[mikl_plkcc]

How many points (HCP + distribution) are needed for a partnership are required for a suit slam to be viable (about 60% for small slam, 90% for grand slam), provided that the partnership does not miss two aces (or an ace in case of grand, unless the appropriate voids have been shown)?

If the answer depends on the amount of fit, please specify as well.

When I didn't go past game with 30-32 TP combined, I lost a slam when others could bid and made, but sometimes I failed it after bidding it when I found out only an ace was missing because of 4-1 trump break.

So what is the exact number for bidding a slam to be the percentage action?

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

If you have a combined 30-32HCP count and a 8 card fit and only one KC is missing go for it.
Lower HCP counts require better fits and a source of tricks.

If you end up in a small slam, which has 50+% chance of making, this is sensible.

In short, if you bid a small slam, which needs at worst a successful finesse go for it,
if you bid a small slam, that needs at least a successful finesse stay out.

If the small slam fails due to 4-1 break, ***** happens, but quite often you also had a successful
finesse, i.e. to make you required trump breaking and a finesse, this is usually considered not
enough, but sometime 40% slam make. And if you end up in a 40% try to make it.


The truth is, if you are a bit conservative bidding slams this is not bad.
In the current team league season, my team bid 3 slams, 2 smalls, 1 grand, both small slams made,
the grand went down, the opponents always stayed in game, ... they killed us, and it was not even
close. They won the league, we ended up 2nd.
We were sitting out the last half, after having handed over our teammates a black zero, more precise
we were driving home.
The take away: focus on game bidding, defence and fight for the partial.

[mw64ahw]

I measure playing strength partly in terms of modified losers so you will need a combined modified loser count of 19-6=13 or less and 26+hcp for a reasonable slam.

[hrothgar]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-April-15, 02:30, said:

So what is the exact number for bidding a slam to be the percentage action?

(1 + (5^.5)) / 2

More seriously, there is no such thing as an "exact" number for this sort of stuff.
There are way too many variables here.

My common refrain is that the first real skill that you need to develop as a bridge player is to be able to look at a pair of hands and be able to decide where you would want to place the contract.

Some game or some slam or part score in a minor or maybe 1NT....

Once you have a good handle on this, then its time for more complicated stuff like bidding.

[jillybean]

I was taught that we need something like a combined 34 points for slam.
This is taught because new players only know how to evaluate their hands with hcp.

Fit with partner, distribution, location and quality of honors, A&K's as opposed to Q&J's are all factors I now use in probing for slam.
There's little more thrilling than making 6 on a combined 25hcp and a double fit but you need someone more skilled than me to explain those intricacies.

[DavidKok]

For 6NT with a balanced hand opposite a balanced hand there's a lot of data out there. In particular, there's Pavlicek's database. He suggests 32 HCP combined, if I remember correctly. The classical recommendation I was taught is 33, but that's too conservative.

When one or both of the hands are unbalanced, HCP are good as worthless as a metric for slam. This leads to all kinds of fun paradoxes, e.g. that the average HCP conditional on making a double dummy suit slam is a little below 26, but if you bid slam as a matter of routine on combined 30-counts you are taking on bad odds. Hand evaluation is really important for good slam finding, especially for finding good slams on low HCP (which are more common than good slams on high HCP, but less common than bad slams on low HCP!). Simple MLTC or adjusted HCP doesn't cut it. Consequently I think your question has no real answer.

[Cyberyeti]

jillybean, on 2025-April-15, 06:28, said:

I was taught that we need something like a combined 34 points for slam.
This is taught because new players only know how to evaluate their hands with hcp.

Fit with partner, distribution, location and quality of honors, A&K's as opposed to Q&J's are all factors I now use in probing for slam.
There's little more thrilling than making 6 on a combined 25hcp and a double fit but you need someone more skilled than me to explain those intricacies.

It's not even double fit scenarios, it's how the hands mesh together, and also how good your declarer play is. I was taught 33 for 6N, never given a number for a suit slam, analysis indicates that once your declarer play is up to it, you should be bidding NT slams on less than 33.

Example - what's the better side suit holding ? KQJxx or Axxxx

That depends so much on what partner's holding is, opposite a singleton and plenty of trumps, I'd usually take the A, but if you can afford a loser there and just need two discards, maybe not. Opposite xxx/xx I clearly want the KQJ.

You need to work out in as much detail as possible what partner's likely hand is, and how your hand meshes with it.

Sometimes there will be hands where some systems should bid the slam/grand and some shouldn't.

eg: you hold

---

dealer E

If you play a strong NT, you know as W partner has to not only have all the EXACT high cards he has, he has no space for extras, but also this exact distribution if he has 3 spades to make 7 (or 5 diamonds). You probably bid 6♠/6N unless you have VERY precise methods.

Playing what I play, partner will be known to be precisely 3442 17-19 by the time we get to 4♣, so we have a much better chance of bidding 7.

1♦ (4+) - 1♠
1N (15-bad 19 bal) - 2♣ (art ask)
3♥ (3442/2443 GF 17-19) - 3♠ (5+♠)
4♣ (cue, 3442)- 4♥ (cue, no diamond cue)
4N (keycard) - 5♠ (2 + Q)
5N (tell me more, we have all the keycards) - 6♦ (Q, I denied the K previously, no ♣Q)
6♥ (can't bid the grand on my own, ostensibly looking for ♥Q alongside the putative K for the cuebid) - 7♠ (I now know you have ♦K to be asking like this so I can picture Kxx, Axxx, AKxx, Kx and one club ruff high is sufficient for 13)

[thepossum]

12 losers and good controls

Right number of trumps and combination of top trumps

Whether you need the Queen or not etc

No idea how many points that is

Maybe around 25+ hcps plus distribution and control

In the limit only 10 hcps lol. Maybe less. Can't be bothered to work out the minimum

[blackshoe]

"If you don't go down in half the slams you bid, you aren't bidding enough slams."

I disremember who said that, but I'm sure he is (or was) a better player than I'll ever be.

[akwoo]

hrothgar, on 2025-April-15, 04:47, said:

My common refrain is that the first real skill that you need to develop as a bridge player is to be able to look at a pair of hands and be able to decide where you would want to place the contract.

Most slams are bid by this skill, not by counting points.

By the time you are thinking of going past game, you should be able to figure out exactly what cards you need from partner for slam to be good, decide if it's possible for them to have all those cards given the bidding so far, and make a bidding plan to get that information out of them (or let them get the information they need out of you).

[mikl_plkcc]

 blackshoe, on 2025-April-17, 21:38, said:

"If you don't go down in half the slams you bid, you aren't bidding enough slams."

I disremember who said that, but I'm sure he is (or was) a better player than I'll ever be.

This advice will lead me to lose points in a pairs game because most pairs won't be bidding slams, apart from those 33+ points ones.

[Cyberyeti]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-April-18, 03:23, said:

This advice will lead me to lose points in a pairs game because most pairs won't be bidding slams, apart from those 33+ points ones.

Agree with this BUT it's a point well made but overdone.

If you don't bid slams that "only" require trumps 3-2, you will miss out 2/3 of the time. Yes the 1/3 of the time trumps don't break or something else really unlikely sets the slam, you will be glad of that, but on balance you're better off bidding them.

If you never go off in slams, you're definitely not bidding enough

[bluenikki]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-April-15, 07:49, said:

I was taught 33 for 6N.

The reason for 34 hcp rather than 33 is that you can lose the first two tricks with 33.

So with 34 missing an ace and no shortness, you should be in 6NT regardless of how great a suit fit you have.

[Cyberyeti]

bluenikki, on 2025-April-18, 04:53, said:

The reason for 34 hcp rather than 33 is that you can lose the first two tricks with 33.

So with 34 missing an ace and no shortness, you should be in 6NT regardless of how great a suit fit you have.

I'm aware of that, but with 33 the odds of the 7 missing points being AK of the same suit is pretty small, and you can often eliminate that chance in the bidding.

You can of course lose the first 2 with 34 (AQ over a K)

The second point is demonstrable nonsense, there are plenty of hands where you have doubletons in the same suit in both hands where you're going -several in NT if you don't find the Q, but only ever -1 in a suit

[hrothgar]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-April-18, 03:23, said:

This advice will lead me to lose points in a pairs game because most pairs won't be bidding slams, apart from those 33+ points ones.

I don't think that the issue here is specific to "pairs games", rather it seems specific to the field that you happen to be playing against...
Regretfully, I don't think that the members of the forum are in a good position to assess how weak or strong the field happens to be.

It sounds like you want a very simple rules based approach that will let you duplicate the the judgement of a fairly weak field...

Not sure if this is a good way to improve at the game and it certainly won't serve you well if you want to perform well in stronger fields

[mikeh]

blackshoe, on 2025-April-17, 21:38, said:

"If you don't go down in half the slams you bid, you aren't bidding enough slams."

I disremember who said that, but I'm sure he is (or was) a better player than I'll ever be.

My guess is that whoever said that was either exaggerating for effect or trying to make others play badly or simply not a very good bidder. Or, more likely, you’re misremembering his advice.

Many slams one bids are cold. Many times a player in a small slam takes 13 tricks.

If one is going down in half of all the slams, then one is bidding a huge number of slams that either have no play or require luck. Either way, if you’re failing in half the slams you bid, you’re an appallingly bad player.

Here’s what that person should have said: if you estimate that slam has a 50% chance of making (say all it needs is a finesse) then bid it.

At MPs, a 50% is a breakeven proposition. Make, get a tied for top. Fail and get a tied for bottom. In the long run one scores 50% for making and for failing….but:

A) slams are rarely on a pure 50-50 proposition. Low frequency very bad breaks can derail an apparently good contract so most (not all) ‘slams on a finesse’ are marginally worse than 50-50 but

B) defence is tricky. Sometimes OPPs make bad leads or other defensive errors, so some 50% slams are allowed through even when the finesse loses

On balance, imo, b outweighs a for most players, whose opps generally aren’t WC defenders.

So at mps, bid 50% slams


At imps, making 980 v the opps 480 is win 11. Going -50 against 450 is also 11, the other way. So it’s 50-50 plus the slight edge from misdefence.

Same story for vul slams…the swing is larger but symmetrical.

Grands are very different but I’m discussing small slam bidding.

A slam that requires a 3-2 trump break, for example, is 68.5% likely to make, assuming no inferences from the bidding to suggest bad breaks. Going down in 50% of such slams would be extremely unusual provided one had a decent sample size.

[blackshoe]

Picky, picky, picky.

[thepossum]

 blackshoe, on 2025-April-17, 21:38, said:

"If you don't go down in half the slams you bid, you aren't bidding enough slams."

I disremember who said that, but I'm sure he is (or was) a better player than I'll ever be.

I doubt it is 50%
Even I am devastated in 6-1
But if the few players down there with me look like experts it's some consolation