Two hands, one philosophy

[kenberg]

I am often less critical than many of Gib bidding. However! Playing yesterday there were two hands , one right after the other, when Gib and I were not on the same wavelength. My objection in both cases  is from a general philosophical viewpoint. Trigger warning: This will be a bit preachy.

First hand:
Red against white, imps,  partner deals and opens 1 , rho passes. You hold
9
KJ4
QJ953
Q964

We are playing inverted minors, a phrase that means different things to different people. For the Gibs, it means that 2 is forcing but not game forcing. BWS (Bridge World Standard) agrees, so even though some play 2 as game forcing, the way that I, the Gibs, and BWS play it has some broad support.  Gib says I need 10 highs, but with shape and good support this hand seems to qualify.
So I bid 2 .

Now Lho doubled, but I want to pretend for the moment that he did not. Uncontested 1 - 2 - 2NT - 3 . Gib tells you what its bids mean. We are not in a gf auction, 2NT was a minimal balanced hand.  So 3 ? To my mind this announces: Playing in a partscore is fine by me, I think 3 is better than 2NT. It is not an invitation to 3NT, which is what Gib bid. 3NT was off 1, it could have been off 2. 3 is a solid contract that, because of the lie of the cards,  produce 11 tricks. Not that anyone would want to be in 5 , just looking at our cards, but it makes.

Now include  lho after my 2 , so the auction is 1 - Pass - 2 -  2NT.  I am fine with his 2NT,and it shows a bit extra since passing was an option but imo it doesn't really change the meaning of my pull to 3 : A partscore sounds right, and 3 is preferable to 2NT.

Back to BWS for a moment. BWS plays 1m-2m as forcing to at least 3m. I have often thought this is right, for just the sort of reason that happens here. If the 2m bidder has a hand that is not strong enough to raise 2NT to 3NT then quite often, after 1m-2m-2NT, the hand should be played in 3m. I don't feel strongly about this, I can play the 2NT as passable, sometimes playing 2NT is right, but quite often responder will go to 3m anyway. This is a hand such as the one I had.


Next hand:
White against red, imps, rho deals and opens 1 .  You hold

KQ9763
AK3
KQ8
2

I am more cautious than some about doubling and then bidding my suit, but surely that is the right plan here. Good values, the spade suit, three card support for the other two suits. I double. The entire auction:

1   - X   -  2 -  P
  P   - 2 -  3    - P
  P   -   X   -   P     -4      

Wait a moment. There should be a way to contest 3 by playing in something at the 3 level. With my hand, we might be able to play in 3 of something. In fact partner does have five hearts. He also has three spades, so playing in spades is right. But some hands, this one for example,  belong at the 3 level.  If he is going to pass over 3 rather than bid 3 , and then jump to 4 over X instead of bidding 3 , how do we get to 3 ? Yes, I could have bid 3 but I have already shown long spades and quite possibly, from my perspective, the right 3 level contract might be in hearts or diamonds. I am not so interested in saying whether partner should have bid 3 over 3 or passed and then bid 3 after the double, but passing and then jumping to 4 precludes playing in 3 .
Partner's hand:

JT5
97654
JT63
4

Obviously there are three aces to lose, and we will lose a heart unless it can be pitched on a long diamond. They can, but didn't,  prevent that from happening.

The common thread here is to give partner some room to contest the auction at a part score level. On the first hand, I felt that 3 was better than 2NT and I was right. On the second hand I made 4 , even after misplaying it, but it requires the cards to be just right. They are, but the hand could have been set either by inspired defense or by taking advantage of my misplay. Drawing trump in two rounds, I left a small trump on the board, depriving me of a needed entry if they just hold up on the s. I needed to either keep a high spade on the board or the 3 in my hand. I know better, I was just careless. Not for the first time. Anyway, the right contract is 3 even if I did make 4.

[OliverC]

One of the problems with essentially natural approach/forcing Systems such as 2/1, Std American and Acol has always been that they are very "vaguely" defined and rely a lot on 3rd-party gadgets (such as NMF and inverted Minor raises in 2/1), which can also be used in a number of different ways, and in "partnership understandings" about certain sequences.


That's nice in a way because it gives you a lot of flexibility when you have a regular partnership and you've had a lot of time to iron things out, but it can be a right PITA in a scratch partnership when you cannot be sure exactly how certain sequences will be interpreted.


In many ways, 2/1 and Std American are very "incomplete" systems, because the system doesn't nail down these sorts of things. Even Standard Precision is "guilty" of that in many situations, of course.

[kenberg]

Perhaps the main reason I have been playing with the bots lately is that their are more things that have been nailed down. Definitely not everything, butI have far fewer system clashes with the bots than I do when I play with a human and the discussion has been:
2/1? Ok
Carding? I prefer standard.
Ok let's play.

Now as to the inverted minor auction. I am sure you know much of this, but others might not. Kaplan-Sheinwold introduced inverted minors.Or so I thought but the Wikipedia tells me that it was also part of Precision,  of course only over the 1 opening. Anyway, KS played a weak NT and that helps. After 1 - 2 opener will not have a balanced 12-14 since he would have opened that 1NT. This makes the follow-up calls easier. Nonetheless, there is a way of playing that is fairly widespread. 1 - 2  is forcing but not game-forcing. The auctions 1 - 2 - 3 and 1 - 2 - 2NT - 3 are both passable. The bots play this way, and Bridge World Standard plays this way. And many texts agree, but I will hold the references to bot standard and BWS.

So that's the context for what happened here. I have thought a little more about it and I might allow for bot to be clever here. In fact the bot had a five card diamond suit to go with his 14 hcps. After my 3 , an announcement that I think 3 is a better contract than 2NT, perhaps he intended 3NT as "Well, I am at the top of my range so I'll give it another try. If you really don't think NT is right maybe 5 is". That's a bit extravagant, in my opinion, but with a good lie of the cards 5 at least can be made.   
http://tinyurl.com/y925ljdu
It's perhaps interesting that there are 8 tricks in NT. After to the A N can, if he reads the position just right, block the run of the suit.

All in all, I don't think the problem here is due to any vagaries in the inverted minor agreements. Bit and I agree that my 3 was a passable bid showing a preference for 3 instead of 3NT. He elected to go on anyway, I elected to pass. Playing Precision, I am not sure how you open a 14 count with five , non-vul. Is that too strong, or too shapely, for a weak NT? If so then I guess it is opened 1 and then? I assume S bids some number of diamonds.

 

[OliverC]

In Precision, 1 - 2 is not strictly "inverted", because most Precision Pairs do not play 1 as definitely a Diamond suit. Indeed, because the classic Precision 2 Opening seems to be rapidly dropped from a lot of Precision arsenals, the 1 Opening is often 1+ Diamonds. Even in Classic Precision 1 is only 2+ Diamonds. The 1 Opening essentially shows any 11-15 hand that isn't covered by any of the other intermediate opening. It's a catch-all bid.

OCP (Simple Version) plays 1 - 2 as a 1-round force showing Diamonds, and 1 - 3 as GF and "Asking" in Diamonds. OCP (Complex Version) plays 1 - 2 as Asking in Diamonds (GF) and 1 - 3 is asystemic (ie: undefined and not allowed).

In OCP, we play a variable 1NT, 10-12 nv and 13-15 v. Classic Precision uses a 13-15 1NT throughout. If your 14-count is semi-balanced with 5-card Diamonds, therefore, you'd open it 1NT or 1 depending on your style (and vulnerability if OCP).

[kenberg]

It would be interesting to see how this hand would go if you gave it to the OCP group. I would predict varied results.

http://tinyurl.com/y925ljdu

Given the vul, I gather it is opened 1NT. Perhaps that would be followed by 3 passes. That would work out well enough. EW can make 2 if they pick up the Q but will they get into the auction? 3 is a very reasonable contract on the NS cars, it's just luck that 11 tricks are there.

Regardless of system it seems to me there are always going to be choices.  Maybe it just goes 1NT-All Pass. +90 or probably +120.  The defense has an interesting feature:
Presumably the 4 to the A and the 6 back. If N  plays the 8, the suit will block. But probably N plays the Q. Or at least maybe N plays the Q. But now E might reason that if N started with QT3 he might well have played the T at T2, so he leads back to his partner's T and they take five spade tricks. Maybe.

[OliverC]

North
Q83
A8
K8764
AJ5


South
9
KJ4
QJ953
Q964


NS Game, Dealer North

OCP Bidding
North     South
1NT⁽¹⁾    Pass⁽²⁾


(1) 13-15
(2) No reason to think 5m is remotely in the ball-park, and no reason to think that 3m is going to be safer than 1NT.


As you say, 11 tricks are there but there's just no way you're going to be able to sensibly bid to 5 on this hand, whatever system you're using. Even if North opens a 100% natural 1 (ie: not OCP), it's very unlikely that NS are going to push to the 5-level.

[ian84]

The way I was taught that IM is intended to work is that its very much pushing towards 3NT, but you need to use the extra bidding space you have available to confirm that you have all the suits stopped. Thus I believe that in hand 1, Robbie should bid 2 rather than 2NT to show the partial  holding and the full stopper in . You then revert to 3 to deny any control and that should be the end of the story. So I'd suggest you pass this one onto BBO Help for the attention of Uday.

[kenberg]

It's natural to move toward NT since after 1m-2m it is unlikely there is a major suit fit. For me, and I think for many, the N hand is adequate for 2NT with or without the X by W. It's just under strength for a 1NT opening and he has something in both majors. Perfection is the enemy of the good, or whatever the saying is. I am fine with the 2NT but then after 3 it is time to stop. N has shown interest in NT, S has responded by saying he has less than an opening hand and a lack of trust in NT as a contract, that should be it.

A good question for a partnership would be to discuss just what, after 1m-2m,  a 2 bid means for them . For me, it means "I can handle spades but I can't handle hearts." Responder, with Kx, can then bid NT.

With the 2 bid you mention, different people play it in different ways. Imo, no way is indisputably either the standard way or the right way. In a broader frame, this is something I feel strongly about. Many sequences have varied meanings depending on who I am playing with, and if we have not discussed it then who knows what it means?  For example consider the auction 1NT - 2 - 2 - 2 . Whatsit? People get dealt weak hands with five spades and four hearts. Maybe that's what it is. People also get dealt invitational hands with five spades and four hearts. Could that be it? Bridge World Standard goes with invitational. Same with the bots. Many people go with weak.
How about 1NT - 2 - - 2 - 2 ? In this case the bots still treat this as invitational, BWS treats it as weak. With an invitational had, five hearts and four spades, BWS recommends 1NT - 2 - 2 - 2 . But then some people play this last auction as an invitational 5-5 instead of an invitational 4-5. What's right? What's wrong?  Having an agreement is right, not having an agreement is wrong.

Lately there has been an increased interest in finding agreed upon meanings for auctions, and I think that you, Ian, can take some of the credit for that. I keep hoping that there could be broad agreement that undiscussed bids will be treated as BWS suggests, or treated as the bots play it, or maybe some other source.

One more thought about NT contracts: At a club game yesterday the auction went 1 - 1 - 3 - 3NT. I was declarer, I got a heart lead, I took the heart, I ran the seven card diamond suit, and then took my four spades for 12 tricks. On a club lead I go down. That's just life. So I am fine with the bot's 2NT call, I just think a pass is clear after I pull 2NT to 3 . The fact that there are 11 tricks in diamonds can be considered a minor miracle, we should not rely on it for the next time the hands appear.   

[amre_man]

North
Q83
A8
K8764
AJ5


South
9
KJ4
QJ953
Q964

I take the 2!D response as invitational or better, not GF.  I have not given much thought to how my singleton gets me to the 10 point requirement.  Regardless, I would expect my p to bid cheapest controls on way to some level of NT.  In this case 1 .  My response as South would be 3 (or a very tense 3 ) and let my p continue or set the contract.

I only found BWS last week so have not read it as yet.

Jim