[lulu747]

My partner and I dealt this hand while practising. We got a bit stuck with the bidding and ended up with a pathetic 3NT. We subsequently realised that 7NT is possible but how to bid? (SAYC)

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[helene_t]

Hi Lulu, welcome to the forum!

7NT is not the best contract since it might not make on a heart lead. Maybe at matchpoints it is good to bid 7NT, opps probably don't lead a heart and even if they do you might still be lucky. But 7♥ is a safer contract.

3♣ shows a good hand, I think 15+ points or such, so South must not just bid 3NT. 3♦ or 3♠ is better. But I don't know how to take it from there.

[Cyberyeti]

 helene_t, on 2015-September-09, 07:35, said:

Hi Lulu, welcome to the forum!

7NT is not the best contract since it might not make on a heart lead. Maybe at matchpoints it is good to bid 7NT, opps probably don't lead a heart and even if they do you might still be lucky. But 7♥ is a safer contract.

3♣ shows a good hand, I think 15+ points or such, so South must not just bid 3NT. 3♦ or 3♠ is better. But I don't know how to take it from there.

7♥ hasn't made yet either, on a spade lead do you play for clubs 4-3, or try to ruff one in dummy ?

[gszes]

Slam bidding takes a lot of work and that is why you see so many players just blast to small slam since they do not know or have little confidence their p will be on the same page they are. Your bidding was sound enough to get you to 3n (*picture responder's hand as KQ432 5 KQ7643 A) and all you needed to do was take the bidding a step further.

How to bid is largely system dependent but playing standard there is a nice bid available after 3n and that is 4c. Once clubs have been bid naturally, as they have given your bidding, pulling 3n to 4c is a slam try. Note that responder's hand can have all kinds of values. If p does not wish to go slamming they try to sign off in 4n. Anything else is a cue bid (yes even 4h would be a cue bid). There is a TON of information that can be exchanged from here and it might take 3/4 pages to describe it all. I will just give you the sequence and you and partner can decide if you want to pursue this line of slam search (and research:)).

after 3n
4c slam try
4d cue (*with other responder hand provided this would be a 4n sign off try instead)
4h willing to sign off no spade control (heart suit should be 1 loser max 6+ to bid this way else sign off in 5c)
4s cue (ace)
4n rkc for hearts
5d 0 or 3 (1430 responses) can't be zero after promising the spade ace
7n MP We can count 5c 6h and 2 side aces as a minimum unless p has extremely radical distribution so 7N is the way to go at MP
7H IMPS Just in case responder has a singleton in clubs we hedge a bit and bid 7h since it scores as well as 7n and is a teeny tiny bit safer. Once can make the case for bidding 7h at MP as well since grand slams are not usually bid and 7h rates to be a tiny bit safer.

Unless responder has really radical distribution this should make 13 tricks the hedge at 7h at IMPS is becasue 7h might be just a tad easier to make if responder has a singleton/void in clubs.

[Zelandakh]

 gszes, on 2015-September-09, 11:46, said:

Slam bidding takes a lot of work and that is why you see so many players just blast to small slam since they do not know or have little confidence their p will be on the same page they are. Your bidding was sound enough to get you to 3n (*picture responder's hand as KQ432 5 KQ7643 A) and all you needed to do was take the bidding a step further.

How to bid is largely system dependent but playing standard there is a nice bid available after 3n and that is 4c.

Your post makes it sound like you approve of the 3NT rebid and I know you are too good for that. As this is the N/B forum I think it is necessary to point that out explicitly - 3NT was wrong here. 3♣ in SAYC shows extras, typically about 16hcp or so. So Responder needs to be thinking slam. How to bid it specifically is difficult, as misfits often are, but I think getting to 6♥ or 6NT ought to be well within reason. Missing the grand here is not something to worry about at N/B level; missing slam completely on the other hand is a more important lesson to take away.

[gszes]

 Zelandakh, on 2015-September-15, 07:51, said:

Your post makes it sound like you approve of the 3NT rebid and I know you are too good for that. As this is the N/B forum I think it is necessary to point that out explicitly - 3NT was wrong here. 3♣ in SAYC shows extras, typically about 16hcp or so. So Responder needs to be thinking slam. How to bid it specifically is difficult, as misfits often are, but I think getting to 6♥ or 6NT ought to be well within reason. Missing the grand here is not something to worry about at N/B level; missing slam completely on the other hand is a more important lesson to take away.

Sigh it was indeed unclear and I apologize --- I provided a alternative responder hand (which would make 3n a reasonable choice) and I hinted that south should blast to 6nt, since their partnership did not have the tools for sensitive slam investigation, but it was not specific enough. I was hoping to get opener to realize the slam potential of their hand even opposite a far less interesting responder hand --- Axxx xx Axxxxx A where the same 7h/nt is possible MY BAD

[PedroG]

Hi All,

I'm not sure how can the 3♣ response show a good hand probably a system problem, what can we bid when our opening hand is something like:

xx
AKQJxx
-
Jxxxx

But IMHO the problem here is that both the opener and the responder have underbid, I do think that the opening bid of 1♥ is a underbid, you don't need much from partner toi have game, do you really want to rest in 1♥ when partner has :

KJxx
xx
xxxx
xxx

or god forbids

KQxx
xx
xxxx
xxx

So even if you don't like to open 2♣ with two-suiters I think this is one of the cases that I would have done it.