Rubber bridge, none vul, you hold: Tx,xxx,Axx,KJxxx

With opps silent, playing SAYC+, bidding goes:

Pd You
2C (1) 2S (2)
2N (3) 3C (4)
3S (5) ?

Notes:
1) Strong, artificial
2) Artificial, showing 7-9 HCP (step response)
3) 22-24, balanced
4) Puppet Stayman
5) 5 spades

If you bid 3N here, do you expect any further bidding?

--
To be evangelical is to spend every waking moment hovering around
two emotional states: fear and rage. Evangelicals are seriously the
angriest and most vicious bunch of self-pitying, constantly-moaning
whinybutts I've ever encountered.

In message <ugp0q5$2bi4k$1@news.xmission.com>, Kenny McCormack
<gazelle@shell.xmission.com> writes
>Rubber bridge, none vul, you hold: Tx,xxx,Axx,KJxxx
>
>With opps silent, playing SAYC+, bidding goes:
>
> Pd You
> 2C (1) 2S (2)
> 2N (3) 3C (4)
> 3S (5) ?
>
>Notes:
> 1) Strong, artificial
> 2) Artificial, showing 7-9 HCP (step response)
> 3) 22-24, balanced
> 4) Puppet Stayman
> 5) 5 spades
>
>If you bid 3N here, do you expect any further bidding?
>

No. It's quite possible that 3NT is the only making game contract (maybe
4NT or even 5NT as well, but there's no advantage in playing in those).
Personally I'd have bid 3NT the round before, rather than muddying the
waters - especially if you aren't playing in a regular partnership. Even
if partner is maximum, slam is likely to be at best 50-50, but 3NT
should be cold. It's true that should partner have 5 hearts then a spade
ruff would probably give you a better score than if you played in NT,
but as it's rubber bridge that's not really significant. If partner
should have 5 spades and 4 clubs, with two red doubletons, then I
suppose 6C might be on, but that's an unlikely holding. One other
thought: it's unlikely that partner's 5 card spade suit is especially
robust, as then s/he might have rebid 2S.
--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 1:15:08 PM UTC-5, John Hall wrote:
> In message <ugp0q5$2bi4k$1...@news.xmission.com>, Kenny McCormack
> <gaz...@shell.xmission.com> writes
> >Rubber bridge, none vul, you hold: Tx,xxx,Axx,KJxxx
> >
> >With opps silent, playing SAYC+, bidding goes:
> >
> > Pd You
> > 2C (1) 2S (2)
> > 2N (3) 3C (4)
> > 3S (5) ?
> >
> >Notes:
> > 1) Strong, artificial
> > 2) Artificial, showing 7-9 HCP (step response)
> > 3) 22-24, balanced
> > 4) Puppet Stayman
> > 5) 5 spades
> >
> >If you bid 3N here, do you expect any further bidding?
> >
> No. It's quite possible that 3NT is the only making game contract (maybe
> 4NT or even 5NT as well, but there's no advantage in playing in those).
> Personally I'd have bid 3NT the round before, rather than muddying the
> waters - especially if you aren't playing in a regular partnership. Even
> if partner is maximum, slam is likely to be at best 50-50, but 3NT
> should be cold. It's true that should partner have 5 hearts then a spade
> ruff would probably give you a better score than if you played in NT,
> but as it's rubber bridge that's not really significant. If partner
> should have 5 spades and 4 clubs, with two red doubletons, then I
> suppose 6C might be on, but that's an unlikely holding. One other
> thought: it's unlikely that partner's 5 card spade suit is especially
> robust, as then s/he might have rebid 2S.
> --
> John Hall
> "Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
> from coughing."
> Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)
Of course not.

In article <995994ce-4522-4b33-a844-b43cb0226587n@googlegroups.com>,
todd holes <toddholes24@gmail.com> wrote:
....
>> John Hall
>> "Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
>> from coughing."
>> Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

>Of course not.

What does "Of course not" mean? Are you commenting on the comment about
what acting (as a profession) is?

--
The single most important statistic in the US today - the one that explains all the
others - is this: 63 million people thought it was a good idea to vote for this clown
(and will probably do so again). Everything else is secondary to that. Everything else
could be fixed if we can revert this one statistic. Nothing can be fixed until we do.

On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 8:09:14 PM UTC-5, Kenny McCormack wrote:
> In article <995994ce-4522-4b33...@googlegroups.com>,
> todd holes <toddh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> >> John Hall
> >> "Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
> >> from coughing."
> >> Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)
>
> >Of course not.
> What does "Of course not" mean? Are you commenting on the comment about
> what acting (as a profession) is?
>
> --
> The single most important statistic in the US today - the one that explains all the
> others - is this: 63 million people thought it was a good idea to vote for this clown
> (and will probably do so again). Everything else is secondary to that. Everything else
> could be fixed if we can revert this one statistic. Nothing can be fixed until we do.

It's a reply to the question that was asked.
Stated another way . . . No.

In article <NJhU+jBpACMlFwu0@jhall_nospamxx.co.uk>,
John Hall <john@jhall.co.uk> wrote:
....
>Personally I'd have bid 3NT the round before, rather than muddying the
>waters - especially if you aren't playing in a regular partnership.

It should be clear from the context that this *is* a practiced partnership.
The presence of the extra gadgets is testimony to that.

Incidentally, if you're wondering about the origin of this hand, it is
based on something I saw in a book.

>Even
>if partner is maximum, slam is likely to be at best 50-50, but 3NT
>should be cold.

Be serious. I don't think anyone doubts that 3N is cold.

>It's true that should partner have 5 hearts then a spade
>ruff would probably give you a better score than if you played in NT,
>but as it's rubber bridge that's not really significant. If partner
>should have 5 spades and 4 clubs, with two red doubletons, then I
>suppose 6C might be on, but that's an unlikely holding.

It is not hard to construct very reasonable hands for partner in which slam
is not only good, but cold. By the "perfect minimum" rule, you are
certainly entitled to one slam try. In fact, give pd: AKQJx,Axx,xx,AQx
which is only a 20 count, and slam is frigid (*). I'd feel like an idiot
playing it in 3N on that holding.

(*) Modulo a 5-0 club break, I suppose...

>One other
>thought: it's unlikely that partner's 5 card spade suit is especially
>robust, as then s/he might have rebid 2S.

He could not have rebid 2S, since you had already bid that.

Anyway, I like 2N even on the hand shown above. That's why good players
play Puppet Stayman.

Personally, I think the most common bid is probably going to be 3N, but in
that case, I would be praying for partner to take another call. After all,
if he happens to be looking at a 24 count (within range for his 22-24), he
*should* bid 4N over 3N (and you should probably go 6N over that).

I'm not really sure what the right bid is, which is my reason for posting,
but I do think settling for 3N is lame. Given that this is rubber, there
is not the supreme urgency of "3N if at all possible" characteristic of MPs;
thus, 4C is not unreasonable here (*).

(*) But then, someone might argue that 4C is a cue-big, agreeing spades.
Oh, well.

--
Modern Christian: Someone who can take time out from using Leviticus
to defend homophobia and Exodus to plaster the Ten Commandments on
every school and courthouse to claim that the Old Testament is merely
"ancient laws" that "only applies to Jews".