[lcsmw]

http://tinyurl.com/j2kr46t

My partner insisted her 1nt forcing was correct.



http://tinyurl.com/j2kr46t

[eagles123]

no your partner is totally off his/her head.

[Cyberyeti]

 eagles123, on 2016-August-30, 12:48, said:

no your partner is totally off his/her head.

Probably unless she habitually inverts 1♠/1N

[helene_t]

Only if she plays Flanery and/or KI.

[billw55]

1♠ is obvious, to say the least. Probably this player is new to F1NT and does not yet understand when to use it.

Also, you can expect mods to delete your link per their antishaming policy.

[fromageGB]

She may be perfectly correct. I guess this is a new/scratch partnership and you had little discussion. She may think a spade/NT inversion is normal if that is how she has been shown, and it is my choice, but you need more partnership discussion before you play again!

[lcsmw]

The partner is my wife and I taught her to play almost 40 years ago. She stopped playing live tournament bridge about five years ago. We play against robots here as a distraction for her. When we were playing tournaments the bidding of 1nt with 4 spades was an extremely rare occurrence. More frequent now and she is convinced that she is correct. I explained that her bid made it impossible to find a 4-4 spade fit and my hand didn't have the strength to reverse. She insisted that I needed to prove to her that she was wrong. I tried doing a search on this to prove my point and mistakenly decided to post the issue here to get some opinions. There was no intent to shame or embarrass. The responses here make it impossible to show her the posts. I should have known better.

[kuhchung]

I often do that, but usually with much worse spades

[kenrexford]

Strange, but this made me think. Suppose the idea was to bid 1NT with balanced 11 counts, planning to them bid 2S after most rebids, not as impossible but as a prepared, agreed sequence.

This might have interesting fruits yielded, like stopping at 2S opposite a minimum. 1s and then 2NT (1H-1S, 1N-2N for example) would then have a different meaning, like perhaps a fifth spade, without checkback. Maybe Checkback is unnecessary?

Just thinking...

[Vampyr]

 lcsmw, on 2016-August-30, 14:39, said:

She insisted that I needed to prove to her that she was wrong.

Why not just construct some hands?

[The_Badger]

 lcsmw, on 2016-August-30, 14:39, said:

The partner is my wife and I taught her to play almost 40 years ago. She stopped playing live tournament bridge about five years ago. We play against robots here as a distraction for her. When we were playing tournaments the bidding of 1nt with 4 spades was an extremely rare occurrence. More frequent now and she is convinced that she is correct. I explained that her bid made it impossible to find a 4-4 spade fit and my hand didn't have the strength to reverse. She insisted that I needed to prove to her that she was wrong. I tried doing a search on this to prove my point and mistakenly decided to post the issue here to get some opinions. There was no intent to shame or embarrass. The responses here make it impossible to show her the posts. I should have known better.

I always look at a player's profile before posting, and I came to the same conclusion that you are related! You're obviously doing something right in your private life to be still together for 40+ years - well done

As for your bridge life, you need a see a Bridge Guidance Counsellor. There are problems

[Zelandakh]

Hi lcsmw, there is actually a forum designed for questions like this to have a "protected" environment without answers that might cause difficulties, the Novice/Beginner forum. The idea of that forum is not for beginners to discuss amongst themselves but for less experienced players to get friendly advice and support without fear of answers putting them down or the like.

In this case, the issue is so well known that there is a convention specifically designed to address it. My suggestion to you would be to do a search for "Flannery", which is a 2♦ opening showing a minimum opening with 5+♥ and 4♠. You could then offer your wife this as an alternative way of dealing with the issue, allowing her to respond 1NT on her hand. Of course you give something up, the normal use of your 2♦ opening, so it is not free.

There are some other solutions to this issue too but they are generally more advanced and I doubt they are worth investigating for the two of you at this time. Whichever solution you end up going for, I hope you continue to have fun and success with your bridge!

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the answer to your question is YES, some peoble do it.

But to be able to discover the 44 fit in spade without going to high
you need conventional support / protection.

If a 44 fit is still an option, with opener having a min, 11-14, than
opener has to make a reverse, without knowing, that responder has inv.+,
which will get the partnership regular over board
...
OR responder has to bid 2S, over openers rebid.

Something like
1H - 1NT
2D - 2S (*)
...

(*) this could show a bal. hand with inv. strength and exactly 4 spades.
I would assume, that 2S is not used in your system, hence it is free,
... but there is common usage for the "impossible 2S" bid, which you would
loose.
The only real downside, apart from not using this treatment is playing a
partial in a 5-2 in 2H, instead of a partial in a 4-4 in 2S, which is not
nice, but not the end of the world.
The advantage would be, that a 1S response to a 1H opening would show 5+

This thinking may or may not lead you to adopting Flannery.

To summarize: It is not possible, to prove, that the action your wife took
was wrong, but it is inconsistent, if she decided to bid 1NT at her first
turn, she should have shown a 2nd feature of her hand.

with kind regards
Marlowe

[rmnka447]

The problem with bidding a forcing 1 NT response with 4 ♠ is exactly the problem you encountered on this hand. Openers with a minimum range opening hand, 5 ♥, 4 ♠ have no good way to describe their hand. 1 ♥-1 NT- 2 ♠ is a reverse and promises 17+ so overstates the hand's values. Any other rebid by opener makes it difficult if not impossible to find the ♠ fit. Normally, not being able to find a 4-4 major suit fit is not good bridge.

Many years ago (40+ at least), Bill Flannery of Pittsburgh recognized this problem with the forcing NT and devised the Flannery convention. It abandons 2 ♦ as a weak 2 bid and uses an opening 2 ♦ bid to show exactly a hand with 5 ♥ 4 ♠ and minimum opening range values. Flannery is not universally accepted, but is fairly widely used. A smaller number use the Kaplan Interchange where a 1 ♠ response is essentially a forcing NT bid and a 1 NT response shows 4+ ♠.

Those that do not use Flannery or KI normally require responder with 4+ ♠ to respond 1 ♠ instead of a forcing NT. There are even some experts who assert that not bidding 1 ♠ absolutely denies 4+ ♠ even with a 2/1 GF hand. Responding 1 ♠ ensures that a potential 4-4 ♠ fit is never missed.

Whichever method is used to show ♠ on this hand, you'll get to the right strain -- a ♠ contract. Flannery users open it 2 ♦ and responder would invite with a 3 ♠ bid. After a 1 ♠ response (or 1 NT KI response), opener makes 2 ♠ raise and responder invites. Easy peasy.

[johnu]

 fromageGB, on 2016-August-30, 14:17, said:

She may be perfectly correct. I guess this is a new/scratch partnership and you had little discussion. She may think a spade/NT inversion is normal if that is how she has been shown, and it is my choice, but you need more partnership discussion before you play again!

Ignoring the OP's followup response, the only way Kaplan Inversion might be a reasonable interpretation in a new partnership is if you played with a group of people and everybody else played KI in their partnerships. Since it is highly unlikely this is going to be a majority agreement, I wouldn't expect that interpretation. In any case, in the original post, 1NT forcing was the description of the bid, not an artificial spade response, so KI is not a possibility.

[hrothgar]

Couple quick comments

First: Many people refer to a 2♠ rebid after a forcing NT response as the "impossible" spadea and use the 2♠ rebid to show some kind of strong raise.

Hypothetical auction

1♥ - 1N
2♦ - 2♠

This "works" because you would (almost) never bypass 1♠ to bid a forcing NT

Second: I can construct hands where I beleive that I might bypass 1♠ and prefer a forcing NT
For example

♠ 5432
♥ KQ2
♦ 432
♣ 432

However, I sure as hell wouldn't do so with the hand in question

[Gerardo]

I'd bid forcing 1NT (even with longer ♠) only when having a ♥ fit and less than invitational strength.

[Stefan_O]

Rather than arguing who is "right"/"wrong", I think the key questions would be, something like:

- In the long run, what will you actually gain by not bidding your spade suit when you have it?

- How to find a 4-4 spade suit after the 1NT bid? The hand you posted is a good example to demo it.

If you get sensible answer those questions -- why not -- try playing it.

If not, hand over a basic textbook on the system you are playing.