[CSGibson]

rogerclee, on 2013-October-29, 14:34, said:

This is the most normal keycard bid of all time.

I'm glad to hear you say that, its what I did, partner happened to have 5 solid hearts, good spades, and 3 little clubs to go with their diamond stiff, and the opening leader had the temerity to cash their AK of clubs on opening lead…jerk. It turned out to be a 0.

[the hog]

4S is entirely normal. My hand has deteriorated with the 4D bid. Bidding on is poor hand evaluation.

[billw55]

CSGibson, on 2013-October-29, 15:51, said:

I'm glad to hear you say that, its what I did, partner happened to have 5 solid hearts, good spades, and 3 little clubs to go with their diamond stiff,

OK, partner held:

♠KJxx
♥AKQJx
♦x
♣xxx

I assume holding this he will sign off over 4♥ last train? If so next questions: what sort hand will he bid on with? If we just add the ♣A then he was probably keycarding anyway regardless of last train. With the ♣K, perhaps, although the lead will be coming through it. Maybe if we give him the ♣A but remove the ♥Q? And a related question, which of these hands would be out of range for a splinter, if any?

Sorry for all the noob questions in expert forum. Just trying to learn some things.

[CSGibson]

billw55, on 2013-October-30, 08:01, said:

OK, partner held:

♠KJxx
♥AKQJx
♦x
♣xxx

I assume holding this he will sign off over 4♥ last train? If so next questions: what sort hand will he bid on with? If we just add the ♣A then he was probably keycarding anyway regardless of last train. With the ♣K, perhaps, although the lead will be coming through it. Maybe if we give him the ♣A but remove the ♥Q? And a related question, which of these hands would be out of range for a splinter, if any?

Sorry for all the noob questions in expert forum. Just trying to learn some things.

I'm not sure whether she would have signed off over last train, or cue-bid 5H. Your reconstruction is nearly accurate, partner had the heart 9 and decent spade spots.

As I said, we don't really have ranges for the splinters - opening hand is limited because we are playing precision, so our criteria is that it is slam interest opposite the limited opening where the chief evaluation should be wastage opposite the shortage. Some of the hands you gave would be too strong, because they might want to explore slam with some wastage anyway. That being said, I think that there is a better bid with partner's hand than 4D - we are playing xyz, and 3S would have shown 4 good spades and 5 good hearts with slam interest. This version of XYZ is new for my partner, though, so I don't think that she thought of it, and its not like splintering is a horrible bid, its just not the best bid IMO.

[CSGibson]

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An absolute 0. I knew we could be off two club controls when I bid this way, but thought it unlikely - I took/take full blame here. Incidentally, although I don't think a splinter is a bad call, since we are playing xyz I think 3♠, showing good spades and hearts, slam interest, is actually a better call, one that would have let us out below the 5 level for sure, since we would have pinpointed the club issue with the extra room.

[Fluffy]

I still don't understand this one, do people really want to play slam if partner switches a King into clubs?

[mike777]

CSGibson, on 2013-November-05, 10:07, said:

---

An absolute 0. I knew we could be off two club controls when I bid this way, but thought it unlikely - I took/take full blame here. Incidentally, although I don't think a splinter is a bad call, since we are playing xyz I think 3♠, showing good spades and hearts, slam interest, is actually a better call, one that would have let us out below the 5 level for sure, since we would have pinpointed the club issue with the extra room.

I think 3s should show more than this in xyz but agree I dislike the 4d bid. Prefer pard start with 2d art gf and then support spades to show this type of hand.
so it might start:

1d=1h
1s=2d!
2nt=3s etc...

[CSGibson]

mike777, on 2013-November-05, 11:29, said:

I think 3s should show more than this in xyz but agree I dislike the 4d bid. Prefer pard start with 2d art gf and then support spades to show this type of hand.
so it might start:

1d=1h
1s=2d!
2nt=3s etc...

No need for 3♠ to show more, we can still use a non-serious 3N to really granulate.

[jdeegan]

4♠ seems obvious. My hand is a nice minimum, that's all. My ♦ Q and my fifth ♦ are iffy opposite partner's stiff. My stiff ♥ is iffy opposite partner's suit.

[CSGibson]

jdeegan, on 2013-November-05, 11:57, said:

My hand is a nice minimum, that's all.

I don't know if you saw this, but we're playing precision.

[nige1]

CSGibson, on 2013-November-05, 10:07, said:

An absolute 0. I knew we could be off two club controls when I bid this way, but thought it unlikely - I took/take full blame here. Incidentally, although I don't think a splinter is a bad call, since we are playing xyz I think 3♠, showing good spades and hearts, slam interest, is actually a better call, one that would have let us out below the 5 level for sure, since we would have pinpointed the club issue with the extra room.

---

IMO 4♥ (Last train or cue) = 10, 5♦ (Cue) = 9, 4N (RKC) = 8, 6♠ (Punt) = 7, 4♠ (Result merchant) = 6. Partner's splinter was reasonable but minimal in a Precision context and Fluffy's argument that transferring a king to ♣ wouldn't help much is worrying. Nevertheless, CSGbson's bidding seems fine. He was just unlucky. Amazing that 6♠-1 was a zero!