[lamford]

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The heading is translated as "call of the void" which is an unfortunate phenomenon causing people to want to jump off tall structures. Indeed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Highgate Bridge in London have seen many examples.

I did not want to jump with a void on the above hand as we had not properly discussed our responses to RKCB with a void, and we missed the laydown grand. Looking at the internet there are all sorts of responses to show a void. The most common is that 5NT is 2+ a void and 6C is an odd number plus a void, but other methods are prevalent. When I was knee high, we just made the same bid a level higher but you probably need to be playing kickback for that to work.

How should we bid the hand?

[mikeh]

I’d be happy to reach six and would expect well over average in a typical club mp game.

2/1 helps a bit, but even then I think it requires that south shows 6 spades via a 2S rebid….I don’t like 3S at all! Where I come from a 3S bid in a 2/1 auction shows a suit that rates to play for no losers opposite a stiff.

I’ve played 1S 2C 2S as 5+ all my bridge life. But in my main partnership, we’ve been playing ac2S opening as 10-13 and 1S 2C 2D is artificial, showing only 5 spades.

I’d upgrade south into 1S and then we start 1S 2C 2S 3S….3S isn’t necessarily a slam try but it announces willingness to cooperate.

South stretched for the 1S bid but the 2C bid improves the hand….except that, as with many 2/1 pairs, 2C could have been 3=4=4=2!

Plus we don’t usually cue voids as our first cue bid.

So I can’t persuade myself that we’d reach grand. Sometimes all this science works very well (we think so or we wouldn’t play it) but nothings perfect and, here, the uncertainty over responder’s shape gets in the way. Yes, I can come up with a sequence but I can’t honestly say that we’d ever have it in real life.

[mw64ahw]

This is an interesting one in terms of opener's 2nd bid:
As options I have

• 2♦ usually 11/12-14 balanced or <14 otherwise
• 2NT 6♠ unbalanced with extras
• 3♠ self-sustaining suit, which is a moot point here

I'll choose 2NT given the void, modified loser count and 2nd suit, but 7♠ will be hard to reach at the table, so
1♠ - 2♣
2NT - 3♣ Describe?
3♦ 4-card minor - 3♥ Which?
3NT ♦s - 4♣ ♣ 1st/2nd round control w. ♠ as trumps
4♥ ♥ control, no ♦ control - 4NT even keycards with ♦ control
6♥ ♥ void so 6043 - 7♠ North can allocate Souths hcp having at most AKQ♠. QJ♦, Q♣ and counts 13 tricks

[nullve]

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nullve(S)-nullve(N)

1♠(1)-2♣(2)
2♥(3)-2♠(4)
3♣(5)-3♦(6)
4♣(7)-4♥(8)
5♣(9)-5♦(10)
5♠(11)-5N(12)
6♥(13)-7♣ (or 7♠?!?)(14)
P

(1) "10-21, 5+ S, unBAL"
(2) "NAT (GF), not-too-unBAL (GF) or FIT (INV+)"
(3) "13-15", any
(4) relay
(5) 4+ D, neither (exactly) 5-5 nor 5440
(6) relay
(7) 12-14 hcp, 6043
(8) key card ask with C as trumps
(9) odd # of key cards, trump Q
(10) ♠K ask
(11) ♠K, no ♦K
(12) ♠Q ask
(13) ♠Q, ♦Q, no ♠J
(14) contract

[pescetom]

lamford, on 2024-January-03, 07:38, said:

I did not want to jump with a void on the above hand as we had not properly discussed our responses to RKCB with a void, and we missed the laydown grand. Looking at the internet there are all sorts of responses to show a void. The most common is that 5NT is 2+ a void and 6C is an odd number plus a void, but other methods are prevalent. When I was knee high, we just made the same bid a level higher but you probably need to be playing kickback for that to work.

When I was more enthusiastic about RKCB I inserted in agreements that afer a 2 + void reply the first step (6♣ without kickback) asks for the void suit (reply 6♥ here) and the second step (6♦ without kickback) asks for the Q (with specific K as positive reply). That would work for you here I think.

lamford, on 2024-January-03, 07:38, said:

How should we bid the hand?

I don't think we would have set trumps in spades (or used RKCB) in the first place.
We would probably have explored in the clubs fit and it might go:
__ 1♠
2♣ - 2♦
3♣ - 4♣
4♦ - 4♥
5♣(odd) - 5♥
5♠ - 7♠
P

It drops out rather awkwardly, as North never got a chance to show hearts control (we would not lie about diamonds to find out) and South is worried that North's third keycard may be the useless ♥A: but 5♥ denied diamonds control in South and if North had only ♦K he would not have bid a positive 5♠ showing third level control, which is all South now needs to know.

[jillybean]

This could be a Schuler Shift practice hand, sorry to hijack the thread.

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I think this hand is good enough for a 2N bid showing 6 solid spades.
3♠
Here I would cue 4♥ as we have no restrictions on cue bidding below game. If it was the first cue above game it would be first round A or void.
Mike, why not cue voids on first round?

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2024-January-04, 12:12, said:

This could be a Schuler Shift practice hand, sorry to hijack the thread.

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I think this hand is good enough for a 2N bid showing 6 solid spades.
3♠
Here I would cue 4♥ as we have no restrictions on cue bidding below game. If it was the first cue above game it would be first round A or void.
Mike, why not cue voids on first round?

It’s not that we never cuebid voids as our first cue, but I’d have to give some thought to how an auction might suggest that…I suspect (without giving it thought) that it would usually be a cue of a suit bid by the opps.

As for why we rarely do this, most first cues are below game…and such cues are not pure slam tries. As I’ve said many times, once a fit is found below game with (relatively) unlimited combined hand potential (sometimes neither hand is yet limited or one has shown invitational values and partner is unlimited), cuebids below game aren’t purely slam tries in and of themselves. They may be…but for now partner should see them as saying ‘if you are interested, I may be as well…here’s a control in this suit’

It’s usually more helpful for partner’s visualization if he can trust the first cue to be either the ace or the king.

Say partner holds KJx in a side suit…you cue as the first cue below game….if you have a stiff or void,he should downgrade his hand…but if you promise the A or King, now this suit is unlikely to be a problem in slam and in fact his king, in particular, has gone up in value, so he should be more aggressive in his valuation.

This is consistent with my view that many slam or game decisions are best done via dialogue. Dialogue…where the bidding is a conversation with neither partner ‘in charge’ (such that each listens to the other and makes choices that are driven by the information being exchanged)…is often the best way to approach these questions. By having the rule that, in most cases, the first below game cue promises an ace or king we gain in many situations. All bridge ideas have costs. Here, opener wouldn’t cue hearts as the first cue, and clearly that’s a bit of a cost on this hand..where opener has some slam interest but no side ace or king….and that is going to be rare.

[jillybean]

I'll have to think about this. thanks.
I almost missed this reply due to the ongoing problem with forum posts

[jillybean]

I understand that the first cue below game is not necessarily a slam try. It may not be a cue at all, what sort of game tries do you play?
delete nonsense

[DavidKok]

Control bids on slam auctions are a complicated topic. Books have been written about it, and it can get very complicated. What's more, partner needs to take the same view or it's all useless. I think it takes a really experienced and dedicated partnership to have clear rules about slam auctions, and I would not worry about it overly much just yet. These days (non)serious 3NT and Last Train cover most of the strength description that we were lacking earlier, which gets us to the right spot frequently even without very detailed agreements about control bids.

I recently read the first part of Ken Rexford's "Cuebidding at Bridge". The methods described in that book are so extremely efficient with bidding space that he can cover hand type, shape, trump quality, controls and type of controls all below 4M on a wide range of sequences. I expect to never get to play these as they are far too complicated, but it shows that the sky is the limit when it comes to control bidding.

[jillybean]

Thanks. I have no intention of adopting any complex, expert cue bidding system. When I learned this game (SAYC), I could not imagine that I'd be playing 12-14, 10-13nt,
Multi, transfer advances and so on. I do like to know about these treatments, to file away for "maybe one day".

[Lovera]

lamford, on 2024-January-03, 07:38, said:

---

The heading is translated as "call of the void" which is an unfortunate phenomenon causing people to want to jump off tall structures. Indeed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Highgate Bridge in London have seen many examples.

I did not want to jump with a void on the above hand as we had not properly discussed our responses to RKCB with a void, and we missed the laydown grand. Looking at the internet there are all sorts of responses to show a void. The most common is that 5NT is 2+ a void and 6C is an odd number plus a void, but other methods are prevalent. When I was knee high, we just made the same bid a level higher but you probably need to be playing kickback for that to work.

How should we bid the hand?

Hello, nice to see you again. Yes the right answer having the void and 2 keys+Q is 5NT. For N who queries he can find ambiguity to know the void (Clubs, Hearts) which can correspond with the long suit (here Clubs) useful for establish that one if needed but it doesn't seem like it. Instead, asking 6♥(=? void) goes directly to 7♠(=yes) but in this case it is to verify. Continuing with 6♣(=? for Kings) we can instead say 6♥ which can hardly be interpreted for AK but instead signals the presence of the Q in ♣ with the more precise indication of a suit (with an A) instead of the usual 6NT(=K/Q) which makes it for N, who started with the RKCB due to the evaluation of his hand which combined with that of his partner projects him very well in the slam zone, now clearly to read to be in the grand slam.(Lovera)

[Gilithin]

nullve, on 2024-January-03, 14:43, said:

4♣(7)-4♥(8)
(6) relay
(7) 12-14 hcp, 6043
(8) key card ask with C as trumps

If using a relay system, switching to RKCB seems strange. Why not continue something like:
4♣(7)-4♦(8)
4♠(9)-4NT(10)
5♦(11)-5NT(12)
6♥(13)-6♠(14)
6NT(15)-7♠(16)

(7) 12-14 hcp, 6043
(8) relay
(9) 3 controls (or 8 QP if you play that way)
(10) relay
(11) control in ♠ but not ♦ (or whichever parity method you are using)
(12) Q ask
(13) ♣Q, ♦Q
(14) ♠Q ask
(15) ♠Q
(16) or 7♣ if you prefer (we don't know the scoring)

For natural systems and 2/1 GF it is more challenging. As the Devil's advocate, since the majority opinion is that anything other than 2♠ is suicidal, how would a start of 1♠ - 2♣ -- 2♦ - 2♠ -- 4♥ work out? It does not seem to me to be so difficult to reach at least 6 from here but perhaps that is just the DD goggles talking.

[pescetom]

Gilithin, on 2024-February-12, 12:32, said:

For natural systems and 2/1 GF it is more challenging. As the Devil's advocate, since the majority opinion is that anything other than 2♠ is suicidal, how would a start of 1♠ - 2♣ -- 2♦ - 2♠ -- 4♥ work out? It does not seem to me to be so difficult to reach at least 6 from here but perhaps that is just the DD goggles talking.

See my previous post with 1♠ - 2♣; 2♦ - 3♣; 4♣ as one way natural 2/1 GF could rise to the challenge.