BBO Discussion Forums: Forcing NT - BBO Discussion Forums

Vampyr, on 2012-January-29, 17:06, said:

I don't recall double raises (of a major suit) ever being unlimited; in Goren, for example, they were game-forcing and showed 13 - 16 points.

btw what's up with people sometimes describing 1♠-p-2NT as a 'forcing raise'? Duh, I won't pass 2NT. the same with 'forcing stayman'. Oh this isn't the pet peeve thread?

gwnn, on 2012-January-30, 02:01, said:

You might if it weren't forcing or weren't a raise.

I'm just saying that since it is a raise, it is clear that I will not pass it. Now if you say "game-forcing four-card raise", then you give some additional useful information.

In English bridge terminology, the term "limit bid" meant (and in some circles still means) a non-forcing bid which shows the strength to bid to the level at which you're bidding, and no more. It was used to apply not just to three-level raises, but to any raises, notrump bids, rebids of one's own suit, etc. Such bids were, as others have mentioned, a defining charactistic of the Acol system.
All of these would have been described as "limit bids":
The idea was to distinguish from the style where sequences like 1♠-2NT and 1♠-3♠ were forcing. Even if these are limited, they don't involve bidding to the limit of one's strength.

In the English usage, a "limit raise" was simply a "limit bid" which is also a raise, so 1♠-2♠, 1♠-3♠ and 1♦-1♠;2♠ were all "limit raises". To describe a raise which was invitational, one would use the phrase "invitational raise".

I'm not sure why the North American usage is different, but I think it's fair to say that it lacks logic and is less useful. In England one now encounters both usages, so that the term "limit raise" is now so ambiguous as to be useless.

What you've all been describing is a common feature of language in general, not just bridge jargon: phrases often come to have conventional meanings, which are not the same as their literal meanings. Sometimes it happens due to the way the phrase came about (e.g. when it distinguishes from a previous meaning), sometimes it's due to abbreviation (e.g. "game forcing raise" gets shortened to "forcing raise"), sometimes it's just because someone misuses a term and it catches on.

Quote

So yet another case of British English making more sense than American English ?
(my favourite example are dots/commas ending sentence/phrase going inside quotation marks in American English)

S2000magic, on 2012-January-30, 01:25, said:

More likely 13-18 HCP. Anything stronger would require a strong jump shift (19+ HCP).

gwnn, on 2012-January-30, 02:01, said:

The word "forcing" in "forcing Stayman" doesn't apply to the 2♣ bid; it applies to the final bid in these sequences:

1NT - 2♣
2♦ - 2♥

and

1NT - 2♣
2♦ - 2♠

If you agree that the final bid in each of these sequences is nonforcing, you're playing "nonforcing Stayman"; if you agree that the final bid in these sequences is forcing, you're playing "forcing Stayman".

ArtK78, on 2012-January-30, 09:31, said:

It's not at all likely that it's 13-18 HCP. I looked at my copy of Goren's Bridge Complete before I wrote my answer; it's 13 - 16 points, not 13 - 18.

Two minor points:

--Forcing Stayman refers to whether it is forcing to game, as in the style where 2C is not forcing to game, but 2D is Forcing Stayman.

--Goren's Bridge Complete is probably not the relevent authority on the ranges of today's opening bids and rebids. Mere 12-point openings were not encouraged back then, and theories about jump bids and jump rebids have progressed as well. The consequences of jump-shifting with 5-4-2-2 17-18 counts after a 1NT response have been given more thought.

S2000magic, on 2012-January-30, 09:36, said:

What did responder do to raise opener with 17-18 HCP?

If I can find my old Goren book (not Goren's Bridge Complete, but his older book) I will look it up. I may have to go down several strata to find it.

aguahombre, on 2012-January-30, 09:51, said:

But I thought we're talking about how we got current terminology, and it's due to evolution from older terminology. For the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't really matter what the range was in Goren, just the fact that it was a range, not unlimited.

So would a Goren bidder have made a strong jump shift into a 3-card suit if he were 4333 and too strong for a game-forcing raise?

barmar, on 2012-January-30, 10:56, said:

O.K., I was fixating on the range of the 2H rebid...which I believe is as wide as 11-18 these days...not on terminology. I guess I got off topic.

aguahombre, on 2012-January-30, 11:01, said:

The way this thread has meandered, who knows what on-topic is any more?

S2000magic, on 2012-January-30, 09:32, said:

I know very well what it means, and I think it's a silly name.

Puppet Stayman also seems like a silly name. So is Two-Way New Minor Forcing (except after the auction 1♥-1♠-1NT, one of the minors isn't "new"). I'm not even sure where the name "Kickback" comes from; it doesn't seem descriptive, and I assume it's not someone's name. Negative doubles aren't always negative, and Responsive doubles are made by Advancer, not Responder (so maybe they should be called Advanced doubles?).

So get used to the fact that bridge terms don't always mean what they say.

ArtK78, on 2012-January-30, 09:51, said:

I don't recall. What responder didn't do was make a double raise.

barmar, on 2012-January-29, 15:07, said:

♥♥♥



You are so right !

and whch of the four is inviting ?

♥♥♥

barmar, on 2012-January-30, 13:41, said:

Jeff Rubens invented Kickback. When he wrote it up for a Bridge World article ("The Useful Space Principle") he said, as I recall, that he had a reason for the name, but he didn't say what it was.