[y66]

Kokish-san and Kraft-wo-man suggest this agreement in Modern American Bidding (2003):

Quote

After a two-over-one response:

A two-level reverse or a non-jump three-level new-suit bid and raise to three-of-a-minor [at least four trumps, sound opening] shows extra strength (the "high reverse" at the three-level promising at least five-five), but a single raise to three hearts may be based on a minimum hand.

Opener's new-suit jump after a two-over-one response is a splinter raise but needn't deliver more than a sound opening bid with four-card trump support.

A two-notrump rebid by opener shows at least 15 HCP, a balanced hand, suitable stoppers.

Opener rebids his major with hands unsuitable for a different rebid.

[aguahombre]

The above Kokish recommendation is based on a weak NT style. It sounds good for that premise. Otherwise, trying to find a 15+ balanced hand to rebid 2NT after 2/1 might not be a fruitful search.

[bluecalm]

Quote

The above Kokish recommendation is based on a weak NT style. It sounds good for that premise. Otherwise, trying to find a 15+ balanced hand to rebid 2NT after 2/1 might not be a fruitful search.

Depends how you open with 5M-3-3-2 15-17. I noticed most Americans open it 1NT. Most Europeans 1M. I am not going to call one style or another awful this time but I prefer Italian/Polish style of opening 1M unless hand is very NT oriented and suit is weak. To play this way you need something like gazilli in subsequent bidding though.

[aguahombre]

Well, it certainly does reduce the frequency of a 2NT rebid after 2/1

[hanp]

bluecalm, on May 2 2010, 01:07 PM, said:

Most Europeans 1M.

Most Americans also open 1M. Well, most Americans don't play bridge of course, but among those that do, most have probably never encountered the idea of opening 1NT with a 5-card major.

Perhaps you meant to restrict your comment to expert bridge players only. I must say I don't know any Dutch expert who refuses to open 1NT with a 5-card major. I am surprised to learn that Italians don't open 1NT with a 5-card major.

[bluecalm]

Quote

I must say I don't know any Dutch expert who refuses to open 1NT with a 5-card major. I am surprised to learn that Italians don't open 1NT with a 5-card major

.

Yeah, they don't. By Italians I mean Lauria - Versace and Sementa Duboin (who basically play simplified LV). Fantoni Nunes open their 12-14 1NT with everything resembling balanced shape

[y66]

aguahombre, on May 2 2010, 10:07 AM, said:

The above Kokish recommendation is based on a weak NT style.  It sounds good for that premise.  Otherwise, trying to find a 15+ balanced hand to rebid 2NT after 2/1 might not be a fruitful search.

K&K's Modern American Bidding is based on this general structure:

- Strong notrump (15-17, perhaps a poor 18);
- 5-card majors with
--- a semi-forcing 1NT response,
--- two-level new suit responses forcing to game;
- 2C strong, artificial, near game force;
- 2NT = 20+ - 22, balanced .
- other two-bids: natural and preemptive;

[Jlall]

I used to basically be a worshipper of kokish and am pretty sure I first learned of the idea of new suits at the 3 level showing 5-5 from him. He is a smart dude.

[FrancesHinden]

Jlall, on May 1 2010, 09:44 PM, said:

I will also say that bidding 3C with 5-4 and extras is a huge majority position and that I would probably be considered a fringe weirdo on this one, but I still think I'm right that it should be 5-5 (shocking!).

@Jdonn: Most of the extra hands that you include in 2S now that you wouldn't in strong club are the 5-4 17+ hands. Those hands can all drive to 4N or whatever, so you are not really overloading your 2S bid. Hands that can drive past game should not be worried about because they will easily be able to show their strength later. The 16 counts can be awkward sometimes as the old 16 opp 16 problem is always there and bidding 3C on 5-4 16 solves that, but I really wouldn't worry about it so much to change my system from non strong club to strong club.

Frankly I think it should be auto that the highest bid eg 1S 2H 3D and 1H 2D 3C show 5-5 since they need to be bid so infrequently and are so bad, and I think 1S-2D-3C definitely falls into that camp. Yes you have 3H available to deal with some of the awkwardness but it's really not enough.

@Phil: I mean you can get totally artificial and that would be a big improvement, but if we are sticking with natural means then I would just bid 2N on positional hands and 2S on anti positional hands. I don't know what a minimum 3C bid is...AKxxx x xx AQxxx can't be too far off either way.

You see, you are slowly coming round to the conclusion that lower-level rebids after a 2/1 should be artificial... just a step further and you'll see that it's optimal to play 1S - 2D - 2H as the artificial catch-all as the lowest rebid... nearly there...

[Jlall]

FrancesHinden, on May 2 2010, 04:00 PM, said:

You see, you are slowly coming round to the conclusion that lower-level rebids after a 2/1 should be artificial... just a step further and you'll see that it's optimal to play 1S - 2D - 2H as the artificial catch-all as the lowest rebid... nearly there...

Obv you should just play step 1 as the catchall in 2/1 auctions, that's a no brainer. Doesn't take a genius to come to that conclusion.

In fact I think jdonn and I used to play that many years ago. I've never played it in a serious partnership though.

Since nobody will play it with me I stick to trying to improve upon "natural" while keeping it as unartificial as possible.

[y66]

Deleted

[aguahombre]

Jlall, on May 2 2010, 03:03 PM, said:

In fact I think jdonn and I used to play that many years ago. I've never played it in a serious partnership though.

I am sure Josh will take that in the nicest way.

[lmilne]

My first instinct was to bid 3♥ (playing 2♦ as 5+, usually unbal), but posts in this thread have convinced me otherwise - no need to set diamonds immediately etc.

[jdonn]

aguahombre, on May 2 2010, 05:40 PM, said:

Jlall, on May 2 2010, 03:03 PM, said:

In fact I think jdonn and I used to play that many years ago. I've never played it in a serious partnership though.

I am sure Josh will take that in the nicest way.

We played 0 hands of live bridge together. UNTIL DOMINATING THE MIDNIGHTS IN RENO!

[dburn]

dburn, on Apr 29 2010, 09:23 PM, said:

Dealer: South Vul: Both Scoring: IMP

♠ AKJ53 ♥ J ♦ Q96 ♣ AJ43

You, South, open 1♠ and partner bids 2♦, game-forcing. What call do you make?

To return to our discussion:

You do not play that 2♦ promises five, nor do you play that opener's raise to 3♦ shows extra values, nor that it shows more than three diamonds. Nor do you play opener's rebid of 2♥ as "catch-all", nor do you play any other simple rebid by opener as artificial.

No doubt you are a poor benighted heathen for not playing any or all of the above, and no doubt the next time I see Robert Sheehan (my partner on this occasion) I will point out to him that he is an unreconstructed Luddite - though in fact there is little need to do this, since Zia already does it about four times a day.

You elect to bid 3♣, partner bids 3♥ (defined as no more than "fourth suit forcing") and you (I presume) bid 4♦. Partner bids 4NT, you bid 5♠ and partner bids 5NT. This invites you to bid a grand slam if you think your side can make one. Otherwise: you may show a king outside the trump suit that your bidding has not hitherto revealed; or you may sign off in six diamonds.

What call do you make?

[Jlall]

If we played kickback we would have room to show our SK! Haha jk.

I would bid 7 now. I don't even think we've shown 5134 yet, with no heart stopper and 5224 over 3H we can bid 4D. We also have good spades and the CJ to fall back on. Partner bid keycard without even bidding 4H so I think he has a good hand.

[quiddity]

Couldn't we have significant extras here? It seems like we could have a 20 point hand and partner has to cater for that and let us know that we're not off a keycard.

[whereagles]

after

1♠ 2♦
3♣ 3♥
4♦ 4NT
5♠ 5NT

it's a bit of a guess... We need pard to have the spade queen for it to be a good grand.

What the heck, I'll bid 7 anyway. If he doesn't have ♠Q, maybe I can set them up or maybe pard has 6 diamonds or whatnot.

[jdonn]

I like 7. I want both the spade king and 1-3 red suits, having a similar hand but with only one of those things wouldn't be good enough.

It seems like a better use for 6♣ here would be a last train thing "interest in 7 but I'm not sure". Of course if you are going to do that you might as well just play kickback anyway haha.

[Jlall]

quiddity, on May 4 2010, 06:15 PM, said:

Couldn't we have significant extras here? It seems like we could have a 20 point hand and partner has to cater for that and let us know that we're not off a keycard.

Yes but we also never showed this much, and partner bid keycard which shows a good hand opposite our potential worst hand which shows extras. It's not like he can just have some 13 count.