[Antrax]

After 1♣-1♦; 1♠-2♥ (FSF), opener with 4=3=2=4 and no heart stopper has no rebid. The strangest part is that 2♠ is 5+♣, rebiddable ♠, 3 card ♣, but overall it seems opener should have some bid that says "I have nothing to show - no fragments, no 3 card support, no stopper and no extra length".

[Bbradley62]

This seems to me to be more a question about 2/1 in general than about GIB. A 2♠ rebid by opener sounds like a distributional two-suiter; a 3♣ rebid should include "I have nothing to show".

[Antrax]

Precisely how I play it, but for GIB it shows something like 6-4 in the blacks. Hence my post

[Stephen Tu]

I strongly prefer using 2♠ on that sequence as nothing to show. With a real 5-6 I think opener can afford to bid 3♠. 2♠ gives responder two more options to bid. When you don't know where you are going, I think it's a lot more useful to have more space below 3nt, than to cater to naturally bidding a very rare hand type.

My general rule is cheapest of opener's two suits doesn't promise anything in response to 4sf.

[Antrax]

Also works (though I personally play that as the 6-5, less space efficient but easy on the memory). As long as any bid is assigned this meaning, I think GIB's system would be improved.

[cloa513]

Antrax, on 2012-October-10, 09:26, said:

After 1♣-1♦; 1♠-2♥ (FSF), opener with 4=3=2=4 and no heart stopper has no rebid. The strangest part is that 2♠ is 5+♣, rebiddable ♠, 3 card ♣, but overall it seems opener should have some bid that says "I have nothing to show - no fragments, no 3 card support, no stopper and no extra length".

Don't bid the 1♠, bid 1NT. Those sort of details should explicitly discussed in the system notes (it is a system from a blank slate) but aren't.

[CarlRitner]

cloa513, on 2012-October-10, 17:16, said:

Don't bid the 1♠, bid 1NT. Those sort of details should explicitly discussed in the system notes (it is a system from a blank slate) but aren't.

That was my first thought, but I would also agree with Bbradley's 3C "nothing to say" making sense.

[cloa513]

CarlRitner, on 2012-October-10, 17:27, said:

That was my first thought, but I would also agree with Bbradley's 3C "nothing to say" making sense.

No a great place to necessarily play and you have partially wasted a whole sequence of bidding- you could have 5 ♣+ for which 3NT or a possible 6♣ would be a lot easier.

[Antrax]

I don't think GIB plays that 1♠ there is unbalanced.

[cloa513]

Antrax, on 2012-October-10, 22:20, said:

I don't think GIB plays that 1♠ there is unbalanced.

True which leaves GIB horribly unprepared when it needs to do simulations 13 cards- 4 of them are spades 10 HCP+

[Antrax]

Also leaves my partner horribly unprepared, I guess