I wonder if there’s a theoretical solution for that, e.g. don’t count heart length as a ‘Queen’ unless you also hold AH.
I call the director. This reminds me of a slightly amusing story. On the U.C. Berkeley campus there is a coffee-shop where good players once played bridge often — e.g. Mike Lawrence, Kyle Larsen, Lew Stansby. I was kibitzing a game there one day when the auction went crazy. Two of the players — opponents — bid all the way up to the seven-level, changing suits, while the other two players passed in confusion. When the auction was over the two bidders tabled their hands face up — one had 14 cards, the other 12.
That is true, but when you have 2 keycards you don’t get a second chance. Either you show the queen at the first attempt or you never show it. Another source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwood_convention.
I do wonder, though, whether this approach should always be taken when hearts are trumps because of the problem of a 5S response. There again, I thought I had a very good hand on the bidding so far.
Do you play 3S as an unspecified minor suit? How does partner know whether to accept when holding one good and one bad minor suit?
I don’t think it is worth having the ability to stop in 4 of a minor when partner has 22+ points. I’d rather use those bids for investigating slam options. If you have a bust, just take your lumps in 2NT.
Really? Bid 5H showing 2 key cards. Partner then bids 5S asking for QH, so you deny by bidding 6H. Yes, you might miss the grand slam, but Sod’s Law says that one opponent will have QJx and you will go down in 7. If you’re playing Duplicate, remember that on average it’s better to go for the 60% score of 6H possibly making +1 than the 100% score of 7H which might go down and score you 0%.
5S does not ask for QH because the 5H response has denied it. And even if 5S did ask for QH, it forces you to slam anyway, so a 6H response would mean “no, I still don’t have it, so let’s go down in 6H”. Note that there is an ace missing on this hand in addition to QH.
I have made many posts in this thread about not bidding a grand at matchpoints unless you can count to 13 tricks, for exactly the reasons you give.
A suggestion: mandate a 3NT response to 3S. Responder now clarifies as follows:
4C = clubs
4D = diamonds
4H = minor 2-suiter, short hearts
4S = minor 2-suiter, short spades
4C/D are forcing, and are slam tries. You mentioned in a post about opener being able to bid 4NT as key-card after responder has shown a long minor. I disagree with this approach, especially playing matchpoints; you need to be able to get back to NT. 4NT should be “not interested, let’s play here”. If you want to make a slam try, cue bid first, then 4NT, probably by responder, can be key-card.
If you have no way to get back to playing in NT, you might as well abandon any means of showing the long minor. Just bid 6D over 2NT. It might go down, but 6D -1 will usually get you exactly the same number of matchpoints as 5D making. Zero.
On this actual hand, which I will post separately, 6D does make, but even though only one pair bid it, playing 5D+1 would have got you a zero. Everyone else was in NT.
I was interested to see if people were going to make a slam try, and if so how they would go about it in a minor opposite a 2NT bid. Opener had AKx AKx Qx AKxxx. Reminder, responder was xxx J9 AJ10xxx Q9.
My partner did not know what to do opposite 2NT. We had not discussed any way of handling the minors. He just bid 3NT. I think 4NT would have been a reasonable shot. The hand made 7 when KD was onside and the suit 3-2.
That would make it inconsistent with 2S over 1N and we don’t play sufficiently frequently. As I said, the situation has yet to occur. Hell, we play the Unusual 2NT and partner forgot it. So there were opponents having bid 1H - 1S and me 6-5 in the minors so I bid 2N and she looks completely blank.
Still, errare humanum est. Still, my partner and I bollixed another slam. Partner opens an Acol 2C and I’m sitting with 14 HCP. I bid 2S - positive response in spades - and partner rebids 4N. He meant it as Blackwood; I took it as quantative, so I bid 6N. We’ve discussed this upthread and I was very wrong. Partner bid 7S and I pulled to 7N. We were missing the ace of clubs. The grand made on any lead other than a club. A club was led. We were playing teams and the other team also bid 7N for a flat board.
Yeah - no point in getting fancy in an occasional partnership.
As would I, with a regular partner, but with an infrequent partner I assume RKCB. My “rule” is that if we had the chance to agree the trump suit in a forcing auction (in this case, 2C - 2S - 3S would do it) and didn’t, then 4NT = quantitative.
A recent national champsionship pairs event in the US also featured one pair who bid 7NT missing an ace. Just as in your case, one player pulled 7S to 7NT. The player with the missing ace was not on lead, but hesitated before passing 7NT. His partner led the correct suit, from a holding of KJxxx. The pair in 7NT called the director stating that the hesitation suggested a lead of that suit (7NT makes on any other lead). The director denied their claim but they appealed and their appeal was successful. They were awarded 7NT making, and this moved them from second place to first.
The hand that bid 7S had used RKCB despite having a void diamond. Earlier in the auction, he had cue bid diamonds. His LHO doubled and his partner passed. In that situation, a pass denies first round control (he would redouble with it) and so he was able to bid RKCB despite holding a void. His partner missed that possibility and when 7S came round to him, assumed they must have all the aces and bid 7NT.
Here’s a disaster that could have been an epic victory. I opened a weak 2H and was doubled. I went down for -800. But the other side had a cold 7NT. Unfortunately we were playing teams and our teammates only bid to 3N, making +4.
Still, hard to think of a better demonstration of the utility of a weak 2 opener - without that, you would almost certainly not have achieved such a good sacrifice (which it still was - just - even with the team result, and assuming you weren’t vulnerable, right?).
Playing matchpoints, I picked up K AKQJ87 KQJ10 AK. This is the first hand I have had in 42 years playing bridge that merits a 4NT opener. This asks partner to respond specific aces, i.e. 5C = 0 aces, 5D/H/S = ace of D/H/S respectively. 5NT = ? 6C = ? One of them means “two aces”, the other means “ace of clubs”. But which? Quite a few years ago English internationals Forrester/Lodge had a disaster over a disagreement on this.
Given that I did not know whether partner would understand a 4NT opening bid (she confirmed she would take it as straight Blackwood), and I would not understand a response of 5NT or 6C, I played safe with a 2C opening. Partner responded 2S, showing 5+ spades headed by 2 of the top 3 honours or better. Now what? In our system 4NT at this point would NOT be RKCB as we have not agreed a trump suit. I bid 3S to agree spades, then bid 4NT next time, which is now clearly RKCB, and over partner’s “one key card” response bid 6NT.
Maybe in another 43 years I will be playing with a partner with whom I have agreed what the 4NT bid and responses mean.
On the hand itself, partner was void in hearts, and they broke 5-2. But the doubleton was the 109, so all was well.
I had a couple of interesting hands this past week.
On Tuesday I picked up S:x H:AKJTxxx D:A C:AKJT. I duly opened 2C. Partner held S:AJxxx H:Qxxx Dx C:xxx and responded 2S. A bit of dickering later we were in 7H which depended upon finding the Queen of Clubs. I led a club from dummy and spurned the finesse. I saw the 9 drop from LHO so crossed to dummy and led another club, again spurning the finesse. The queen dropped!
Last night LHO opened a weak 2H non-vulnerable and partner doubled. I held H:AJT98 D:Kxx and left the double stand. We took them for 800, a clear top, despite there being a cold 3NT our way.
Assuming the Qxxx of hearts gives you two heart entries to dummy you have the slight extra chance that one defender holds KQx spades so 2 ruffs establish the spade suit for 2 club discards.