Is it standard 2/1?

[1eyedjack]

To isolate one point from another thread of mine, can I have confirmation please that when playing 2/1 it is standard practice with GF values to make a 2/1 response in preference to a 1/1 response, in order establish the GF, with equal length (4 cards) in the two possible suits?

 

Ie you hold a balanced GF with 4-4 in the blacks, and partner opens 1-Red. Is it standard to respond 2C rather than 1S, on the grounds that 2C is GF where 1S is not? And if not always, are there some additional qualifying circumstances under which that becomes the standard treatment?

 

Thanks

[jdonn]

After a 1♦ opening, if responder is game forcing with 4-4 in the black suits it is normal to bid 1♠. This leaves you with easy rebids in all cases where partner has a minimum:

 

Over 1NT, 2♣ (or 2♦ depending on partnership version of NMF)

Over 2♣, 2♥.

Over 2♦, either 2♥ or 3♣ or 3NT depending on agreements, style, and hand.

Over 2♠, 4♠ or 3NT depending on hand.

 

By contrast, 1♦ - 2♣ auctions are often worse. Some partnerships have fewer agreements there, some don't even play it game forcing, and if you later show spades partner will probably think you have 5♣.

 

 

Over 1♥ it is a bit different. I would say it is still standard to bid 1♠, but a lot more good players than in the past are bidding 2♣ and it may be a better idea. Certainly if I have heart support (say 4324) then I agree with 2♣ to establish the game force. Something like 1♥ 2♣ 2♦ 2♥ lets you support two levels lower than 1♥ 1♠ 2♦ 3♣ 3NT 4♥, where no one really knows if the other has extras or not. Even without heart support, you may often have to go through 4th suit on the 3 level if you start with 1♠, which is not very desirable.

[skjaeran]

After a 1♦ opening, if responder is game forcing with 4-4 in the black suits it is normal to bid 1♠. This leaves you with easy rebids in all cases where partner has a minimum:

 

Over 1NT, 2♣ (or 2♦ depending on partnership version of NMF)

Over 2♣, 2♥.

Over 2♦, either 2♥ or 3♣ or 3NT depending on agreements, style, and hand.

Over 2♠, 4♠ or 3NT depending on hand.

Agree on all counts.

 

By contrast, 1♦ - 2♣ auctions are often worse. Some partnerships have fewer agreements there, some don't even play it game forcing, and if you later show spades partner will probably think you have 5♣.

I'd not recommend 2♣ with less than five with a 4cM unless you use transfer rebids by opener (2♦=♥, 2♥=♠, 2♠=5+♦) as advocated by Ken Rexford in his book on cuebidding technics. This seems a good idea to me, whether you apply Ken's cubidding style or not, since you're able to GF and establish a 4-4 fit at a low level, and have space for exploring - whatever method you apply thereafter.

 

In standard methods, 2♣ followed by a rebid in a major suit implies 5+ ♣'s.

 

Over 1♥ it is a bit different. I would say it is still standard to bid 1♠, but a lot more good players than in the past are bidding 2♣ and it may be a better idea. Certainly if I have heart support (say 4324) then I agree with 2♣ to establish the game force. Something like 1♥ 2♣ 2♦ 2♥ lets you support two levels lower than 1♥ 1♠ 2♦ 3♣ 3NT 4♥, where no one really knows if the other has extras or not. Even without heart support, you may often have to go through 4th suit on the 3 level if you start with 1♠, which is not very desirable.

100% agree - very good point to be able to find fit at a low level in GF auctions.

[Apollo81]

1♦-1♠ with 4-4 blacks is standard and better for all reasons mentioned.

 

1♥-2♣ (although not commonly used) with 4-4 blacks is better than responding 1♠ for reasons mentioned. When I play this way I also play that 1♥-2♣-2♠ does not promise extra values.

[EricK]

I am a fan of bidding at the 2 level to show the force. This is especially true when I have support for the opener and the minor is strong and the major is weak. The reasons for these is that it allows opener to correctly value any shortage he may have. eg if your ♠ are Axxx and your ♣ are KJTx then a singleton ♠ is good for opener but a singleton ♣ is bad news. By bidding 2♣ rather than 1♠ opener is better placed to make a good decision. Reverse the black suits in this example, and I would think 1♠ is better.

[mike777]

To isolate one point from another thread of mine, can I have confirmation please that when playing 2/1 it is standard practice with GF values to make a 2/1 response in preference to a 1/1 response, in order establish the GF, with equal length (4 cards) in the two possible suits?

 

Ie you hold a balanced GF with 4-4 in the blacks, and partner opens 1-Red. Is it standard to respond 2C rather than 1S, on the grounds that 2C is GF where 1S is not? And if not always, are there some additional qualifying circumstances under which that becomes the standard treatment?

 

Thanks

In your example hand in the other post I think you were 4324 with 18 hcp and pard had opened one heart. The reason I prefer 2clubs to create the game force is because I could bid hearts next as a 3 card heart slam try.

 

OTOH if partner had opened one Diamond I would have just responded one spade, not 2clubs.

[1eyedjack]

Thanks for all the replies. It is a bit of a new concept for me. The 1♠ response does not of course deny GF values, and there are subsequent bids to set up GF sequences, but it does get a bit murky because you cannot control opener's rebids.

 

When I say a "new" (for me) concept, I was aware that back in the days when Blue Club was first written up, you could respond 2-minor to 1-Major with potentially as few as doubleton (as I recall) in the bid minor, simply to set up a GF auction, but I was never really comfortable with that.

 

It is evident to me that if you just take the 2-minor response in isolation, a pair that uses the bid on a more restricted hand-set will have an advantage (when it arises) over a pair that uses the bid on a wider population of hands. The flip-side of course is that the auctions after the 1/1 response are improved, in the hands of those who play the wide-distribution 2/1.

 

Going back to think about it some more.

[SoTired]

To isolate one point from another thread of mine, can I have confirmation please that when playing 2/1 it is standard practice with GF values to make a 2/1 response in preference to a 1/1 response, in order establish the GF, with equal length (4 cards) in the two possible suits?

 

Ie you hold a balanced GF with 4-4 in the blacks, and partner opens 1-Red. Is it standard to respond 2C rather than 1S, on the grounds that 2C is GF where 1S is not? And if not always, are there some additional qualifying circumstances under which that becomes the standard treatment?

 

Thanks

NO!

 

You do NOT bid your suits in the wrong order in order to create a 2/1 game force. The same is true for reverses. You don't bid suits in the wrong order just to reverse to show your strength.

 

If partner opens 1D or 1H and you have 4-4 in the blacks, you respond 1S and forget about the club suit if partner does not rebid 2C. You can always use 4th Suit Forcing to create your game-force after a 1/1 response.

 

If you bid 2C and then 2S, partner has EVERY RIGHT to expect you have 5♣ and 4♠. And if you end up in the wrong contract because of that belief, it is your fault because you have misdescribed your hand.

[Al_U_Card]

To isolate one point from another thread of mine, can I have confirmation please that when playing 2/1 it is standard practice with GF values to make a 2/1 response in preference to a 1/1 response, in order establish the GF, with equal length (4 cards) in the two possible suits?

 

Ie you hold a balanced GF with 4-4 in the blacks, and partner opens 1-Red.  Is it standard to respond 2C rather than 1S, on the grounds that 2C is GF where 1S is not?  And if not always, are there some additional qualifying circumstances under which that becomes the standard treatment?

 

Thanks

NO!

 

You do NOT bid your suits in the wrong order in order to create a 2/1 game force. The same is true for reverses. You don't bid suits in the wrong order just to reverse to show your strength.

 

If partner opens 1D or 1H and you have 4-4 in the blacks, you respond 1S and forget about the club suit if partner does not rebid 2C. You can always use 4th Suit Forcing to create your game-force after a 1/1 response.

 

If you bid 2C and then 2S, partner has EVERY RIGHT to expect you have 5♣ and 4♠. And if you end up in the wrong contract because of that belief, it is your fault because you have misdescribed your hand.

Ditto, amen and who cares about the minors, anyway? ;)

[P_Marlowe]

certainly not, with 4-4 bid

the lower one, shape rules.

 

You will have enough room

to create a forcing auction.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[jdonn]

If you bid 2C and then 2S, partner has EVERY RIGHT to expect you have 5♣ and 4♠. And if you end up in the wrong contract because of that belief, it is your fault because you have misdescribed your hand.

That is completely true, but irrelevent. If you bid 2♣ then you don't bid 2♠ next, you either raise partner or rebid notrump. This is particularly well suited to the more modern style where partner can rebid 2♠ without promising extra values.

 

If you bid 2♣ then partner bids 2♠ and you raise to 3♠, do you really think partner cares any more whether you have 4 or 5 clubs?

 

If partner opens 1D or 1H and you have 4-4 in the blacks, you respond 1S and forget about the club suit if partner does not rebid 2C. You can always use 4th Suit Forcing to create your game-force after a 1/1 response.

To repeat my example above to show why this is completely undesirable, compare:

1♥ 2♣ 2♦ 2♥

with

1♥ 1♠ 2♦ 3♣ 3NT 4♥

Which auction do you think is more comfortable to show a game force with heart support? Similar reasoning also applies without heart support, although not as extreme.

[the hog]

To isolate one point from another thread of mine, can I have confirmation please that when playing 2/1 it is standard practice with GF values to make a 2/1 response in preference to a 1/1 response, in order establish the GF, with equal length (4 cards) in the two possible suits?

 

Ie you hold a balanced GF with 4-4 in the blacks, and partner opens 1-Red.  Is it standard to respond 2C rather than 1S, on the grounds that 2C is GF where 1S is not?  And if not always, are there some additional qualifying circumstances under which that becomes the standard treatment?

 

Thanks

NO!

 

You do NOT bid your suits in the wrong order in order to create a 2/1 game force. The same is true for reverses. You don't bid suits in the wrong order just to reverse to show your strength.

 

If partner opens 1D or 1H and you have 4-4 in the blacks, you respond 1S and forget about the club suit if partner does not rebid 2C. You can always use 4th Suit Forcing to create your game-force after a 1/1 response.

 

If you bid 2C and then 2S, partner has EVERY RIGHT to expect you have 5♣ and 4♠. And if you end up in the wrong contract because of that belief, it is your fault because you have misdescribed your hand.

I agree with this. Many players do not use the so called "more modern style", (I wonder just who regards it as "more modern"), of reversing with no extra values eg 1H 2C 2S. Bidding this way without the requisite extra values makes it very difficult to show how strong your hand is.

 

Therefeore by bidding 2C over 1H with a 4324 shape risks the risk of losing the S suit or of you misdescribing your hand to pd when you as responder later introduce S. Pd does have every right to expect you to have 5C and 4S if you bid this way. Opener may well care whether you have 5C or not if he has fitting C values.

 

Some players take this to an even greater extreme if playing MAFIA, but that is of course not standard 2/1 by a long way.

[awm]

Perhaps the big issue here is that 1♥-1♠ is one of the more awkward auctions in standard bidding. The problem is that 1♠ bidder could have a very wide range of values (much wider than the range for really any other response) and could also have a very wide range of shapes (balanced or unbalanced, heart fit or no heart fit, even could have a minor longer than spades if not game forcing). Because of this, even some relatively cheap actions by opener, such as rebidding 2♦ or 2♥, can create issues.

 

Without complicated agreements, one approach to try and "fix" the problem with 1♥-1♠ is to avoid bidding 1♠ wherever possible. So with 4-4 in spades and a minor and GF values respond the minor, with a heart raise including spade length make a direct raise, and so forth. Obviously this distorts your shape in some cases, but at times it may be worth the price. Especially with a heart fit, the only real downside is that you can miss the superior 4-4 spade fit, but the upside is that you get to start your exploration several levels lower and you also conceal the four-card spade suit from the opponents (on the frequent occasions you land in a heart contract anyway, the information about spades may help the defense more than partner).

 

Conventional approaches to fix 1♥-1♠ are many, and include:

 

(1) Flannery

(2) Kaplan Inversion

(3) Using responder's 1♠...2♠ rebid as artificial force (direct 2♠ would be weak)

(4) Using responder's 2♠ jump shift on all GF hands with 5+ spades

(5) Assigning opener's 1NT rebid after 1♥-1♠ an artificial meaning

[1eyedjack]

awm has a good point, I think: If a bid creates a problem there may be up to three possible workarounds:

(1) reduce the frequency of the bid, by loading problem hands on other bids that are under less stress, or

(2) change the meaning of the bid (to some extent an inevitable result of (1), but potentially more radical), or

(3) change your continuations following the bid

 

jdonn has shown graphically the sort of problems that responding 1S using standard continuations can cause, and responding 2C (option 1 above) does seem to alleviate the problem on the exemplified hand with minimal collateral system disruption. I haven't really given it much thought but possibly option 3 might also alleviate it without resorting to a 2C response, but at the cost of something of a larger overhaul.

 

Anyway, my original question referred to standard treatment, and I am grateful for the responses.

[helene_t]

Many players do not use the so called "more modern style", (I wonder just who regards it as "more modern"),  of reversing with no extra values eg 1H 2C 2S. Bidding this way without the requisite extra values makes it very difficult to show how strong your hand is.

The only author I've seen recomend this "more modern"(?) style is Max Hardy. Now of course Hardy was a very influential 2/1 theorist but anyway I think it's safe to regard it as a minority view.

 

As for the original question: No, I think it's very non-standard always to bid the minor first just in order to create a GF immediately. But many would bid the better 4-card first in case of extreme quality discrepancy, and it probably varies a lot how extreme it has to be. But other things being equal, I think most experts tend to bid the cheaper 4-card first.

 

Personally, I sometimes bid the minor first if we have a more clear understanding about 2/1 auctions than about 1/1 auctions (FSF may or may not be GF) and after a 1♦ opening there could be some special considerations, i.e. if I have xx in spades and want to block a lead-directing 1♠ overcall, and/or if we play a neboulous club style so that 1♦ is less likely to contain a 4-card major than in standard. But such considerations are rare and when I do it I feel more like experimenting than like bidding kosher.

[Finch]

To answer the original question: it's a long way off standard to respond in the minor first, whichever suit partner has opened.

 

If you decide to have the partnership agreement that you respond 2C instead of 1S with 4-4 in the blacks then you can, but you need to think through all the subsequent auctions in detail. Many people on this forum (I hope different ones!) would raise a 2C FG response to 1H to 3C looking at Axxx AQxxx x Kxx. If you think 2C is the right response to 1H looking at KQJx Kx Axx AQxx then good luck finding 6S.

[1eyedjack]

To answer the original question: it's a long way off standard to respond in the minor first, whichever suit partner has opened.

 

If you decide to have the partnership agreement that you respond 2C instead of 1S with 4-4 in the blacks then you can, but you need to think through all the subsequent auctions in detail. Many people on this forum (I hope different ones!) would raise a 2C FG response to 1H to 3C looking at Axxx AQxxx x Kxx. If you think 2C is the right response to 1H looking at KQJx Kx Axx AQxx then good luck finding 6S.

That is an interesting point. But then, swap the black suits of both partners and you may find some openers raising a 1S response to 2S, after which finding 6C becomes just as problematic (perhaps).

[Finch]

To answer the original question: it's a long way off standard to respond in the minor first, whichever suit partner has opened.

 

If you decide to have the partnership agreement that you respond 2C instead of 1S with 4-4 in the blacks then you can, but you need to think through all the subsequent auctions in detail.  Many people on this forum (I hope different ones!) would raise a 2C FG response to 1H to 3C looking at Axxx AQxxx x Kxx. If you think 2C is the right response to 1H looking at KQJx Kx Axx AQxx then good luck finding 6S.

That is an interesting point. But then, swap the black suits of both partners and you may find some openers raising a 1S response to 2S, after which finding 6C becomes just as problematic (perhaps).

Indeed. That's why you can't just 'decide' to respond 2C instead of 1S, it has to be part of a structured system.

 

Playing normal methods, opener knows that 1H - 1S might have clubs (in fact, might have longer clubs than spades if responder is not strong enough for whatever 2C requires in their system), and they can get out from a 7-card spade fit via 1H - 1S - 2S - 3C (if that's natural & forcing) or using whatever artificial methods are preferred. Against that, 1H - 2C - 3C - 3S in most people's methods implies a 5th club along with a 4th spade (or may even have only 3 spades if looking for 3NT).

 

Another example of the potential complexities from as 'simple' a change to the methods as responding 2C rather than 1S to 1H....

 

Personally, if I don't want to respond 1S on a 4-4 in the blacks I would prefer to play a 2C response as totally artificial (natural or various balanced hands) with relay responses by opener. I don't play that, but I do play other methods after 1H - 1S to solve most of the original problems raised.

 

Note that holding 4-4 in spades and diamonds there is much less reason to respond 2D (FG) to 1H, as after 1H - 1S - 2C responder has a cheap 4SF available and can clarify the hand type next round.

[Chamaco]

One point that needs to be addressed is which vesrion of 2/1 one is playing:

 

1) many experts play that after 1M, a 2/1 promises a (usually good) 5+ card suit, which represent a realistic source of tricks

2) others play that it promises only a 4 card suit which can be mediocre

 

Approach 1) has been dealt with in many Mike Lawrences books, and more recently Fred Gitelman has written great articles on his own way to develop further this philosophy.

 

Approach 2), however (Hardy's 2/1), is also played by many.

 

So, with 44 in the blacks, my bet is that Lawrence-Gitelman followers (approach 1) would bid spades, whereas it is unclear how many of the Hardy-style supporters would start with 2 clubs rather than 1 spade.

 

All in all, since we are discussing "standard", I'd rate that - at least with equal length, a substantial majority of decent players would bid up the line, even if this leaves the hand unlimited.

 

If instead one would like to restrict the poll to "experts only", I suspect that most experts do not play "standard 2/1" anyways but they will rather have their own toys, as awm has pointed out (e.g. Flannery, Kaplan Inversion, some form of Gazzilli, etc etc)

[ArcLight]

In Mike Lawrnces writings on 2/1 he would say with 4 spades and 5 clubs, respond 5 clubs. I don't think there is any promise of a good suit.

 

With 4-4 I think he would bid spades not clubs.

[Fluffy]

I'll always bid 1/1, the other is just too anti-natural to me. You can explain me why it is better for hours, won't change my mind anyway

[helene_t]

In Mike Lawrnces writings on 2/1 he would say with 4 spades and 5 clubs, respond 5 clubs. I don't think there is any promise of a good suit.

 

With 4-4 I think he would bid spades not clubs.

Yes, that's correct.