ISTM that a diamond is the killer lead against any NT contract as it breaks all contact with dummy. And with hearts 4-0 you might not even make 3N.
My partner last night had a similar rush of blood.
I held S:xxxxx H:xx D:Kx C:xxxx and partner opened 2C.
The bidding went 2C - 2D - 2H - 2N (second negative) - 3C - 4C - 4N (Blackwood) - 5C (no aces) - 6C, losing the ace of diamonds (sitting over the king) and a heart.
Should I have bid the spades?
I don’t play second negatives; what is your agreement on what you need in order not to make the second negative?
Without any agreement to the contrary, I would not bid a second negative holding a king, and therefore would bid 2S over 2H. I don’t know why partner bid even 4NT - surely you cannot have an ace.
Why use 2NT as your second negative? That wrong-sides the hand if you end up in NT.
We were playing standard Acol, so 2N is the conventional second negative.
I might have had an ace. There was no harm in bidding 4N as he was able to cope with any response I gave. When I bid 5C showing no aces he should have passed, but he would have raised 5D to 6C.
As for bidding spades, yes, I think I’ll do that next time.
I held a freakish hand last night.
Q
AJT54
-
AJT9864
At IMPs with nobody vulnerable, partner opens 1S in 2nd seat and I respond 2C. Partner now bids 2D.
We play “4th suit may be artificial” but it doesn’t have to be artificial! I bid 2H. Partner jumps to 3NT. What next? I’ll give the rest of the auction after Dopers comment.
A 2nd hand from last night had an ordinary shape but freaked me out slightly because of the auction:
♠ 7
♥ AQ4
♦ AKQ98
♣ K854
Vul vs Non at IMPs, the auction goes 2D("multi") pass 2H(less than 12 hcp) to me. I don't know if this is a standard multi 2D, but it figures to be a weak-two, probably in spades.
I bid 3D. This underbid is probably already a mistake, but partner and I haven't discussed this sort of auction and at least now he knows what my longest suit is.
The auction continues Pass Pass 3H. I double. The auction then continues 3S Pass Pass.
I now bid 4C which ends the auction. +130 was a good board for us, as no game has a chance. 3SX for +300 would have been even better but I don't think either partner or I has a double. Not a very interesting hand, except I wonder how experts cope against Multi. Partner's hand was:
♠ J84
♥ K872
♦ 54
♣ T732This is teams, right? And you play 5 card majors?
I’d be strongly tempted to pass. A NT contract is usually preferable to a minor-suit one, especially with a misfit. Partner is likely 5-2-4-2 with H:Kx or H:Qx (artificial 4th suit only requires half a stop) and is strong so has a good stop in diamonds. 6N is unlikely as partner doesn’t have over 20 HCP. So pass 3N and overtricks are a bonus.
How about doubling instead? If the 2D multi shows the majors, you must have the minors, and doubling shows points. Partner can bid 3C.
Depends on when. Certainly not after his 3C bid. Partner has opened 2C and bid two suits, it’s very unlikely he has much length in spades. If you mean over 2H, it depends on partnership. Some might insist you have an honor in your suit. Some might insist that a K is too good for a second negative, but I’m not sure what else to do if you play with someone who insists on both.
I don’t think anyone plays “4th suit must be artificial” except possibly distinguishing between 1C p 1D p 1H p (1S or 2S).
If you play 2/1, then a pass of 3N is obvious. You’re already forced to game, partner doesn’t want to go farther, why should you with a misfit. If you don’t play 2/1, then partner needs to be a touch stronger, but I don’t see where you’re going anyway so pass. Partner would need 3 of KQ of your suits for slam, I’d think.
(My comment about “4th suit must be artificial” was intended as a joke.) I did pass 3NT, but am not sure it was obvious. I wasn’t concerned about slam — I just wanted to be in a game that had a chance.
BTW, what is the difference between partner’s jump to 3NT and a simple 2NT bid? What should he bid with, say, Axxxxx - Kx - KQJx - x ?
I finally did something right! (Even if only in the same way a stopped clock is right twice a day.)
In 2nd chair, vul vs non at IMPs you hold
KQJ3
AQ95
KJ84
J
You are playing five-card majors (SAYC). What do you bid?
Spoiler alert: I opened One Heart. I just did not want to guess what to rebid if partner responded Two Clubs to One Diamond. (And BTW, that’s what he would have responded to One Diamond.) It seemed better to tell one simple white lie than to let the auction go haywire. (I might not have been so bold with AQ32, but I had the Nine-spot! 
)
Over One Heart, partner did not bid Two Clubs: He jumped to Four No Trump. I bid Five Clubs, the correct response in our method which is Inverted (14,03,2,2q) Roman Keycard Blackwood. Partner rebids Five Hearts. What call do you make now?
Isn’t this signing off because you are missing an ace? I might be missing something here.
I would open 1D and rebid 2H if partner bids 2C. Over 2C this is not a strength showing reverse, just showing your suits. I’m rather lie about my diamond length than lie about my heart length.
But I have only played 2/1 forcing. It might be different where 2/1 is not game forcing.
I don’t play 2/1 game-force (though that’s what my partner was used to) and definitely play 2H as strength-showing on that auction. Maybe that’s a flaw in my method. OTOH, I do have the strength to reverse. However the reverse almost guarantees that 1st suit is better, while with normal order the 2nd suit could be equal or even better.
If I start with One Diamond and later bid a new suit, partner will think Diamonds is my best suit. But in fact it isn’t even my 2nd-best suit!
But I’m not at all convinced One Heart was “correct”; in fact I’d not have bid it except that I was feeling a little randy and spunky!
But I want to be in Six if we’re only missing one Ace! Can partner bid this way with only two Keycards? I suppose it’s possible, partner has, say, x Kxxx x AKxxxxx but I took the dive and bid Six Hearts!
It was very recently that we switched from Standard RKCB to Inverted RKCB and it hadn’t come up yet. So I was also slightly afraid he’d forgotten. (And in the post mortem he said he wanted to bid Five Diamonds to ask about Queen of Trumps but was afraid I’d get confused. :mad: “Same to you, buddy!”)
Partner’s hand was x KJxx Ax AKxxxx. 6H+6 was worth 12.5 imps, with most pairs never finding their heart fit.
Like I say, this success was more of a “stopped-clock” coincidence than due to any ingenuity on my part. Still, I might open another 4-card heart suit in future if it “feels right.” 
d’oh! meant to say “missing two controls”
What is your NT range? Yes, I know you have a singleton Jack.
Clearly partner is strong, therefore partner has been too quick. Over 1:heart: she should have bid 2:clubs:, then you bid 2:diamonds:. If partner has 
Ax then she can bid 2:spades: as 4th suit forcing, so you will bid 3N, and she can take it from there. Otherwise after 4:heart: you bid 4N Blackwood.
Pass. We’re missing at least one ace and probably two.
15-17, but I would never open One No Trump with a singleton. (I did open 1 NT recently with 2-2-4-5 for the same reason as I opened 1H with the present hand — I did not want to bid suits in an unnatural order — but even opening a 2-2-4-5 NT made me feel randy and spunky.)
If you want to argue for opening 1NT with a singleton, I think you should go with singleton King. Do others agree that the singleton King makes 1 NT less wrong than with singleton Ace?
My partner has a tendency to jump to game or jump to Blackwood on hands where I might bid more slowly, but I can’t say he’s wrong. The information gained by slow bidding is sometimes countered by the increased opportunity for confusion. :eek:
I didn’t hesitate for a moment when I bid 6H over 5H. What could partner have? I’d have to apologize contritely if he held x KJxx x AKxxxxx but isn’t that case less probable than others?
(His refusal to bid 5D asking for QH because he thought I might not know the bid irritates me. :mad: But he’s the best available at PlayOK. If none of you wants to join up won’t you at least reprogram one of your robots for the PlayOK interface? 
)
It’s a singleton honour. The Scottish international from whom I took lessons last year said he might open 1N on this sort of hand. Anyway this hand illustrates the problem of playing 5 card majors.
I have opened 2N on a 2-2-4-5 hand when both doubletons were AQ or AK.
Remember that 1N is an artificial pre-emptive bid showing (in theory) a balanced hand. But one of the canonical examples of an odd 1N is 2-2-3-6 when the 6 card suit is a solid minor.
With that hand, partner would have splintered to 3S or 4D.
Funnily enough, I’ve yet to master the second stages of RKCB. It just happens too rarely for me.
It’s especially the responses with a void that can require memorization. But on this auction, there’d be zero problem. Without the QH I’d bid 5H; any other bid would show the Queen. (BTW, with 6 or 7 hearts I might lie and pretend I had the Queen — is that normal?)
My partner and I do not play “singleton Swiss”; we play Jacoby 2NT. (Do many play both Jacoby 2NT and Singleton Swiss? The natural meaning, if any, of those splinter bids comes up very seldom, so perhaps playing both is a good idea.)
But do splinterers tend to splinter with a 1-4-1-7 pattern?
The shape is more important than the honour for a singleton 1N opening - here it looks very wrong as there is no rebid problem with 4441 17 pts, so even if it was ace of clubs you wouldn’t open 1N there IMO.
Something like 1444 15-16hcp might be reasonable for 1N, depending on the cards. Potential rebid problems brewing up there and 1N often leads to smooth auctions.
BTW, our “decision” to play Jacoby 2NT and not splinter bids was not a thought-out conscious choice. It resulted from the decision to keep things well-defined by adopting SAYC as a starting point. (I think each of us played splinters and not Jacoby 2NT when we actually played tournaments back in the Nixon era.)
The one major change to SAYC we quickly agreed is Inverted Minor Raises. It strikes me as very logical. However both the 2-raise and the 3-raise seem to come up very rarely.
You bid 1D-2C-2NT with the 4441 but feel too strong for 1NT after 1D-1S on the 1444. Did I guess this right?
I understand your point about 1NT leading to smooth auctions; i.e. it’s good to open 1NT often! But I’d rather lie about 1 hcp than about my pattern.
I’ve been trying to interest my partner in the Jacoby 2N; how’s it working for you?
You know you have a 5-4 or 4-4 major fit and a useful minor, so why bother with bidding the minor?