[cencio]

---

N dealer

[smerriman]

I expect I would start:
1♥ - 1♠
3♠
You can throw in a couple of control bids if you like but when South asks for keycards and finds 4, he can count 13 tricks in spades.

[cencio]

 smerriman, on 2022-May-27, 01:02, said:

I expect I would start:
1♥ - 1♠
3♠
You can throw in a couple of control bids if you like but when South asks for keycards and finds 4, he can count 13 tricks in spades.

Can you risk ending up hearts? With a different bid. or showing spade is always better than support heart

[Cyberyeti]

 smerriman, on 2022-May-27, 01:02, said:

I expect I would start:
1♥ - 1♠
3♠
You can throw in a couple of control bids if you like but when South asks for keycards and finds 4, he can count 13 tricks in spades.

I should add it's a great grand, and this is the right approach to bidding it, but in N/B you might not play it well enough to make it unless both majors are 3-2. You have to think ahead where you need the entries and also not draw trumps immediately.

[mw64ahw]

Playing a 5cM 2/1 GI with Nebulous 2♣ & Kaplan Inversion (responder doesn't show 4♠)

1♥ - 2♣ GI or GF w. 3♥
2♥ 4♠ - 2♠ 4♠ Sets trumps
2NT Strength? - 3♥ Intermediate
4♣ SI w. control & 2♠ honours - 4♦ control
4NT shows even keycards including ♥ control - 5♣ K♣ continued slam interest
5NT Q♠? - 6♥ Q♠ & K♥ Grand?
6♠ no other values

Replacing 5NT with 5♦ may elicit the grand from South, but ending up in 7NT may be a risk.
Even with the grand in ♠ the play isn't that straightforward.

[smerriman]

 mw64ahw, on 2022-May-27, 01:59, said:

Playing a 5cM..

I think those three words is about the limit of your post for the Novice and Beginner forum..

 cencio, on 2022-May-27, 01:09, said:

Can you risk ending up hearts? With a different bid. or showing spade is always better than support heart

The nice thing is that you don't really have a choice but to bid 1♠ - something like Jacoby 2NT would require 4 card support.

[Cyberyeti]

Our auction has a couple of quirks, but N will show his actual hand or the 4522/4531 version, and S will be able to work out that 13 tricks are there if either both majors break, or one is 3-2 and the other is 4-1.

1♥-1♠
3♠-3N(high card heart cue)
4♣-4♦
4♥-4N
5♦(1/4)-5♠(signoff if 1)
6♠(4, no side K, no Q)-7♠

As to the play for N/B people, I will assume they lead a trump, if they lead a club you must win the K and preserve the A then basically play the same way.

K♠
A♦
♦ruff
♠ to 10 now if somebody shows out, you can't ruff the hearts good and will need them 3-2, but if all follow
♦ ruffed with A
♥ to K
Draw trumps ruff out the hearts if needed and use the ♣A to enter dummy to cash the 5th heart and discard your last club

[mw64ahw]

 smerriman, on 2022-May-27, 02:19, said:

I think those three words is about the limit of your post for the Novice and Beginner forum..

I could have repeated what others have said, but how does that progress system development for novices & beginners?

cencico's question is more about why ♠ rather than ♥ or even NT rather than the bidding.
This is about being able to appreciate where maximum tricks are coming from and in this case visualising South's hcp distribution leads to ♠ rather than ♥ with any adverse ♠ holdings by opposition being muted with 2 eight card fits.
Perhaps someone can give a better explanation?

[nullve]

1♥-1♠
3♠-4NT(1)
5♦(2)-7♠
P

(1) Roman Key Card Blackwood
(2) 1 or 4 key cards (assuming the more common 0314 version of Roman Key Card Blackwood)

[mw64ahw]

 nullve, on 2022-May-27, 02:41, said:

(assuming the more common 0314 version of Roman Key Card Blackwood)

Is 0314 really more common that 1430?

1430 or 3041? (bridgewinners.com)

[Cyberyeti]

 mw64ahw, on 2022-May-27, 03:01, said:

Is 0314 really more common that 1430?

1430 or 3041? (bridgewinners.com)

If 4N is your ace ask regardless of which suit is agreed, it makes more sense to play 1430 particularly in hearts, playing kickback or minorwood or whatever it is much less important

[mw64ahw]

 Cyberyeti, on 2022-May-27, 04:13, said:

If 4N is your ace ask regardless of which suit is agreed, it makes more sense to play 1430 particularly in hearts, playing kickback or minorwood or whatever it is much less important

I guess 3041 is better for ♣ so the 0s can be passed

[Cyberyeti]

 mw64ahw, on 2022-May-27, 05:02, said:

I guess 3041 I guess is better for ♣ so the 0s can be passed

Correct, it also depends who's doing the asking, if the weaker hand rarely asks that's one thing, if it does, then 3 may be more common than 0.

In reality, you should probably change it around based on the type of auction, but that's too much work to bother with.

[LBengtsson]

 cencio, on 2022-May-27, 01:09, said:

Can you risk ending up hearts? With a different bid. or showing spade is always better than support heart

To answer the forum poster, and this has been posted in the Beginner and Novice forum, and I do not think anyone has answered this up to now. Yes you can (but I do not advise it) show ♥ support as South to North's opening bid of 1♥ but it far, far better to show your 4 card ♠ suit at the one level first. You can show ♥ support later and keep the bidding open with forcing bids.

When opener rebids 3♠ to your 1♠ bid, this always shows a minimum of 4 card support. When this happens it is better to play in the 4-4♠ fit than the 5-3♥ fit as the ♥ suit will provide discards for losers. The easiest way to show this is by counting tricks assuming both the ♥ and ♠ suit break 3-2. In a ♥ contract you will have 5♥ tricks and 4♠ tricks. In a ♠ contract, after drawing trumps, you will have 3♠ tricks to draw trumps, 2 separate trump tricks and 5♥ tricks, so you gain an extra trick by playing in the ♠ suit.

Once a trumps fit is found, as you have found with ♠ limit raise by partner, you should never end up in another suit as your preferred trump fit, so you head to slam with ♠ as trump.

[cencio]

 LBengtsson, on 2022-May-27, 05:23, said:

To answer the forum poster, and this has been posted in the Beginner and Novice forum, and I do not think anyone has answered this up to now. Yes you can (but I do not advise it) show ♥ support as South to North's opening bid of 1♥ but it far, far better to show your 4 card ♠ suit at the one level first. You can show ♥ support later and keep the bidding open with forcing bids.

When opener rebids 3♠ to your 1♠ bid, this always shows a minimum of 4 card support. When this happens it is better to play in the 4-4♠ fit than the 5-3♥ fit as the ♥ suit will provide discards for losers. The easiest way to show this is by counting tricks assuming both the ♥ and ♠ suit break 3-2. In a ♥ contract you will have 5♥ tricks and 4♠ tricks. In a ♠ contract, after drawing trumps, you will have 3♠ tricks to draw trumps, 2 separate trump tricks and 5♥ tricks, so you gain an extra trick by playing in the ♠ suit.

Once a trumps fit is found, as you have found with ♠ limit raise by partner, you should never end up in another suit as your preferred trump fit, so you head to slam with ♠ as trump.

Tks

[mikeh]

As Bengtsson noted, the 4=4 fit often (but not always) plays a trick better than the 5-3, when both are present. That’s why some jacoby 2N structures provide for disclosing opener’s side 4 card suit if he has one….the same principle applies when one has both a 5-4 fit and a 4-4 fit….sometimes the 4=4 produces an extra trick that allows for slam or grand.

However, I don’t think it’s realistic, especially in this forum, to worry too much about finding the second fit. I wouldn’t recommend bidding 1S if responder were 4=4 in the majors, with game force values. I’d suggest bidding 2N, if playing Jacoby 2N, or whatever forcing raise one may have. Now, if one doesn’t have a forcing raise available (I didn’t when I first started playing), you pretty much have to bid 1S, intending to show hearts later.

Here, as Merriman pointed out, you sort of fall into 1S because most forcing raise conventions require 4+ support to be used directly over the opening. Once 1S is raised to 3S, then Bengtsson’s observations about visualizing tricks are spot on.

[wuudturner]

Were it my choice, I'd try a different approach to the bidding.

1♡ - 1♠

That start seems ok. South knows at the beginning he will get to game, but where is an important question. As well, South has a good enough hand that slam is not out of the question. So you don't want to make immediate decisions that the heart suit is correct here. So starting out slowly is a good idea. An important rule in bridge is to bid slowly when you have good hands. Trust that you and partner both know what bids are forcing, but discussion is always a good thing to insure you and partner do know when a bid is forcing.

But now, instead of a jump to 3♠, North might decide a splinter raise is a good idea. North has a perfect hand for that. Great 4 card spade support, diamond shortness. While North only counts out to 15 high card points, this is closer to 19 points in support of spades. So the North hand is worth a game forcing response, not just a raise to 3♠. Yes, if South is truly barely able to respond, he might go down in 4♠. But this is surely worth showing that powerful hand.

4♢(splinter raise) -

A splinter bid is a picture bid of sorts. It tells partner that you have a great hand, worth forcing to game on. It shows 4 card trump support, and a singleton or void in the splinter suit. With that one bid, North has described his hand as probably 4 spades, 5 hearts, 1 diamond, and therefore 3 clubs. (4612, 4504 or 4603 shapes might also apply here, but they are less common.) North has painted a picture of his hand, in one bid. Now South is excited. South has the perfect hand opposite a short diamond. Axx is the perfect suit there. And South has KQX in hearts, filling in the heart suit. South is the one who can now visualize slam, because South has all of the filler cards. He can ask for keycards. My preference is 1430, but if you like 0314 responses, whatever floats your boat works for me.

- 4NT(keycard, in spades)

When North shows 1 or 4 keycards, South knows it must be 4 keycards, and South can see how the play will go. As long as hearts split, one can see the necessary club pitch on the long hearts. And South can visualize that two diamond ruffs are available. So South can bid a very comfortable 7♠.

Getting to the grand is a little harder if you don't play splinter raises, since then the partnership does not know how well the hands fit together.