Sunday, May 10, 2009

AKQ--A Bad Holding?

How bad can a holding of AKQ in a suit be? My dad and I do at least one Bridge World Challenge the Champs set each time I'm home...since it was Mother's Day this weekend, we got another opportunity to shine this afternoon. We play Precision with a 14-16 Notrump. Two problems:

1) Jxxxx xxx Ax AKQ
Partner opens 1D (11-16, could be short if 11-13 balanced). You respond 1 Spade and partner bids 4 Clubs (a club void and spade support). What do you bid?

2) Ax Ax KT9xxx Axx
What is your opening bid? You can choose from 1 Club (strong), 1 Diamond (explained above), and 1 Notrump (14-16).

4 comments:

Memphis MOJO said...

1. Give partner AKxx, AKxx, Jxxx, x and it's already a bad or not-very-good slam. Also, the idea of splinters is to identify fits (and misfits) and bidding other than 4S violates that principle.

Nevertheless, I guess I'd bid 4D because it's "on the house." Over 4H, you have to give it one more try (otherwise, why bother bidding 4D) with 5C. Man, I'm not sure if I like how it's going or not in this scenario.

2. I've had good luck opening 1NT at the table. In a bidding contest, I think I'd open 1C because of the texture of the diamonds and because sticks are so valuable.

After others have a chance to respond, I'm interested to hear what the Drew-meister did.

Becker said...

On the first one, our agreement is that the splinter shows specifically a void, so 4-4-4-1 is out--we jump conventionally to 2NT with the singleton club. Partner's shape is 4-4-5-0 or possibly 4-3-6-0.

Memphis MOJO said...

I discussed this with the walkers. They both bid 4D. If partner signed off, they quit.

If pard bids 4H: One followed up with 4NT figuring that if partner had 2 key cards, he would find out about the Q of spades as well.

The other signed off in 4S. He thought that if the 4D bid didn't turn pard on, then he would give up.

All of us said that if partner had Axxx of hearts, you could discard them on your club winners. The problem is if partner has: KQxx, AKxx, QJxxx, void. With this, the slam isn't so good.

Becker said...

Here's what actually happened in our auctions:
On the first one I signed off in 4 Spades right away. I was worried about the 3 dead hearts in my hand, my lousy trumps, and all my strength being opposite partner's void. Instead of "worrying" I should have been thinking that my partner just game-forced opposite my 1-over-1 response--in light of that, I had a good hand, and cue-bidding 4 Diamonds should have been automatic. On this one I like the idea of one try and then signing off over partner's 4 Heart cue. I think that would have been enough to get my old man interested this time--he had AQxx Axxx KJxxx.

On the 2nd I opened the strong club, which ended up getting us to a hopeless game when partner game-forced with a misfitting 8-count. Opening 1NT or 1D followed by 2D would have worked much better this time. The weakness of the diamond suit and strength outside could be reasons to take a lower road...actually I like 1NT but would have felt more comfortable with it if we were playing 15-17. This hand felt super-max to me for our 14-16 range.