[context: IMPs, all vul; T954 AQJ8542 AQ -; (1D), 1S, ?]
Post by KWSchneiderI felt the likelihood of partner having anything in hearts was zero to
none, so I cuebid 2D. Partner responded 3C.
Not unexpected but disappointing. I was still convinced we had slam but
unable to plot a path (without exclusion available).
What would you do next?
At least in Acol, you've shown an invite or better in spades, partner's
showing an intermediate hand for their overcall and has made a trial
bid in clubs (depending on agreements, showing either length or
looking for help). That's not a perfect fit, but nonetheless fairly
encouraging for slam. The obvious response here is a counter-trial,
because there's room; if you're playing natural trial bids this would
be 3H, if you're playing control bids this would be 3D. Control bids are
better for this hand, but obviously you have to play the form of trial
bids that were agreed before the hand! (I believe "natural" is the
default when there's no particular agreement.)
Assuming natural trial bids, the bidding starts (1D), 1S, 2D; 3C, 3H.
A partner who has a minimum for their previous bidding will now sign off
in 3S (spades are agreed, after all); then you can raise to 4S and enjoy
your game. A signoff in 4S would show a stronger hand but, with the
diamonds on the left, I'd still be sceptical about slam. Unfortunately,
most cue-bidding systems don't distinguish "I'm not interested in slam"
4S from "I'm interested in slam, but don't have any Aces outside spades"
4S, so you may have to guess which hand your partner has. A side-suit
bid would either be very excited for slam or a sign that the auction
had gone off the rails (you have both red Aces, after all). 3NT is
probably conventional, especially after the 3C bid.
FWIW, I think it's a better system for cue-bids to show /missing/ Aces
rather than Aces held (obviously, this needs agreement in advance),
because it removes all the potential ambiguity; if you were interested
in slam and weren't missing any Aces, you'd just bid it, so any slam
try bid would necessarily show the Ace of any suit that was skipped
over. Under that system, any slam try by partner would unambiguously
show or deny the Ace of Clubs, so you could use Blackwood despite the
void because you'd always be able to interpret the answer correctly.
By the way, all this discussion is a good argument for cue bids opposite
an overcall to unconditionally agree partner's suit, like they do in
Acol. In Standard American, they usually have partner's suit but not
always, which just leads to a lot of confusion in an auction like this.
--
ais523