Walsh responses and raising with 3

[cwiggins]

Suppose you are playing Walsh responses to 1C. (I.e. you will bid 1M with a 4-card major rather than 1D with 5+ diamonds.)

 

Do you require 4-card support to raise to 2M or do you do it with 3 card support? If you raise with 3-card support, do you do so freely or do you have restrictions? What are the restrictions? Only if you have a singleton? Only if you have at least Hxx and an empty doubleton? Something else?

 

Does it make a difference if you are playing game forcing Walsh (i.e. to bid diamonds first, you must have a game forcing hand) rather than invitational Walsh (to bid diamonds first, you need have invitational or better values)?

 

Does it make a difference if you are playing matchpoints rather than IMPs? Lawrence suggests that raising with 3 makes it easier to bid games if you have a 5-3 fit. If that's true, it is an IMP strategy. At partials, "raise with 3" may score worse than the "raise with 4." If that happens, "raise with 3" is a losing matchpoint strategy because the bad partial scores may well be more frequent than missed game scores.

 

Does it make a difference if you are opening light? Precision opens light, and most Precision players seem to use a "raise with 4" strategy.

 

Here's what I've been able to find through research.

 

All of these styles of responses--the style of freely raising with 3-card support, the style of raising with 3 only if you have a singleton, and the style of raising with only 4-card support--seem playable.

 

Most U.S. players raise 1m-1M to 2M with 3-card support freely but this may be in the context of responding up the line. See Lawrence's "The Three Card Raise" in "Workbook on the Two Over One System" pages 149-164, but he was not using Walsh responses. See also "Washington Standard" which raises to 2M with 3-card support with Hxx and an empty doubleton (page 152) but tends to bid up the line (page 132). However Bergen does use Walsh responses, and Bergen does raise to 2M with Hxx support and an empty doubleton. "Better Bidding With Bergen" pages 153-154

 

Rarely raising with 3-card support is suggested in Hardy's "Two Over One Game Force Revised - Expanded" page 24. Hardy uses Walsh responses and suggests (by implication) raising with 3 and a singleton and says that raising with 3 to an honor with a small doubleton is a matter of style but rebidding 1NT is the better bid rather than raising with 3 and an empty doubleton. You don't miss a 5-3 fit because with 5-cards in his major, responder will rebid 2M or use some other device with invitational or better values.

 

The European players that I've watched on BBO--primarily the Italians and pairs playing the Polish Club--seem to raise only with 4-card support. The Polish Club documentation says to use a "raise with 4" strategy. See "WJ05" page 19: after 1D-1M, "a raise to 2M always promises 4 cards in that suit." "The Polish Club," which uses MAFIA responses (Majors Always First In Answering), agrees that 1D-1M; 2M shows 4-card support. page 72.

 

Recently an article said that if you respond up the line, it is 50-50 whether responder has 5+ cards in his major after 1C-1M. But wouldn't Walsh style responses reduce that probability? With 4M and 4/5/6 diamonds that are less than game forcing strength, you would respond 1D up the line but 1M Walsh, increasing the number of hands that respond 1M with 4-cards only.

 

Personally I use light opening bids (think rule of 19+), Walsh responses, and play mostly matchpoints. Each of these factors suggest to me playing "raise with 4." Since all the arrows point the same way, it seems that a "raise with 4" strategy would the be best with this set of choices.

[foo]

OK. Lot's of stuff in or implied by your post, so please bear with me if this gets long or I miss something on 1st pass.

 

0= It is unclear from your post, but I'm assuming we are talking about =Responder's= raises? I'll talk a bit about both.

 

1= SA and 2/1 GF are a 5cM system that believe in Responder raising Opener to 2M with any hand of the proper strength and 3+ trumps. Doesn't matter if you play any form of Walsh or not.

 

2= The issue of raising with "proper responding strength" is directly related to how sound / light the 1M opening style is. A 7 loser hand with 2+ QT in it can be raised by any supporting 9- loser hand with 2+ covers cards in it (unless you are playing Constructive or Semi-Constructive raises. See below.) Unless you like bad scores and losing events, the lower your "floor" on 1M Openings, the higher your floor has to be on 2M raises.

 

3= It =DOES= matter if you are playing 2/1 GF vs SA. Especially so if you are playing 2/1 GF with Constructive or Semi-Constructive raises.

whether 1S-2S is allowed with Axx_x_(xxxx_xxxxx) is something that depends on partnership style.

 

4= Your game try structure matters as well.

1S-2S when responder holds Axxx_x_(xxx_xxxxx) is much more risky if you do not have the proper methods in place to handle the ensuing auction.

 

Now let's go across the table. 1m-1M;??

 

Most pairs require Opener to have 4 card support for a raise. Many pairs admit that they feel endplayed into raising on some shapely hands with 3 card support. Very few pairs raise freely with 3 cards if they have a flat hand.

 

Hardy's strategy was based on the 2nd sentence.

 

I have not heard much about pairs defining opener's raise based on whether Walsh was being used or not.

 

Requiring 4 cards for Opener's raise is the more constructive choice. The more freely you raise with 3+ cards, the less well defined your shape is and therefore the more you are gambling on confusing the opponents more than partner for a good result.

 

This suggests that if you are going to play the "Opener raises 1M freely" style, the better Opener's hand, the more they should be disciplined about having 4 card support for a raise.

 

Hope this helps.

[helene_t]

I rarely raise with three. It's just an old habit, I am not claiming it to be superior.

 

As for Walsh, it is true that the chance that responder has five becomes smaller and therefore it could tip the balance in favor of not raising with three. Dunno how important it is. Maybe interesting to do some simulations.

 

My gut feeling is that it isn't so crucial, that issues like

- do u rebid 1NT with a singleton in p's suit? If so you should raise on three more often as responder will not repeat a 5-card.

- do you play a bunch of trials after the raise so that responder cannot bid a NF 3m or 2NT? In that case you should not raise on three too often.

[Free]

I'm a fan of 3-card raises with the right hand. This means with a small doubleton or shorter in a side suit. The raise followed by the next call as a relay is able to let opener show what he has exactly (min, max, balanced, unbalanced, 3 card, 4 card, specified shortness,...).

 

The only problem hand is when responder has an invite with 4 card suit. He's unsure if the 3-level will be safe, and if you get a min+bal+3card response you might get a disaster.

 

After using this for a while now, I'd recommend it for sure.

 

About the Walsh stuff: I prefer to have a GF hand when bidding 1♦ instead of 1M. With weak hands, you can rebid 2♣ as a puppet to 2♦ (playing XYZ). With an invitational hand, partner will usually have support in ♦ since he didn't support our Major on a 3 card suit, so the 3-level is pretty safe.

[Flameous]

Concerning what helene pointed out about trials, if you can after trial show only 3 card support, it doesn't make it really inferior.

 

I rarely raise with three, also mostly due habit and typical finnish style.

 

(13)45 shape after major response is where I raise with any three cards without hcp to reverse. If the minors are swapped, I consider suit quality. (Where I believe most here would raise about always)

 

I think in the end it doesn't make really much difference. When you consider constructive auction, you tend to find the right spot whether it goes showing directly 3 card support and then some artificial trials to find out what's going on, or bidding more naturally only 4 card support. While if it's a competetive auction, you have negative doubles and support doubles to work out your fit.

 

In some balancing situations I guess other style has some benefit but can't tell which one because many dislike balancing over 1NT even compared to 2H or 2S.