Jack it up

[kenberg]

As mentioned, I like Jack's hands. There is often some uncertainty in them, and that makes them interesting. First one pretty clear cut case:
1 - 3 - 4 -H - Pass
5 -Pass- ?

I was the 4 bidder and I was thinking what on earth is this 5 . It's exclusion key card of course. I do no usually play it and I did not recognize it, but Joe and I had agreed that we were playing IAC std and exclusion key card is what it is.  There was some discussion about whether using excl was the best choice, but that's another matter. It was excl and clearly excl.


Now onto another matter. Two hands involved 4th suit forcing, or at least could have.
Uncontested auction:
1 - 1
2 - ?

Responder bid 3NT. How about 2 ? Over 2 , opener, with 1=3=5=4 shape, would of course bid 3 . Opener, with 4=4=2=3 shape, could still bid 3NT. So why bother with 2 if over 3 you are going to bid 3NT anyway? Of course partner might not have 3 and maybe you find a minor fit. Maybe so. But I think the 4th suit auction can have another purpose.
Respmer's spades were AJxx and I think even AJ9x. Probably she can handle 3NT on a spade lead. But suppose instead her spades are Axxx. Then, after a spade lead, she had better have 9 tricks or there is a good chance she will go down.
I envision a hand such as
Axxx
AQxx
Kx
Qxx

 Now, over a 4th suit forcing 2 , opener will bid 3 with xxx and also bid 3 with KJx. With the latter, the hand very possibly will lay better in 4 . Say the opening lead is the K and a stiff hits in dummy. Duck it. They cannot profitably continue spades, in fact you will probably do so even if they don't. You win at T2, ruff a . draw trump, you still have the A guarding that suit, and now you set up tricks in one of the minors. 
I have some things to do right now and must go, but I think it is pretty easy to set up many hands where the message of 4th suit and then 3NT over 3 shouold be: Pard, I can play NT maybe, but if your hearts are good I think we might well be better off playing in the moysian 4 contract. Moyse won a lot of matches playing in 4-3 fits.


Anyway, I think we can get a lot out of these hands by continuing discussion after the closing bell.

Added: Here is the sort of thing I have in mind:

x
KJx
Axxxx
QJxx

Axxx
AQxx
Kx
Kxx

Perhaps the auction should begin 1 - 1 - 2 but I think with 5-4 in the minors opener might well choose 2 . Long ago I read the advice "You are allowed to raise responder on a three card holding but you should not go out of your way to do so". Seems right. So suppose it starts 1D - 1 - 2 - 2 - 3H - 3NT. Opener looks at his strong hearts and might well opt for the Moysian 4 .
Against 3NT on a spade lead it's clear you need to develop the clubs to come to 9 tricks. So you hold up until the third round, you tak the ace, you concede a club, you hope the spades are 4-4 or that the person with three spades also has the club Ace. If so, you make. better than an even chance but it could go wrong. How about 4 ? The plan for ten tricks is A, one ruff, four !h tricks, two !d tricks, two tricks. Could this go wrong? Yes, it might, But it seems to me that it looks pretty good. On a spade lead you duck. You might well make 5 if the clubs split. On a trump lead (likely since the opponents have heard the auction and so know about the stiff spade on the board, you win on the board and duck a spade,You want to be able to ruff with a spade spot. Maybe 4 goes down, but also 3NT might go down, and I think 4 has the better play.

[Masse24]

As mentioned, I like Jack's hands. There is often some uncertainty in them, and that makes them interesting. First one pretty clear cut case:
1 - 3 - 4 -H - Pass
5 -Pass- ?

I was the 4 bidder and I was thinking what on earth is this 5 . It's exclusion key card of course. I do no usually play it and I did not recognize it, but Joe and I had agreed that we were playing IAC std and exclusion key card is what it is.  There was some discussion about whether using excl was the best choice, but that's another matter. It was excl and clearly excl.

I agree, Ken. There were some especially interesting hands that generated plenty of discussion.

I was kibbing during this hand. Not noticing it was you, I commented to the kibs that I thought it was an "excellent 4 response." You held:
AQJ6 - A972 - K3 - J84
In my opinion, 4 in this auction should show a "good" game-force spade raise. And although you held a control, you do not need one for this bid. Joe followed with 5 -- another excellent bid. I assumed that your 5 was a response (showing 1 keycard) to Joe's Exclusion RKC. I figured Joe's next bid would be 5NT, a natural continuation of what he had started--the Queen ask. If he does so--and it is understood--the subsequent 6 bid to show the trump Queen and King gets you to the grand.

There was much discussion that followed, though not much was settled other than it was an interesting hand. A few kibbers, though, made the comment that 4NT was still best. I disagree for obvious reasons. Although it happens to work wonderfully on this hand due to having two keys and the queen, with a one key response the 4NT bidder (presumably hoping for a grand) is left to wonder.

Joe's hand BTW was:
K8754 - ~ - A96 - AKQ52

So my proposed auction:
1 - (3 ) - 4 ^a - (Pass)
5 ^b - (Pass) - 5 ^c- (Pass)
5NT^d - (Pass) - 6 ^e - (Pass)
7 ^f - all pass

(a) Good game-force raise
(b) Exclusion RKC
(c) One key
(d) Queen ask
(e) Shows trump Q and K
(f) Yahoo!
Knowing about that King is important in bidding the grand with any confidence.

Another possible bid--though inferior in my opinion--would be 5NT instead of 5 . Since Spades are agreed, this would be a Grand-Slam-Force asking partner to bid the grand with two of the top three honors. Again . . . we can see it works here just like 4NT does. But it's lucky since partner has the King.

[kenberg]

Right. I realized later that my 5 was inadvertently right, meaning that I have one key outside of hearts. But I was thinking that somewhere Joe stipulated that when using exclusion the responses are just by count: next suit is 0 outside the excluded suit, then 1, and so on. I have since looked in the notes and can't find it. Keeping 1430 is fine, I suppose that's the default, but I could not find the answer. At any rate, if 5 was right it was inadvertently right.

Exclusion key card is useful when it arises but it arises once every blue moon, or maybe once every other blue moon, and with most of my partners (actually with all of my partners) there are far more common issues to discuss. Exactly what 4th suit forcing entails being one of those issues. I think one of the auctions, uncontested, went 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 and then what? There were those who thought trump had now been set. If the 4th suit bid of 2 absolutely promises five hearts then that would be so, but I, and I think you, believe there are other circumstances where a 4th suit bid is right. Usually that 2 will be on a five card (or more) holding but not always, so after the 2 then I, when holding five, would bid 3 . Now hearts are trump and we will see where we go from there. Even if 2 is not played as 100% GF, the raise to 3 should then be non-passable. The non-GF should apply  when there is no major fit and NT does not seem playable then getting out in a minor short of game is possible. I prefer just saying GF, and that's that.

[Masse24]

I think one of the auctions, uncontested, went 1 - 1 - 1 - 2 and then what? There were those who thought trump had now been set. If the 4th suit bid of 2 absolutely promises five hearts then that would be so, but I, and I think you, believe there are other circumstances where a 4th suit bid is right. Usually that 2 will be on a five card (or more) holding but not always, so after the 2 then I, when holding five, would bid 3 . Now hearts are trump and we will see where we go from there. Even if 2 is not played as 100% GF, the raise to 3 should then be non-passable. The non-GF should apply  when there is no major fit and NT does not seem playable then getting out in a minor short of game is possible. I prefer just saying GF, and that's that.

Yes, Ken. I thought that was a good hand for discussion.
To begin, I play 4sF as a GF. It's pretty standard. Simple. Playing it as a one round force does not make sense to me.

The uncontested auction (from memory as I do not have it) was:
1 - 1 - 1 - 2
2 - 3 - 3 ? - 6     . . . unsure about the 3 bid?

So after responder's 4sF 2 , opener's 2 showed delayed support. But that did not set trump. Opener could very well have bid 4sF with a fit -- a fit -- a hand with five looking for delayed support, or something else just seeking more information. The 4sF bidder may very well have more than one of these.
I like to look at a 4sF bid as saying to partner, "I'm forcing game (so no worries there), please describe your hand more fully. I will explain WHY I bid 4sF on my next bid." The subsequent "explain bid" by responder was missing. There seemed to be some confusion about this necessity during the session. Of course, easy to "think trump had been agreed" looking at all four hands. But opener did not know that.
The correct start to the auction for the hand in question was:
1 - 1 - 1 - 2
2 - 3
Where 3 "set trump" and, depending on further agreements was showing at least some slam interest.

Since this "subsequent explanation" (see above 3 ) requires space, it is imperative for opener not to jump immediately following responder's 4sF bid. Quite often a 4F bid is a prelude to a slam move, so jumping merely preempts your partner. Yes, I can create exception hands, but only with discussion. Basically . . . undiscussed . . . opener should not jump after a 4sF.