Your Response?

[Free]

2♥ but not happy with it.

[the hog]

Q QJ8765 KQ Q864

 

Partner opens a modern 1♠ 1st seat r/w IMPs.

 

You can bid 1NT semi-forcing or make a 2/1 GF.  What do you do?

What is "semi forcing"? It is either forcing or not. Can you be semi pregnant? A semi virgin?

[Free]

Q QJ8765 KQ Q864

 

Partner opens a modern 1♠ 1st seat r/w IMPs.

 

You can bid 1NT semi-forcing or make a 2/1 GF.  What do you do?

What is "semi forcing"? It is either forcing or not. Can you be semi pregnant? A semi virgin?

1NT openings are usually semi balanced :P

semi forcing means it's not forcing, but partner will seldom pass.

[gnasher]

Yes I pass most 5332 13-counts. You?

I hardly ever play a semi-forcing notrump - I prefer to make my life miserable by cramming all the invitational hands into the two- and three-level responses.

 

I suppose the cutoff should depend on how many 5332 11-counts you open (all of them, in my case) and how many 5332 14-counts get upgraded (more than half, for me).

[gnasher]

semi forcing means it's not forcing, but partner will seldom pass.

I think it means specifically that opener will bid again with some 5332 shapes that were too weak to open 1NT.

[the hog]

Q QJ8765 KQ Q864

 

Partner opens a modern 1♠ 1st seat r/w IMPs.

 

You can bid 1NT semi-forcing or make a 2/1 GF.  What do you do?

What is "semi forcing"? It is either forcing or not. Can you be semi pregnant? A semi virgin?

1NT openings are usually semi balanced :P

semi forcing means it's not forcing, but partner will seldom pass.

David Stevenson, well known tournament director, takes great umbrage at this oxymoron. Perhaps "wide ranging NT response would be a better terminology"?

I would like to bid a modern 2D transfer to 2H. Now that would be nice if available.

 

(Actually I once knew a girl in my youth who claimed to be a semi virgin).

[gwnn]

Schwarzenegger played a semi pregnant man in one of his sillier movies. The title was Junior, I just looked it up.

[Free]

semi forcing means it's not forcing, but partner will seldom pass.

I think it means specifically that opener will bid again with some 5332 shapes that were too weak to open 1NT.

What it does mean in practice is the following: "Don't pass if you would accept an invite". So opener's rebids are either balanced which would accept an invite, or a normal natural response.

 

As for the terminology: there are probably better names for it, but it's not the worst you can find. Personally I have more problems with the term "non forcing stayman" while nobody ever passes 1NT-2♣ when the 1NT opening wasn't psyched. :P

[hanp]

Some people definitely can't be semi-annoying!

 

Gnasher, your interpretation of semi-forcing is not mine. With 5332 I pass if I would later pass a 3-card limit raise. If I know I'm going to play in a partscore anyway, and I'm balanced, I might as well play 1NT. I don't open that many 5332 11-counts.

 

This discussion reminds me of the time some years ago when I was watching Michael Rosenberg play. Zia bid a semi-forcing 1NT (if David Stevenson was watching he might have corrected Rosenberg's explanation, but fortunately he was not). Rosenberg thought and thought and thought, and finally passed, showing a balanced 13-count.

 

By the way, I don't bid 1NT with an invitational hand and 6 hearts.

[gnasher]

Gnasher, your interpretation of semi-forcing is not mine. With 5332 I pass if I would later pass a 3-card limit raise.

I'm confused. How does that differ from my interpretation?

[hanp]

No need to be confused, your definition is still there, on page 2 of this thread.

[gnasher]

As for the terminology: there are probably better names for it, but it's not the worst you can find.  Personally I have more problems with the term "non forcing stayman" while nobody ever passes 1NT-2♣ when the 1NT opening wasn't psyched.  :P

If I were looking for bridge terminology to be annoyed by, I would also consider "Namyats" (which is not in any sense reverse Stayman), "Unusual over Unusual" (which doesn't involve making an unusual bid to show a two-suiter) and "Negative double" (which, as used these days, makes a positive statement about the doubler's hand).

[gnasher]

No need to be confused, your definition is still there, on page 2 of this thread.

I'm not confused about what I wrote - even my short-term memory is up to that.

 

opener will bid again with some 5332 shapes that were too weak to open 1NT.

 

With 5332 I pass if I would later pass a 3-card limit raise.

 

I still don't see any inconsistency between these two: with a balanced 12-count both you and I would pass; with a balanced 14-count we would both (I assume) bid.

[hanp]

I think that not only the words are different.

 

According to you the essense is that with some 5332's to weak to open 1NT, opener still bids. This to distinguish it from the standard (for you) non-forcing 1NT response.

 

I view it the other way around: opener passes with some 5332's. This is the difference with the standard (for me) forcing notrump.

 

When I play 14-16 notrumps, I pass with all 5332 hands to weak to open 1NT. I would bid 1NT with pretty much the same hands and view it as the same convention. But it violates what you think a semi-forcing 1NT response is specifically about.

 

By the way, when playing live bridge I don't use the words semi-forcing, partly because I speak Dutch. I alert 1NT and say that is not forcing but can be up to about an 11-count.

[Phil]

My definition of the annoying "semi-forcing 1N" matches Han's.

 

As Justin pointed out to me a while back, 14-16 NT functions well with a SF1N, for some of the reasons pointed out in this thread. We pass with a minimum 5332 (11+ - 13) so 2 of a minor tends to show 4+ cards.

 

I will reiterate the importance to either play 2/1 as a 'soft' GF, or play 3 level JS's as invitational.

[gnasher]

So "semi-forcing" has nothing to do with what opener is expected to do, but is purely about what responder holds?

 

I'm not going to argue, because it's a purely American term, so I imagine you know better than I do. Still, it does seem strange that the term "semi-forcing" should be wholly unrelated to the term "forcing".

[hanp]

Andy you are right.

 

Let's go back to talking bridge. :(

[dake50]

Semi-force can?

or not?

use the tempo of partner's opening??

Eg. opener's are automatic, so if I break tempo for a sub-minimum opening,

let me pass a force.

If again a 1NT force - as common as they come - breaks tempo, he begs a pass.

And we make semi-force to guard BIT in either case.

Was force, but pass wins.

Wasn't force, but bid wins. Can't be WRONG!!!

[foo]

Q QJ8765 KQ Q864

 

Partner opens a modern 1♠ 1st seat r/w IMPs.

 

You can bid 1NT semi-forcing or make a 2/1 GF.  What do you do?

What is "semi forcing"? It is either forcing or not. Can you be semi pregnant? A semi virgin?

1N semi-forcing means that Opener will not pass unless they have a flat minimum opening bid (or the Flannery hand of =4522 not strong enough to take another bid).

 

So 1M-1N. (semi-forcing);pa

implies Opener has a 12-13 5332 or an icky =4522.

[Tomi2]

2♥ and try for game,

in my system 3♥ directly is nat and inv, maybe i might try this, jsut to prove that I do use tis bid sometimes, but here I go for game ince that scores 620