{"id":1854,"date":"2011-02-21T01:20:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T09:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/?p=1854"},"modified":"2013-02-15T22:49:08","modified_gmt":"2013-02-16T06:49:08","slug":"polling-you-43-slam-bidding-%e2%80%93-controls-day-3-february-21-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/?p=1854","title":{"rendered":"Polling You #43: Slam Bidding \u2013 Controls, Day 3, February 21, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Slam Bidding using controls in Contract Bridge<\/strong><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/survey.constantcontact.com\/poll\/a07e3g48e20gkf0uqpw\/start.js?v=1&amp;w=300\"><\/script><a class=\"twitter-share-button\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\">Tweet<\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bridgehands-videos.s3.amazonaws.com\/Polling_You_43_Part_1\/Polling_You_43_Part_1.html\"><strong>Click here to view Part 1 of the video commentary<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>BridgeHands<\/em> members &#8211; after logging in, please scroll down to view text and video&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>At some point in our Bridge career we learn that making a 12 contract slam require Aces and Kings, lots of them.\u00a0 And once we learn the Blackwood convention and no more, our slam bidding follows the old cliche, &#8220;When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail!&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Yet here we go again with yet another discussion about more instances when to use cuebids as a critical alternative.\u00a0 Be on the lookout to avoid opponents cashing out their Ace-King before you get a chance to pull trump and try to promote a nice side suit.\u00a0 Ditto when you have a void and attempt to Blackwood-ask for Aces: &#8220;Which Aces was that, partner?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>So what&#8217;s wrong with the Blackwood Ace-asking bid, you ask?\u00a0 Well nothing, when the bid is used in the right situation.\u00a0 As we shall see, the prerequisite to bid Blackwood includes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. A good trump fit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Sufficient points &#8211; either High Card Points or distribution points<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>3. At least one control in each suit, to ensure the opponents do not hold the Ace-King on a side suit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>4. No voids in a suit &#8211; otherwise the Blackwood response will be ambiguous since the unspecified Ace might be double-counted along with the void<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Controls in a suit include (4 suits, 2 per suit):<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Aces<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Kings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Singletons<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Voids<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Cuebidding Technique:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Trump fit<br \/>\na. Partnership agree on a suit<br \/>\nb. One player bids strongly, indicating a self-sustaining suit (or semi self-sustaining suit)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Partners cuebid controls &#8220;up the line&#8221; (lower ranking suit first)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Cuebidding typically begins at 4 level (perhaps 3 Spades after 1H &#8211; 3H)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Bidding the agreed-upon trump suit is a signoff request &#8211; nothing else to show<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>5. Bidding a non-conventional Notrump bid (as 5 Notrump) is generally &#8220;to play&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>6. The one who knows, GOES! (bids Blackwood, slam directly, etc)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>7. Slow shows &#8211; fast denies (bidding slowly shows extra honors\/controls\/strength\/shape)<!--more-->BridgeHands recommendation:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>When partner makes a strong bid showing a self-sustaining suit, that suit is considered trump unless the responder bids Notrump.\u00a0 Cuebidding a new suit implies trump acceptance and shows a control in cooperation with partner.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1. 1D &#8211; 2H; 3C\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Strong Jump Shift with Hearts declared trump, 3 Clubs is a control-showing cuebid<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>2. 1H &#8211; 4C; 4D\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Responder&#8217;s splinter bid shows 4+ Hearts, game values including shortness in Clubs, opener&#8217;s 4D bid is a control-showing cuebid<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>3. 2C &#8211; 2D; 3H &#8211; 3S\u00a0 Opener&#8217;s Heart jump shows a self-sustaining suit, responder shows a Spade control<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Free, Premium and ULTRA members &#8211; please login to view video of additional hand\/s<\/strong><\/p>\nPlease login or register to view this content.\n<p>Additional video hand commentary for Premium and ULTRA members<\/p>\nPlease login or register to view this content.\nPlease login or register to view this content.\n<p><strong>Warm Regards, <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>BridgeHands<\/em><\/strong><strong><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Slam Bidding using controls in Contract Bridge Tweet Click here to view Part 1 of the video commentary BridgeHands members &#8211; after logging in, please scroll down to view text and video&#8230; &nbsp; At some point in our Bridge career we learn that making a 12 contract slam require Aces and Kings, lots of them.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1854"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1857,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions\/1857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgehands.com\/bridgeblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}