[pescetom]

 kane2, on 2024-December-27, 12:54, said:

6h. show minimum hand.

Offline from here others suggested 6H too. Seems odd to me.
In what way is 6H a minimum and what would 5H and 6C be in this scheme?

[pescetom]

For those bidding 6C, would you do the same holding A, K or a singleton in clubs?

[Cyberyeti]

pescetom, on 2024-December-28, 03:33, said:

For those bidding 6C, would you do the same holding A, K or a singleton in clubs?

Ace yes, not the other holdings

[pescetom]

 Cyberyeti, on 2024-December-28, 04:03, said:

Ace yes, not the other holdings

I figured as much.
We would normally show any of these holdings, although there is always some discretion about a singleton and here one might have doubt about showing an unsupported King as it would be odd for partner to bid this way holding the Ace.
It's a non-issue for us on the actual hand as with both curly Aces we would bid 5NT showing even keycards, which partner can decode easily enough.

[apollo1201]

Late in the thread and not ashamed of my bidding so far.

Partner could have bid 5C, 4NT (but they have a void so maybe not) and 5D. They picked this bid, what message does it convey?

If it is look at your D to go to 6 (or to defend / lead in case they bid 5S, it is not 100% clear to me who is bidding to make, but being red I suppose we are the ones), well, my hand is not a good surprise for partner since I am (definitely not) covering p s second suit with 3 small. It is quite possible though to discard one and maybe two on partner s C winners.

I would encourage a lot with the DK for instance. Here I will just bid 6, ok for slam. Partner has a 0652 hand with AK clubs and AQxxx D or AQ C and a more robust D suit (AQJxx or AKxxx or AQJxx). In both cases we should be ok but 7 is a long shot).

[pescetom]

apollo1201, on 2024-December-28, 11:30, said:

Late in the thread and not ashamed of my bidding so far.

Partner could have bid 5C, 4NT (but they have a void so maybe not) and 5D. They picked this bid, what message does it convey?

If it is look at your D to go to 6 (or to defend / lead in case they bid 5S, it is not 100% clear to me who is bidding to make, but being red I suppose we are the ones), well, my hand is not a good surprise for partner since I am (definitely not) covering p s second suit with 3 small. It is quite possible though to discard one and maybe two on partner s C winners.

I would encourage a lot with the DK for instance. Here I will just bid 6, ok for slam. Partner has a 0652 hand with AK clubs and AQxxx D or AQ C and a more robust D suit (AQJxx or AKxxx or AQJxx). In both cases we should be ok but 7 is a long shot).

Thanks for this clear and non-resulting feedback, although it ony adds to my confusion about what the many "just bid 6, ok for slam" expect from partner bidding 5♦.
FWIW I polled this on that other site and 56% bid 6♥, with only 20% bidding 6♣ and the same number chickening out in 5♥.

[mike777]

 pescetom, on 2024-December-28, 03:33, said:

For those bidding 6C, would you do the same holding A, K or a singleton in clubs?

That would be very poor, extremely..
Visualize my 4H bid.

Granted this auction has entered the
How much do you trust partners experience and judgement if they bid 6C?

If you are asking those questions..you have an answer.

[pescetom]

mike777, on 2024-December-28, 17:17, said:

That would be very poor, extremely..
Visualize my 4H bid.

Granted this auction has entered the
How much do you trust partners experience and judgement if they bid 6C?

If you are asking those questions..you have an answer.

I have total trust (on principle and in practice) in my partner's judgement and his understanding of the system we agreed to play... I don't care two hoots about his experience in this respect (if he learned quickly, more kudos to him).
I asked the question because I do not know for certain what (in your system and judgement) 6C would say at this point in the auction, and am curious to know what and why.

[pescetom]

Christmas is long gone and I owe the full board, sorry.
Thanks to those who contributed.

---

Most of the field was in 4♥+2.
On the actual deal 7♥ makes thanks to a very convenient diamonds layout.

[Gerardo]

pescetom, on 2024-December-30, 16:19, said:

I have total trust (on principle and in practice) in my partner's judgement and his understanding of the system we agreed to play... I don't care two hoots about his experience in this respect (if he learned quickly, more kudos to him).
I asked the question because I do not know for certain what (in your system and judgement) 6C would say at this point in the auction, and am curious to know what and why.

What's your hand?
They seem to have a ♠ fit. In that case, you have a ♠ void.
You don't have the ♣A (bypassed 5♣). That's Good.
You are not just competing, but cuebidding on the way.
♠- ♥KQxxx ♦AK (and 6 more cards) seems like a minimum for this.

Opposite that hand, 6♥ has very good chances, and 7♥ might be there..

[mike777]

 pescetom, on 2024-December-30, 16:19, said:

I have total trust (on principle and in practice) in my partner's judgement and his understanding of the system we agreed to play... I don't care two hoots about his experience in this respect (if he learned quickly, more kudos to him).
I asked the question because I do not know for certain what (in your system and judgement) 6C would say at this point in the auction, and am curious to know what and why.

What does 6c show?
Let's go back to my 4h bid, what does that show?
Answer, weak hand, 5+ H, preemptive bid.
I can't have 2 Aces. I could have zero. If the partners are not agreeing to this, nothing else really matters ❤️

Edit I see you would happily bid 4C with this hand. Clearly on a different wavelength..
😊


However my 6c bid is clearly a grand slam try and not a sign off in 5H or 6H.

That is why I think the auction has come down to,at this point, not system or conventions but judgement, experience and trust.
In any event just getting to 6H is really good partnership harmony.

[pescetom]

mike777, on 2024-December-30, 18:36, said:

Let's go back to my 4h bid, what does that show?
Answer, weak hand, 5+ H, preemptive bid.
I can't have 2 Aces. I could have zero. If the partners are not agreeing to this, nothing else really matters ❤️

Edit I see you would happily bid 4C with this hand. Clearly on a different wavelength..
��

Different evaluation of the West hand perhaps: even though weak in HCP I see it as very offensive in distribution and controls and I already balked at bidding it as a generic weak preempt even before North chimed in with spades fit and partner with a diamonds control-bid. Now the hand is huge.
I appreciate that our splinter methods are not mainstream (and even for us I was pushing things to splinter here): with hindsight I might have done better to discuss a 4♥ bid instead in order to focus on discussion of your methods, although that alters the meaning of my 6♣ (which after the splinter is now clearly a void).

Gerardo, on 2024-December-30, 17:50, said:

What's your hand?
They seem to have a ♠ fit. In that case, you have a ♠ void.
You don't have the ♣A (bypassed 5♣). That's Good.
You are not just competing, but cuebidding on the way.
♠- ♥KQxxx ♦AK (and 6 more cards) seems like a minimum for this.

Opposite that hand, 6♥ has very good chances, and 7♥ might be there..

Sure, I agree 100% with that and I assume all do.
I wasn't puzzled about hand evaluation but about the agreements behind your bidding methods (and not because I disagree with them but because I simply did not know what they were. I think I'm getting an idea now, see below).

mike777, on 2024-December-30, 18:36, said:

However my 6c bid is clearly a grand slam try and not a sign off in 5H or 6H.

That is why I think the auction has come down to,at this point, not system or conventions but judgement, experience and trust.

OK that helps a lot, thanks. I asked the same question on that other site and got some similar replies too.
Correct me if I still have not understood, but it seems to be that 5♦ is a slam try effectively saying "Don't worry about diamonds, how are you for slam?" and in reply to that:
5♥ is a signoff saying "no way" (for whatever reason)
6♣ is a grand slam try effectively saying "Slam is on and don't worry about clubs either, how are you for the grand?"
6♥ is a signoff effectively saying "this but no more".

This is quite different from our methods where the same bids make more precise statements about control and are less nuanced in terms of generic interest. In particular 5♦ denies clubs control, 6♣ is neither encouraging nor discouraging the grand - it simply commits to the slam and affirms control, 6♥ after 5♦ is undefined and would cause an ugly post-mortem.