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bidding communication how to tell partner you have 4 of each major

#1 User is offline   spadebaby 

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Posted 2013-October-29, 19:29

I just know there has to be a wy to tell your partner that you have 4 of each major.
Cna anyone tell me how to do that?
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#2 User is offline   Stephen Tu 

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Posted 2013-October-29, 20:03

I strongly recommend going to the ACBL web site, www.acbl.org, and downloading the Learn to Play Bridge software. Also you may try the book "Bridge for Dummies" by Kantar.

As for your question, there's no way to do it in standard natural bidding systems, in non-competitive auctions. The way you find an 8 card fit in a major if it exists is (assuming five-card major based system):
Case 1: Partner opens 1 or 1. With two 4 card majors, you bid HEARTS (note if one major is longer than the other, you bid the longer one, and if they are equal in length but five+ cards, e.g. 5-5 spades/hearts, you bid SPADES. With equal length, you only bid hearts first with 4-4.). If partner has a heart fit, he raises hearts in some fashion (bidding higher with stronger hands). Then you basically forget about the spades and bid as high as your combined strength warrants. (Advanced players also use methods to disclose side suit shortness, aces/kings, etc., when deciding whether to go for slam or not, but probably you shouldn't worry about this yet).

If partner doesn't have four hearts, if he has four or more spades he will bid 1 (or 2 if extremely strong, 19+ HCP). Then you will raise spades.

In one case, if partner has 18-19 balanced hand, modern usual practice is for him to rebid 2nt even holding spades. Then to find the spade fit you will have to bid spades which he will raise. Advanced players may use alternate techniques on this auction, bidding a minor artificially, as a "checkback" mechanism for finding the spade fit, so that one can distinguish between being 4-4 spades/hearts vs. 4-5 spades/hearts.

Case 2: Partner opens some number of notrump (or opens an artificial strong 2 bid, and rebids in NT after your 2 response). In this case, if you are strong enough to investigate game (roughly 9+ pts after partner opens a 15-17 1nt, 4+ after a 20-21 2nt), you bid "Stayman", which is the cheapest bid in clubs, i.e. 1nt-2c, or 2nt-3c. Then opener will bid a four card major if holding one, which you will raise. If opener doesn't have a four card major, he'll rebid diamonds, then you take him back to some number of notrump.
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#3 User is offline   spadebaby 

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Posted 2013-October-30, 06:09

 Stephen Tu, on 2013-October-29, 20:03, said:

I strongly recommend going to the ACBL web site, www.acbl.org, and downloading the Learn to Play Bridge software. Also you may try the book "Bridge for Dummies" by Kantar.

As for your question, there's no way to do it in standard natural bidding systems, in non-competitive auctions. The way you find an 8 card fit in a major if it exists is (assuming five-card major based system):
Case 1: Partner opens 1 or 1. With two 4 card majors, you bid HEARTS (note if one major is longer than the other, you bid the longer one, and if they are equal in length but five+ cards, e.g. 5-5 spades/hearts, you bid SPADES. With equal length, you only bid hearts first with 4-4.). If partner has a heart fit, he raises hearts in some fashion (bidding higher with stronger hands). Then you basically forget about the spades and bid as high as your combined strength warrants. (Advanced players also use methods to disclose side suit shortness, aces/kings, etc., when deciding whether to go for slam or not, but probably you shouldn't worry about this yet).

If partner doesn't have four hearts, if he has four or more spades he will bid 1 (or 2 if extremely strong, 19+ HCP). Then you will raise spades.

In one case, if partner has 18-19 balanced hand, modern usual practice is for him to rebid 2nt even holding spades. Then to find the spade fit you will have to bid spades which he will raise. Advanced players may use alternate techniques on this auction, bidding a minor artificially, as a "checkback" mechanism for finding the spade fit, so that one can distinguish between being 4-4 spades/hearts vs. 4-5 spades/hearts.

Case 2: Partner opens some number of notrump (or opens an artificial strong 2 bid, and rebids in NT after your 2 response). In this case, if you are strong enough to investigate game (roughly 9+ pts after partner opens a 15-17 1nt, 4+ after a 20-21 2nt), you bid "Stayman", which is the cheapest bid in clubs, i.e. 1nt-2c, or 2nt-3c. Then opener will bid a four card major if holding one, which you will raise. If opener doesn't have a four card major, he'll rebid diamonds, then you take him back to some number of notrump.

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#4 User is offline   spadebaby 

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Posted 2013-October-30, 06:10

Thank YOu.

I bought Bridge for Dummies yesterday, cause I can't download acbl's stuff as it is only for windows based pc's and I have a mac.
Appreciate your help.
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#5 User is offline   billw55 

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Posted 2013-October-30, 06:34

 spadebaby, on 2013-October-30, 06:10, said:

I can't download acbl's stuff as it is only for windows based pc's and I have a mac.

Which is unfortunate, especially since ACBL's typical demographic (older, wealthier) seems more likely to use mac than the general population. Still, as I understand, there are ways to run windows software on a mac - some techies can probably tell you how.
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#6 User is offline   blackshoe 

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Posted 2013-October-30, 08:39

 billw55, on 2013-October-30, 06:34, said:

Which is unfortunate, especially since ACBL's typical demographic (older, wealthier) seems more likely to use mac than the general population. Still, as I understand, there are ways to run windows software on a mac - some techies can probably tell you how.

You can buy VM Fusion or Parallels and a Windows OS. Not cheap. You can try some variant of WINE (which wraps individual Windows applications in a "WINE bottle" and lets you run them under MacOS X). There are free versions of WINE and commercial versions (for example, Crossover). The advantage to the latter is that they provide some guidance as to how to set up specific applications, although that probably won't include "Learn to Play Bridge". There is also Bootcamp, which allows you to set up a Windows partition on your Mac, install Windows in it, and the choose whether to boot into MacOS X or Windows (the other things I mention above are processes which run under MacOS X, so you always have access to the Mac side of things).

Most of this requires at least some tech savvy.
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#7 User is offline   spadebaby 

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Posted 2013-October-30, 19:21

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.

Not being tech savvy....think I will wait til I can get to an apple store and get one of them to help me with it.
They have this program called "one-to-one" that you buy for only $99/year and you get one on one sessions with a geek.
you need to physically be in the store tho and since I don't have one near my home here, when I go to Florida there is
one near by.
But I might be well versed by then! lol One can DREAM....
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