[movingon]

A bridge friend sent me an email this morning asking me "If opps open 1S in first seat and partner overcalls 3S in second seat,
what does her bid mean?"

What would you say?

[Zelandakh]

The most common meaning is as a stopper ask, typically holding a long running minor.

[aguahombre]

According to Zeke Jabour, the 3S bid over 1S is Reverse Treadwell.

"Treadwell" is a jump to 3S showing a Spade stopper and asking partner to bid 3NT with a long running suit. Many people have found the reverse meaning to be more practical.

[ArtK78]

aguahombre, on 2014-February-04, 09:51, said:

According to Zeke Jabour, the 3S bid over 1S is Reverse Treadwell.

"Treadwell" is a jump to 3S showing a Spade stopper and asking partner to bid 3NT with a long running suit. Many people have found the reverse meaning to be more practical.

I hope people realize that this is a joke.

Treadwell liked a lot of "reverse" bids. For instance, "Reverse Fishbein" is a bid of the next higher suit over an opponent's preempt for penalties.

[movingon]

cute..

thanks... That is basically how I would have viewed the bid, as asking for a spade stopper.
this is what she wrote back to me today(and, incidentally, evidently it wasn't her partner that made the overcall but rather the opps):

"Opps did this against us and their explanation was Super
Michaels........ I said Michaels already shows a strong (or weak) hand
so why jump. They said it showed equivalent of a two opener with Hearts
& at least one minor and and a singleton or void in Spades. I wonder
how often that hand comes up. Margaret liked it, I did not. I said I
would rather use it looking for 3nt."

Interesting

[P_Marlowe]

We play it as some kind of "Super" Michaels.

But we also play continious range, and that a Michaels bid could be based on 54 distribution,
plus that it promises a specific upper bound of loosers.

The first part would violate the "... I said, Michaels already shows a strong (or weak) hand"
part of your friends answer.

In the end it comes down to frequency, and also how precise your Michaels Cues are defined.
And last but not least, it also comes down to memory load, do you want to have a diffent meaning
for the simple cue vs. the jump cue, or do you prefer similar meanings.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[ArtK78]

ArtK78, on 2014-February-04, 10:20, said:

I hope people realize that this is a joke.

Treadwell liked a lot of "reverse" bids. For instance, "Reverse Fishbein" is a bid of the next higher suit over an opponent's preempt for penalties.

Actually, I had a "misremember" when I posted this. Treadwell did not refer to this as "Reverse Fishbein," but rather as "[Ethnic] Fishbein." [Insert your own favorite ethnic group for "Ethnic"]

[Cyberyeti]

ArtK78, on 2014-February-05, 09:52, said:

Actually, I had a "misremember" when I posted this. Treadwell did not refer to this as "Reverse Fishbein," but rather as "[Ethnic] Fishbein." [Insert your own favorite ethnic group for "Ethnic"]

Yeah, I knew this one as an Irish cue bid.

Note that 1m-3m as both majors is not stupid (you play 1m-2m as highest and lowest unbid, 2N as lowest 2 unbid).

[ArtK78]

aguahombre, on 2014-February-04, 09:51, said:

According to Zeke Jabour, the 3S bid over 1S is Reverse Treadwell.

"Treadwell" is a jump to 3S showing a Spade stopper and asking partner to bid 3NT with a long running suit. Many people have found the reverse meaning to be more practical.

There was a silly article in The Bridge World many years ago about a series of such bids. For example, suppose you hold 9xx 8xx 10xxx 10xx and the bidding goes (1♠) - x - (P) to you. What is your call? Some of the responses were on the lines of "7NT. I am going to play partner for as little as AK AKQ AK AKQxxx." This example is a little exaggerated (you think?) but that was the kind of thing that was in the article.

[Zelandakh]

Playing the cue bid as another form of Michaels is more common over a 1minor opening than a major. For example I like to play (1m) - 3m as a strong hand with both majors and (1m) - 2♥ as weak with both majors. Over a major, if choosing some form of Michaels then I would prefer to play (1M) - 3M as more shape rather than more power, similarly to the way most play (1M) - 4NT as a more extreme version of their UNT 2NT overcall.

[aguahombre]

P_Marlowe, on 2014-February-05, 09:27, said:

We play it as some kind of "Super" Michaels.

But we also play continious range, and that a Michaels bid could be based on 54 distribution,
plus that it promises a specific upper bound of loosers.

The first part would violate the "... I said, Michaels already shows a strong (or weak) hand"
part of your friends answer.

In the end it comes down to frequency, and also how precise your Michaels Cues are defined.
And last but not least, it also comes down to memory load, do you want to have a diffent meaning for the simple cue vs. the jump cue, or do you prefer similar meanings.

Without even getting into the contentious matter of wide-range vs split range --or the more contentious thoughts about using Michaels with 44 and 54 patterns --- let's address frequency of occurrence.

Regardless of how rarely the super strength Michaels pattern comes up vs the long solid minor without a stopper, if we use both the cues for Michaels patterns we then have no bid for the other one.

On the very few occasions I have held the super-huge Michaels hand, I have found it valuable to get partner's "lawful" advance to my simple cue, after which anything I do other than pass establishes the biggie and has saved a lot of room.

[Zelandakh]

aguahombre, on 2014-February-05, 10:27, said:

anything I do other than pass establishes the biggie and has saved a lot of room

If you change this to "anything I do other than pass or raise partner's suit establishes the biggie and has saved a lot of room" then I can agree with you. I see no reason why we cannot raise with, say, some 6-5 shape and a weak hand if that seems like a good idea. There are enough other bids available for the strong hand type.

[aguahombre]

Zelandakh, on 2014-February-05, 10:33, said:

If you change this to "anything I do other than pass or raise partner's suit establishes the biggie and has saved a lot of room" then I can agree with you. I see no reason why we cannot raise with, say, some 6-5 shape and a weak hand if that seems like a good idea. There are enough other bids available for the strong hand type.

If you meant after partner has shown real support, true. We have found a raise of a simple preference, which could be on two cards (fewer?) to work out poorly sometimes.

[WellSpyder]

ArtK78, on 2014-February-05, 09:52, said:

Actually, I had a "misremember" when I posted this. Treadwell did not refer to this as "Reverse Fishbein," but rather as "[Ethnic] Fishbein." [Insert your own favorite ethnic group for "Ethnic"]

That would probably be Irish Fishbein in this part of the world, but my regular partner and I prefer a form of Modified Irish Fishbein.

Standard Fishbein uses a double for penalties over an opposing pre-empt, and a bid of the next suit up for take-out. Irish Fishbein, as you have explained, reverses these two meanings. We have modified this further to keep the take-out double of Irish Fishbein, but replaced the bid of the next suit up showing a penalty double with a natural interpretation of this bid....