Weak jump shifts

[paulhar]

Hi! Once again, bridge literature (at least three cases) suggests a treatment for weak jump shifts which disagrees with my notion of what a weak jump shift should be. I looked online and foiund some more backup for the literature, and also some totally wretched advice. (WARNING: DO NOT !!! believe what you read about bridge from somebody's website! Check here first. I have found that the average poster on BBO formus knows a heck of a lot more about bridge than the average perosn posting about bridge on a website.)

 

In any event, you are playing weak jump shifts. Your partner opens 1D, and the next player passes. Which of the above hands is the weakest you would bid 2S on?

[sfbp]

I think that (and Bridgebrowser backs this up, i can hear the doubting cries of "rubbish" already) wjs, just like neg free, works best as ANTI-forcing. MAXimum 6 points, minimum 0. Antiforcing means opener does not raise even with a fit. Why not? Because telling the opps we have a fit is an invitation for them to bid their game.

 

Having decided that it's antiforcing, the weaker the better.. BRBR bears this out too.

[kenrexford]

As a different view, that is actually the same, I have preferred for some time the approach that I have leaned where a "weak" jump response shows something like constructive values, maybe about 8-11 with a good six-card suit.

 

The idea to this compliments the super-weak school, in that simple weakness bids propel the opponents. Having a punch of an 8-11 count allows the partnership to hit the interloper. I prefer this range because it not only "solves" the problem of the rebid having a large range without a weak-jump and assists our game probes in the face of intervention.

[jtfanclub]

I think that (and Bridgebrowser backs this up, i can hear the doubting cries of "rubbish" already) wjs, just like neg free, works best as ANTI-forcing. MAXimum 6 points, minimum 0. Antiforcing means opener does not raise even with a fit. Why not? Because telling the opps we have a fit is an invitation for them to bid their game.

 

Having decided that it's antiforcing, the weaker the better.. BRBR bears this out too.

Well, I agree with this, although I think it's a bit of the reverse effect...you will often raise it to 3 or 4, but a raise to 3 is purely pre-emptive and a raise of 4 is more likely a sacrifice than to make. It's responder who needs to make sure to never bid again.

[Gerben42]

I chose the 1st option. What BRBR does not measure is the advantage when you don't bid it. Also the frequency of the 4 - 8 range is higher than 0 - 5.

[mike777]

Great question, I do not bid 2s on any of them. But I am thinking of bidding 1s with most or all of them. :)

[jdeegan]

:) Seems to me that the answer often depends on the form of contest, the vulnerability, the quality of the opponents and the state of the match. Now there can, and should imo, be a partnership agreement as to a general point of view - whether the emphasis is to disrupt the opponents' bidding or to reach the occasional biddable game. It's the same sort of trade off that applies to weak two bids.

 

I would hate to go -200 vul. at matchpoints in two spades on a part score hand.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

to answer: the 4th is the weakest,but I would

not bid 2S being red vs. green, red vs green

the 1st.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[awm]

Obviously this is a matter of partnership agreement. There are a number of reasons you might want to play weak jumps:

 

(1) To keep the one-level responses up to strength. There is some value to one-over-one bids showing 6+ points, but at the same time passing on very distributional weak hands can lead to bad results (playing the wrong partial and/or missing a surprise fitting game).

 

(2) To avoid jumping to the three level on invites. Suppose the auction starts 1♦-1♠-2♣ (for example). If you have an invitational spade one-suiter the normal action is to bid 3♠ now. But this could be an awful misfit on around half the points. If the "bad" spade one-suiters would bid 2♠ directly, then you can use 2♠ in this (and many other auctions) as invitational.

 

(3) To enable suit bids and jump rebids to be game forcing. Again 1♦-1♠-2♣. In standard bidding 2♠ is weakish and 3♠ is invitational, meaning that to set spades you have to start with fourth-suit force. Having a direct 3♠ available to set the suit substantially eases those slam auctions, and you can do this if 2♠ direct handled the weak hands and 2♠ rebid the invites.

 

Notice that reasons (2) and (3) suggest that the direct jump can be up to around 8 or a bad 9 hcp, whereas reason (1) suggests that the direct jump is real garbage. I'd suggest a range around 3-8, feeling that pass is a reasonable option with a real nothing hand. After all, sometimes partner has a bit extra (say 15-16 points) with shortage in your suit, which can lead to a truly awful result (down multiple tricks, possibly doubled) when a jump can be no points and a lousy suit.

 

I'm highly suspicious of bridgebrowser studies for this sort of thing. There are a lot of issues including the high frequency of misunderstandings in pickup partnerships on direct jump bids. I also think the whole idea of "anti-forcing" bids is poor. If we have a ten card spade fit and around half the points, we can often make a game -- why pass with 18-19 and a fit opposite a weak jump even if it's 0-2? Similarly if we have a ten card spade fit and not that many points, it's usually not hard for opponents to find a way into the auction. I haven't gotten great results passing partner's weak two bids when I have a mediocre hand and a huge fit, have you? But yet this is just what's suggested opposite the weak jump when the combined fit and partnership assets are almost exactly the same (albeit divided 13-0 instead of 6-7)! Sure occasionally you win by concealing your degree of fit, but far more often you win by bidding the par contract as quickly as possible and forcing opponents to guess whether to bid game over you, double you, or just pass (after all you could have 18-19 with a fit and a double card in hand).

[paulhar]

It appears that I have chosen my sample hands poorly. I had a friend reply that he would bid it on any weak hand that could play for only three trump losers opposite a singleton honor; i.e. 1098xxx, x, xxx, xxx. Most of my examples don't do this because I chose terrible spots. Maybe a lot of you that chose QJxxxx and out would also have chosen 1098xxx (or J109xxx) given the option, but since I gave you terrible spots in most of the examples, you didn't have that option.

 

In any event, I would respond 2S with all the example hands; yes, it's tough to go down 200 in 2S at matchpoints but it's even tougher to go down 300 in 1D.

 

We found weak jump shifts in our bridge literature, with all instances having the minimum of 2HCP (or higher.) All online references were also 2HCP or higher. It's hard to believe that those that think 2HCP is OK wouldn't also respond 2S on J109543, 4, 54, 9832 (yes, I know we are allowed to use judgment here), but a lot of people that read the bridge books take these constraints literally and would be led to believe that a 2S bid on the last hand would be a terrible bid.

[whereagles]

hcp aren't really the issue. It's the type of hand that matters. It's not that ♥J below that makes your jump shift within par; it's the spade honors.

 

QT9xxx

Jx

xx

xxx

 

I play through the french definition of WJS, which is a hand weaker than the corresponding preempt around 2-7 hcp, with a good suit. At most a queen outside. With side A/K, a 1/1 is preferrable.

 

The good suit (not weaker than JT9xxx) is essential because you're proposing to play in your suit opposite a hand that may not have a fit and may be quite strong.

[mikestar]

Much depends on what role your WJS is playing in your system. Very weak is excellent for premption but has a rather low frequency. A semi-constructive WJS is more frequent, and can reduce the number of 1 below game contracts.

 

In a big club context, semi-constructive WJS's are particularly useful: you can keep you 1/1 to about 8 HCP or so without losing the advantage of bidding your shapely 5 counts. I've never had a problem with passing balanced 5-7's opposite a limited opening--there's no game and you can't be misfit.