[whereagles]

After 3♠ showing values, responder knows his diamond ace is a pretty good card and he should show it now with 4♦. West's auction is more consistent with

xxx
Jx
KJxx
KJTx

I would say responder has more responsibilities here than opener.

[Cyberyeti]

 hatchett, on 2011-May-22, 17:07, said:

This a pretty terrible GF with almost half its points in the short suits,
which would have hopefully done less bidding than in the OP.

I normally assume KJ is a pretty good holding in partner's bid suit, xxx, xx, AQxx, Kxxx is a near laydown slam, Q109xx of diamonds and ♠K is a pretty good 3N.

[hatchett]

 Cyberyeti, on 2011-May-23, 09:57, said:

I normally assume KJ is a pretty good holding in partner's bid suit, xxx, xx, AQxx, Kxxx is a near laydown slam

If by near laydown you mean 65%, I agree.
I agree KJ in partner's suit is a good holding , but Axxxx is very bad in your main suit, and AJ doubleton in the 'fourth suit'
is not very good either and you overall high card strength is at the weakest end of a GF

[Cyberyeti]

 hatchett, on 2011-May-23, 10:20, said:

If by near laydown you mean 65%, I agree.
I agree KJ in partner's suit is a good holding , but Axxxx is very bad in your main suit, and AJ doubleton in the 'fourth suit'
is not very good either and you overall high card strength is at the weakest end of a GF

Sorry, I had in my mind the original version of the hand that I posted with ♥AKxx rather than AQxx which is basically not much more than clubs not 4-0, but even so you want to be in it. I also had in my mind that partner had guaranteed 4 clubs in these sequences so ♣Axxxx is no disaster, am I wrong about this ? I asked a question as to what 2♥ would show (I play acol rather than any of the american systems and have never used the traditional acol meaning anyway) which nobody has answered, I also never realised 2♥ was GF in this type of sequence, I have certainly never played it as such, thought it guaranteed not that much more than a reverse did.

[hatchett]

 Cyberyeti, on 2011-May-23, 10:46, said:

I asked a question as to what 2♥ would show (I play acol rather than any of the american systems and have never used the traditional acol meaning anyway) which nobody has answered, I also never realised 2♥ was GF in this type of sequence, I have certainly never played it as such, thought it guaranteed not that much more than a reverse did.

The standard meaning of 2♥ in both Acol and Standard American is that it is natural and game forcing. I think some people on this
forum maybe play 2NT over a jump shift as a bad hand that wants to stop short of game but that is non standard.
The upper range of the bid is up to a 2♣ opener. The expectation is that it will have 5+♣ and 4♥, the exception being a 4414 hand
or possibly some super strong 2245 hand that is 'fixed' by the 1♦ response or a hand with long clubs that has to invent a forcing bid.
3♣ by responder shows 3 or more ♣.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

 Hanoi5, on 2011-May-21, 21:18, said:

---

Has anyone mentioned just bidding 1H ( instead of 2H ) which is forcing... and if you play "Walshish" it would show longer Clubs than Hearts.

Then what does Responder bid? ( I'm not suggesting life would be easier but I play the 2H-jump would show 4 Hts and a 6 card Cl suit, GF ).

1C - 1D
1H - ??

[aguahombre]

 TWO4BRIDGE, on 2011-May-23, 17:58, said:

Has anyone mentioned just bidding 1H ( instead of 2H ) which is forcing... and if you play "Walshish" it would show longer Clubs than Hearts.

Some people think that if you can show both unbalanced and strong at the same time, it is a good thing. The idea of Walshish 2/1 is to have someone show their size and shape as conveniently as possible, then proceed to level and strain.

[han]

Why do you want to bid 1H? Everybody seems to agree that slam should easily have been found after the 2H bid.

[Cyberyeti]

 han, on 2011-May-24, 00:14, said:

Why do you want to bid 1H? Everybody seems to agree that slam should easily have been found after the 2H bid.

Because it means you can exchange more info at lower level, does 1♣-1♦-1♥-3♣ show more than 1♣-1♦-2♥-3♣ and is it more likely to show a 4th club ? if it does, it simplifies things massively as the big hand can now just drive this to a slam, if it doesn't there's not much benefit on this hand.

[Free]

 TWO4BRIDGE, on 2011-May-23, 17:58, said:

Has anyone mentioned just bidding 1H ( instead of 2H ) which is forcing... and if you play "Walshish" it would show longer Clubs than Hearts.

Is this really forcing? I wouldn't think so...

And if you play Walshish then opener can still have a 4=4=1=4.

[cherdano]

 Cyberyeti, on 2011-May-24, 08:42, said:

Because it means you can exchange more info at lower level, does 1♣-1♦-1♥-3♣ show more than 1♣-1♦-2♥-3♣ and is it more likely to show a 4th club ? if it does, it simplifies things massively as the big hand can now just drive this to a slam, if it doesn't there's not much benefit on this hand.

And if partner game forces you can drive to a grand slam! By the same logic we should never open 2♣ since with a 2♣ hand you can drive to slam when partner makes an invitational bid after your one-level opening.

More seriously, if you don't show your strength now by jumping to 2♥ you will usually be in trouble to show it later, and even if you can you will have to jump in order to do so.

[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2011-May-24, 09:00, said:

And if partner game forces you can drive to a grand slam! By the same logic we should never open 2♣ since with a 2♣ hand you can drive to slam when partner makes an invitational bid after your one-level opening.

More seriously, if you don't show your strength now by jumping to 2♥ you will usually be in trouble to show it later, and even if you can you will have to jump in order to do so.

I play 1♥ as forcing provided partner actually had a response to 1♣ which we will shade with short clubs. We have no problems catching up later. For us we have so many club raises available that we can sort these hands out accurately.

This hand is 1♣-2♣ inverted. 1♣-1N is pretty much a traditional 2♣ raise with no 4M, 3♣ and 2N cover the weak 5 card raises. 1♣-1♦-1♥-3♣ is 9-11 with 3 clubs, 1♣-1♦-1♥-1♠-?(in this case 2♠)-3♣ is forcing usually with only 3 clubs. We don't play 4SF GF below the 3 level and 1♣-2any is 5any/4♣ GF with suit quality restrictions.

If I was to ever bid 1♣-1♦-2♥ on that sort of hand, partner would have his usual ♦KJ9xxxx and ♣J so I really wanted to game force. At least I get to play in 3♦, not sure where you play.

[han]

 Cyberyeti, on 2011-May-24, 08:42, said:

Because it means you can exchange more info at lower level, does 1♣-1♦-1♥-3♣ show more than 1♣-1♦-2♥-3♣ and is it more likely to show a 4th club ? if it does, it simplifies things massively as the big hand can now just drive this to a slam, if it doesn't there's not much benefit on this hand.

Yes, the jump to 3C is more descriptive but I said before, 3C was a bad bid. Responder should have bid 4C which does show 4 clubs plus slam interest.

After 1H partner has more room to show his hand but we will have a hard time showing ours. After 2H we have shown our strength, we are in a gameforce and partner still has lots of room to describe his hand our find out about ours. When I can choose between showing my own hand very well and letting partner describe his, I go for describing my hand. It is only when I cannot give an accurate description of my own hand that I favor making a cheap call.

[whereagles]

1♥ forcing? well, that can be, but it's easier to describe the level of opener like this

1♣ 1♦
1♥ = min or med 11-17 unbal 54, not forcing (eventually 12-14 bal if you don't play walsh)

1♣ 1♦
2♥ = max 18-20 unbal 54, game forcing

[Cyberyeti]

 han, on 2011-May-24, 11:40, said:

After 1H partner has more room to show his hand but we will have a hard time showing ours. After 2H we have shown our strength, we are in a gameforce and partner still has lots of room to describe his hand our find out about ours. When I can choose between showing my own hand very well and letting partner describe his, I go for describing my hand. It is only when I cannot give an accurate description of my own hand that I favor making a cheap call.

Where one hand is significantly bigger than the other, I tend to prefer to not consume space unnecessarily with the big hand and let the small hand describe itself as it usually has less to tell.

My problem with 2♥ is more its GF nature than what it shows, as you have to use it on hands that are not really game forces, particularly opposite ♦ KQJ to several and out, now if you're playing weak jump shifts (I don't, I prefer to use 1♣-2♥ as something like ♥AQ10xx♣AJxx(31) or better, we play a 4+ card 1♣) that may be OK, but it's all about how it interfaces with the rest of your system.

We have a method for dealing with game forces after 1x-1y, but none of the hands posted here are good enough for it (most often the ones that are either have a long suit or a fit for partner).

[cherdano]

 Cyberyeti, on 2011-May-25, 03:40, said:

My problem with 2♥ is more its GF nature than what it shows, as you have to use it on hands that are not really game forces,

Why?

[Cyberyeti]

 cherdano, on 2011-May-25, 06:26, said:

Why?

Well this hand is nowhere close to a game force, it just doesn't have the playing strength, there are 9 counts that won't make game opposite this (KJx, Jx, QJxxxxx, J was the one that came to mind), so no way am I going to force to game where partner may well only have 5 or 6.

[MrAce]

 Cyberyeti, on 2011-May-25, 17:54, said:

Well this hand is nowhere close to a game force, it just doesn't have the playing strength, there are 9 counts that won't make game opposite this (KJx, Jx, QJxxxxx, J was the one that came to mind), so no way am I going to force to game where partner may well only have 5 or 6.

Ok tell me please how would you stop b4 game when your pd has this. Be careful though this is a tricky question, because u will either come up with an answer and embarass yourself, or u will not.

[gszes]

e 100%
w does not know what 3s means (could be a cue bid
looking for a stopper looking for a partial stopper
whatever). E should be aware of this and realize that
the given sequence (4d) should be looking for slam
missing a spade control. This makes it impossible
for W to ever bid slam if they trust p.

E has no clue how much wasted dia power W has
and wants to make a mild slam try. The best
way to do this is to bid

4s this is an obvious patterning out bid and
should make W realize the wonderfulness of
their (dia A and out) for slam. 5d bid now
helps differentiate btn no wasted values in
dia and having the A so p wont consider a grand
if they have a dia void. Easy way to arrive at 6c.

As a side note IMO after the 4s bid 4n should be
a sign off (already limited hand) with lots of
stuff in dia suit (ie poor opposite shortness).

[aguahombre]

got the right side blamed, anyway. At the point of 4C it is so simple to know west has 4-card support that simple Wood gets the rest of the info. Duh, two keys and the club queen.

Agreed that 4NT being the Wood bid is awkward, but that is why very early on I blamed system, and not the players.