[the hog]

This little swine turned up tonight
All vul Imps

void
void
AQxxxxx
AKTxxx

For better or worse, you open 1D (Actually 1S showing Ds, but the principle is the same). It continues

1D (1H) P (4NT)
Now what?

[luis]

Do you play 6c here as "some clubs and many voids" ?

I'd bid 6c

[hrothgar]

1S opening? Looks closer to a strong club to me.
On the bright side, showing Diamonds first has made life easier for me in many ways.
I'm bidding 5NT, asking partner to chose between the minors.

[Codo]

so, where do we want to go today?
6 club is obvious but maybe wrong.

Maybe 7 Club is better. With 5 NT or 6 club, worst case will be 6 Diamond from lho showing strength and first round control and his pd with a club void bid 7 Heart..
Second worst case: I bid 6 club and pd has something like Kx, xxxx in the minors for 6 C + 1...
So take me for 7 Club, hoping the best, expecting the worst..

[hrothgar]

Quote

so, where do we want to go today?
6 club is obvious but maybe wrong.

Maybe 7 Club is better. With 5 NT or 6 club, worst case will be 6 Diamond from lho showing strength and first round control and his pd with a club void bid 7 Heart..
Second worst case: I bid 6 club and pd has something like Kx, xxxx in the minors for 6 C + 1...
So take me for 7 Club, hoping the best, expecting the worst..

I was torn between forcing the bidding to the 6 level and going to the 7 level.
Partner's lead me to decide to "only" bid at the 6 level.
Partner wasn't able to scrape up anything over my initial opening bid. I'm too worried that there will be losers in the minors to make 7, and we might be able to beat 6M.

In any case, I think that there are two main topics that need to be discussed.
The first is level: I'm bididng to the 6 level, but think that 7m could be correct.

The second is how to show the two suited hand pattern.
I prefer bidding NT to rebidding in the minor, since I want to make sure that partner focuses on HIS best minor, rather than making assumptions about mine.

[inquiry]

As an intial thought don't worry about getting to 7 when it is right. You are probably going to be pushed to seven anyway since are you REALLY going to let them play 6H or 6S on this hand? Not at imps for sure.

But you do need to find the right strain. So the first question is which bid to pick a minor (5NT or 6 CLUBS) shows equal minor cards in your hand so your partner can make the best choice.

Without prior discussion, I would have played 6C as pretty much equal minors, and 5NT I am interested in 6D, but can play in clubs if you have that suit. Here however, I would have bid 5NT despite this understanding. The reason? You are not bidding in a vacuum. West's hand is still very much unlimited, and his partner has a great hand for the leap to 4NT (presumably a big heart fit and probably a lot of spades). I don't expect partner to be looking at either five diamonds or even four diamonds (no preemptive raise) or a smattering of points and four or more spades (no negative double). So one thing is clear, your opponents have a great save against any making 6 of a minor and worse, on this freak, maybe both slams (6H and 6m) are making, or even both grand slams are making).

If partner lacks a lot of diamonds, and the 4NT bidder has a major two suiter, he is by far more likely to have a diamond void than WEST, so if I bid 6C/7C a lead directing double might set me while 6C/7C from partner's side is on ice.

What is keeping EAST from having S-AJxxxx H-KQxxxx D-void C-x and his partner having a club void? (yes you wouldn't use blackwood with a void, neither would I, but stranger things have happened). Giving partner... s-xxxxx H-x D-x C-Qxxxxx. They make 7H, you make 7 clubs from your partner's side.

But anyway, I bid 5NT, and if they bid 6H I will rethink the concept of the psychic lead directing 6S on the way to 7C to try to keep them out of 7H's, but I may regret it if they bid 7H's and partner gets to lead. Maybe after the lead director, a double of 7H should be ignore the lead directing bid.. .lol.

[luis]

Quote

Maybe after the lead director, a double of 7H should be ignore the lead directing bid.. .lol.

Once I doubled 5d and then I doubled the final 6s contract, dummy's first suit was hearts. Did pd lead a club? Nah!
I tried to explain it, I tried....
And he fianlly couldn't stand me:
"Don't double anything, I know what to lead without your dbls"
LOL

[the hog]

OK. I bid 5NT as well. Ben the reason I bid 5NT was to lay emphasis on the D. Remember my 1S!! opening showing Ds can be extreme canape in Cs.

Richard, the reason I did not open 1C on this hand is to stop being pre empted out of the auction. An opening bid showing Ds first has placed me better in this auction, I feel. Actually a few pairs opened 2C as I discovered later. I think 2C is a horrible bid. I do not have a lot of high cards; its my distribution that is so good and I expect a lot of bidding on this hand. Hence the 1D (1S) opening.

Anyway the auction proceeded. (Actually 1S* (2H) P (4NT))

1D (1H) P (4NT)
5NT (X)* 6D (6S)

At this stage I passed to show the S void and an interest in going on if partner had the right cards.

P (P) 6NT (P)
7D (X)

The full hand?

void
AKJxxx
Jx
Txxxx
void xxx
void Qxxxx
AQxxxxx KT9
AKTxxx Qx

AKQJTxxxxx
xx
x
void

5NT was x for no good reason. I believe my pd made an excellent 6NT bid here; (or he could have bid 7D), but he evaluated the m cards really well.
Not that 7D is beaten on a C lead, and indeed this was found at some tables. But here is the rub. I had actually opened this hand 1S and so my partner played the hand. From his side its unbeatable. He got a S lead and and.... lazily ruffed low and was overruffed by the J. A 10 card S suit!! I have only ever seen a 10 card suit once in my life before.
This story has a happy ending. We picked up on the board -500 vs +1430 for 6S at the other table.

[luis]

Quote

.... lazily ruffed low and was overruffed by the J. A 10 card S suit!! I have only ever seen a 10 card suit once in my life before.

Not so lazily, if he ruffs high then he needs to guess the diammonds if they are 3-0, diammonds 3-0 are a zillion times more probable than a 10 card spade suit. So ruffing low seems to be just fine. What do you think?

I held a 10 card spade suit once in a South American championship, my hand was:

Punta del Este Uruguay 199x.

AQTxxxxxxx, -, x, Kx

I opened 1 spade :-), and after some interesting events my pd asked for aces and then bid 5NT asking for kings, I blasted to 7s ruining his auction since an ace was missing and they guessed what card to lead, he was asking for kings to make sure 6N was safe (MPs).
Some players opened 6s, others passed some aliens opened 4s.... The traveler was full of funny results:
7s down 1, 6s making 6, 6s making 7, 7s making, 4s making some number of tricks. 6NT would have been about 80%, I ruined that.
Next hand I went down 1 in 6cxx (hearts were not 3-3, the club finesse was wrong, the spades didn't break and the diammond ace was wrong) I'll never forget that two hands....

[inquiry]

Bid one more freaks... they should never be allowed to play 6SPADES at the other table unless you thought you had no defense against 7S and that they might muster the courage to bid it.... :-)

[the hog]

Not so lazily, if he ruffs high then he needs to guess the diammonds if they are 3-0, diammonds 3-0 are a zillion times more probable than a 10 card spade suit. So ruffing low seems to be just fine. What do you think?

Probably true Luis, it just annoyed me that 7D can make. I would probably have made 7 from the other side as this opp was a bit stolid and would probably have led the AH.
Interesting though, if I pick up a 10 card suit headed by AKQ I don't think I would let the ops play.
Would you let them play 7Ds, Ben?

[inquiry]

Quote

[color=Yellow]
Interesting though, if I pick up a 10 card suit headed by AKQ I don't think I would let the ops play.
Would you let them play 7Ds, Ben?

I don't know. Ten to the AKQJ certainly falls into the category of a freak. I would surely favor bidding on at IMPS.