3NT 4H or 4S.
I’d bid 6 of whatever strain he picked. You have a minimum of 34 HCP. You can’t be possibly off two quick losers, He’s unlikely to lead diamonds. Under-leading an A or K in 6NT is a very bad lead. Leading the K without the A is impossibly bad, and leading an A usually isn’t too good. If partner is missing either A and K of D, he’s sure to have two of KH KC QS so you have your tricks at worse on a finesse
You could lose to AD and on a finesse, but take the chance.
If he bids 4M, you can go through Blackwood if you wish, but don’t you probably want to take a chance on 6 of the major regardless of the answer?
Are there free-ware engines that one can download to estimate bridge probabilities? Partner is a very strong favorite to have the missing Ace, and if he does have it, I think that Grand Slam is very likely, on a finesse at the very worst. I tend to be too timid in my slam bidding so (spoiling any suspense) I overcompensated for my usual timidity and decided we were going to the Seven level no matter what. :smack:
I always bid my suits in the “normal” order. I considered bidding 2H and then jumping to 7H — “Grand slam in which major, partner?” but didn’t dare risk that new partner might worry I’d forgotten Jacoby transfers.
I think you should try Stayman first and on a positive response go for Blackwood. 6H or 6S is a better bet than 6NT, but if partner has the missing Ace then 6N will score better. Note that 4NT after a 2D response would be quantative as no suit has been agreed. Stayman will also allow the use of cue bids, so after a positive response you could cue-bid 4C hoping to hear 4D, unless that might be taken as a splinter.
I wouldn’t use a transfer because partner may well have Txxx or xxxxx in the suit and feel unable to super-accept, and might not even on SQxxx. Remember that on a transfer, you could have very few points. So I’d like to see the bidding go 1N - 2C - 2H/S - 4N - onwards or 1N - 2C - 2D - 6N.
It would also be quantitative over a 2H/S response as no suit has been agreed. Imagine something like Kxx AQxx A10xx Kx. You bid 2C and partner bids 2S. Now what? 4NT quantitative.
A commonly used method is to set trumps after a Stayman response by bidding three of the other major. Hence if it starts 1NT - 2C - 2S, then 3H = agreeing spades, slam-try. Then a subsequent 4NT bid is RKCB.
On the actual hand, if I have no agreed way to show a 55 game force (e.g. with some partners I play 1NT - 3S shows that), then I transfer to 2S and bid 3H. This is game forcing and gives partner a chance to show support for a major.
I don’t know of any engines to calculate that sort of probability, but as partner has about 75% of the missing points, that’ probably a good enough estimate.
If this is a club game, and I am assuming matchpoints, I would not bid a grand slam on that sort of probability. You get no field protection. Making a small slam is rarely a bad board. I have unhappy memories of going down one in a good grand when nobody else bid the small slam.
It’s IMP scoring against 19 other tables. I don’t know what that’s called: that scoring method didn’t exist at tournaments when I played in the olden times.
With 34-36 hcp given partner’s 15-17, or probably 39 “Goren points” altogether, I’m surprised y’all are reluctant to go out in Grand style! Seven Spades was worth 13.8 imps; small slam 2.2 imps. Two pairs stopped in game losing 9+ imps. Two pairs bid 7 but failed, losing 15+ imps.
Our auction was rather Mickey Mouse: 1NT 2C 2D 3S 4S 7S.
I would have been full of remorse if partner had no Aces, but don’t want to try an ace-asking convention if there’s risk of ambiguity.
Bidding 4NT over 2H or 2S implicitly agrees the suit.
By bidding 2S partner has denied having four hearts, so you bid 3D. Partner now knows you have 4+ hearts and 4+ diamonds and 3 or fewer clubs. If partner bids 3NT then you can bid 4NT quantative.
Interesting. I’ve not come across that. I don’t see the need for the extra step.
You can, of course, agree to play it that way but it is not the normal method. See here, point 4. Note that Stayman then 4C would be ace (or keycard) asking, in that document. And here, example 4. It is actually a 2NT opener, but the principle is the same. And here.
3D shows hearts and 5+ diamonds. Could still have up to 4 clubs (0454). See the third of the links I gave above.
It sets the trump suit to allow cue-bidding to proceed. It also allows opener a say in whether slam might be good rather than just have responder bash out RKCB/Gerber.
AKJ82
AQJ84
6
A6