I'm going to be playing in the East District Swiss Pairs with Martin Stephens in a couple of weeks, and we decided to do some bidding practice, since we haven't played together in the best part of a year, and have changed our system since then.
However, the question did come up of what Martin could have bid if he'd wanted to make an ongoing move without just jumping to 6♠. Up until that point in the auction, he hasn't really shown any extras (3♣ was just bidding out his shape), and so really wants an alternative to 4♠ than shows ♠ support. We both agreed afterwards that 4♣ is probably a reasonable option - it's clearly forcing, can hardly be an attempt to play in clubs on this auction, and he could have bid 4♦ if he wanted to agree diamonds below game level. if I took 4♣ as a slam try, I'm not really sure what I'd bid. All I really care about once Martin has shown ♠ support is whether he has the ♠A, but I'm not sure I can find that out. Would a grand slam force apply here? And if it did, could he be expected to bid the grand with only one of the top three honours? I'd probably just end up punting the grand anyway. Anyone have a more scientific auction that gets them to the grand?
(1) Play lebensohl, so that bidding out ones shape shows some decent values. e.g. at least 7 useful points
ReplyDelete(2) This auction is really really complicated. I don't see why 4C cannot be a reasonable suggestion of a place to play, as an extreme example, how would you have bid x xxxx x AQJxxxx?
If you are not playing 2/1 you can move your lebensohl minimums so that it is when partner doesnt bid 2N over 2S, it is impossible for him to have more clubs than hearts, but in the absence of that agreement, you cannot tell if he is 6-4 either way around.
(3) There are lots of ways around this problem, but I am not super keep to write an essay on the subject :). Check out the BBO forums as this sequence always comes up.
I'd open the South hand Two Clubs. Not suggesting that helps or anything, just saying that's what I'd do. If you're lucky then you can get Spades agreed early then someone can bid Blackwood.
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