University of IAC > 2/1 Talk

Counterintuitive

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kenberg:

--- Quote from: Curls77 on June 26, 2019, 07:01:02 PM ---Unsure if it is relevant to this discussion, but let's not forget in IAC most pardships are new and do not have any specific agreements.
Assuming vanilla 2/1 or Joe's IAC standard, best they could do is play fast arrival principle, in which jump to 4S would show hand forced to game, that choose least of evils in their opinion. Which would leave 3S to show nice natural raise of spades, not necessarily Hxx, awaiting cues from p.

Is it not similar auction of:
2C-any positive answer as 2N or 3C for example
3H-?
Bid of 4H would show wish to sign of, right?


--- End quote ---


Let me address  your example.

2C -  3C
3H -  4H

No, I don't think that would be a sign off. After 2C -3C-3H nobody knows what strain we will be playing in. If responder has heart support, he needs to say so.

After

2C -  2NT
3H -  4H

you could make more of a case for 4H being a sign off since the 2NT bid showed a balanced hand and so you could say, perhaps, that the 3H bid set the trump suit but I would not be too confident of that interpretation. It might depend on exactly what the 2NT call shows. Often it is a pretty narrowly defined call. Flat with no ace and a narrow hcp range, for example, so there is not really all that much more to say.

Fast arrival has to take a back seat to selecting the strain. So 2C-3C-3H-4H is needed to set hearts as trump, thus it cannot also show minimum values. Actually, opener would know quite a bit: Partner has a positive response and whatever suit quality  is agreed upon in clubs, and the raise to 4H shows that he is at least content, maybe not enthusiastic but content, with hearts.

Ok, now back to the 1S-1NT-3D-3S  auction.  The issue here is that the 3S cannot really set spades unequivocally.   Sometimes, and in fact fairly often, responder will have two cards in spades, maybe Qx. Well, that's better than xx or just x, so the 3S is needed so he can say, "well, we probably can play this in spades, not great but possible".

Briefly: Setting trump has to take preference over fast arrival.

wackojack:
Quote Ken "Setting trump has to take preference over fast arrival"

Agree entirely.  If both sides of the partnership keep this principle in mind, they will not go far wrong.   

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