Anyone still using forcing 1H-3H nowadays?

[Gilithin]

Yes, there are other ways to get there. 3M is one of them. It solves a difficult problem of a hand with a fit good enough to force to game but uninterested in slam ventures, especially a hand without a decent 5-card side suit. Take QJx, QJx, xx, KQJx or QJx, KQ, QJx, Jxxxx and partner opens 1H or 1S.

 

Basically, if you want to increase the accuracy of the 2/1 bid, then there are two options with these hand types: bid 1NT 100% forcing then bid game over the response, or bid 3S forcing (a picture bid that describes a bad game raise).

 

The advantage is that when you do make a 2/1 and then support, you have the knowledge that there is a genuine 5-card of longer side suit and a decent hand.

Maybe I open lighter than you but I am not convinced a balanced 12 count with 6 quacks is worth a game force. Put it this way, if you were playing Bergen and it went 1M - 3m (limit) -- (pause)3M - 4M, which is the approved auction for the hand type you describe, I would not be sympathetic as TD when you told me you were always going to game regardless of the BIT.

 

I will not argue you about the benefits of making the 2/1 auctions purer though. Fred Gitelman was a big supporter of that concept when he posted here and I am sure he knows a lot more about 2/1 GF systems than I do.

[Lovera]

I use 1M-3M as a strong hand 14-18 points but only for the three balanced (=4-3-3-3, 4-4-3-2, 5-3-3-2) and also for the 5-4 -2-2 and 6-3-2-2 in response to opener. Instead for the other distributions that are unbalanced I prefer 2NT Jacoby with the same distributional points. This, however, if there is no interference, otherwise it becomes preventive (as is used now). When I was playing I clearly warned my partner of the moment of this change and I found that they were happy to play "old fashioned" reaching good scores. I think that this restricted choice only for balanced ones can be considered as a (third) middle ground in addition to better defining the type of strong hand answering to opener (which requires cue bids).

 

 

[Vampyr]

I don't have a good handle on the percentage playing 1M-3M as preemptive, but I have to disagree with plain suit jumps (aka Bergen raises) being played by most good pairs (in the US). Maybe in the UK?

 

Extremely common in the UK.

[Vampyr]

Its ever so cute that people still believe that there's any significant number of people who play rubber bridge at home.

 

My grandmother played rubber bridge at home.

She's been dead for 25 years.

 

I and some of my friends play rubber bridge at home. Sometimes Chicago.

 

Yes, I did learn at the kitchen table with my grandparents when I was a child.

 

And we played 1M-3M as GF. But that was over four decades ago.

[Lovera]

Perhaps it should rethink the 1M-3M bidding as a preventive, using it only when is interfered with (as indicated by me in # 27) because how the (forgotten) 1M-2M one is utilized which instead I can also use by repeating it at level 3 (let's not forget that 1 ♠ is also termed to as a little barrage)?