Posted 2015-February-17, 17:45
South was guilty of a very common I/A attitude....he fell in love with his big hand and kept on bidding the same values repeatedly. In addition, he committed the most common of slam-bidding errors by using keycard when he had no idea at all of what to do afterwards.
He has a rock-bottom 2♣ opener and the double of 2♦, which improved his hand somewhat, didn't suddenly turn it into the monster that he must have felt it to be.
I assume that 2♦ was a positive game force or, if not, that it was ambiguous and shown, by the 3♠ raise, to have been a positive game force.
Having established a fit, and with a positive response opposite, it is clearly correct to cuebid, since partner, tho a passed hand, could have a far better hand than he did hold. Axxx Kxxx xxx Qx for example.
But having cuebid, and elicited a heart control, S had no business using keycard. This is (I suspect) yet another in the never-ending presentation of auctions in which players have no concept of how to use keycard or, far more importantly, how to avoid using keycard.
I can see that S would be afraid of bidding just 4♠ over 4♥, since partner might be afraid of the 5-level with no diamond control, but the desire to risk going to the 5-level is no excuse for keycard. Look at the outcome....even finding the magic xx in clubs over there, the slam requires a good trump break. Give partner Axx Kxxx xxx xxx, and the auction would be no different at all, and slam has zero play.
if I could hammer home one lesson for I/A players who want to improve their slam bidding it would be to NEVER use keycard unless the answer to keycard allows you to place the contract with confidence. That doesn't mean the contract has to be cold, but it does mean that you have a reliable idea of what you need from the opps (not from partner) to make...i.e. a 3-2 break or, if you like swings, a winning finesse.
When the answer leaves you with no clue as to whether the contract is cold (Axxx KJxx xx Qx) or hopeless (Axx Kxx xxxx xxx) or in-between, then you should not have used keycard.
This isn't tough. You can always think about this before using keycard. Here, for example, you could cuebid 5♦ as a sort of general try, confirming that you controlled diamonds and that you couldn't use keycard. Partner won't always get it right, especially an I/A partner, but by having cooperative auctions, and talking about it afterwards, you'll develop that elusive skill known as judgement. Keep using keycard inappropriately, however, and you will never get any better, and nor will your partner. You'll just keep on bidding bad and hopeless contracts and bemoan the fact that you don't know how to avoid them.
Personally, I would have bid 4♠ over 4♥. This wouldn't, to me, deny a diamond control. It would simply say that I hold a bad hand for the auction so far, which I do.
Partner on this hand would respect the signoff. But if he had a significantly better hand, he should risk the 5-level. Of course, if this S hand is your idea of a 'good' 2♣ hand, forget what I just said, but if one accepts that this is about as bad as it gets, then one cannot readily construct a hand wherein 5♠ is bad opposite a working 9 count or so with Axxx in spades.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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antonylee, on 2015-February-17, 11:04, said:
), but the doubled talked me out of that rebid.