[Phil]

Here's one reason why we didn't advance in the GNT's:

---

Obviously we weren't on the same wavelength. ATB please.

[quiddity]

I snap-voted clearly west, because who cuebids with a 14-count and 3 little trumps and a crappy 5-card suit and AK-tight?
But then I looked at east's hand, and now if I could I'd change my vote to "both".

[aguahombre]

West's 4H bid, or 4C, or something other than 4S is O.K. in case East has more than the rock minimum that he actually holds. Perhaps it is just a misunderstanding about just how strong 4H should be; otherwise East would have merely bid 4S.

I personally prefer the 4H bid, which takes up a lot of room, to merely suggest a decent opening bid willing to cooperate --much like what he has.

[billw55]

Neither player seems the least bit concerned about the top trumps, so each gets some blame. I give west a little more for jumping in first.

[mikeh]

One can agree or disagree about the 4♥ call. West is near minimum with poor spades, but he has controls, and only a few ways to raise spades.

He'd need an unusual hand to keycard, and a very different hand to jump to 5♠, so realistically 95% of his spade raises have to be fitted into 4♥ or 4♠, which means that 4♥ has to have quite a range. Is that range as low as this? Not for me, but I wouldn't call 4♥ a huge overbid.

However, East lost his mind. He did so because he forgot a basic principle of bidding.

When a player commits his side to game, in an auction in which neither partner has yet had much chance to limit his hand, the player holding a minimum MUST at his first opportunity limit his hand.

East has game-forced via 3♠. He has shown, on his first bid, 5+ spades and an opening hand or equivalent playing values.

It is then his task to tell partner that that is all he has, and he does so by bidding 4♠ over 4♥.

The chances that by doing so he will miss a good slam are very remote, assuming that his partner knows how to bid. It is very difficult to imagine a dummy that makes slam good that would not also appear to West to have 5-level safety. Iow, if slam makes on this hand, East has to trust partner to make one more move, following which East can, should he choose to do so, show some enthusiasm.

[cherdano]

West imagined East having perfect cards, e.g. ♠AKQxxx and ♦AX.
East imagined West having perfect cards, e.g. ♠AQx ♥xx ♦KQxxxx ♣Ax.
Trying for perfect cards in a cramped auction leads to....
It seems besides the point to assign blame, as each partner made enough of a mistake to earn -10 IMPs by himself.

P.S.:

mikeh, on 2013-August-12, 15:57, said:

It is very difficult to imagine a dummy that makes slam good that would not also appear to West to have 5-level safety.

Yup, I had to be quite careful in constructing AQx xx KQxxxx Ax (which is already pretty close to having 5-level safety).

[Free]

Up until 3♠ all is normal, then both players went bezerk. But imo East made the biggest error of bidding past 4♠.

[aguahombre]

Free, on 2013-August-13, 06:11, said:

Up until 3♠ all is normal, then both players went bezerk. But imo East made the biggest error of bidding past 4♠.

Up until 3♠? Does that mean you object to the 3♠ bid itself?

[gszes]

3 card support 14 hcp all controls and a 5 card suit is way better than
most of the :junk: that passes for a 1 of a minor opening. I have zero
problems with w cuebidding 4h since their hand looks slammish.
E on the other hand (see mikeh) apparently forgot they had already
told p they had a game forcing hand with 5 spades and suddenly
felt they had extra values (I am not sure why since the heart K is
of dubious value). A nice simple 4s bid because E has nothing
more to add and with singleton heart K maybe less.

[MrAce]

% 100 West for me.

Jesus ! He has a hand which can not even raise to 2♠ had opps remained silent and pd bid 1♠ and we are looking for someone to blame ? Right there he is, sitting as LHO of S and RHO of N and CHO of E.

[Free]

aguahombre, on 2013-August-13, 10:11, said:

Up until 3♠? Does that mean you object to the 3♠ bid itself?

No, I guess I made a translation error. 3♠ is ok, the rest is from coocooland.

[aguahombre]

MrAce, on 2013-August-14, 02:29, said:

% 100 West for me.

Jesus ! He has a hand which can not even raise to 2♠ had opps remained silent and pd bid 1♠ and we are looking for someone to blame ? Right there he is, sitting as LHO of S and RHO of N and CHO of E.

Timo: West has a very nice opening bid. The fact that he would have rebid 1NT if responder had bid 1S doesn't have much to do with how he should rebid when Responder has shown more than four Spades and g.f. values. The two situations do not equate. West could have a lot less in the form of controls ---and more in quacks --- for his opening bid than he has.

It aint a mountain, of course, but I don't believe 4H shows a mountain ---just good cooperative stuff. It is East, with his rock minimum, who needed to slow down.

[Trinidad]

Both. Yes, West has a nice minimum opening. In fact, it is such a nice minimum opening that I would not have opened it 1♦. (A 1NT opening would have avoided all the problems.)

But once West decides that he has a minimum opening by opening this hand 1♦ and to sell it as a weak 1NT, he has no reason to bid 4♥. This cue should show extra values which makes the hand equivalent in strength to a 1NT opening and hence unbalanced. West should have stuck to his (wrong) decision to sell the hand as a weak NT.

Having said all that, East should have looked at his honor structure: It is most likely that West has 5(+) diamonds and is short in clubs. That means that the ♥K and the ♣Q are not working. East doesn't have any additional trump length or other factors to compensate for these non working honors. East should have signed off in 4♠.

Rik

[sathyab]

I probably wouldn't have found the 4♥ bid with West's hand, but I think it's a good bid. There're many near-slam hands that East can hold with good trumps that're impossible to bid with a simple raise to 4♠. How did the other table bid this hand assuming the bidding was the same up until 3♠ ?

[aguahombre]

What we have after the 3S bid by responder is only two ways of confirming spades as trump. 3NT, 4C, and 4D must be natural bids...leaving us only 4H and 4S. We choose to use 4H as "non-serious plus" ---leaving responder to just bid 4S if she doesn't have extras herself.

If Opener has "plus", he will continue. Anyway, that seems to be the reason for the difference of opinion about 4H ---it is stronger for others than it is for us.