[mikl_plkcc]

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7♦ would make. Was I too aggressive in bidding a Soloway?

[hrothgar]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-March-31, 10:51, said:

7♦ would make. Was I too aggressive in bidding a Soloway?

The issue here isn't one about strength or aggression, but rather your ability to identify strain.

A Soloway Jump shift shows one of three hand types

1. A strong single suited hand that will not lose a trick oppose a stiff (some would say opposite a void)
2. A two suited hand with a good suit and primary support for partner
3. A strong semi balanced hand

You have none of these.

The hand isn't semi balanced
The Spade suit is too weak to set this as trump
You aren't sure about strain.

The issue here isn't a question of strength, but rather that any rebid that you are is going to be misdescriptive...

Switch your Diamond suit and your club suit such that you hold a 6-3-0-4 hand. The Soloway Jump Shift would have been perfect.

[mikl_plkcc]

Isn't AKQxxx good enough for a Soloway single suited?

[mikeh]

In what universe are you making 7S if opener has a spade void? How did you know he didn’t?

And a stiff small spade makes grand bad….you need 3=3 spades or J10 doubleton, so maybe 37%. You got lucky, in a way…he held the Jack….

But how did you know you had no slow diamond loser? Btw, 4D shouldn’t be a suit after your so-called So.oway jumpshift, as Hrothgar explains and, even if it were a suit, what makes you think partner has KQxx as opposed to KJxx?

You deserve to find opener with void QJx KJxx AQJxxxx, and that’s giving him a better hand than he’s promised.

You made the common and usually frequently repeated error of many not very good players….you fell in love with what started out as a promising hand and utterly failed to listen to the auction. Now, playing with robots makes drawing logical inferences difficult to impossible since their programming is woefully incompetent compared to even an intermediate human. But even a robot would probably raise spades at some point with xx Q KJxx AQJxxx…opposite which you’ve reached a silly grand….you need 3-2 trump (68.5%) plus either finding the diamond Queen or setting up the clubs, with limited entries.

How about 1C 1S 2C 2D 3D 3S 4S as a start?

You will know that partner has at most 2 spades and possibly one (an expert human might have none!).

You will know that partner has 4 diamonds and no heart stopper, so not Qxx.

He might be 2=2=4=5, but that hand might bid differently.He may well be 1=2=4=6…guess what? He is, but I didn’t just pick that shape randomly. It’s the single most likely shape, bearing in mind that 2D wouldn’t, for a good human player, promise real diamonds….its a convenient forcing bid.

So it’s possible, after 3D, to simply keycard in diamonds, reaching a far better slam or grand than spades rates to offer.

My main point, however, is that you need to let the auction change how you think about your hand. Sometimes auctions tell you that your values are really working, letting you be aggressive even with modest values. On those hands, your initial valuation will be modest….then the auction tells you to become optimistic. On this one, exactly the opposite should be going on, at least in terms of spades.

[mikeh]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-March-31, 11:24, said:

Isn't AKQxxx good enough for a Soloway single suited?

I’m not adverse to a strong (Soloway type) jumpshift on AKQxxx but you’re completely missing the main point. After a Soloway jumpshift, the partnership can play in opener’s suit, responder’s suit or notrump. Soloway ntentionally chose a method whereby it’s impossible to find a different suit. No new suit bid, after a Soloway jumpshift, is natural. 6=4 hands nly jumpshift if the 4 card suit is opener’s suit.

It’s worth remembering or learning that Soloway was invented this bid at a time when bidding theory was far less developed than it is today. We have so many bidding gadgets that didn’t exist 40-50 years ago that the problems the Soloway JS was intended to solve are usually dealt with by other methods.

Meanwhile, the same onward march of bidding theory means that there are other uses for 2S.

[mikl_plkcc]

I don't play Soloway with my regular partner but this is a robot tournament and it is included in the robot bidding system, so I thought it would describe my hand well.

[smerriman]

Yup. But it didn't, since you didn't know which suit should be trumps.

[mikeh]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-March-31, 15:44, said:

I don't play Soloway with my regular partner but this is a robot tournament and it is included in the robot bidding system, so I thought it would describe my hand well.

That’s got virtually nothing to do with the result. Btw, the fact that you’re complaining about the 5-1 break indicates that you have no insight into just how bad your auction was, with a robot or a human. Simply put….what made yiu think that spades was an adequate trump suit for a grand? On the auction you were in fact extraordinarily lucky to catch the spade Jack. Ask yourself this…how would the robot or a semi-competent human bid with 0=3=4=6?

Or with a stiff spade spot. In the first case, grand literally has no play. In the second, it’s marginally over 35.5%.

That you don’t seem to understand these basic propositions, complaining instead about bad luck’ suggests yiu need to take a good, hard look at how you listen to auctions and how you value your hands

[smerriman]

mikeh, on 2025-March-31, 16:25, said:

That’s got virtually nothing to do with the result.

To be fair, I think it has most to do with the result. Given the OP doesn't play Soloway, it sounds like they did not understand how the convention works, and thought it suited the hand solely based on the description of the bids the robot provides. Which don't come close to explaining what you're truly showing by using it.

Edit - no, you're right, 7♠ when the description of GIB's bids show no spades was a critical issue regardless. I hadn't really paid much attention to what happened later in the auction.

[helene_t]

I think your auction was reasonable at matchpoints, at imps it might be better to start with 1sp to keep the doors open for a diamond contract. Also, at imps you need a bit more to justify grand slam.

I am not sure if the robot would always give two control bids even with a void in your suit. And it denied the king of clubs. The fact that you have sp9 and that you will be declaring and can hope for a trump lead means that sp10 in dummy may be enough. 7sp may requie you to ruff out the club suit for the 13th trick if dummy didn't have heQ or diQ, that possibility may be enough to make 7spbetter than 7nt even at matchpoints.

Your hand is obviously not ideal for a jump shift but it is easy to see how you could have gone astray after a 1sp response. For example with the actual north hand you could find the diamond fit but to confidenly choose between 7di and 7sp you would need to find out which jack north has. 1sp could also lead to north passing you in a partscore or the auction becoming funny if opps preempt in hearts.

[mycroft]

All the discussion about how the auction showed that your trump suit was inadequate for a grand is absolutely correct, soI'll let MikeH explain it better than I.

But the big key is that Soloway Jump Shifts are *not* generic Strong Jump Shifts; and even if you play just generic Strong Jump Shifts, you probably shouldn't just do it on "lotsa points", if you don't know what suit you're playing in; because there's not enough room to find that out if there are multiple options after you steal a level. Which is the same issue that the people in the other thread bidding 2♣ then 3♦ with a hand that doesn't necessarily want to play in diamonds, because we have "lotsa points" and "few losers" are having, just one bid earlier.

As mentioned, making a Soloway J/S says you're playing in either: your suit, opener's suit, or NT, *and you know which now*. Partner - especially the robots, who don't think - will not believe you are looking for a better suit to play in, *because you've told them that can't happen*.

If you can't face bidding only 1♠ with this hand because "you're too strong", you don't trust partner, or frankly yourself to come up with forcing bids later. 1♣-1♠; 2♣-2♦; 3♦ and your eyes light up, don't they? And you're even below the level where, with the Soloway J/S, you've "told partner what you have".

[Cyberyeti]

mycroft, on 2025-March-31, 20:06, said:

If you can't face bidding only 1♠ with this hand because "you're too strong", you don't trust partner, or frankly yourself to come up with forcing bids later. 1♣-1♠; 2♣-2♦; 3♦ and your eyes light up, don't they? And you're even below the level where, with the Soloway J/S, you've "told partner what you have".

Is 1♣-1♠-2♣-2♦ forcing for robots ? or is this how you bid a 5350 5 count ?

We like many people play 2♦ artificial here, but not sure what robots play.

[helene_t]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-April-01, 00:34, said:

Is 1♣-1♠-2♣-2♦ forcing for robots ? or is this how you bid a 5350 5 count ?

Yes, it is forcing. However, the robot's 3♦ bid is presumably nonforcing, and I would be scared to subsequently bid 3♠ or 4♦.