[mw64ahw]

A hand from last night with partner having a dilemma about what to bid next

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The bidding shown above is a bespoke Transfer Walsh sequence with the following to note:

1♣ -1♠ GF
2♣ (5+♣ & 3/4M, not balanced, not 4405) - 2♦ (4+♥)
3♠ (6+♣4♠ Int+, denies 3♥) - ?

How would you bid and what's your final contract?

and

What lead do you expect opposite your final contract?

[LBengtsson]

interesting relay. as you have already set up GF with 1♠ I guess 4♣ keeps all options open. 4♠ looks like signoff. the 8 card fit in ♠ can be better than the 9 card fit in ♣ but you need partner to have ♠KQxx for slam in ♠ to look possible. if the major suits were reversed ♠akt6 ♥a653 I would be more confident with possible ♠ slam. at the moment I am looking at possible ♦ losers except if partner has ♦A or K, and I want to protect ♦K on opening lead if we reach 5♣/6♣ contract.

I see your problem with relay as now west hand has artificially bid ♠ as GF and contract in ♠ may be from wrong side of the table. have you facility to end in 4♠ or 6♠ contract after 4♣ bid?

I do not know final contract at this stage as 6♣+4♠ Inv+ is not defined. could partner have ♠J872 ♥Q ♦AK ♣AQJt98 for his bid? the weakness in west ♠ suit stops me trying for slam in ♠.

[Winstonm]

4C is my bid now. Other than that, it is still quite up in the air. If partner cannot bid 4D or take control of the auction, I expect to play 4S.

[mikeh]

Not a good advertisement for the methods. Here we are at the 3- level without knowing much about partner’s hand while he knows little about ours.


KQJx void Qxx AQJxxx is down in slam on the inevitable diamond lead. KQxx Qx x AQJxxx is virtually cold for 6C and has good play in 6S


As it is, I’m giving up on spades. I bid 4S and partner can’t know what to do. Note I’m assuming imps where playing in the lower scoring, but making, black suit is of little consequence.

So I bid 4C, presumably setting trump. Hopefully he can cue a diamond card, then do I have keycard available?

At mps, I may have screwed the pooch, since at other tables a 1H response fetches spades from his side, and it matters not whether other pairs use transfers…it’s going to go 1C 1D 1S

Btw, note how smoothly the auction likely goes after 1C 1H 1S 2D 3C 3S. We’re at the same level but partner is declaring spades and we’ve shown more information about our hand to partner, who can then make an intelligent call.

I suspect there are gains from having other responses to 1C deny game force values, but I’m at a loss to figure them out.

[nullve]

 mikeh, on 2021-July-14, 12:32, said:

I suspect there are gains from having other responses to 1C deny game force values, but I’m at a loss to figure them out.

Welland-Auken use the 1♠ as ART GF (with shape resolution more or less as in Symmetric Relay, often followed by Optional RKC) in their version of T-Walsh.

But 1♠ is not a mandatory response with GF values. See e.g. the 2N response (which they seem to use as a right-siding device) on this CC from 2016:

http://clairebridge....ken-Welland.pdf

[mw64ahw]

 mikeh, on 2021-July-14, 12:32, said:

Btw, note how smoothly the auction likely goes after 1C 1H 1S 2D 3C 3S. We're at the same level but partner is declaring spades and we've shown more information about our hand to partner, who can then make an intelligent call.

Yes - both partners know each other's main shape (as do the opposition). Opener has Kx♦; what do you bid from here?

 mikeh, on 2021-July-14, 12:32, said:

I suspect there are gains from having other responses to 1C deny game force values, but I'm at a loss to figure them out.

The two key benefits are

a) the ability to show a wider range of distributional hands without GF values, and
b) well-defined approaches to showing various shapes (NB: we also play an unbalanced ♦)

However, I have still working on software to do the analysis and compare with more traditional methods/other approaches.

[mw64ahw]

Partner's solution

As West my first choice would have been 4♣ given the 3 vs 2 keycards status. Probabilities of a ♠ vs ♣ slam are ~5% vs ~60%
Partner had other ideas though and bid 4NT showing 2/4 keycards with ♠ as trumps.
I bypass the 5♣ cue-bid given ♣ have been shown twice with 2 of the top 3 honours assumed. Bidding 5♣ in this case will deny the 2 honours.
5♠ sign-off is tempting as partner is likely to have only 2 keycards, but I bid 5♦ showing the needed ♦ control, but with ♠ as trumps, wrong-siding & the single keycard there is a problem.
Partner, however has other ideas and knowing I have the Ace & Queen ♣ bids 6♣ counting at least 4 keyacrds & Q♣. I quickly pass not thinking about a possible 6♠/ 6NT.

At other tables 1 pair bid and made 6♠, 4x4♠+2, 2x4♠+1,1x4♠,1x4♠-1,3x5♣+1 & a few odd/underbid final contracts.

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