Spades-Walsh anyone?

[helene_t]

Suppose you have a 2-4-5-2 or such with 4-7 points. Partner opens 1♣ (natural or 12-14/18-19 bal without four diamonds). Depending on whether you play Walsh or not you respond 1♦ or 1♥. Partner rebids 1♠ and that sucks. Also, 2-4-4-3 with small diamonds would suck if playing Walsh while 2-3-5-3 would suck if not playing Walsh. And if playing Walsh you will have to decide whether to play FSF or XYZ after 1♣-1♥-1♠.

 

Of course the real solution is to play T-Walsh. But suppose you can't do that because the local clubs still use the phased-out EBU level 3 (or GCC).

 

I thought of playing Walsh for spades but not for hearts: It is responder's responsibility to introduce spades but opener's to introduce hearts. This would still leave

1♣-1♦

1♥

ambiguous but now that we don't need a natural 1♠ bid we can use that as a relay, fishing for a five-card clubs or three-card diamonds or a spade stopper (xxx of spades will do with a 3424).

 

It also allows is to obstruct opps' hearts bids when responder has four spades.

 

Maybe it has more disadvantages than I realize. One disadvantage of Walsh is that it doesn't work so well with 3-card raise by opener because responder will bid a weak 4-card suit more often, and obviously this is most serious with spades which opener is most likely to raise with three.

 

What do you think?

[rhm]

I play XYZ and think it is superior to FSF when the conditions for XYZ are present.

I also play a XYZ modification that 2♦ over 2♣ is not a puppet, but denies 3 cards in responders major. With that opener will show support for responders major.

So I would bid 2♣ with 2-4-5-2 and Pass or 1NT over 1♠ with the others.

Of course opener is not well limited in distribution and strength when he rebids 1♠.

So opener can break out of the XYZ system responses over 2♣ if he holds an unusual hand in context, say with a six card or longer club suit.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Trinidad]

I used to play with a partner who insisted on playing 1♣(2+)-1♦; 1♥-1♠ as fourth suit forcing. I suggested playing Walsh, but he definitely was against that. I hated that construction. So, I didn't say anything anymore and simply decided that I would play Walsh for spades. We played for about 6 years and he never found out... I simply never bid 1♣-1♦; 1♥-1♠, unless I had a good hand with diamonds.

 

Rik

[helene_t]

In the "Ladderpuzzel" which was (is?) used to define the Dutch standard system "Biedemeijer", it was once agreed that

1♣-1♦

1♥-1♠

is ostensibly natural but could be FSF. I always felt uncomfortable about this - presumably opener is supposed to bid 1NT with 2425 and a small doubleton spades, catering to the natural variant. Maybe even with 1435 since 1♦ could still be a 4-card suit in this sequence. It also means that if opener raises spades, responder probably can't make any subtle game tries because that would cancel the natural meaning of the 1♠ bid. A seqence like

1♣-1♦

1♥-1♠

2♣-2♦

also looks confusing to me. Maybe it could work in a very serious partnership but then again, in a very serious partnership one might as well play T-Walsh. And standard systems are meant to be something you can play with a pick-up partner.

 

On the other hand, having to jump to 2♠ in order to force, when opener still has 2-7 clubs and 10-18 HCPs, is not great either. Maybe, especially if not playing Walsh, one should play second-round Kaplan Inversion:

1♣-1♦

1♥-?

now:

- 1NT shows four spades, NF

- 1♠: relay, ostensibly some boring weak hand without four spades.

[fromageGB]

Of course the real solution is to play T-Walsh. But suppose you can't do that because the local clubs still use the phased-out EBU level 3 (or GCC).

When one of my clubs was restricting to level 3, I played twalsh under 2012 orange book 12 D 1 : "All responses and continuations are allowed with or without intervention". Nobody argued.

 

If a club decided (as within its rights) to ban twalsh then I would no longer play there. If the EBU decided to ban it nationally then I would take up knitting.

[the hog]

Wrong thread

[MickyB]

I think this might well be an improvement on other natural methods of responding to 1C.

 

What would you rebid over 1D with 4423 and 3433? You can avoid this issue by playing short diamond, four-card club! This would allow you to find fits in either minor when opener is 4-4, and 1C:1D, 1H would promise 4-4. The disadvantage of doing this is that, if you play 2wcb, you can never sign off in a known 4-4 minor fit at the two-level over a 1NT rebid, as it is now 1C:1X, 1N that promises four clubs.