I’m with Quartz on playing the KD. If you know the correct defence, don’t rely on partner to be on the same page if you can force him to do the right thing. Partner cannot stop declarer discarding on the spades, unless declarer is dumb enough to attempt to play trumps first and is missing the AH.
Here’s another one. You are North and vulnerable and partner opens 1H. West is non-vulnerable and overcalls 2S (weak jump overcall.) You hold S: Q975 H: K6 D: J4 C: AKQ95. What do you bid? East will overcall 4D.
Full hand:
[indent]S: Q975
H: K6
D: J4
C: AKQ95[/indent]
S: KT8642 S: J
H: JT3 H: 98
D: 8 D: KQT97653
C: 762 C: 84
[indent]S: A3
H: AQ7542
D: A2
C: JT3[/indent]
7N is, of course, cold, as are 7C and 7H but can you reach any of them?
I play 2 over one forcing. You need some aggressive bidding. At IMP’s or rubber I wouldn’t be ashamed to play the small slam… you do need a trump break after all (68%)
1H 2C
2H 3H
3S 4C
4D 5C
5NT 6H
7H
5C - you can count 11 tricks so don’t sign off
5NT - partner has very good clubs and something else. Maybe the king of trumps?
6H - one of the top three
7H - worst case you need to drop or finesse the club queen
3C.
I think you are missing the fact that opps overcalled 2S over 1H.
Amarone - d’oh!
ok. Try again.
1H..2S..3C..4D
P...P...4H..P
4NT
At this point, presumably playing RKB, South shows the 2 missing top controls. North bids 5NT… why not? Since 5NT guarantees all the top controls South thinks “I hope my clubs run” and bids 7 hearts or 7 no trump.
Again, pretty optimistic bidding.
Why is South going to pass over 4D? And why is North going to bid 4H when South might only have four hearts?
Perhaps a double by South might be best - an improvised cue bid agreeing clubs? But I don’t see how to get to 7C from there.
What North bids after 1H - 2S depends a lot on what partnership agreements are - depending on system you can make a case for 3C, 3S, 2NT, 3NT or Double.
I’d probably double - 3C would show six Clubs and (usually) fewer points, planning to bid no-trumps if partner responds in Diamonds. If East has the nerve to bid 4D over the double, South has a problem - his hand looks slammish opposite a strong hand with Clubs, but how does he investigate?
The best I can come up with is a lucky accident:
1H - 2S - Dble - 4D
P - Dbl(1) - P - 5C(2)
P - 5D(3) - P - 6C(4)
P - 6H(5) - P - 7H(6)
-
- Could be a juicy penalty if partner has 4 Diamonds and can leave it in
-
- Sorry, I don’t really have Diamonds,
-
- Cue bid, slam interest
-
- Nothing to show in Spades or Hearts, could gamble 5NT if it was natural
-
- I forgot to show my 6-card suit, and I’m worried about a Diamond ruff at trick 1
-
- Partner bid 6 without the KH
I think you’ve got an extra or missing Pass in there after the 4D bid. (Note that 4D is only 2 or 3 down, a very good sacrifice even if doubled.)
lemme try again
If you were North, would you not be worried about a spade ruff at trick 1?
In post 703 I said that I play 2 over 1 game force, which includes 5 card majors but I forgot to restate that for my new auction.
Let me clarify my auction:
N E S W
1H 2S
3C(1) 4D P(2) P
4H P 4NT(3) P
5H(4) P 7H
(1) If I could bid at the 2 level it would be forcing for one round and we might get out below game. But this is at the 3 level and we are committed to bidding game.
(2) Forcing pass because of the game force in effect.
(3) RKC 1430
(4) 2 key cards
As merrick said, North has a few options for his first bid. For example, vulnerable against not, most match point players would bid 3NT. My auction shows a way to get to the grand… I’m not saying it has to be bid this way. I would be interested in seeing the results for the room. I’m betting that only some got to the small slam and nobody to the grand.
Only one pair - Scottish internationals - bid to a slam, and the slam was 6H, making +1. Everyone bid to the game in hearts except one EW who bid to the doubled game in Diamonds, going down for 800 - a fine sacrifice against the slam, but not against the 4H game (which scored +3 for 710).
I’m not surprised - with the bidding at the 4 level by opener’s second bid there’s no time to explore and while South has a nice hand with lots of controls his suit needs support and it’s hard to justify anything more than 4H over 4D. And if South signs off in 4H, North is unlikely to push on with only two-card support and no controls in Spades or Diamonds.
Maybe if North can bid a game-forcing-by-high-card-strength 3C on the first round, as in K364’s attempt.
You were quite right about my sequence - it’s more an attempt to construct a plausible story than bidding I’d actually recommend.
I prefer 3C on the first round to show the strength and location of values. An issue with double is that it shows values in both minors. Over 4D, partner is good enough to bid 4H, after which you will be happy to have Kx support. However, it is still tough to make another move with two losers in each of opponents’ suits. You know partner has some values there, but it’s difficult to find out if it’s enough. The only try available is 5H. If you do bid that, partner will bid 6H with all those aces, but I see no route to 7. As someone said up-thread, I am not too concerned about missing a grand needing a 3-2 break and no opening ruff.
I just had a minor disaster. Partner couldn’t stop reprimanding me. Since we learn from harsh words, I thought I should post here and hope for more abuse.
73
-
KQJT84
T7542
Vulnerable against not at IMP scoring, partner deals and opens One Spade. I wasn’t sure how to respond to this but RHO overcalls Two Hearts so I made a negative Double.
The auction continued Pass, Three Clubs, Pass, and I Passed. LHO balances with Three Hearts and this is Passed around to me.
What do you call now? If you bid, LHO will call Four Hearts and that is Passed back around to you again.
Why are you not raising clubs? You have five card support for partner and a fit and a void in the opponents’ suit. A single raise is fine. If partner fails to bid on after 4H that is their choice. I’m expecting partner to have five+ spades and four+ clubs.
I also felt like my hand seemed almost “better” than a Pass over 3C, and a 4C bid would have worked better. But partner approved of this Pass.
Anyway, assume teammate passes 3C in your absence and suddenly gets a severe bee-sting allergy. You are drafted to finish the auction. 
I’m sorry, but at this point I’m double-guessing partner. If partner had been 5-0-4-4 then partner should have bid diamonds or raised clubs.
Partner didn’t double 4H, so I think they are making. If partner has good clubs, you’ll make 10-11 tricks in clubs but I’m just going to pass. Could be a disaster.
With 20/20 hindsight, you should have passed over 2H - a negative double of 2H should have more substance. Your hand has distributional playing strength - pass first and back in with diamonds if you can later.
If the opponents have 10 hearts between them, they are bidding in a very devious way.