About the cue bids, many players (including my partnership) plays first _or_ second round control cue bids, so 4D would show ace, king, void or singleton in diamonds. Bidding control in the same suit again would show first round control, but I find that most of the time you only need to have shown second round control of all suits and at most one ace missing (which you can find out using 4NT RKCB) to bid small slam. Also, not mentioned here, but a crucial part of control bidding is that you _don't_ have control in the suit you skip, so north is denying control in clubs. This is yet an advantage of second round controls, since we now know that we have at least one loser in clubs. Slam looks a bit dodgy.
I play that if the cue bid is below the game level the cue bid shows 1st or 2nd round control, if the cue bid is above the game level it now shows 1st round control, a little different from what your showing in this bidding sequence.
Hi Bajir, LOSING PAIRS At the center of this interesting video are the two pairs of small club losers. If we compare these clubs to the diamonds in your video with Yaniv Vax, we see our options for dealing with these types of apparently hopeless losers. After watching these videos, I see two ways to get rid of such losing pairs: either discard both sides or discard one side and then ruff the other. In your Yaniv Vax video, the two diamonds in South were both discarded on winning Northern spades. Then one diamond in North was ruffed, and the other was discarded on a winning Southern club. With the clubs in this hand with Mr. Stocken, again both losers in South were discarded. But they were discarded in very different ways: one was thrown on the losing H9 (loser on loser) and one was discarded in a ruff/sluff. Then both clubs in North were ruffed. So we now have a general approach to these apparently hopeless pairs of losing small cards: look for ways to discard both cards in the pair, or look for ways to discard one side and then ruff the other. And while there is only one way to ruff a card, there are many ways to discard a card. We've seen three options in these two hands: 1. Most simply, discard on a winner from another suit in partner's hand. 2. Discard on a loser from another suit in partner's hand (loser on loser). 3. Discard in a ruff and sluff. One other aspect to compare: the diamonds in the Yaniv Vax video were completely vulnerable if opponents had led a diamond, so we might not have had a chance to find homes for them. But the clubs here had a stopper, so we had a clear chance to develop a plan for them. Thanks to you and Jack and Yaniv. Chance22 from SBC
I play 1430 RKC if the suit is a major and 3014 if the suit is a minor, but I do have a question, should/could/WOULD west double FOR PENALTY, because IF west has the club Ace after all west's bid is at the 3 level, I think that is a fair assumption, west could ruff the club return, or was east's 3 club bid a little aggressive?
Good explanation, but it only works if the clubs divide 6:1. That’s a pretty poor percentage slam to bid without the extra info given by the 3C overcall, so maybe that bid is an expensive mistake?
Ha Ha! Yes Chris, 6S is a very poor slam to be in. South should really sign off in 4S after the 4D cue bid. South took a gamble on dummy being short in clubs and not West.
Exactly. If East can't bid at least 4C he should pass in tempo. Weak players don't realize how much information they give to experts, during both the bidding and play, by making calls that cannot possibly win the auction. Here, the placement of at least 6 Clubs in East's hand makes South's otherwise aggressive 6S call nearly a sure thing: as either North or West must be short in them.
Really!? How about 6 Spades, AK of both red suits, Club Ace, and the third Club in hand ruffed in Dummy if Partner has just 2. The only loser then is again one Club trick, but establishing a natural ruff instead of the Throw-in.
Why ask for Queen of spades here? You have a known 10 card fit. Skipping the ask implies the queen, thus letting partner figure out you have the sixth trump, which might be trick 13.
