Shortness or Fragment Thoughts

[kenrexford]

An interesting post justified this jump-off, at least in my mind.

 

The are many auctions that feature the Responder to a notrump bidder showing shortness in one major and implying a fragment (or possible frag) in the other major.

 

1. The other-post example of a 2NT transfer to 3♦, followed by a major call

2. 1NT-P-3M as 54/45 minors, 31/13 majors

3. Minor two-suiter call, followed by a major frag/short

 

The major justification for the call as showing shortness seems to be (a.) force of habit and (b.) keeping the strong hand declaring. However, I have started wondering about this.

 

The classic rebuttal is that bidding the frag allows an occasional redouble. That is a consideration, but a rare one.

 

The greater problem seems to be in slam-try auctions. If the short major is hearts, spade exploration is enhanced by a short-suit call of 3♥; Opener can set trumps by bidding 3♠, allowing a serious 3NT and LTTC auction. However, if the short major is spades, a 3♠ shortness call often eliminates any ability to distinguish the extreme of a power heart preference (maximum, slammish, no wastage, five trumps) with the opposite extreme of a "God help us" Moysian fit minimum.

 

Straight frag bidding allows a use of the "other major" to agree the fragment. When hearts is the possible other suit (3♥), Opener can bid 3♠ (power; Serious3N, LTTC) or 4♥ (God help us). When spades is the frag, 4♥/4♠ at least allows some distinguishing.

 

Thought? Other solutions to this issue?

[Cascade]

We use this principle in some of our auctions. We play 1NT 3♥/♠ show four-cards in the major bid and shortage in the other major. To my mind this is clearly better than the other way around as you always have a cue-bid of the shortage below game to show a great hand. After 1NT 3♥/♠ you might want to do all of the following things:

 

1. Raise partner - we can show a good (cue singleton) or ordinary raise (raise);

 

2. Bid 3NT;

 

3. Scramble for a minor suit fit without an appropriate stopper in the short major.

 

Obviously as Ken suggests this principle can be extended to any other auction where you show a suit or fragment and a shortage over 1NT.

[awm]

This method of showing shortage is a big part of the Keri-Garrod notrump structure, where direct three-level bids show a game force with shortage in the other suit of the same rank (3M guarantees four in the bid suit), and a minor suit transfer followed by a 3M bid similarly shows a major fragment in a 3-1 majors hand.

[skjaeran]

This method of showing shortage is a big part of the Keri-Garrod notrump structure, where direct three-level bids show a game force with shortage in the other suit of the same rank (3M guarantees four in the bid suit), and a minor suit transfer followed by a 3M bid similarly shows a major fragment in a 3-1 majors hand.

Yeah. The "problem" with the fragment rebid is that sometimes you're 6421 or 5521, and then the fragment bid isn't such a great bid, to put it mildly. And with 5431 making a fragment bid on Jxx isn't such an enticing idea either. Whereas the shortness bid always shows shortness - which you've got.

[awm]

I think the main point is not so much "showing the fragment" as "how do I show the shortness?"

 

If I show the shortness by bidding the short suit this is "natural" in some way. But there are two big disadvantages to this:

 

(1) The opponents can double the bid of the short suit essentially without risk, since we will never want to play there. Such a double can be used for many purposes; good partnerships often use it to show something other than length in the short suit.

 

(2) It's useful for partner to be able to bid the short suit artificially to show a hand with no wasted values. This is extremely powerful in deciding whether to bid slam on a borderline hand. If we showed the short suit by bidding it, then partner's "raise" of the short suit is his most expensive call. If we showed the short suit via some call in some other suit, then partner will often have a cheap "anti-cuebid" available.

 

Thus it becomes useful to show the short suit by bidding some other suit. There are many rules one could apply as to which suit you bid and which suit you showed. A relatively simple rule is that "once you have shown two suits, you bid the longer of the remaining two suits and it shows shortage in the fourth suit." This remains relatively "natural" -- in fact it's more natural in some sense than bidding your shortage, since you are bidding the suit you have (relatively speaking, this might be three or even two cards in the suit you name) rather than the suit you don't have.