[BRBanger]

After 1X - 2Y (lower suit) - 2NT rebid showing 15-19, what's the best way to find out about range and fits? (Say we reserve 3NT for a balanced 18-19 with 4 cards in responder's suit). One idea is to play 2nd responses as transfers. After all, opener did not open 1C. For example, after 1D - 2C - 2NT - 3C could be used to show 3+d, 3D=4+h, 3H=4+sp, with 3S available as a slam try in clubs. Accepting the transfer could be used to show min/max, or fit/no fit. It would be nice if responder can bid out his shape, even with no real slam interest, just wanting to find the best game. E.g. where responder is (4-1)-3-5. Tried searching, but to no avail. I've come across 3C as a range ask, but I think we can do better. Any thoughts?

[NickRW]

Well, I've never played it myself, but for the benefit of other posters, this is presumably in an Acol context (i.e. 4 card majors and a weak NT) and the 2/1 response is 10+ - right?

[BRBanger]

You're right Nick. I should have put it in context - Acol weak NT, 4cM's. The 2NT rebid is GF of course, and I guess 15-19 is a very popular range for the 2NT rebid among Acol players. If you allow the choice of opening 4cM or 4cm, depending on how you see the rebid working best, then 1D - 2C - 2NT could still have a 4cM,...and maybe 5d if the 2NT rebid felt right. Or is it better to reverse into 2M on (only) 15+ with 4cM and 5d? Again, showing the range can be a problem. Does it help if responder bids his 4cM before his 5cm? (I guess that's another, well-documented, issue).

[gordontd]

I play 3C as an enquiry in this context with some partners. Opener then rebids 3D with upper range hands 18-19hcp and then subsequent bids are natural. With lower range 15-17hcp opener rebids 3H, 3S or 3NT to describe their hand.

[NickRW]

BRBanger, on 2015-January-28, 09:00, said:

...Does it help if responder bids his 4cM before his 5cm? (I guess that's another, well-documented, issue).

I am going to refrain from trying to answer most of your questions because, as I said, I haven't played this extensively. However, to answer your last question: Many play that a responder's reverse is game forcing (and some play it as inv+, forcing for 1 round). Either way, a 2/1 response, at least by an unpassed hand, can contain an undisclosed major. So, no it doesn't particularly help.

Showing the 4cM ahead of the 5cm is something done by a weaker hand, but that doesn't really concern us here as we've ended up in a game forcing auction anyway (regardless of whether responder actually has a major and regardless of whether that implies opening values or just something close).

[awm]

Haven't played this particular method, so I may be wrong on this one...

Seems to me though that unbalanced responder hands are going to be pretty common, probably more so than the 14-15 flat range where you need to decide about a quantitative slam invite. These unbalanced responder hands really benefit from having 3♣ available as a natural call, for example:

♠KQx
♥x
♦xxx
♣KQxxxx

♠AJxx
♥xxx
♦AKxx
♣Ax

Nothing special and yet slam is really good. And of course 3NT is down if they find a heart lead. Move one of opener's spades to clubs and you won't make slam, but 5♣ is still much better than 3NT.

It's not hard to find this if you can bid 1♦-2♣-2NT-3♣-3♦-3♠, since opener will see the clear problem in hearts and the club fit and get us to the right strain and probably level. If 3♣ is a transfer to diamonds or some sort of inquiry, this hand becomes much harder especially because north won't want to bid past 3NT opposite most opener hands.

I'd suggest just playing 3x as natural, and using 4♣ as a range ask to handle the purely quantitative hands. Yes it means you sometimes play 4NT with 14 opposite 15 balanced, but this will make most of the time and seems worthwhile to find the right slams/games when responder is unbalanced.

[jallerton]

awm, on 2015-January-28, 10:33, said:

Haven't played this particular method, so I may be wrong on this one...

Seems to me though that unbalanced responder hands are going to be pretty common, probably more so than the 14-15 flat range where you need to decide about a quantitative slam invite. These unbalanced responder hands really benefit from having 3♣ available as a natural call, for example:

♠KQx
♥x
♦xxx
♣KQxxxx

♠AJxx
♥xxx
♦AKxx
♣Ax

Nothing special and yet slam is really good. And of course 3NT is down if they find a heart lead. Move one of opener's spades to clubs and you won't make slam, but 5♣ is still much better than 3NT.

It's not hard to find this if you can bid 1♦-2♣-2NT-3♣-3♦-3♠, since opener will see the clear problem in hearts and the club fit and get us to the right strain and probably level. If 3♣ is a transfer to diamonds or some sort of inquiry, this hand becomes much harder especially because north won't want to bid past 3NT opposite most opener hands.

I'd suggest just playing 3x as natural, and using 4♣ as a range ask to handle the purely quantitative hands. Yes it means you sometimes play 4NT with 14 opposite 15 balanced, but this will make most of the time and seems worthwhile to find the right slams/games when responder is unbalanced.

The key to this pair of hands is identifying Opener's holdings opposite Responder's heart shortage. It would be nice if Responder could show the shortage explicitly, but if that's not possible, Responder just has to improvise. For example:

If playing 3♣ as an enquiry (as I also do with some partners), Responder bids 3♦ natural, preparing to play in 3NT if Opener bids either that or 3♥; but in a suit contract if Opener bids 3♠.

If playing 3♣ as a transfer, Responder bids 3♣ to show ♦ and then 3♠ natural. Now Opener has the message about heart shortage and can judge accordingly.

[Aardv]

awm, on 2015-January-28, 10:33, said:

Haven't played this particular method, so I may be wrong on this one...

Seems to me though that unbalanced responder hands are going to be pretty common, probably more so than the 14-15 flat range where you need to decide about a quantitative slam invite. These unbalanced responder hands really benefit from having 3♣ available as a natural call, for example:

♠KQx
♥x
♦xxx
♣KQxxxx

♠AJxx
♥xxx
♦AKxx
♣Ax

Nothing special and yet slam is really good. And of course 3NT is down if they find a heart lead. Move one of opener's spades to clubs and you won't make slam, but 5♣ is still much better than 3NT.

It's not hard to find this if you can bid 1♦-2♣-2NT-3♣-3♦-3♠, since opener will see the clear problem in hearts and the club fit and get us to the right strain and probably level. If 3♣ is a transfer to diamonds or some sort of inquiry, this hand becomes much harder especially because north won't want to bid past 3NT opposite most opener hands.

I'd suggest just playing 3x as natural, and using 4♣ as a range ask to handle the purely quantitative hands. Yes it means you sometimes play 4NT with 14 opposite 15 balanced, but this will make most of the time and seems worthwhile to find the right slams/games when responder is unbalanced.

I play 3♣ as an enquiry here (whatever suit Y is). Responses: 3♦ shows a fit for Y (Hx or better), 3major shows no fit, not minimum, 3NT shows no fit, minimum, 4any shows a fit and a maximum (there are deemed to be three ranges). This would work quite well on the hand given - the auction would start as suggested, but with a different meaning for 3♣ and 3♦. (Opener might now choose to raise spades, which might end the auction.)

[Cascade]

Natural works. Transfers could also work. Although I suspect there are just swings and roundabouts. You gain one step when you don't have (want to show) clubs and lose (three) steps when you do want to bid clubs.

I point to note is that in natural you probably want to reserve opener's 4NT for natural and quantitative e.g. 1♦ 2♣; 2NT 3♠; 4NT 18-19 and take some other action when agreeing responder's second suit - new suit cue-bid. It seems wrong anyway that opener could Blackwood when limited and responder has not explicitly shown any slam interest.

Similarly if responder raises to 3NT opener should be willing to bid 4NT with 18-19. At worst you have around 28-29 hcp and are playing for ten tricks.

An idea I had looking at some of the hands in this thread is for responder to show shortage over the 2NT rebid. Showing shortage in my experience is a good discriminator between when we want to play 3NT and when we are willing to play 5-6 minor (or occasionally some other contract). I imagine something like:

1x 2y; 2NT ...

3y = slammish no shortage
3z = shortage (including z=x)

After shortage is shown you can more or less bid naturally. The only problem I can see is when responder has hearts and spade shortage then you get to 3♠ and may not know whether or not there exists a 4=4 heart fit. I am sure this can be overcome for example we could overload rebidding responder's suit to either include or exclude the possibility of four hearts.

[BRBanger]

Thanks for the interesting and useful replies. Some good ideas to work on. Jeffrey and Wayne have also picked up on the benefit of showing shortages, which can really help to place the contract denomination, even if finding the right level may still be tricky. Thanks chaps. Clearly we can't always do everything - i.e. establish strength, shape and degree of fit. Do the sequences work better if we always respond in a 4cM (at the 1-level)ahead of bidding a 5+cm (at the 2-level)? What I mean here is - can we show the canapé later in the auction, if we want to? After a 1NT rebid (say 15-17), this should be easy enough because we can use 2C as a puppet / INV, 2D as ART GF, and a jump in a new suit as 5-5 GF. So an auction like 1D - 1S - 1NT (15-17) - 2D (ART GF) - "descriptive rebid by opener" - 3C by responder can show 5 clubs now, while 2NT is available otherwise. There is merit in showing shortages or 3-suiters here for sure, but at least there is more bidding space is available. Not so much room after a 2NT jump rebid (18-19) however, but at least we get the strength across. Other ideas to create more bidding space may be swapping opener's reverse (eg. 1D - 1S - 2H) to (potentially) show a balanced hand (or some other tricky hand types), and using 2NT for something more specific. Anyone have experience here, or ideas?

2NT could be the 4h - 5d genuine reverse hand, although 1D - 1S - 2NT showing spade support seems to be becoming more popular with modern theorists (I think) and among the 5542 bidders opening 1C with 12-14 or 18-19 bal (with or without transfer Walsh). While this is a reasonable method, I'd like to open 1C with one range balanced, and open something else (1D?) with the other range. Where is Phil King when you need him? I vaguely remember Phil sharing his view about why 1C was better with one range than the other, but I can't find the thread (and clearly this question belongs in a different thread - sorry).

[jallerton]

BRBanger, on 2015-February-02, 06:11, said:

Do the sequences work better if we always respond in a 4cM (at the 1-level)ahead of bidding a 5+cm (at the 2-level)? What I mean here is - can we show the canapé later in the auction, if we want to? After a 1NT rebid (say 15-17), this should be easy enough because we can use 2C as a puppet / INV, 2D as ART GF, and a jump in a new suit as 5-5 GF. So an auction like 1D - 1S - 1NT (15-17) - 2D (ART GF) - "descriptive rebid by opener" - 3C by responder can show 5 clubs now, while 2NT is available otherwise. There is merit in showing shortages or 3-suiters here for sure, but at least there is more bidding space is available. Not so much room after a 2NT jump rebid (18-19) however, but at least we get the strength across. Other ideas to create more bidding space may be swapping opener's reverse (eg. 1D - 1S - 2H) to (potentially) show a balanced hand (or some other tricky hand types), and using 2NT for something more specific. Anyone have experience here, or ideas?

The short answer is no. In trying to solve a relatively minor problem you are creating a whole host of others. You could probably cope with the 4M5m hands if you knew partner was always going to rebid 1NT and have decent detailed agreements over it. The problem is that partners have a habit of rebidding something else.

1♥-1♠-2♦. Suppose Opener is 1543 and Responder is 4-5 or 4-6 in the blacks. How do you get to clubs when it's right?
1♦-1♥-2♦ How do you distinguish between the various rounded suit lengths you might have?
1♦-1♥-3♦. There's not much chance of getting to a 5-3 or 6-3 club fit now.

Even when Opener makes the apparently favourable rebid of raising Responder's major, Responder won't be able to get over the fact that he has a longer suit elsewhere.

[BRBanger]

"You could probably cope with the 4M5m hands if you knew partner was always going to rebid 1NT and have decent detailed agreements over it. The problem is that partners have a habit of rebidding something else."

Thanks. You make a good point, and you're right about partner's habit. Well, one of them anyway!