mikeh, on 2020-July-29, 10:20, said:
Late to the party. I did not vote on BW, but were I to do so, and constrained by the OP J2N structure (I play two different methods with my serious partners, but neither is the OP method), I think it is clearly a 3S rebid. We can call the spade suit as having 0 losing tricks, even opposite xxxx (I know, we may still have a loser, but he will usually hold the King), and now our Ltc is 5. Even call it 6, and it is a non-minimum...a normal minimum has a ltc of about 7.
It helps, in my view, to have a way of showing a non-horrible minimum as opposed to a ‘I’m embarrassed about my opening’ minimum. This hand would fall into the former category.
It would also help were responder able to ask for shortness, or were opener to have shown the stiff. That would alert responder to concerns about the red suits, especially once opener confesses to a minimum and the club Ace. Add in an eventual 2 keycards with the spade Queen response (standard with undisclosed extra length) and responder might well sign off at 5S. But at the table, that may be difficult to do.
While I like to think that my partners and I, playing either method, would sign off (in both methods, we show a non-horrible minimum with a stiff club and, eventually one extra spade), any experienced player will have been in, and sometimes made, worse slams than this.
I’m not sure I’d have made it: I’d definitely need to be in heat one��. I’m not sure that the winning line is significantly better than hoping for HH in diamonds. You need, Leaving aside very low frequency shapes, either a 5-2 diamond break with the long diamonds holding KQ in clubs, which is about 4%, I think, or the same hand holding KQJ in diamonds and KQ in clubs. Since west would lead the diamond K from KQJ and surely east would double 4D with KQJ, so we can basically kiss that holding goodbye.
Meanwhile, HH in diamonds is about 4.3%, maybe a touch less given that KQ tight might be led if west held it.
How one gets to OP’s claimof the crisscross being 22% escapes me. 5-2 is 30%.but when one deals the diamonds 5-2, the short diamonds rate to hold the longer clubs. So the odds of the 5 diamonds holding KQ clubs is less than 25%, so at best the odds are something less than 25% of the 30%, modified to exclude holdings on which diamonds are more likely to be led.
I agree that it helps to have a way to show minimums that aren't horrible minimums. I think where we disagree is that, in a structure like this, I think 3
♠ over-represents this hand. This hand is not improved by partner bidding Jacoby 2NT, as paradoxical as that may seem. If I'm remembering correctly that it shows shortness, I'd sooner consider 3
♣ and an additional cue-bid of clubs before I seriously bid 3
♠ on this hand.
You're basically stating that this hand has about 5% odds to make, and if Responder had a King less, they should still try for slams opposite a 3
♠ bid in my mind. You won't play 6
♠, but you will play 5
♠, and again you're going to have 5% odds to make. 3
♠ confines you to playing one level too high on every auction with a hand like this.
I never want to be a result merchant, but, if almost every time you bid a hand like this in such a way you get to a contract that has no play, then it's really not resulting at that point, your reasoning behind the methodology/approach must simply be flawed. And, if you have to start playing your partner for literally five or six specific cards in order for your contract to have play, clearly the reasoning sucks. This hand apparently, according to commentary in this thread, needs Responder to hold
exactly the K
♠, AK
♥, A
♦ and the J
♦ or better...
Fundamentally, 7 trump is not worth what it seems on this auction. I'd actually rather Responder have Kx
♠ and AJxxx of diamonds. That hand would help me take more tricks in spades on average than the hand partner has. It's got 2 less spades and one less high card point, and it's substantially better support for the hand I'm holding as South. I just don't need 11 trump, and partner is never going to know to devalue KQxx
♠. The hand has 6 losers, but, they're the kind of losers that need partner to deliver 5 winners. South is bringing absolutely no help in creating those winners in the red suits, which is the problem.
This hand looks prettier than it actually is, which is fundamentally why it makes 5-10% of the time. So, I'm happy to be against the majority of experts that get this wrong 90-95% of the time. Seems they're out of touch.
Help
Lamford "National League Div1. Lead ♥7. You reach a very poor slam here and opinions on who did too much are welcome. How are you going to play it on a heart lead on which East will play the queen? West will show out on the first round of spades, discarding the five of clubs, reverse count if anything, but probably just random.
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I think the bidding is sensible by both North and South. After all, you have 11 top tricks and a small change like ♦J instead of ♣J would make the slam better than 80%.