Re: After a Reverse

David B wrote:
Anyway the hands were:

J
AKxx
AKQxx
Kxx


AQxx
x
xxxx
AJTx

I'm a bit surprised at both the number of people who play 3D as forcing and use gadgets for weak hands these days. Playing "old-fashioned" methods, there's nothing tricky about these hands, as long as you don't launch into a key card ask before you've worked out what level you want to play at.

1D
1S
2H Not technically forcing: responder can pass if he really must...
3C Fourth suit forcing, GF and asking for more information

Opener can now bid either 3NT showing the stop or 4C showing a three-suiter with slam interest, depending on agreements. Either way, responder continues with 4D to show a big diamond raise (support via FSF).

Now you just use your normal cue-bids, asking bids, spiral scanning or similar agreements. For example, if you play ace-first cue-bidding and 4NT shows extras that can't be bid economically, you would probably get this continuation:

....
4D Big raise, sets trumps
4H HA
4S SA
4NT More but can't bid it cheaply (i.e., not CA)
5C CA
5H HK, by implication trumps OK for small slam and looking for grand

This is all pretty much on auto-pilot, and now responder can infer that opener has spade shortage, HAKxx, at least semi-solid diamonds, and almost certainly CK (from the FSF response and 4NT bid).

From responder's point of view, if opener has AKQxx or AKxxxx then the grand will have good chances: at worst it's on a two-way club guess, and in the AKxxxx case it needs diamonds to break 2-1. There are several useful extras opener might hold that haven't been disclosed, too. A Grand Slam Force seems justified at this point.

Cheers,
Chris
.

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