Fourth Suit Forcing

[Liversidge]

My partner has asked me why I am suggesting using Robson's recommendation to play 4SF as 100% game forcing. Outside of the UK experts are pretty much in agreement that 4SF is 100% game forcing, but in the UK it seems that many good players,even at tournament level,still play that it is forcing only for one round unless bid at the 3 level, but any rebid by opener at the 3 level is game forcing.

 

There must be pros and cons, otherwise everyone would have switched. I can't find anything that spells out the advantages and disadvantages in simple language, but it seems to me to be to do with the use of jump rebids by responder after opener replies to 4SF. Just checking if I have got it right or if there is more to it.

 

If you play the original version, responder's non-jump rebid after 4SF is invitational, not game forcing, and with 13+ HCP you have to jump to force to game, unless a non-jump rebid is in itself a game bid, typically 3NT. So responder differentiates between an invitational hand (11-12) and a game going hand (13+) by jumping if necessary, eg. jumping to 3♠ with a game going hand rather than rebidding 2♠.

 

But if 4SF is 100% game forcing, then responder does not need to jump. All bids are natural descriptive bids, so responder can use all the available bidding space below game to describe his hand and find out more about partner's hand (instead, for example, of having to jump to 3NT rather than bid a suit along the way that partner might pass, when 3NT might not be the best contract). That means that the jump bid can be used to describe stronger responder hands (16+), something not possible with the traditional 4SF. This can be very helpful in identifying a possible slam.

 

The downside is that responder can't use 4SF with an invitational strength (11-poor12) hand. Responder can be stuck for a bid with 11 points, no fit for partner and no stop in the 4th suit. A 2- level preference bid with a doubleton in partner's 1st suit may well be passed, showing 6-9 points, and a rebid of 2NT without a stop could be disastrous - the opponents are very likely to lead the unbid suit.

 

Is that a fair summary, or is there more to it?

 

Thanks in anticipation.

[nige1]

4SFG (4th suit forcing to game) is simple and consistent, which outweighs any possible theoretical disadvantage.

[FelicityR]

Andrew Robson has been playing bridge at the top level for many, many years. Your partner needs to understand that times change and what was standard many years ago - that, is, 4th suit forcing was not forcing to game - has been superseded by it being unconditionally forcing to game. Experts outside of the UK know best otherwise they would have kept the old version.

 

The strange thing is there are still good players in the UK who won't swap over to five card majors, also, though the Americans, Italians and the Chinese through Precision have shown this is advantageous, too.

 

And keeping it game forcing, as Nigel says, is simple and consistent. As you have shown in your post, having it forcing for just one round can be unwieldly and waste quality bidding space.

 

I do not know what system you play, but if you are still playing a variant of Acol there will be hands that do not fit neatly into the game forcing variation of fourth suit forcing, but there again there are many hands that do not fit easily into other bidding systems the world over.

 

The idea of fourth suit forcing, as I am aware, is to keep the bidding open below game to explore slowly both the best game options as well as any slam options. It is the probably the opposite of the theoretical bidding idea of fast arrival, suggesting that game as opposed to slam may be the only contract worth considering.

[Tramticket]

What is your basic system? Playing traditional Acol, a jump in a new suit by responder is strong and game forcing (16+ depending on methods). Many now use the jump response in a new suit for other purposes (weak/mini-splinter/fit-jump/Bergen etc.). But responder does sometimes have a very strong hand and needs to set up a game forcing auction and 4th suit forcing to game does help fill a potential gap.

 

In my opinion it is simpler and more effective to have the 4th suit as forcing to game.

[mikestar13]

Richard Pavlicek can advocate the contrary view far better than I: http://www.rpbridge.net/5m81.htm

 

 

[Cyberyeti]

What is your basic system? Playing traditional Acol, a jump in a new suit by responder is strong and game forcing (16+ depending on methods). Many now use the jump response in a new suit for other purposes (weak/mini-splinter/fit-jump/Bergen etc.). But responder does sometimes have a very strong hand and needs to set up a game forcing auction and 4th suit forcing to game does help fill a potential gap.

 

In my opinion it is simpler and more effective to have the 4th suit as forcing to game.

 

I've never played 4SF as GF at the 2 level. My question is what do you do with a 2N shape and values without a stop in the 4th suit ?

 

1♦-1♠-2♣ and you hold J5432, xxx, Ax, KQJ

[Liversidge]

I've never played 4SF as GF at the 2 level. My question is what do you do with a 2N shape and values without a stop in the 4th suit ?

 

1♦-1♠-2♣ and you hold J5432, xxx, Ax, KQJ

Neil Rosen was written about this in the EBU's bridge magazine. He advocates the 100% GF version but acknowledges the drawback you mention - he says "As a result we often have quite a tough choice as to what to bid with various invitational hands, sometimes having to guess to bid no trumps without a full stopper".

[Tramticket]

I've never played 4SF as GF at the 2 level. My question is what do you do with a 2N shape and values without a stop in the 4th suit ?

 

1♦-1♠-2♣ and you hold J5432, xxx, Ax, KQJ

 

You can't cater for everything. Your choices are to bid an aggressive gf 4sf or 2NT lacking a stop or 2D false preference or 2S (which will be constructive if the initial jump to 2S is weak).

 

But the trade-off is the ability to create a game forcing auction.

[StevenG]

I prefer a one-round force at pairs. I think playing it as a game force only makes sense at IMPs.

[pescetom]

You can't cater for everything. Your choices are to bid an aggressive gf 4sf or 2NT lacking a stop or 2D false preference or 2S (which will be constructive if the initial jump to 2S is weak).

You omitted pass, which is also a choice. 2S for us is nominally 6-card, but not particularly constructive as the initial jump is very weak indeed.

I'm still happy to play 4SF as a game force here, and would be delighted to do so in a system that has less artificial game forces than ours does.

[AL78]

I've never played 4SF as GF at the 2 level. My question is what do you do with a 2N shape and values without a stop in the 4th suit ?

 

1♦-1♠-2♣ and you hold J5432, xxx, Ax, KQJ

 

Probably use FSF and guess what to do if partner bids 2NT. It doesn't matter what methods you play, you can always construct a awkward hand for it. It is like almost every time I play Astro, I get lots of practice at going off in seven card fits when 1NT wold have gone down, yet when I don't play Astro, I then pick up perfect Astro hands.

[Cyberyeti]

Probably use FSF and guess what to do if partner bids 2NT. It doesn't matter what methods you play, you can always construct a awkward hand for it. It is like almost every time I play Astro, I get lots of practice at going off in seven card fits when 1NT wold have gone down, yet when I don't play Astro, I then pick up perfect Astro hands.

 

Which you can't necessarily do, as if 4SF is GF, isn't 2N now potentially better than 3N or at least sometimes bid on a big hand.

[apollo1201]

Which you can't necessarily do, as if 4SF is GF, isn't 2N now potentially better than 3N or at least sometimes bid on a big hand.

FWIW, I play that economical FSF promises a rebid (so a full round force) and is forcing to 2NT (so if partner bids 2NT, we are committed to game). I think, though, that I only stopped twice before game (once in 2NT and once in a 4-3 S fit after a 1m-1H-1S-2om-2H-2S with sth like AQx Kxxx Qxx xxx). A FSF which is a « reverse » is GF.

Rather easy to play (a bit shaky sometimes and I’ve played 3NT with 23 HCP a few times), but erases some of the drawbacks of the non-GF (opener jumping w/ 14) while allows some more flexibility in some awkward hands that the unconditionally GF creates.

[mikeh]

My own preference is that 4SF commits to game. Yes, it can create difficult decisions when responder has only invitational values and no clear call.

 

However, no system is perfect: you tell me your detailed methods and I'd expect to come up with a hand-type that is 'unbiddable' in those methods with very little effort. That's just the way it is, even with complex relay methods, which I have played.

 

So the issue is not whether a particular usage can create problems. It is whether on balance the usage solves more and/or more important problems than do the alternative usages.

 

Here, the problem hand will arise very rarely and we are going to guess 'right' (or luckily) on some of those occasions, so we will suffer a poor outcome, from the systemic flaw, very rarely indeed.

 

Consider: the problem hand has specifically:

 

a) invitational values

b_ no rebiddable suit, in the sense of say 1D 1S 2C 3S showing a decent 6+ suit and invitational values

c) no good support for either of partner's suits

d) no stopper in the unbid suit

 

 

 

Plus, on occasion, hands such as 5=4=2=2 after 1D 1S 2C....now what? Opener could still have 4 hearts: this, to me, is a worse problem than the Cyber hand with 5=3=2=3 and no heart stopper.

 

 

Now, as it happens, the frequency of these issues is somewhat reduced if one plays a form of transfer walsh, especially if one then plays that 1D usually promises a 5+ suit.

 

Given all of that, it remains the case that playing 4SF as gf will on occasion lead to a poor result.

 

But in my experience 4SF as gf is extremely powerful for choice of games decisions and, even more so, for accurate slam bidding.

 

While I think the advantages of keeping the auction low, and conserving bidding space, are self-evident, it is useful to think of the alternatives, which will at least sometimes require use of 4SF and then a jump....consuming an entire level of bidding space and still not limiting responder's hand, which may be simply gf, or mild slam interest or strong slam interest, or even better. Yet, no fit has been established, and the auction may have blown by 3N when 3N is the right spot.

 

As with the problems for the F1 version of 4SF, these issues won't happen very often, but unlike the F1 version, the consequences, when we go 'wrong', are usually very bad indeed...we are talking game and slam swings, rather than a mix of partscore and game problems for the problem hands for 4SF being GF.

 

Finally, if one uses 4SF as gf, then one can start to use more science, since one has more space.

[Cyberyeti]

I'm also wondering how much system matters here, if 1♣-1♥-1♠ can still be a weak notrump, I'm really not sure I want to play 2♦ GF and also if you open less soundly than most.

[pescetom]

I'm also wondering how much system matters here, if 1♣-1♥-1♠ can still be a weak notrump, I'm really not sure I want to play 2♦ GF

That sequence for us is XYZ, not 4SF: it's an apparently coincident game force without direction, but with XYZ we could also have signed off in 2♦ or invited or game forced showing hearts and diamonds.

[mikeh]

I'm also wondering how much system matters here, if 1♣-1♥-1♠ can still be a weak notrump, I'm really not sure I want to play 2♦ GF and also if you open less soundly than most.

well, a recent thread on bypassing spades with the notrump hand, regardless of 1N range, fits well with this issue: play that 1S shows an unbalanced hand, and the issue goes away.

 

As for how sound one's openings are, that is trivial: the lighter opener's hand may be, the stronger one is to use 4SF. In my current serous partnerships, we open all balanced 11 counts, so need a good 13 or more to use 4SF. Indeed, we treat balanced 11-13 responding hands as invitational.

[helene_t]

Technically it probably makes some sense to play it as 1rf in some situations:

1♣-1♦

1♥-1♠

and

1♦-1♥

1♠-2♣

 

In both situations, opener can jump to show extra values without bypassing 3nt.

 

In all other situations, I would prefer to play it as GF because for example

1♣-1♥

1♠-2♦

now opener can't bid 3♣ with 10-17 points (or even 10-13) and a 4-6 shape if we are not in a game force, so we would need some artificiality, or alternatively just accept that we will have to bypass 3nt on some hands where 3nt is the optimal contract, or alternatively we can't use fsf with a 5-card hearts and a diamond stopper but just have to punt 3nt.

 

Obviously as the fsf bid gets higher (say 2♥ or 2♠ instead of 2♦) this problem gets worse.

 

But the main reason for playing fsf as gf is, as Nigel says, that it is simple and consistent. Whenever someone suggests we play fsf as 1rf, I have to ask "can you explain which fsf sequences can be passed below game?", and so far I have never received an answer that I could understand.

 

If you want to have a way to deal with invitational hands with no clear direction, I think it is better to play something other than fsf. You may want to have a look at cheap transfers or Pavlichek's method, for example.

[Tramticket]

Technically it probably makes some sense to play it as 1rf in some situations:

1♣-1♦

1♥-1♠

 

This is the one auction that we treat as F1. Note that it is perfectly possible to combine this with: 1♣-1♦-1♥-2♠ as game forcing.

 

When we used to play 4SF as a one round force only, it was still game forcing at the three-level, after a 2-over-1 response (in an Acol context) and after a reverse. These rules are fairly simple to understand, never led to confusion and it was rare in practice for the bid not to be game forcing.

 

But I am glad that we switched to GF (except the one sequence mentioned above).

[ruleof15]

Fourth Suit Forcing by Ruleof15

Let’s start with the players. What is the responsibility of each? Opener should attempt to describe their hand in two bids if a suit and if NT it will be described in one bid. This being the case, responder is “Captain” and should either place the contract or invite opener to place it. This is where “4th Suit Forcing” comes to play. How about using it to get a clarification of opener’s hand distribution?

What a debacle attempting to decipher the meaning of the bid of the 4th suit. Simply it is a new suit and all new suits are forcing. This bid is mostly made by the responder. The opening bidder has made two bids by then and the hand should be described by that time. What information may be needed to place the contract? We have the suit(s) and close to the strength. How about the more exacting distribution? This removes any question as to whether the 4th Suit Forcing bid is forcing to game or invitational. There is no reason for opening bidder to know this. So, what are the responses to the 4th Suit bid? First, let’s clarify this bidding sequence.

1♣ P 1♦ P, 1♥ P 1♠= NOT 4TH Suit Forcing. Responses are with distribution of: 5-5-2-1-rebid second suit, 6-3-2-2, 5-4-2-2 & 4-4-3-2=bid NT, 6-4-2-1=rebid 1st suit, 6-6-1-0=jump in 2nd suit, 5-4-3-1= bid the 3-card suit. Since the 4th suit is not used to show cards, it can now be used to find the singleton or void. If the 4th suit contains cards, by this I mean stoppers, bid NT and avoid the 4th suit. By removing the semi-descriptive hands, the 4-4-4-1 & 5-4-4-0 (Mini-Roman 2♦) the 4-5/6-?? (Flannery 2♥), both 11-15HCP, and the 5/6- any4-?? (Georgia 2♠) 15-17HCP you will have taken about 90% of the hands. Bridge is a Simple game. Why make it confusing? Notice! The NT response has no singletons or voids. This allows responder to bid safely and use a 6-card suit as trump or run it in NT. If responder bids NT after a showing a hand with a singleton or void, it is a request to show such suit.

[bluenikki]

Neil Rosen was written about this in the EBU's bridge magazine. He advocates the 100% GF version but acknowledges the drawback you mention - he says "As a result we often have quite a tough choice as to what to bid with various invitational hands, sometimes having to guess to bid no trumps without a full stopper".

 

"without full stopper" indeed! how about with 432?

[nige1]

"without full stopper" indeed! how about with 432?

[hv=pc=n&s=sj5432h432da2ckqj&n=sa6h65dkqj43ca432&d=N&a=1D(NAT)P1S(NAT)P2C(NAT)P2N(Not enough for 4SFG)P3NPPP]266|200|

 

On the left is is CyberYeti's problem hand for South.

If 4th-suit is G/F, then, over 2♣, South has a hard rebid problem

Admittedly, 2N is an awkward kludge, without a ♥ stop.

Unfortunately, however, bidding isn't an exact science,

Although, luckily, sometimes, 3N is a playable contract.[/hv]

[bluenikki]

4SFG (4th suit forcing to game) is simple and consistent, which outweighs any possible theoretical disadvantage.

 

Simple to *describe*. Not the same as simple to play.

[bluenikki]

[hv=pc=n&s=sj5432h432da2ckqj&n=sa6h65dkqj43ca432&d=N&a=1D(NAT)P1S(NAT)P2C(NAT)P2N(Not enough for 4SFG)P3NPPP]266|200|

 

On the left is is CyberYeti's problem hand for South.

If 4th-suit is G/F, then, over 2♣, South has a hard rebid problem

Admittedly, 2N is an awkward kludge, without a ♥ stop.

Unfortunately, however, bidding isn't an exact science,

Although, luckily, sometimes, 3N is a playable contract.[/hv]

 

On this auction, are you sure 2NT is least of evils? I would have thought default rebid is false preference.

[nige1]

Simple to *describe*. Not the same as simple to play.

It's simpler to describe and simpler to play. But is it more effective? That's the bone of contention.