[gnasher]

I meant roughly what Cherdano and Jdonn thought I meant - 4♠ showed four spades and a bad 23-count. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Partner had KQ95 AK5 KQ9 AQ3, so slam is in the low 40s. I think he judged quite well to treat that as a poor hand. Unfortunately, however, it needed good judgment on both sides of the table - I raised to 6♠ and he went down when the club was wrong. Trumps were 4-1 too.

My thinking was that if the field was in a slightly below-par slam we should be too, because it's better to avoid the risk of a zero and try to gain an edge in the play instead. I think that makes sense only if slam is very close to 50%, and almost the entire field is going to be in slam. On this hand I was wrong on both counts.

[jdonn]

I don't mean to result or rub anything in but I think the actual hand is very instructive. Partner had 23 with NO JACKS and slam wasn't good. And I still think the inference about him having 3 hearts exactly is very strong which is quite bad for our hand.

It was an interesting problem and there were points to be made in favor of bidding on as well. It's unfortunate people got bogged down in the discussion of exactly what range partner showed, which seemed clear to me in the original post and made even more clear by gnasher's next post. (Not referring to anyone who misread it or something, just people who had stubborn comprehension problems.)

[jdonn]

Bbradley62, on Aug 10 2010, 10:36 AM, said:

4♠=support, but a bad hand in context.  Does this mean 4-card support, or is it frequently done on 3-good?

Hmmmmm? When you have a balanced 23 count opposite 5+ do you normally bypass 3NT to go for the 4-3 major suit fit?

[OleBerg]

gnasher, on Aug 11 2010, 12:59 AM, said:

and he went down when the club was wrong. Trumps were 4-1 too.

Not to rub it in, just resulting; it seems I was right, the hand was not one where declarer-skills mattered a lot.

[rhm]

gnasher, on Aug 10 2010, 05:59 PM, said:

I meant roughly what Cherdano and Jdonn thought I meant - 4♠ showed four spades and a bad 23-count.  Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Partner had KQ95 AK5 KQ9 AQ3, so slam is in the low 40s.  I think he judged quite well to treat that as a poor hand.  Unfortunately, however, it needed good judgment on both sides of the table - I raised to 6♠ and he went down when the club was wrong.  Trumps were 4-1 too.

My thinking was that if the field was in a slightly below-par slam we should be too, because it's better to avoid the risk of a zero and try to gain an edge in the play instead.  I think that makes sense only if slam is very close to 50%, and almost the entire field is going to be in slam.  On this hand I was wrong on both counts.

"If I think a hand is not worth 23 HCP I do not bid it like a 23 HCP hand."
This hand is a good example
If I can differentiate between 22 HCP and 23 HCP, I am sure I would put this hand into the 22 HCP category.
One of the best notrump evaluator is the fifth elevator and this does (contrary to what many believe) not devalue jacks but kings and queens for good reason. Another point is that 4-3-3-3 distribution is a distinct disadvantage when you contract for slam on power (much more than for 3NT).

Rainer Herrmann

[dburn]

OleBerg, on Aug 11 2010, 12:04 AM, said:

gnasher, on Aug 11 2010, 12:59 AM, said:

and he went down when the club was wrong.  Trumps were 4-1 too.

Not to rub it in, just resulting; it seems I was right, the hand was not one where declarer-skills mattered a lot.

On the contrary - there were those who regarded the trump position as "just a guess" as to which opponent might have four to the jack. Some of those went two down by cashing the king and queen first, finding North with four to the jack. Of course, it would not have helped them to find South with four to the jack, since they could not then ruff their club loser in the dummy even if the club finesse had worked.

However, it remains generally the case that you should not overbid just because you play the hands better than the rest of the field. If you can diagnose that a slam (or a game) will be significantly less than even money, you should simply not bid it rather than bid it and hope partner can make it.

[gnasher]

dburn, on Aug 11 2010, 05:06 PM, said:

On the contrary - there were those who regarded the trump position as "just a guess" as to which opponent might have four to the jack. Some of those went two down by cashing the king and queen first, finding North with four to the jack. Of course, it would not have helped them to find South with four to the jack, since they could not then ruff their club loser in the dummy even if the club finesse had worked.

Those players might have been able to ruff dummy's heart loser in hand, or they might have found that the heart wasn't a loser at all, so they were losing only to a doubleton heart with the four trumps.

[JLOGIC]

I think pass is automatic, but maybe I'm biased by how infrequently I make bids like 4S. To me it should really show a slam unsuitable hand and be a warning to partner that slam might not make despite 32 HCP or whatever.

I think this is a good spot to go for it even if it's anti-field because we have a lot of information available due to our superior methods (partner was able to define his range really well). I think we will have a huge edge in avoiding slam because I don't think it rates to be very good, so I can fade the occasional zero I might get. IMO not going anti field is a good idea in bidding in normal situations early in the auction where there is very little information available (and thus little edge to be gained). For instance in an all 15-17 NT bad field, I will not upgrade with 14 very often at all at MP because it's not worth it to just start anti field when we know nothing about the hand imo. However, in this case we know a lot and can utilize our good judgement combined with our good methods to gain us a large edge.

FWIW I would never have thought to bid 4S with your partner's actual hand, so maybe I'm projecting a little. Still surely that's a complete max in slam suitability for 4S and slam wasn't that good, for whatever that's worth.

Of course gnasher knows all of this, but I think it would be a good idea in the future to not even think about where the field would be when you're having a longish complex slam auction, just make the right decision. It almost seems like a copout to go with the field because as you point out, it would have to be very close to a 50/50 proposition for that to be a factor. If you thought slam would be good then bid it, if you thought it would be bad then don't bid it. This is the kind of spot to use your expert judgement and win the matchpoints by making good decisions all day in this kinda spot.