[Mbodell]

EricK, on 2011-November-17, 15:11, said:

Does 2♣ really force 2♦, or does it say "bid as if I had a weak hand with long ♦"? eg with the strong-ish 4045 hand, can opener rebid 3♦ instead?

I'm not sure it makes sense to. If opener is really that strong they should be jumping to 1X - 1Y - 2Z, but I'm not certain. In my partnerships opener is always sufficiently limited either because I play a strong club where the auction started with a 1♦ bid, or where I play XYNT where the sequence is only defined over a NT rebid (which shows a balanced 15-17 hand). So in all my partnerships opener is guaranteed to have no more than 17 points.

[Fluffy]

bd71, on 2011-November-17, 09:11, said:

So why are we wasting space with a forced relay bid here, as opposed to having opener immediately say more about his hand?

Because the 2♣ relayer is the guy who is showing his hand. Opener will have then info to decide if his hand is worth game or not based on what partner has. If he has to decide if he has a maximum or a minimum inmediatelly he doens't know how to evaluate those many 13 HCP hands.

[Free]

The 2♣ puppet isn't really wasting space, it's gaining space. If you use the puppet, then responder can show all kinds of hands: 5M, 6-4M if you play Reversed Flannery, balanced, 4M 5+m,... After this, opener can decide, based on the information from responder, if game is possible or not.
However, if you ask opener what he has, you don't have enough space for opener to answer at once to all the questions responder can have (min/max, 3M or not, 4OM or not,...). Usually he'll just bid like responder has a 5 card M, but that's not necessarily the case. At the same time, opener is giving away (possibly) valuable information to the opponents without a purpose.

The 2♦ relay is different. Here it doesn't matter if opener is minimum or maximum, so you can just ask what he has. It also makes it easy to set a Major or minor suit fit.

[wyman]

I think I understand why bd71 is asking:

So how does XYZ work in a Walsh style, where opener rebids 1N on all balanced mins (I'm accustomed to playing XYZ in a context where opener will rebid 1S with 4S and a weak NT)?

Let's give responder an invitational hand with both majors, and opener a weak NT. How do we distinguish between responder being 44xx and 45xx, finding 5-3 heart fits and 4-4 spade fits? It seems like bidding 2C-2D-2S will have us playing 2N when opener is 2344, for example.

[phil_20686]

I have never understood why people call XYZ by a diferent name from checkback.

For me the ideal is to just have one well worked out 3-way checkback method, and agree to use it on a number of auctions other than the NT ones.

It works best when opener is stricly limeted, but one should always play that opener can force game by breaking the transfer to 2d. If partner has a real invitational hand he will not be passing 2d anyway, so if you want to force game opposite a weak hand with long diamonds, rare but possible, you should break the transfer to anything else. This is similar principle to lebensohl. E.g.:

1c-1h
1s-2c
2S

should be a strong 6-5, but limited by the failure to bid 2S initially.

1c-1h
1s-2c
3D

should be a 3 suiter prepared to play 5 diamonds opposite 5 card support.

The 3 way part of my checkback agreement is that I put invitational raises through 2c->2d, so 2N is a puppet to 3c, to play, or a puppet with a variety of GF 5431 hands with a longer minor and a shortage.

[Mbodell]

wyman, on 2011-November-21, 08:15, said:

I think I understand why bd71 is asking:

So how does XYZ work in a Walsh style, where opener rebids 1N on all balanced mins (I'm accustomed to playing XYZ in a context where opener will rebid 1S with 4S and a weak NT)?

Let's give responder an invitational hand with both majors, and opener a weak NT. How do we distinguish between responder being 44xx and 45xx, finding 5-3 heart fits and 4-4 spade fits? It seems like bidding 2C-2D-2S will have us playing 2N when opener is 2344, for example.

Responder with a 44xx invite bids 1♦-1♥-1nt-2♣-2♦-2♠. You haven't missed a 4-4 heart fit as opener raises with 4 card support.

Responder with a 45xx invite bids 1♦-1♥-1nt-2♣-2♦-2♥. If partner doesn't accept hearts he bids spades with 4 of them (which may be giving away information if opener is 35xx or 25xx or what not, but oh well, and some folks would have given away the same info on the 1 level which comes up much more often).

[mike777]

wyman, on 2011-November-21, 08:15, said:

I think I understand why bd71 is asking:

So how does XYZ work in a Walsh style, where opener rebids 1N on all balanced mins (I'm accustomed to playing XYZ in a context where opener will rebid 1S with 4S and a weak NT)?

Let's give responder an invitational hand with both majors, and opener a weak NT. How do we distinguish between responder being 44xx and 45xx, finding 5-3 heart fits and 4-4 spade fits? It seems like bidding 2C-2D-2S will have us playing 2N when opener is 2344, for example.

Playing Walsh style you still rebid 1s over 1h with a balanced minimum.
You dont rebid the major over 1c=1d with a balanced hand. Responder denies a major unless gf.

1m=1h
1s