is 2/1 auction game forcing starting with a minor or not?

[onoway]

in a team match, partner and I have played a few hands together  but not regular partners by any means.   This hand came up .  Imps  we are vul vs not.
  Me
  KT75      K843    AJ85    9

Partner
  A        J2    k      AQJ875432

I look at my hand & like it,  I have three chances to find a fit with partner so I allow points for the singleton and open 1  
Opps  pass throughout.

Partner looks at HIS hand and goes WHEE! 2 I instantly have a problem.  I can't bid a major because I think we are not in a 2/1 auction therefore it would be a reverse. I decidedly can't rebid  .  So I bid 2NT.   P thinks we ARE in a game force auction and therefor happilly bids 3 .  Now my hand  looks to me like something you shovel out of a barn. P has nothing but a long suit,  and I certainly can't support that.  So..  I pass.  P is upset but polite and we each quietly think thoughts about people who don't bid according to how WE were taught 

Even so, I don't know how I would have gone on from there anyway.  3NT?   is there any rational way to find the slam that happens to make because of the lie of the cards? And what % of people play that  ANY  2/1 auction is forcing rather than only those starting out with a major suit bid?  I would think that normally there would be other options available to responder but with this hand he obviously could only bid .   How many people would open with my hand in the first place and is that where the trouble all began?

The other table the auction started out exactly the same way except that after 2NT  responder bid 4 ,  opener bid 4    responder leaped to 6 making.  I don't understand the 4 bid unless they agreed  they were in a game force auction  but there it is.

[kenberg]

I was kibbing this hand and I was wondering it you would post it.

It is another illustration, of more were needed, that "shall we play convention/system X"---"Sure" leads to troubel

But since we are often in this situation on BBo we have to cope as best we can.

If I agreed to play 2/1 without further discussion and the auction began 1 2 2NT 3 then I would bid again. Although 1 2 @C was once an exception, and for that matter 1M-2m-2NT-3m, rebidding the minor was also once an exception, I think now all 2/1 auctions are gf  for most people. At least it is true for sufficiently many people that I would not pass.

Another question is whether, even if 1 -2 - 2 should sow extra values, even if you are playing in a non-gf style. There is a lot of difference between 1   - 1 -  2 and 1 - 2 _C - 2 . IN the first, the 1 bid might be on a 6 count and so you really need extra values for theat 2 call. But in the second we know responder has decent values even if 2 is not a gf.  One could argue it either way. If you take the reasonable view that 1 - 2 - 2 should show at least  five diamonds then what do you bid holding 3=4=4=2 shape? If the spades are xxx it seems that even f the hand can be played in NT you want the spade lead coming up to your partner. Bidding 2 might well accomplish that.

At any rate, when I am playing 2/1 I assume that means 1 - 2 is a gf.
 
All that being said, I own the Mike Lawrence disk on 2.1. I will briefly quote:

"Some players are adamant that the two club response to 1 diamond is not game forcing. Some say ot is game forcing". Since there is no perfection in either style I am going to present both and let you see what the issues are."

I recommend this disk. Actually I recommend Mike Lawrence generally.  And you can buy it through BBO.  But if I have agreed to 2/1 w/o discussion, I assume 1 2 is gf.

Of course then you get dealt a six card club suit with 11 hcps and you partner opens 1 . ML, and others, suggest that 3 could be used to show such a  hand. 6+ clubs, decent but not gf values.   Do not try this without discussion! There are other meanings out there for that  3 call.

[OliverC]

I wouldn't consider myself an expert on 2/1, but I would absolutely for certain treat 1 - 2 as 1,000,000% game-forcing.

  K10xx
  K8xx
  AJ8x
  9

Playing Precision I open this without any qualms, because we have the methods for dealing with the continuations. Playing 2/1, I would probably pass this: 4441 hands are notoriously low on playing strength, and this is a rock-bottom strength hand with no intermediates. Adding a point here and there for shortages or long suits irrespective of the playing strength of the hand is utterly not my style. As it turns out here, your shortage is absolutely not an advantage. Normal practice (if you are into that sort of thing) is to add the point on for shortages when you've found a fit for Partner's suit. eg: 1 - 1 on this hand and now you can upgrade your hand because of the Heart fit and the Club shortage. It's the combination of the two that is improving your hand.

Given the 1 Opening and 2 response, I don't think I would risk a 2 or 2 response, in case Partner does take it as a reverse and goes mad. Partner can still have a 4-card Major if he's the shape to reverse into it, and whether I bid  2 (see below) or 2NT, Partner will show a 4-card Major if they have one. It looks like I may have more to protect than Partner, so bidding 2NT is at attractive proposition if 3NT is where we're going to end up.

2 is a bit of a lie, I concede, but it's one that is not very likely to go wrong. It has the advantage that it encourages Partner to show a 4-card Major if they have one and makes it easy for them to do so. The problem with 2 as a rebid is that it's unlimited (which might encourage Partner), whereas a 2NT rebid is definitely limited to about 14 hcp, which suits our purposes here, because the 2 response has definitely detracted from our hand.

1 - 2
2NT - 3
3NT

...is the right way to approach this, I feel. You're bidding your hand and giving Partner no needless encouragement whatever. If Partner bids 6 , then so be it. That is their decision.

If they bid 4 over 2NT, then this is definitely slam invitational in Clubs with a very long, strong Club suit, and I would co-operate by cue-bidding my Ace of Diamonds. If his Clubs are solid, my controls in the other suits will doubtless be critical. He will now presumably bid 4 and I would sign off in 5 , because he's denying a Heart control and the opening lead will be coming through my Heart King.

The bottom line here is that not every hand that happens to make 12 tricks because of a favourable lie of the cards should be played in slam. This is a truly gruesomely awful hand to end up in slam on:

This "slam" is utterly hopeless if either the Clubs find Kx offside or the Ace of Hearts is offside [and you don't get a favourable lead from Qxx(x)]. You have huge transportation problems, especially on a Diamond lead, because you can never enjoy Dummy's K because your one and only possible entry to Dummy is gone. You're forced to rely on the Ace of Hearts onside and guessing the Clubs right if they are guessable. It's about a 25% slam at best. rebidding 2NT or not opening the hand at all gives you the best chance of ending up in a much more sensible 3NT contract.

[kenberg]

It occurred to me that a person could, in the usually brief discussion of methods, clarify this by suggesting "2/1Maj pard ?" or "2/1 all pard ?".

Linguistically I suppose it is reasonable, or at least possible,  to say that if a person agrees to play "2/1 is game forcing" then the lack of stated exceptions should mean that there are no exceptions. But I see it as just one more case among many where different people interpret the same statement differently. Long, long ago I heard the observation "When I say something, there are three things to consider: What I meant to say, what I did say, and what you understood me to say. They are often different."

"New minor forcing" is another thing which means very different things to different people.  Probably everyone who plays NMF agrees that 1 - 1 !s 1NT - 2 is NMF.  But what happens next if opener has three spades and four hearts? I prefer a rebid of 2 .  If responder has four hearts he is delighted, if not he  can rebid 2 which does not show a six card suit, it shows five spades and a minimum hand an can thus be passed.  Or how about 1 - 1 - 2NT - 3 ?.  In my opinion that should show clubs. The 2NT was a big call and it is not at all impossible that there is a club slam available. So I prefer that NMF be on after the 1NT rebid but not after the 2NT rebid. Similarly, I thin 1 - 1 -1NT -2 (NMF) - 2NT - 3 is best played as a slam try in diamonds. I would not place a heavy bet on it being interpreted that way without prior discussion.

I am not intend this to change the thread into a discussion of NMF, rather I am attempting to illustrate that simply naming a convention or naming a system and agreeing to play it will very often lead to misunderstandings.

So maybe 2/1Maj and 2/1All has some use.

You certainly do not want to be in 6 on the given hand, not unless you see the opponent's cards. But you do want to know whether or not the 3 is passable.

[onoway]

Playing 2/1, I would probably pass this: 4441 hands are notoriously low on playing strength, and this is a rock-bottom strength hand with no intermediates. Adding a point here and there for shortages or long suits irrespective of the playing strength of the hand is utterly not my style. As it turns out here, your shortage is absolutely not an advantage. Normal practice (if you are into that sort of thing) is to add the point on for shortages when you've found a fit for Partner's suit. eg: 1 - 1 on this hand and now you can upgrade your hand because of the Heart fit and the Club shortage. It's the combination of the two that is improving your hand.

Given the 1 Opening and 2 response, I don't think I would risk a 2 or 2 response, in case Partner does take it as a reverse and goes mad. Partner can still have a 4-card Major if he's the shape to reverse into it, and whether I bid  2 (see below) or 2NT, Partner will show a 4-card Major if they have one. It looks like I may have more to protect than Partner, so bidding 2NT is at attractive proposition if 3NT is where we're going to end up.

2 is a bit of a lie, I concede, but it's one that is not very likely to go wrong. It has the advantage that it encourages Partner to show a 4-card Major if they have one and makes it easy for them to do so. The problem with 2 as a rebid is that it's unlimited (which might encourage Partner), whereas a 2NT rebid is definitely limited to about 14 hcp, which suits our purposes here, because the 2 response has definitely detracted from our hand.

1 - 2
2NT - 3
3NT

...is the right way to approach this, I feel.

Actually usually  I do wait to see if we have a fit before I allow points for a singleton, or distribution in  general,  this was a bit of a frustration bid. Not a smart move and got quite properly punished for it.
Still, it is interesting to hear that both of you consider this a gf auction. I am perfectly happy to play any 2/1 auction is gf, and do with some partners  (  with one  partner it's semi forcing,  same as bidding 1nt as a passed hand in response to a major opening, which is really hedging bets  )  I just didn't think that was the norm as it decidedly is not what I was taught. 

As far as responder  repeating/raising the 2 to 3   in a nonforce auction I don't consider that  a strong bid. In a gf auction where there is time and space to work everything out then fine, but otherwise I would consider it to be telling me that p has one suit  that is basically preemptive in  strength and length with nothing else to say.  It all rested on whether or not we were in a gf auction.                                 

[kenberg]

Opening 1 or passing is a judgment call. It has something to do with agreements, such as what your partner can figure on as the auction develops, but mostly it is a judgment call. I mean to distinguish this from the pass of the 3 !c rebid. That's a matter of agreement, or as it turned out, lack of agreement.  Let me elaborate because I think that this is important. There will always be hands where I would have chosen a different call than partner's. We each use our best judgment and there is seldom much to be gained from questioning partner's choice. S/he did what s/he thought was right. Agreements are entirely another matter. A bid is or is not forcing, a bid is or is not natural. Partners want to be on the same page with this.

A crucial issue is that there are a lot of conventions that have names, and the names often mean different things to different people. This is just a fact. If two people are going to play together regularly they can, over time, resolve some of these ambiguities. If you play online with someone you don't know, or barely know, then there will be clashes of understanding.  Paramount is to have a sense of humor about it. But also it is good to be aware of the possibility of misunderstanding and try to avoid  ambiguous situations. Accept that many online auctions will be ambiguous, so try for the clearest choice even if it is not optimal.  An imperfect bud that will be approximately understood by partner is much better than a perfectly descriptive bid that your if your partner misinterprets that perfect bid.

You say "I just didn't think that was the norm as it decidedly is not what I was taught. " But there are different teachers.

Here is Larry Cohen: https://www.larryco.com/bridge-learning-center/detail/435
He lays out the 2/1 gf beginnings, including 1 - 2 .  Does this settle the matter? Not at all.  As mentioned, Mike Lawrence on his 2/1 disk allows that it can be done either way (I think there is a second edition of his disk, if so this might have changed). But if LC says 1 - 2 is gf, then it is reasonable to expect that many, when they say that they play 2/1, are including this among the gf auctions.

Agreements have to be reviewed. And reviewed again. Partner and I played in a Swiss match at the Baltimore Regional a few days ago. Since we had responsibilities to the other pair on our team I brought up a few agreements for review:
"1NT on your right, you bid a DONT 2 , X on your left, I bid 2 . What is it" I asked. "Asking for my other suit" he said. No. Without the X, then 2 is asking for the other suit. After the X, then XX asks for the other suits, 2 shows hearts. Now in fact Larry Cohen says this is right, and since he was the inventor or maybe co-inventor of DONT it seems that the default is to play XX as asking, and 2 as natural. But whether LC agrees with me is not the main point, the point is that partner and I agree.  That particular auction did not arise on Tuesday, but it will. We had discussed it before, we discussed it Tuesday, and it is probably wise to discuss it again. And write it down. Playing online what would the 2 H! mean? Beats me.

Time for a story. A number of years ago I had a partner, now deceased, who held very strong opinions on many issues.  She liked to play Flannery so we played Flannery, and played it her way. Another of her partners told me that when the two of them were playing at a National event they got into an argument over the correct way to play Flannery. Well, Flannery was still alive at the time, and was at the tournament, so they went over and asked him. Flannery agreed with the woman who was telling me this story. As they left, her partner said "That's just one man's opinion".

Playing 2/1 does 1 - 2 -2 promise six cards? Does  1 - 2 -2 promise a more than minimal hand? Does  1 - 2 -2 NT promise some values in both unbid suits? My preferred agreements are No, Yes, Yes, but I would not bet heavily that a randomly  chosen 2/1 player agrees with this. Note that if 2 promises six card and if 2NT promises values in both unbid suits, then there will be hands where, after 1 - 2 you will have to leave the table say if you hold 3=5=2=3 shape and your spades are xxx, because any call you make violates your system.

So discuss and agree where yo can, relax when it goes wrong. As it will.