lexlogan

Yes, go to www.acbl.org , search for SAYC, and follow any link. You'll see that 2NT is a game-forcing raise in response to 1 of a major, as it always has been in Standard American Yellow Card (developed in the late 80's.) Perhaps you're looking at the responses to 1C or 1D, where 2NT is 13-15 balanced.

Don't be absurd. The quoted hand had 18 hcp in response to a 1♠ opener; slam was extemely likely. If we respond 2C instead of 2D, we'll likely miss a 5-3 diamond fit, if it exists, but not 5-4. Even if partner rebids his suit with 6-4 we can bid the diamonds ourselves the next round. My point is that missing a 5-3 diamond fit under these circumstance may be a good idea, if the likely result of finding such a fit would be to land you at 5D or 6D. If you can stop at 4NT instead, or weed out some of the bad cases, bidding 2D has more to recommend it.

I would have thought that if you have slam-investigatory values and a fit, you also have room to work out whether the best spot is 4NT or 5 minor, so you only lose out when 9 tricks is the limit in NT and 10 the limit in the minor, and you can't play in a 5-2 major suit fit. Your table seems to assume the only possible contracts are 5m or 6m once you've gone past 3NT. I think it's clear that, for a minor suit, it's important to have agreements on how to stop at 4NT. But many partnerships have no key card ask other than RKCB, and by that time you're too high. This would especially be true for major suits. So the decision of whether to mention a suit such as Kxxxx in an obvious slam hunt (when you have a rational alternative) will depend heavily on your methods. The basic point here was to illustrate the potential problem -- on average, Kxxxx opposite 3 card support just doesn't cut it for the 5 or 6 level. RKCB has been a huge advance in terms of avoiding poor slams, but it doesn't completely solve the problem of poor trumps. Ideally, you should avoid asking for key cards without at least two of the top four honors. Unfortunately, there isn't always a clear-cut way to tell partner, "I love my hand except for the trumps!"

A recent thread discussed whether to respond 2D or 2C over 1S holding: ♠A ♥Qx ♦Kxxxx ♣AKQxx . One poster said a 2♦ response was necessary in order to reach 6♦ opposite Axx in partner’s hand; I replied that it might be hard to avoid 6♦ opposite Qxx, and that on balance this was not a suit I would be eager to suggest as trumps for slam. I decided to analyze this in more detail. Let’s assume partner has 3 diamonds, and that if we don’t bid the suit he won’t either, so we’ll stop in 3NT, which is a 100% contract. If we do bid diamonds, partner will support us at some point, one of us will sooner or later use a key-card bid (RKCB, Minorwood, Kickback, etc.) and we will land in 6♦ if we have 2 of the top 3 trumps and 5♦ if we don’t. We will have plenty of tricks, so the contract will hinge on not losing too many trump tricks and avoiding a defensive ruff. Here’s a table: “pard” shows partner’s trumps opposite our Kxxxx. “#” shows how many combinations apply, varying the x’s (or the missing honor in the last line.) “bid” is the presumed contract we will land in if we respond 2♦. “good” is the chance we won’t lose too many trump tricks. “mp” is our matchpoint expectation in diamonds, weighted by fraction of cases. “3NT” is our expecatation at 3NT. “risk” is the weight of cases for which we can't prevent a ruff (N.B.: obviously a lot of factors have to come together for the defense to score a ruff, it’s just the risk is a lot higher if we lose the first round of trumps.) Bottom line: with half the field stopping at 3NT and half investigating slam, thereby landing in 5D or 5D, we rate to score less than 1% better trying for slam in this suit than settling for 3NT, and that’s assuming nothing else goes wrong, such as a ruff which we can do nothing to prevent 61% of the time. Varying the percentage of bidders in 3NT vs. diamonds had negligible effect, best case was 100% of the field in 3NT, advantage 50.7% to 50.0%; worst case 0% 3NT, advantage to diamonds 50% to 49.3%. pard # bid good mp 3NT risk xxx 4 5D 33% 2.4% 4.8% 7% Txx 6 5D 39% 3.7% 7.0% 11% Jxx 6 5D 50% 4.0% 6.7% 11% Qxx 6 6D 14% 3.4% 7.3% 11% Axx 6 6D 67% 6.3% 4.4% 0% JTx 4 5D 85% 3.3% 3.8% 7% QTx 4 6D 37% 3.1% 4.0% 7% QJx 4 6D 67% 4.2% 3.0% 7% ATx 4 6D 82% 4.7% 2.4% 0% AJx 4 6D 84% 4.8% 2.4% 0% AQx 4 6D 96% 5.2% 1.9% 0% HHH 4 6D 96% 5.2% 1.9% 0% Tot 56 .... .... 50.3% 49.7% 61% Percentage of field in 3NT 50% Percentage of field in 5♦ or 6♦ 50% I feel justified in claiming this is a poor suit to suggest for slam purposes, unless you have a better method of evaluating your combined trump holding than RKCB or such. I’m mostly interested here in technical criticism, i.e., did I botch the math or are there factors I’ve overlooked. But if you have methods to reach a slam with QJx but stay low with Qxx, speak up. In computing the “matchpoints”, I more or less assumed that 3NT making and 5D making were equivalent; the possibility of making 10 tricks at notrump would shift the results against investigating slam, unless we could land at 4NT instead of 5D after, say, Minorwood.

Original hand: ♠A ♥Qx ♦Kxxxx ♣AKQxx Are you confident you can avoid 6♦ opposite: ♠KJxxx ♥AKxx ♦Qxx ♣x? Kxxxx is just too weak a suit for me to go out of my way to bid it in a slam-going auction. Meanwhile, we could well belong in 6♣ opposite ♣Jx . I might not bend over backwards to avoid responding in a Kxxxx suit, but here I have an obvious alternative.

In a second follow-up letter, to which Mike replied but said he was too busy to continue replying further, he commented on two other auctions: "1H-2D-3C This shows 5-5 with a better than average hand. 1H-2D-3D This can show a minimum hand with four trumps and quality points or extra values with three trumps." Unfortunately, he skipped over my question of whether 1H-2D-2S required more points than his original example. Although his first reply included the dismissive "if ever", I think we can infer 1H-2D-2S shows 4-6 with extra values -- that would be consistent with 3C showing 5-5. Bottom line seems to be 1H-2D-2H can show any range of points with any number of hearts; the only hands to rule out are 5332 minimums suitable for 2NT, hands that qualify for a raise to 3D, and some fairly rare 4-6, 5-5, or solid suit 6-card hands suitable for 2S, 3C or 3H. I suppose I'd play that style if the benefit were that I got to play with Mike, but otherwise, no way. Clarifying the range of one partner or the other is crucial to slam investigation, and opener's rebid is the best time to start that process.

[hv=d=s&s=sakj7haq875dq8c84]133|100|[/hv] In the recent (Dec. 2007) ACBL bulletin, Mike Lawrence gives the auction 1H-2D (game-forcing or nearly so) and the hand shown for opener. "I recommend you rebid 2H, not 2S. You have extra values, but there is no need to bid 2S. It just clogs up the bidding." I wrote him and pointed out several advantages of rebidding 2S (promising extras), such as making it easier for responder to rebid 2NT and limiting opener's strength on the auction 1H-2D-2H-2S-3S. I pointed out that the only bid you deprive responder of is 2S, which if that was his planned rebid will now fetch 3S and pave the way for cue- bidding. Here's his response: Hi Paul, I prefer to bid 2S, if ever, when I have some kind of special distribution such as 6-4. Go ahead and write up your article. I expect it will be the start of a few more notes on this hand. For the record, I really do not like bidding 2S on hands like this one even if I do not put it into satisfactory words. Best, Mike OK, can anyone help him out? Why wouldn't you want to rebid 2S to show extras? --Paul Hightower, Lexington KY

I'm sure you have more expertise in this area than I, but you wouldn't double 2S with AKxx xx Axx Axxx ? If West, a passed hand, bids 2♠ at his second turn, a likely explanation is that he has six spades and four hearts (else he would have opened 2♠). I might then hope to draw dummy's trumps and wait for partner to take some heart tricks. But all too often, declarer has a habit of turning up with such as ♠QJ109xx and ♥QJ10x. That's seven tricks facing ♥9, even if dummy doesn't turn up with the king of declarer's minor-suit doubleton. In the meantime, we can make 3NT in comfort - and we can often do that even when we beat 2♠. No, I wouldn't double 2♠ with ♠AKxx ♥xx ♦Axxx ♣Axx. But if you would, you could easily be right. OK, thanks. I can't afford to play in regionals or nationals, while at sectionals or club events players routinely overcall 1NT on 5 card suits. So I think doubling may be more profitable in my experience than yours :).

I'm puzzled at the "West follows low" -- is the North hand at the bottom? Anyway, I ruff the spade low, cash the Jack of Hearts. Are they 5-0? Then I'll try reaching the long trump hand by ruffing a low club with the seven. Did I just get over-ruffed? I'd call 6-0 and 5-0 on the same hand extremely back luck! Otherwise I've got 12 tricks cold (if trumps aren't 5-0, I ruff the club high.)

I'm sure you have more expertise in this area than I, but you wouldn't double 2S with AKxx xx Axx Axxx ?

It is a common expert agreement that, after the opps bid two suits, "cue-bids" in those suits are natural. For example, after (1D)-p-(1H), your partner could bid 1S, 2C, 2D or 2H naturally. There's little need for Michaels in this sequence, especially if you play 2NT as "2 lower unbid"; you've always go the takeout double available as well. An exception might be (1H)-p-(1S), where 1H promised 5; but again, how many ways do you need to show the minors? In your sequence, a cue-bid raise is still useful, but there are 3 suits to choose from. You are less likely to want to bid hearts or clubs after passing up the chance to overcall the first round; but you had no way to bid diamonds at that point. So (1D)-p-(1H)-1S-(2C)-2D is probably most useful to show diamonds, not a raise. (It may make a difference whether RHO is likely to bid this way with 4 diamonds and 5 clubs.) I don't know what to assume with an unknown partner, except that undiscussed bids in the opp's suits are apt to be confusing!

To take things a bit further, what we really care about is winning the match, and how much we win by. Suppose this slam hand is one of 7 boards in a Swiss match, scored on the 30 point VP scale. If we're already ahead in the match, the VP scale will compress our gain. For example, if this is the last board in a dead-even match, bidding and making the grand vs. a small slam at the other table will gain us 11 imps (not vul), which will translate into +10 VP's (25-5 instead of 15-15.) Going down costs us 11 VP's (4-26 instead of 15-15.) But if we're up 6 imps at this point, the grand rates to gain us only 6 VP's (28-2 instead of 22-8), while going down costs 15 (7-23 instead of 22-8.)

21/24 is 87.5% I got the loss wrong: -470 is -10 imps, not -11. But the 21/24 was correct (10+11 divided by 10+14), and you are correct that 21/24 is 87.5%.

To answer the first question, if they can be counted on to stop at 3NT, and both 3NT and 6C are 100%, we need 7C to be 85% to bid it not vulnerable. Let x = probability 7C makes Let A = expected gain from bidding 7C if it makes Let B = expected loss from bidding 7C if it fails Let C = expected gain from bidding 6C (assumed to be a 100% contract) Then Ax - B(1-x) = C will give us the break-even point for x Re-arranging, (A+B)x = B+C, so x = (B+C)/(A+B) Not vulnerable, A = 14 imps (+1440 vs. +440) , B = 11 imps (-470), C = 11 imps (+920 or + 940 vs. +420 or +440). So, 21/24 = 85%. If the opps might bid 6C, this will reduce A (from 14 toward 11 imps), increase B (from 11 toward 14 imps), and reduce C (from 11 toward 0 imps.) For example, if it's 50-50 whether they'll bid 3NT or 6C, then A = 12.5, B = 12.5, C = 5.5, so x = 18/25 = 72% . If it's 100% they'll bid 6C, A = 11, B = 14, C = 0, so x = 14/25 = 56% .

If you run a simulation on this hand, I think you'll find that it's worth little more than 18 points at notrump. Double-dummy results consistently show 5332 to be little better than 4333, presumably because the doubleton increases the chance the opps will run five tricks. Three Aces are nice but no tens or nines cancel them out. It's probably worth 19 or more at spades. After 1C*-1D*, I'd rebid 1S.

This goes hand-in-hand with how you play responder's rebids. In Old Goren, all jump rebids by responder were game-forcing; an invitational hand was supposed to make two forcing bids, which was difficult without the fourth-suit convention. In the modern style, a jump rebid is usually invitational, except in a new suit (which would mean the fourth suit in a potential FSF auction.) Having multiple game-forcing bids (so you can make a descriptive bid at the same time you set up the force) is probably best for most slam hands; so it makes sense to use the fourth suit as a one-round force in that style. For matchpoint bidding, it's nice to have multiple game invitational hands (which come up more frequently than the game-forcing ones), so it makes sense to treat the fourth suit as a game force. All in all, it's probably easier to remember 4th suit as a game force.

Fourth Suit Forcing needs to be considered in light of your overall system, including the requirements for opening the bidding, what hands are suitable for an immediate jump shift response, how you treat jump rebids by responder, and whether the system is geared toward matchpoints or IMPs/Total Points. In general, forcing bids save bidding room for slam exploration, while non-forcing bids help with accurate game/part-score bidding. You can play jump rebids as invitational, and fourth suit as forcing one round; or play FSF to game; or play jump rebids forcing to game, FSF one round; or play that all jump and fourth suit rebids are forcing to game. (1) If you play a wide-ranging, light opening style, game invitations make more sense -- you will often be too high by the time the invitation is made, but the contract may not be completely hopeless or it may score better than what the opps would have bid had you stopped lower. Thus, Acol features light openings, non-forcing jump rebids, and heavy use of FSF for game-going hands. This is clearly a matchpoint-oriented style. (2) I have for years played an Eastern Scientific matchpoint style with invitational jump rebids and FSF one round. A key agreement is that if responder takes another bid after FSF, it creates a game force; the only invitational strength hands that use FSF are those that would like opener to place the contract, such as after 1D-1H-1S, responder holds Kxx AQxxx Qxx xx . He'll pass whatever opener rebids, and opener must jump to game with a Queen or so better than a minimum, or just extra shape. A jump shift rebid, such as 1D-1H-1S-3C, shows 5-5 invitational. (3) If you play sound openings, responder can overbid when stuck for a rebid, especially with a fit, and enjoy having lots of forcing bids available to help explore for slam. For this purpose, it is more useful to play jump rebids by responder as game-forcing than having to drag all strong hands through the 4th suit. I'd recommend this style with 2/1 GF; some key experts play this way, but most 2/1 bidders use the Acol style (jump rebids invitational, FSFG) which I think is completely inconsistent with the IMP/slam orientation of 2/1 GF. You should have a lot more game-forcing than invitational hands since those should cover only a very narrow range; it does not make sense to reserve multiple bids for the less common strength, and you will often waste bidding room unless you treat the FSF bid as a sort of puppet (and it is more important to right-side notrump than to use a relay structure here, IMO.) Playing responder's jump rebids as GF, responder can use FSF and then bid again without creating a game force. In other words, after 1D-1H-1S, if all of 2NT, 3C, 3D, 3H, and 3S are game-forcing, then responder can bid 2C with any invitational hand and follow up with a non-forcing, non-jump rebid in any denomination. (4) Finally, playing sound openings at IMPs or total points, it is plausible to dispense with game invitations altogether and play FSFG along with jump rebids forcing to game. However, I think this creates a lot of ethical problems (what Edgar Kaplan used to call "that old black magic") and would not recommend this style for anything but possibly an experienced, expert partnership. If your partnership doesn't resemble Meckwell or Hamway, forget it. Also note that because style #3 still provides for game invitational sequences after anything but a 1S opening, it does not absolutely require totally sound openings (but 2/1 GF curiously punishes a light opening in spades, one of many reasons I detest the system.) A final note: although creating a game force allows plenty of room to describe shape, further agreements are needed to clarify strength. This is my major objection to 2/1 GF: there is no universally accepted scheme of rebids once the GF has been created, so all bids are virtually meaningless in terms of strength.