[whereagles]

IMPs pairs. Expert aggressive pard, 2/1.

♠ Qxx
♥ Txx
♦ Kxx
♣ Txxx

pard you
2♣ 2♦
3♥ 4♥
5♦ ..??

2♦ = waiting style (~0-8 hcp, no better bid)
3♥ = sets trumps, asks for cue
4♥ = you judged hand to be too weakish for a diamond cue

Instead of 5♦, pard could have bid:
4♠ cue
4NT RKCB
5♣ cue, no spade cue available (or is deliberately lying)

1. What do you think 5♦ shows?
2. Your bid?

[hrothgar]

Hard to say what this bid shows

If forced to guess, I'd say that this is a Bluhmer (SP???)
Partner is asking whether I have a Diamond control.

I'm gonna bid 6N

[JLOL]

LOL

(Sorry can't get over the first part of the auction. Love it.)

[MFA]

4♦ was forced as I play.

5♦ should be a sort of trial bid with about 11 tricks in hand , asking for ♦-help. I don't know how to recover. Perhaps 5♠, or 6♦. We might miss the 13 top trick 7♥.

[JLOL]

MFA, on Mar 29 2009, 04:25 PM, said:

4♦ was forced as I play.

5♦ should be a sort of trial bid with about 11 tricks in hand , asking for ♦-help. I don't know how to recover. Perhaps 5♠, or 6♦. We might miss the 13 top trick 7♥.

I agree but I think 6D is just an offer to play so I wouldn't do that. I don't think there's a way to recover from not showing the DK the first time.

[FrancesHinden]

This is partly a matter of agreements.

I am not 'lolling' at not bidding 5D last round, because I play this auction specifically asks for first round controls. However, I also have the agreement that I bid 3NT with a king over 3M - what would 3NT have meant over 3H?

However, if 3H asks for a cue bid, and we've agreed that we can cue a king in this auction, I cannot be 'too weak' to cue, it's not possible.

Anyway, partner has now bid 5D.
There are two possible meanings for this in my dictionary.
i) If you mean it that 4NT would be RKCB, then this is what we've always called a "sweep" cue bid i.e. shows controls in all the suits and asks if we have anything else to say i.e. any kings.
ii) However, if 3H asked for a cue, and we didn't make one, it's insane to play 4NT as RKCB here, it should be asking for kings. We've already denied any key cards. In that case 5D is a trial bid in diamonds. I'd expect partner to have e.g. AKJx looking for the queen or third round control and trump length, so my holding is entirely consistent with this interpretation.

[mich-b]

Quote

I am not 'lolling' at not bidding 5D last round, because I play this auction specifically asks for first round controls. However, I also have the agreement that I bid 3NT with a king over 3M - what would 3NT have meant over 3H?

A slight improvement is that over opener's 3♥ -
3♠ = "I have a King" , 3NT would ask which.
3NT = Ace of ♠

This leaves more room to identify responder's King.

[whereagles]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 30 2009, 08:53 AM, said:

what would 3NT have meant over 3H?

Good question.

JTxx
x
T9xx
xxxx

or something like this, I guess.

Mich's suggestion is far more sensible, though. I would only change it to

.... 3♠ (I have a king)
3NT = which?

because 4♣ won't leave space to show the spade king below 4♥. 3NT as relay is ok since you probably wouldn't want to play there.

[mich-b]

Sorry, whereagles , of course that is what I meant.

Edited my post accordingly.

[Hanoi5]

Why did partner bid 3♥ instead of 2? I play this as saying, 'Partner, heart is the suit we're gonna play in, no matter what you have' and in that case 3NT would be 'I have a K or singleton somewhere (in support to hearts)'. If you play this way 4♥ is a mistake I see no way of fixing now. I'd just bid 6♥.

[whereagles]

Thanks all. Pard had

AJ
AKQJxx
AQJ9x
--

He was looking for diamond help. Responder, however, didn't interpret it like that and bid 5♥, fearing the lack of a black cue could indicate an open suit there. 5♥ was passed out and the slam was missed.

I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to bid 5♦ like this, bypassing all cues, when you don't have clear agreements over 3♥. Perhaps a simple 4♠ would have be better, given the circumstances. It would certainly work here, since responder now has a 100% clear 5♦ bid.

Note: I didn't give more details about post 3♥ bidding because the only agreement was a mere "asks for cue". There was no mention whether the cue could be done with only that for hcp. I wanted to put readers in the exact situation the player was into.

[jdonn]

What was this? We, for some unknown reason, denied a diamond control that we hold (because our hand was too weakish, with three card support and a queen to spare???), and then partner asked us for the diamond control we had just denied? These partners were made for each other.

[ArtK78]

whereagles, on Mar 30 2009, 03:18 PM, said:

Note: I didn't give more details about post 3♥ bidding because the only agreement was a mere "asks for cue". There was no mention whether the cue could be done with only that for hcp. I wanted to put readers in the exact situation the player was into.

I still don't get the denial. Pard asked for a cue bid. This hand has the ♦K. I do not see why the lack of high cards gives this player the right to ignore partner's request for a cue bid. Clearly, partner is looking for one or two specific cards. This hand should let partner know what he has.