miamijd

As Mike777 noted, there isn't a lot of difference, and most people play the same whether they call it forcing or semi-forcing. I play "forcing," but opener is allowed to pass with a pile of junk. For example, let's say I open 1S with: JTxxx QJx Axx KJ I think most of you would do the same, though some might pass. Partner responds 1NT. What do I have to lose by passing? Well, I suppose partner could have 12 balanced and we make 3NT, but with a decent 12, I force game (yeah, I get to some 23 point games, but as Meckwell have proven over the years, some of em make, too). And partner could have the 3-card limit raise, but in that case, 1NT is apt to be a much better spot that 3S. What do I gain? Well, if I respond 2D, what's partner's most likely bid? 2S - by a mile. Wouldn't you rather plan 1NT? So yeah, about twice a month, I'll end up passing the forcing NT. Big deal. Or rather, what's the big deal? Best, Mike

One point that hasn't been made yet -- and it's a neat bid. After 1NT (which I don't agree with, but let's say responder had a really nice 7-count with KJx of H instead), opener can bid 3H! This is a self-splinter, and shows a game force hand with 0-1 of the suit bid. The rule is that after 1m-1NT, if a bid of 2X would be a reverse, then a bid of 3X is a self-splinter. It generally should not be used with 4441 or 4414 hands. It ought to show 5-6 of the minor opened, 0-1 of the splinter suit, and 43 or 44 in the other suits, with the 4-card suit(s) being higher-ranking than the opened suit (otherwise, make a jump shift). So here: 1D (1H) 1NT 3H* shows 5-6 D 0-1 H 3-4S 3C You can't have 4C or you would bid 3C over 1NT as a jump shift (partner might have a good club fit, and you can pattern out with 3S over 3D). So that leaves you with 4153 (most likely) 4063 (possible) 3163 (also possible, b/c 3D over 1NT is non-forcing) A very useful treatment, and one that will get you to the right spot. I recall a hand I played 20 years ago in a Regional Swiss event. I had AQJx Kxx x AKxxx Partner had Kxx Axx xxx Qxxx I opened 1C; partner bid 1NT; and I self-splintered with 3D. We found 6C very easily after that. Cheers, Mike

1NT absolutely does NOT right-side the NT. If partner has something like Qx(x) or Jxx, you want the hard stop (A) in the dummy with the H bidder on lead. That's why a natural 1NT over an overcall is much better made with QJxx or KJxx or QTxx than with Ax(x) or Kx (though sometimes you don't have a choice). Cheers, Mike

With a 6HCP balanced hand and Axx of H, there is no reason for your partner to do anything other than pass over 1H. He can then bid 1NT after you make a reopening X, and now you can show your hand and get to 5D. After 1NT-2S, it seems to me that 3D is the right bid, not 2NT. 2NT ought to show some semblance of a club stop. After that, I think the auction is OK. I think 3C is OK to pinpoint the H weakness. You also could have rebid 3H, which would do basically the same thing. I don't think 3C necessarily shows 4C, although with a single H stop, partner is allowed to raise. 4C could be 4054, 4144, or possibly 4153. Cheers, Mike

Personally, over (1M) X (2M), I like 2NT to be good-bad. Otherwise, you have no good way to distinguish invite hand types from competitive ones, and with the prevalence of sub-minimum major raises after Xs, this is important. What about you? Cheers, Mike

I probably lead the Ad, but a trump is OK, too. Declarer is a passed hand who then bid game opposite a third-seat opener. He ought to be extremely distributional in the majors - at least 6-5 (yes, I know he wasn't, but ...). He also ought to have decent suits. That doesn't leave much of any strength for him in the minors. I would think it most unlikely declarer has the Kd on this auction, and if there is one high card partner ought to have, that's it. The trouble with leading a low diamond is that declarer could have a singleton and hop King. If you lead the A and he has a stiff, the pitch isn't going to do him much good. If you don't lead a diamond, you might find declarer with 6520 and have him pitch a losing D on the Ac. Moreover, there is still time to switch to a trump after taking your diamond trick(s). Cheers, mike

On your auction, 4H would almost of necessity be somewhat slammish in spades, but with a slightly different auction it is a problem, I admit. Cheers, mike

Why would the hand you showed be a problem? 4S, of course. The 3S bid shows 6. If you didn't have six spades, you would rebid 3NT (with a h stop), 3H (asking for a H stop; can't be a H suit on this auction, as partner has denied H); or raise one of partner's minors. Cheers, Mike

Here is what is probably "standard" nowadays, although there are dozens of different treatments: 1. A 2M rebid over 2m is the default bid (nothing else available). You can show 6-7 later on. The reason for that is to avoid having to bid 2NT on hands like: AKQxx xxx Ax xxx over 2D. Ugh! 2. A 3m raise will often show 4 pieces, but there are hands where raising on 3 is fine: AKxxx x KJx Kxxx bids 3D over 2D. AKxxx Kxx xxx Kx bids 2NT. A minimum is fine. 6-4 hands usually raise the minor first and then rebid the major if available, but to some extent it depends on the hand. 3. Assuming 15-17 1NT openers, a 2NT rebid shows 12-14 OR 18+, generally no singleton (though a stiff honor in partner's minor is OK), and some semblance of a stopper in the unbids (Qx or Jxx will do in a pinch; Txxx is fine). The 3NT rebid is used to show 15-17 with a hand that didn't want to open 1NT (either two doubletons; a stiff in partner's minor; or 17 with a five card major). 4. I like 3-level bids to show extras. Hardy didn't, and GIB doesn't, but I think most 2/1 players do. Cheers, mike

That was back 30 years ago he did that. He doesn't advocate that any more. Few do. The minor raise generally shows 4 pieces, but it can be made on a minimum. With the hand you gave, however, 2S seems best. Cheers, mike

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Split range was the norm 40 years ago but nowadays all sorts of 5/5 hands use michaels (the very weak ones pass). You can't have super precise auctions when the opps open 1M and you are two-suited. You need to identify the right strain quickly and hope you get the level right. Over calling on intermediate hands leaves you horribly placed in a lot of auctions. After (1s). 2s. Pass a common agreement is 2nt asks for minor but is at least invitational stregth. Opener should not just bid 3m with a good hand. 3c is pass or correct and is weak Everything else natural Some folks use 2nt as both a drop in the minor and as the invite bid. Then 3c is clubs

Cyberyeti's line fails on the actual lie of the cards, but I agree that Qx KQxxxx xxxx x is more likely than x KQxxxx xxxxx x for any number of reasons, the most obvious being that hand 2 is a pretty good conventional call (Capp, DONT, Woolsey, whatever you play) NV over 1NT.

Yes, on hand 1, if partner bids 2NT, you should bid 3D as a sign-off. This typically shows a hand that's 46 in the reds (sometimes you might have a stiff spade and 5 really good diamonds) and not good enough to force game by bidding 3D over 2S. Cheers, mike

This is a good illustration of a few points: 1. If you have shortness in the opponents' suit, strain to bid. With length and secondary cards, be more conservative. 2. To quote Grant Baze (though maybe not quite precisely), 6-4 bid some more. These hands are good for offense. 3. When you make a negative double, you want to have an off-ramp. On Hand 1, RHO has 6 spades, so LHO and partner very possibly have 3 each. Partner is quite likely to pass 2S out. Is that going to be a good spot for your side? Doubtful. If the opponents have 8-9 spades, you probably want to bid on the 3-level. So make a negative double and correct 3C to 3D to show this sort of hand (yes, I think you should correct 3C to 3D, because partner is going to be stuck for a bid holding something like a 13 HCP 3235 hand with no spade stop. You're short in spades; you have a good 6-4 offensive hand; you have an off-ramp. Perfect. On hand 2, however, you have four diamonds. If partner has 3 diamonds and passes 2D out, the opponents are on a 6-fit. Don't you think defending 2D is going to be a good spot? Even if partner has drek and 2 diamonds and passes, defending 2D is apt to be right. And if partner has 2 diamonds and any sort of an opener at all, or 0-1 diamond, he's going to reopen, generally with a double. So there is no pressing need to bid now. Moreover, what exactly is Hand 2 supposed to bid? You are too weak for 2NT; you lack a fourth spade for a negative X; you lack a third heart for a simple H raise. If someone forced me to bid with Hand 2, I would bid 2H (JT is nothing to be ashamed of), but where's the fire? NOTE: Change Hand 2 by one small card: Txxx JT Kxx Axxx and now it's a negative X. It's not fantastic, but the key is that you are satisfied with whatever partner does. 2H rebid? JT and two good outside cards. Check. Some number of spades? Wonderful. 2NT? You have good stuff, including a diamond stop. 3C? You have them covered, too. Or change the honor: Kxx JT xxxx Axxx Now I would trot out the 2-card raise and bid 2H. It's not that I'm so excited to raise H, but with four small diamonds, I'm not nearly so happy if partner passes this out with a doubleton. And what do I do if he reopens with a X? 2H is probably fine with the hand you gave (the Kd isn't worth a lot on offense and I only have 2 hearts, so it's not too much of an underbid), but 2H on this hand after a reopening X seems really wimpy, whereas 3H could get us overboard. Better, I think, to raise H immediately and apologize if it's wrong. Cheers, Mike

Sure, it's theoretically possible. Jeff Meckstroth used to claim that the only bridge book he ever read was a portion of "Five Weeks to Winning Bridge." Then again, his parents were decent players back in Columbus and taught him to play as a young pup. Then again, very few of us have as natural a feel for the game as Jeff did and does. Different people learn in different ways. Some people learn best by reading. Some learn best by hearing others talk about something. Some learn best by observing. Some learn best by "doing." Some need a combination of the above. And different phases of the game can be learned differently. You can certainly improve your declarer play by playing tourneys against the robots. Probably your defense, too. But reading is especially good for bidding theory. If I were starting out and wanted to become an excellent player in a short period of time, I would (A) read some basic stuff on bidding and play; (B) play F2F in the toughest games I could find; © play in BBO robot tourneys a lot and (D) then hire a really good teaching pro for a while. Cheers, mike

If one of your small H were a small diamond, there would be a better case for passing (you don't have a "safety value" of 2H available). Likewise if your clubs were KQxx and your spades were Jxxx (why bid some lousy 6-count). But as it is, do you really want to sell to 1NT or 2D the other way? I don't (unless my partner opens ridiculously light in 3d seat, which is a treatment some like but I don't care for). I think we have a lot of really good chances to compete here: 1. Partner might have 4 spades 2. Partner might have 4 clubs 3. Partner might have 6 hearts 4. We might do OK in a 5-2 H fit or a 4-3 spade fit 5. 1S might take away LHOs bid and we might settle in 1NT. Lots of chances. If you pass and it goes 1NT or 2D by LHO then back to you, now what? You probably have about half the points in the deck and some playable spot, but how are you going to find it? Better to bid 1S immediately. The main drawback of an immediate 1S isn't that we get too high; it's that partner gets off to the wrong lead against a NT or diamond contract. Cheers, Mike

Ah; my mistake. I did forget you were a passed hand :) Cheers, mike

This is highly dependent on your system over 1M (x). Assuming you don't play any gadgets, 1S seems normal. 4+ spades and a hand worth bidding (more than some 5-6 HCP piece of junk). There is no guarantee that RHO has 4+ spades; he might have only 3. A few observations: First, I think you said you made 1S for +80. That shouldn't be. 1S is absolutely forcing. Otherwise, how do you show a decent hand with spades? Please don't tell me you have to XX first (that's straight out the 1950s). Second, someone asked "Why wouldn't your partner raise you with three if LHO bid over 1s?" That's why Rodwell invented support Xs. After a support X, you bid 2H to show 42 in the majors. Third, I would suggest implementing some methods after 1M (x). Transfer responses are very useful, principally because they allow you to make subminimum raises (they give you a way to distinguish a normal 3-card raise from a subminimum 3-card raise). A lot of folks play that after 1H (x), XX shows spades, 1S is the 1NT response, 1NT shows clubs, etc., with 2d being the normal 3-card H raise. After 1S (x), xx is the 1NT hand, etc. If you want to X the opponents, you pass the X and then X later on. Cheers, mike

In your auction, if opener is going to game over 2NT, he definitely should "pattern out" by bidding 3H with 5314 or 5341. If he's 5332 with 17 (with 15-16, open 1NT), then 3NT is probably right. Conventions like Gazilli and BART can sometimes help in these sorts of auctions, but BART is somewhat in disfavor nowadays and Gazilli (though a good treatment) has never caught on in the USA. Cheers, mike

As has been noted above, assuming you play a standard form of 2/1: 1. If you play Bergen, you lose the ability to distinguish between intermediate (good but not GF) club hands and weak club hands on some auctions. You end up with an ugly choice on intermediate hands of (x) having to rebidding an offshape 2NT or else (y) bidding 3C and potentially missing a game. Not the end of the world, as (A) these hands don't come up that often and (B) when they do, it's surprising how often the opponents compete over your partner's 1M (especially 1S over 1H), giving you an easy 2C call. Diamond hands are easier to handle, because if partner rebids the expected 2C, you have a 3D bid available, and if partner opens 1H and rebids 2D, you have a 2S call available. It's only the 1s-1N-2s hands that cause problems; there you sometimes can bid 2NT. I'm surprised at all the negativity toward Bergen raises. I've blown hot and cold over them over the years. I currently don't play them unless a partner really wants to, but they do have their uses. Yes, the two 3m bids taken up by Bergen are nice to have for describing the intermediate hands, but on the other hand, the Bergen 3M preempt is nice to have, too. One variant you can use with Bergen over 1S is to play 3D as your limit raise and 3H as your mixed raise. That gives you back the 3C bid to show the intermediate club hand. The intermediate H hands are handled by bidding 1NT and then skipping to 3H next round over 2m. You can extend that treatment to 1H openings as well by playing 2S as your limit raise (or 2NT as your limit raise and 2S as your forcing raise) and 3D as your mixed raise. Again, that gives you back your 3C bid. 2. If you don't play Bergen, then you can either: (A) play 3m as a WJS and 1NT followed by 3m as the intermediate hand or (B) reverse these and play 3m as the intermediate hand and 1NT followed by 3m as weak. I prefer the latter and think it's more common. 3. The auction 1H-1NT-2H-2S can be used in a couple of different ways: A. If 3C and 3D are both non-Bergen over 1M, then 2S can be used to show both minors and heart shortness, but you have to decide on the strength (weak or intermediate). If weak, then it's generally a H void and you have to bid 2NT (and hope for a spade stop) with the intermediate hand. If intermediate, then you generally pass with the weak 1-h hand and pick your better minor with the weak H void hand (if you're 3055, you just pass the weak hand). I prefer playing 2S as intermediate with both minors in this situation. B. If 3C and 3D are both Bergen, then 2S can be used to help distinguish weak vs. intermediate one-suited minor hands (I actually prefer 2S to show the stronger hand and 3m the weaker one, b/c the opponents are more likely to X 2S and find a spade fit if the 2S bidder is weak). You can play a form of super-accepts here. C. If 3C is non-Bergen and 3D is Bergen, then 2S varies depending on responder's subsequent bidding. Cheers, mike

Then how do you distinguish 56 hands from 65 hands?

A very common use is to play 3C as Puppet Stayman (asking only for a 5-card major; use regular Stayman otherwise; opener bids 3D with no 5cM and responder can then show a splinter or fragment major) 3D is minors GF+ 3H is 5/5 major invite 3S is 5/5 major GF+ There are many other options, of course. Cheers, mike

The big problem with "stolen bid" doubles in this situation (really, in any situation) is that they don't accomplish a whole lot and they rob X of a better meaning. In the 1NT interference context, if a stolen bid X is available, that means three levels of bidding the suit are available: 2-level (drop); Leb/3suit (invite); and 3suit (GF). As an example: 1NT (2d) ?? Xing as a transfer to 2H right-hands a heart contract, but that's about it. You can show all the hands without it just as well: 2H: drop 2NT (leb) followed by 3H: 5/6H invite (invite, since 2H is available) 3H: GF with 5H 4D: Texas (gf with 6H) The stolen bid X doesn't really help you solve a problem that you can't solve almost as well in some other way. on the other hand, there are a couple of very good uses for Xs here. The traditional use is a penalty double. If you play stolen bid Xs, you have to give that up. No, you don't get a pure penalty X a lot in this situation, but it does happen. One more modern use is a "card-showing" double (which partner will sometimes pass, so you need to have at least two pieces). The card-showing double solves the problem of what to do with the balanced 8-9 counts (which come up a lot in this situation). Another possible use is a pure negative double. I don't care for that so much over 2-level bids, because with Leb, you have plenty of ways to show various types of unbalanced hands. You do play Lebensohl, don't you? If not, you should (or Rubenshol, or some similar method). Cheers, Mike

Kaitlyn: Over a two-level overcall other than 2C, there are a lot of ways to play X: values, penalty, negative (please don't suggest stolen bids - what an awful treatment). I think probably "cards" Xs are most common, but many top pairs still play this as penalty-oriented, because there are satisfactory ways to show just about everything except the balanced invite, and that can "fudged" by upgrading it. But over a three-level overcall, no top pair I've ever seen plays penalty Xs. The bidding is just too jammed to show very many hands at that point. The values-showing X is not only essential, it's an overworked bid. But in many cases, that's about the only tool you have. If you play 3-level Xs as penalty, you are either going to be guessing a lot (as Timo suggested) or else waiting for Godot to arrive with the right hand to make a penalty X. Cheers, Mike