[TWO4BRIDGE]

What's your plan ?
You are Dealer.
IMPs
Red vs white.

♠ void
♥ void
♦ A K Q J 10 9 7 4
♣ A 9 7 3 2

I'll post more later....

[VM1973]

Ask for aces, then ask for kings and if you have a good system it will let you know exactly which kings you have not just the total number.

[wyman]

VM1973, on 2011-August-23, 07:43, said:

Ask for aces, then ask for kings and if you have a good system it will let you know exactly which kings you have not just the total number.

ok so he has no aces and the major suit kings. How are you avoiding 7D?

[Cyberyeti]

wyman, on 2011-August-23, 07:46, said:

ok so he has no aces and the major suit kings. How are you avoiding 7D?

Or he has both major AKs, how do you find out whether he has ♦8 or xxx, you need to find out a bit about his hand so keep it low, ideally you can get clubs agreed so you can ask about ♣KQ later. I open 1♦.

[mikeh]

There is no sure way of bidding freaks. And it is particularly annoying to be red v white, void in both majors, since I suspect that we are not going to have an unobstructed auction.....this could be at the 5 level by the time it gets back to me!

But I open 1♦.

If the opps do blast away, I may later be able to bid some number of notrump to show both minors, with at least a 2 card discrepancy between the 2 suits....tho I will not play in clubs no matter how strongly he prefers them. This way, maybe, just maybe, I'll come close to describing my hand.

As for my next move, beyond that vague hope, there is too much unpredictability so I will await my next turn before thinking much further.

[VM1973]

wyman, on 2011-August-23, 07:46, said:

ok so he has no aces and the major suit kings. How are you avoiding 7D?

Well you start with 2♣ and your partner should show his controls over that. In this case we're assuming he shows 2 controls (for those kings you mentioned). Then you bid 3♦ and follow that up with 4♥ Kickback for aces. He bids 4♠ (0,3) and you bid 5♥ and he bids 5♠ showing that he has the ♠K and you bid 6♣ which asks about the ♣K and he bids 6♦ which says no, he doesn't have it and you pass.

[Zelandakh]

One simple approach would be to open 2C (or 2D benji) then jump to 4D as KCB agreeing diamonds, and follow that up with a SSA in clubs.

[VM1973]

Cyberyeti, on 2011-August-23, 10:44, said:

Or he has both major AKs, how do you find out whether he has ♦8 or xxx, you need to find out a bit about his hand so keep it low, ideally you can get clubs agreed so you can ask about ♣KQ later. I open 1♦.

If you have a system for asking your partner if he has the ♦8 then I am truly in awe of your prowess.

[wyman]

VM1973, on 2011-August-23, 11:01, said:

Well you start with 2♣ and your partner should show his controls over that. In this case we're assuming he shows 2 controls (for those kings you mentioned). Then you bid 3♦ and follow that up with 4♥ Kickback for aces. He bids 4♠ (0,3) and you bid 5♥ and he bids 5♠ showing that he has the ♠K and you bid 6♣ which asks about the ♣K and he bids 6♦ which says no, he doesn't have it and you pass.

Oh, so you're starting with 2C. You probably should mention that.

When you say "Ask for aces, then ask for kings" as a response to " What's your plan ?" I assume that you're opening 4N to ask for aces.

[pooltuna]

my plan is to pass partner's X of LHO's 5M overcall otherwise I will play the hand and hope I can score 3♣ tricks

[inquiry]

Oh the MisIry (old-timers know what is coming next). BTW, not so rare if you play in ghoulash (spelling?) events. BBO tournament databases because of ghoulash events have many such hands.

The bidding is likely to be highly competitive. Someone will be long in a major, maybe both of them.

With a very limited number of partners I would be able to open this hand 3♦. This is EITHER a heart preempt or a strong two suited hand with diamonds as one of the suits and a black suit. Assuming the opponents are silent and partner is not overly active the bidding will go....

3♦ - 3♥
5♣

The five club rebid has a special meaning.
1) Only two losers, and
2) No need for the Ace or King of hearts.

This is not a great Misiry hand because it probably should be treated as a one suiter. But here I go with misiry, If partner just has spade Ace or King, and no club honor but has a club fit, we will will end up in a hopeless 6♦ (he will bid 6♣ and I will correct to 6♦). If his hand is spade ace/king and four clubs, I will end up in 6♦ with at least a chance for six if clubs are 2-2. If partner has spade ace or king, club fit to an honor he will ASK if spade honor is working (5H ask if king is working, 5S if Ace is working). Here we will stop in six clubs/diamons. Sadly even if he has five clubs to KING.

This hand might get easier if there is some competition, because I will have other options depending on how the interference goes.

Since it has been a long, long time since I talked about MisIry here, I have attached in a PDF draft of the MisIry method. It is 13 pages, so no need for anyone to download it unless they are seriously curious. You will note at the end of the document a "miserable trick" where you can treat one suiters as two suiters, to check for AKQ in a specific suit, but sadly this is not one of those hands because partner can pass 5♣. That trick doesn't work when you have to rebid in either of your "supposed" real suits. Also, while MisIry is legal, it is not ACBL legal to use the miserable trick anyway.

Attached File(s)

•  Misiry_draft.pdf (218.54K)
  Number of downloads: 4

[mikeh]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First, we have a resurgence of ZAR analysis and noe Misry rears its head again!!!!!!!!!!

Just kidding

Btw, for VM and his plan to open 2♣ and use keycard in diamonds, what makes you think that the opps are going to stay out of your way, or that partner won't expect a somewhat different hand and upset your applecart in some way?

I had a discussion with several players at a Sectional this past weekend. One player picked up AKQJ10xxx xx void Axx and chose to open 2♣ because 'what if I opened 1♠ and it was passed out?'

Apart from the obvious: that she hadn't made game yet, opposite a non-responding partner, I and another expert friend pointed out that it was highly unlikely that the auction would die in 1♠. But, and I am getting to the point at last, my main suggestion was that one should not open 2♣ on hands on which, should the opps bid a slam, we have no confidence that we can beat it.

And on the 8=2=0=3 hand, her partner held a 12 count and drove to slam, which had no play and was lucky to go down only 1.

On this hand, should we open 2♣ and the opps bounce quickly to 6♥ or ♠, just how confident are we that we can beat it?

I happen to think that this 'rule' is a useful concept...I don't claim it is mine....I think I first read of it in an article or comment by Kaplan.

[Cyberyeti]

VM1973, on 2011-August-23, 11:03, said:

If you have a system for asking your partner if he has the ♦8 then I am truly in awe of your prowess.

My point was that asking for aces and kings tells you nothing useful unless partner has an entry, so you'd like to exchange some information before asking for aces, no you're not going to find out whether partner has ♦8, but knowledge that partner has both major AKs is useless to you unless you can get to them so why ask. If partner has ♦xxx you have some chance of finding out if you start with 1♦.

[whereagles]

playing no special methods I'd just open 6♦.

[Echognome]

It doesn't sound like this will be popular, but I think it should at least be considered opening 6♦ on the hand. I am weighing the likelihood we can have an intelligent auction where we can decide between 5♦, 6♦, and 7♦ and one where the opponents compete and find a great sacrifice or we are left further in the dark. I know this will put considerable strain on partner (especially if partner holds 2 aces!), but we are also putting considerable strain on opponents and that is always fun.

[wyman]

whereagles, on 2011-August-23, 13:28, said:

playing no special methods I'd just open 6♦.

probably not the support you want, but this was my feeling as well. I sympathize with the 1D-3C crowd, of course, and I suspect that's "right." In practice, I'd prefer to not give the opps enough info to make a good lead or sac or dbl. If they dbl, I would prefer that they, too, are gambling. I don't know that I'll ever be able to have a really intelligent auction, in any case, although I definitely concede that I'm more likely to find a good grand if I take it slow.

2C is not my style.

[BunnyGo]

I will say that one of the most awkward hands I ever had to bid against went:

(P)-P-(6♥)-??

Over this wyman and I just passed it out. We set it 2 tricks (for win 2 IMPs as our teammates went down in 4), but we couldn't do anything better as he had a big two suiter. This is all to suggest that whether 6 is the correct level or not, you may be down undoubled, or may be making doubled, or get the defense off to the wrong lead without a descriptive auction (as was the case with us), there's really not much for the opponents to do.

[mikeh]

I doubt that anyone has much experience dealing with 6 level openings....I have seen it only twice in almost 40 years of playing. But I think that on this hand, with this vulnerability, there is simply too high a chance that one opp or the other will save. After all, when we opne at the 6 level red v white in 1st seat, most opps will think we expect to make. And neither we nor partner will have much idea what to do.

That isn't to say that I hate the bid....after all, I don't claim that my choice of 1♦ will fare any better...well, it will sometimes, and not other times.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

whereagles, on 2011-August-23, 13:28, said:

playing no special methods I'd just open 6♦.

Many opened 1D and most opps interfered with ♥ bids, but many reached 6D.

A few just opened 6D.

And a few opened 2C... and it worked because partner had CLUBS ... who would have thought ?

2C! - 3C! ( 5+ card suit w/2 of the top 3 honors )
7D

Partner's hand:

♠ 10 8 6 5 3
♥ K Q 10
♦ void
♣ K Q 10 6 5

It might be argued apriori that 7C could be safer.

[Echognome]

mikeh, on 2011-August-23, 14:16, said:

I doubt that anyone has much experience dealing with 6 level openings....I have seen it only twice in almost 40 years of playing. But I think that on this hand, with this vulnerability, there is simply too high a chance that one opp or the other will save. After all, when we opne at the 6 level red v white in 1st seat, most opps will think we expect to make. And neither we nor partner will have much idea what to do.

That isn't to say that I hate the bid....after all, I don't claim that my choice of 1♦ will fare any better...well, it will sometimes, and not other times.

I agree with your statement that most opponents will think we expect to make, but then we are not sure we will make ourselves are we? I think we would be quite happy if it goes 6♦ - (6M) - Dbl. It's certainly a gamble. But I do not see how the likelihood of a sacrifice will be any less if we open at the 1-level. We are certainly taking away as much space as we can.

I by no means think this is the only right answer on this hand or that there is even a right answer for hands like these. It just feels to me that this is a good hand for a 6-level opening as much as any. Of course to define the quintessential hand for opening at the 6-level defines how likely you are bidding to make and how often opponents should sacrifice over it. This hand seems like opposite the right yarborough we might make xxx xxx xx xxxxx or we might go down opposite a fine hand AKxxx AKxxxx --- xx. That's the nature of the gamble.