Leaping About the Place...

[OliverC]

Another post about super-aggressive bidding and precipitate decisions about the Contract (I've switched the directions by 90 degrees)

EW Game, Dealer East

North
A1092
AQ6
J5
AK72

South
743
KJ92
AQ6
J105

All the participants in this match were playing 2/1. At the other table, the bidding was passed round to North, who opened 1 , South responded with a 2NT limit bid and North signed off in 3NT. 11 tricks. NEXT!

At our table South opened this hand with 1 and the bidding proceeded:

South     North
1          1
1NT         2
2          6
All Pass

Declarer found West with the Qxx, but the King was offside and there was no way to get rid of all of the losers, so 6 was -1. My point on this hand is this:

North's 2 New Minor Forcing isn't game-forcing as such. That gives North something of a problem over 2 , I concede, because 2NT and 3 will not be forcing (NMF is normally forcing to 2NT but no further, in my experience). I do feel the leap to 6 , however, is precipitous.

Most people are used to Minor suit openings potentially being less than 4-card length when you're playing any natural system that uses 5-card Majors. North here has assumed South has 4+ Clubs with no evidence to back it up. Although it's possible that South might pass 3 , I feel it's unlikely, fr the following reason:

• If North doesn't have 5-card Spades, they can't have 4-card Hearts (or they'd respond 1 over 1 ), so why are they using NMF?
• The only reason has to be that they have a strong responding hand and needed to create a forcing sequence.

For that reason, I feel that North should show the Club support, confident that Partner ought to be able to work this out. Now South simply rebids 3NT and we're all happy.

Natural bidding provides a wealth of opportunities for constructive bidding. If you are playing a system such as 2/1, Std American, or Acol, I feel that time spent considering situations like the above, and discussing them with regular partners, is time well spent. It's probably going to teach you more about bidding theory and be more productive and helpful in improving your partnership than spending half an hour agreeing to play McGruder's 2nd Variation on Extended Stayman (or whatever - you get the point).

[kenberg]

I would not open the S hand, but leave that be. I have a couple of other thoughts.

1. Steve Robinson asserts in Washington Standard, with merit I think, that for nmf responder needs either five cards in the major, in which case he needs only invitational strength, or he has a minor suit hand, in which case he has game forcing strength. So 1C-1S-2NT-2D-2S-3C is a game forcing sequence with a club fit.

2. Steve also advises that, after 1C-1S-1NT-2D, an opener with three spades and four hearts should bid the hearts first. That would help here. Possibly responder thought that they were playing that way. He could reason: Partner has to have four of something. He has three spades and since he would have bid 2H instead of 2S if he also had four hearts, he must have at most three hearts. He thus has a four card minor and he opened 1C, so he has four clubs.

3. I have come to think of 2-way nmf as worth the price. After 1C-1S-1NT the bid of 2C is artificial and forces opener to bid 2D. Responder might pass 2D, this might often happen if responder, holding modest values,  regularly skips over a diamond suit to bid 1S. After 1C-1S-1NT-2C-2D any continuation is invitational. This handles all invitational hands after the 1NT rebid, so 1C-1S-1NT-2D is artificial and game forcing. That would be useful here since then 1C-1S-1NT-2D-2S-3C is unequivocally a game force. As mentioned, Steve likes this as gf anyway but I agree that not everyone plays it so.


4. I am not sure what responder should do if they have no detailed agreements, but here is a thought: 1C-1S-1NT-2D-2S-3NT. Opener might now think: "Hey, pard bid nmf. Then I said I had three spades. Then he said so what, he doesn't care,  and bid 3NT. So why did he bid 2D if he does not care about my three spades? " Maybe he would come up with the right answer. And maybe not. In the case at hand if he can't figure out what's going on he will pass and  that's fine. But if he has four clubs and a 14 count we can hope he thinks the sequence shows a hand where responder, by not bidding 3NT directly over 1NT,  can at least imagine a contract other than 3NT. It's a little bit of a stretch.

But really, it illustrates a need to have agreements, just as you said.

I'll see if I can find a hand I played with the bots that was also a bit of a "say what?" sort of hand.

[OliverC]

1, 2 & 3: Agreed, Ken: Playing 2/1 or Std American, I wouldn't open the South hand, but if I was playing OCP, I have a 10-12 1NT Opening available (which I would use).


Overall, it's the usual story: It matters more that you have have an agreement (any agreement) than exactly what that agreement is. You can agree all sorts of gadgets and gizmo's (and lots of regular partnerships obviously spend a considerable amount of time and effort on them), but many partnerships clearly have no solid agreements about basic natural bidding sequences, or how to deal with competitive sequences (whether after a gizmo has been used or not).


4 is the critical thing in the absence of solid agreements. Since NMF is only strictly forcing for one round, Responder needs to be able to bid 2NT or 3 over 2 or 2 in that sequence confident that Partner will not pass it (because, as you say, if they don't have 5-card Spades, they must have a strong hand).