[Antrax]

Uncontested auction, spades agreed as trump, partner cues 4♣. My hand has AK♣ doubleton, so partner's cue must be singleton or void. Do I cooperate, assuming I have something intelligent to contribute to the bidding, or do I sign off in game, since my values are wasted opposite partner's existing shortness?
My full hand + bidding, though I'm interested in the general answer mostly:

---

[Hanoi5]

I think you should try to continue showing cue-bids. In this case you don't have any, so just bid 4♠. AK in partner's shortness could be wonderful so that he doesn't lose with a singleton and also gives him a discard and if partner holds a void he has 2 discards, so it is better than say KJxx in his shortness.

[gwnn]

AK is of course better than KJxx which is better than xxxx, but the question is, would this AK be better in another suit? For example, what is a better hand:

JTx
QTxxxx
xx
AK

or

JTx
AKQTxx
xx
xx

?

[helene_t]

4♠. Partner's shortness in clubs is terrible news. Besides you have no cue to cue

[CSGibson]

4♠. partner's cue has not let you take control, and you have nothing red to cue-bid, nor reason to believe that the 5 level is safe.

[Fluffy]

you have to put your hand in context: you have 1 useful card: ♣A and perhaps ♣K or ♥Q fills a hole, but that would be a "slow" hole. All in all I'd say we have 1.5 working cards.

Also note that if partner has club void we have even less. And that a red Ace would always be more useful (promotes partners honnors from half a trick to 1 trick) than club ace.

Also to note we have only 3 trumps, when 4 is very likelly on this bidding so more to downgrade.

A bidding of 1♠-3♠ will have 1 to 4 working cards for partner, with exactly 1 and 4 being extremelly unlikelly*

So in our context we have 1.5 in a range of 1.0 to 4.0 wich is extremelly low. Should I cooperate? NO!


*: Perhaps 5 working cards is possible with a working doubleton and a 4th trump.

[Antrax]

Thanks.

[quiddity]

Is 4♣ definitely a control bid? It can't be a side-suit?

[Fluffy]

quiddity, on 2011-May-17, 11:37, said:

Is 4♣ definitely a control bid? It can't be a side-suit?

That would be a convenional meaning, I haven't ever played that way, but I recall having heard of that treatment from a forum regular once (3NT being a general try asking for cuebids). Anyway, that is far from standard. Natural suits are for game tries between 2M and 3M. Between 3M and 4M you use cuebids.

[Flameous]

Generally you can count that 28 hcp makes a small slam when there is singleton opposite no wastage and 5-4 fit at least.
If there is a ace opposite singleton, that ace should be downgraded since it would always be better elsewhere promoting other honors.
AK is terrible, you essentially make your partner's shortness totally useless so you need sufficient extras outside, ie. you need some 32 hcp for the slam.

[Quantumcat]

I think it was Paul Marston who invented the splinter points scheme.

In this scheme, you give yourself two points for the ace in partner's singleton suit, and nothing for any other cards in that suit. If you have 26 combined points, then you have the values for a small slam.

With you showing ten to twelve points, opener would need at least 18 to make a move toward slam. So his 18, plus your 5, is only 23. You do NOT have enough strength for a small slam, unless opener has 21 points. But with 21 points and a singleton club, he might have considered a 2♣ opening, plus he will continue to move after you sign off with a hand that strong.

[Antrax]

Thanks everyone, very informative answers.

Contrary to my usual questions, this time there was no disaster. Partner had a monster:

---

So he kept driving to slam after my sign-off (he only cue-bid to see if I would cue a heart king), and made his 6♠ with an overtrick (Q♠ was right and diamonds broke).
But it did got me thinking about the general case of AK opposite shortness.

[Quantumcat]

Antrax, on 2011-May-18, 00:56, said:

But it did got me thinking about the general case of AK opposite shortness.

To see why it is useless, consider the case where you have KJ doubleton opposite partner's doubleton AQ. You take two tricks with ten points.

Now consider holding two sets of KQxxx opposite partner's xxx. Now with ten points you make between two and eight tricks (two tricks if both suits split 5-0 - eight tricks if both aces onside and they split)

Consider holding AK/xxx opposite void/Qxxx. The opponents take three tricks right away.

Now consider holding AK/xxx opposite Qxxx/void. The opponents can't take a single trick.

Summary: Holding AK opposite a void is like holding doubleton AK opposite doubleton AK in the same suit.

[Cyberyeti]

Quantumcat, on 2011-May-18, 01:35, said:

To see why it is useless, consider the case where you have KJ doubleton opposite partner's doubleton AQ. You take two tricks with ten points.

Now consider holding two sets of KQxxx opposite partner's xxx. Now with ten points you make between two and eight tricks (two tricks if both suits split 5-0 - eight tricks if both aces onside and they split)

Consider holding AK/xxx opposite void/Qxxx. The opponents take three tricks right away.

Now consider holding AK/xxx opposite Qxxx/void. The opponents can't take a single trick.

Summary: Holding AK opposite a void is like holding doubleton AK opposite doubleton AK in the same suit.

Too simplistic, AK opposite void might be as good as KQ in another suit (partner has Axx/void in 2 suits and gets 2 discards).

The problem with this hand is that there may be no fast enough way to get at these discards. As in this case AK opposite singleton might be pulling its full weight, or might be just worth the 4 points for the ace.

The other issue (which I'll take to absurd extremes to make a point) is what 3♠ showed. If you showed 10-12 with 3 or 4 spades, you have the biggest pile of filth imaginable and 4♠ is easy. If you showed 0-10 with exactly 3 spades, then you don't have a bad hand and are probably worth 5♣ as partner needs something vast to cue here.

[Antrax]

Showed 10-12 with 3+ spades. We're not playing bergen raises (yet. I'm reading about them now), and jumps are only preemptive if the opponents made an attempt to enter the bidding already (in which case we cue bid with the good raise or use Jordan 2NT)

[Cyberyeti]

Antrax, on 2011-May-18, 02:37, said:

Showed 10-12 with 3+ spades. We're not playing bergen raises (yet. I'm reading about them now), and jumps are only preemptive if the opponents made an attempt to enter the bidding already (in which case we cue bid with the good raise or use Jordan 2NT)

In that case you are pretty minimum with your points in the wrong place, so have no thoughts of going beyond 4♠.

[Hanoi5]

gwnn, on 2011-May-17, 05:27, said:

but the question is, would this AK be better in another suit?

No, that was not the question, this was the question:

Antrax, on 2011-May-17, 03:09, said:

Do I cooperate, assuming I have something intelligent to contribute to the bidding, or do I sign off in game, since my values are wasted opposite partner's existing shortness?

[Mbodell]

I think the more interesting question is should you cooperate if the ♥Q were instead the ♥K, with the rest of the hand unchanged. There are a few different schools of thought here (I'm also assuming you cue first or second round controls and shortness* or length - *possibly not shortness in suits partner has shown. It is good to be on the same page with partner on these details). Some people play that they can distinguish the strength of slam try by the presnece or absence of bidding 3nt so a direct 4♣ is weaker (alternative agreement: stronger) than bidding 3nt first before cue bidding which is the stronger slam try (alternative agreement: weaker slam try). Since this is the B/I forum I'd doubt we'd go into the serious/non-serious 3nt agreement, but a higher meta-agreement that might worth exploring might be to choose one of:

1. The cue bid below game demands other cue bids below game so the failure to make a cue bid promises you don't have a control in that suit.

2. A slam probe by one partner asks the other partner to evaluate how suitable their hand is for slam, and they will only cooperate with suitable hands.

If the OP hand was JT5 KT9874 T9 AK then method 1 demands a 4♥ call whereas method 2 is more ambiguous (I'd probably still bid 4♥). The two methods can also conflict if the hand was something like JT5 KJ863 Q9 KJ3. Using method 1 then a 4♥ call is mandatory and using method 2, the hand is not very suitable and a 4♠ call is much clearer.

The danger is if you bid as if 2 when partner expects 1, they may sign off at the 4 level expecting 2 quick heart losers. If you bid like 1 when your partner expects 2 then your partner may play you for a lot more strength and explore slam when the 5 level isn't safe.

So, as is almost always the case, the question of if you should sign off or cooperate when partner cues a suit you have AK in is it depends on partnership agreements (except in the OP hand where it didn't matter if you choose method 1 or 2 - both demand a 4♠ bid as you have nothing to cue and don't really want to cooperate).

[Antrax]

Thanks Mbodell, excellent post. Our understanding is 2 at the moment, so I would sign off in 4♠ even with K♥ - but I was wondering if it's the right thing to do.

[Quantumcat]

Either agreement is right as long as both partners know it!