0 00b

thanks for that. interesting.

Many thanks for this. Much appreciate. Yes I understand what you are saying and if it were down solely to me we'd be playing 2/1. But my partner's been playing Acol all his life and won't change. So it's Acol with additions, since we play quite a few of the features of more modern systems, (bergen, inv m, nmf. wjs, 4sf as GF etc). It seems to work reasonably well. 3rd suit forcing is something we do naturally I think but a Bourke relay is too advanced. But I'll take this away from this discussion: 1d-1s-2d-3s as GF with very good spades, suite set, controls to follow (I can't see another way to show this hand and have room to show controls) 1d-1s-2d-2s as NF but fairly wide ranging, perhaps 8-11 - i'd expect an opener with 3s and slightly better than minimum to make a move after 2s 1d-1s-2d-3c-3d/3h-3s as 6 spades, near GF, perhaps passable with 0-1 spades I still don't see the need for an invitational bid until you have some sort of fit. So with invitational values and 6 spades, I think I'd stick with 2s as responder's rebid. We may miss game when opener has a bit more with 2 spades and responder is maximum for 2s with 6, but I can't see a structure that addresses these situations and allows space for the big spade hand to get info on controls.

ok thank you all for your contributions. please forget that i mentioned i was playing acol at the time this came up. i think it is a valid question in any modern system. we play weak jump shift and NMF, so I guess that means that 3c is the only way to force. but i do find it strange that 1d-1s-2d-3s is not forcing, since it doesn't make sense for it to be invitational, since there is no suit agreement. i.e., would a hand with 6 spades and invitational values want to be at the 3 level opposite an unbalanced minimum opener ? x KQxx AKxxx xxx opposite AJxxxx xxx x KQx 3s seems too high. so with a hand with long spades and invitational values, i would expect a 2s rebid, which would free up 3s to be GF with long solid spades (no support required), which gives room to cue bid etc. And with 6 broken spades, I would expect a sequence via a 3c NMF, so that opener can show some support for spades, or revert to NT if he doesn't. so with something like AKQxxx(x) xxx x KQx i would use 3s (and I want to know about a h control) but with something like AQJxxx xxx x KQx i would use 3c then 3s I hope this clarifies my original question and thank you again for your contributions. much appreciated.

hi just need some guidance here playing any system, in this case it was acol with 4 card majors and a weak NT, after 1d-1s-2d is 3s forcing ? if not, how do you show a long spade suit (7+) with slam interest ? if it is forcing, how do you show a long spade suit (6) with invitational values, if there can be such a hand ?