| Board 24 West Deals None Vul |
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EW 6♦; EW 4♥; EW 3♠; EW 2N; NS 1♣; Par −920
| West | North | East | South |
| 1 ♠ | Pass | 2 ♥ | Pass |
| 3 ♦ | Pass | 4 ♦ | Pass |
| 5 ♦ | All pass |
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| Board 24 West Deals None Vul |
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| West | North | East | South |
| 1 ♠ | Pass | 2 ♥ | Pass |
| 3 ♦ | Pass | 4 ♦ | Pass |
| 5 ♦ | All pass |
3D establishes a GF. West does not have the values for a GF. 2S is better. East bid of 4D is good as although strong and thinking of slam east is in a GF situation so no risk of it being passed. Life is difficult for east over the 5D raise. A better sequence is prob 1S 2H; 2S 3D; 4D 4H; 4S 5D 6D - 4H, 4S are cues, 5D presumably denies a club control, and west is happy to oblige with 6D
ReplyDeleteSame principle that we saw earlier with the 3D game force.
ReplyDeleteI am not convinced you should get to slam after a 2S rebid. In the final analysis I call this sort of hand a nothing hand. You are almost straight on the heart finesse (at best). On a good day you will make 12 tricks and on a bad day with roughly equal frequency you won't. So in the long run you don't really care whether you are in five or six. A nothing hand.
Partnership agreement would play a significant part in how this hand is bid. West's hand is potentially very good with all the honours in the main suits, only five losers, and pretty good intermediates, too. If a 2S rebid is not forcing then that is a significant under-bid. However, if East's 2H bid is forcing to suit agreement then 2S is fine. Alternatively, if 3D by West is GF then that is a significant over-bid since there is no evidence yet that game is a good proposition. However, if 3D is only a one round force (and I suspect a lot of Acol players would play it that way) then bidding can stop in 3H or 3S.
ReplyDeleteIt is certainly possible to play a new suit at the three-level as only a one-round force by partnership agreement but I do not think it is standard. Early Acol books I checked called this sequence a "high reverse" - essentially a new suit at the three level. There was some variation from forcing to game, through opener promises to make a third bid, to responder's rebid of a minor is not forcing (that wouldn't apply in this auction where responder bid hearts), and sometimes only "forcing" with no follow up discussion.
ReplyDeleteI think anything other than game forcing is pretty much not playable without having your slam bidding suffer. Certainly if opener can bid 3D on a twelve count as here (admittedly a good twelve count) then the range is getting very wide and the auction is getting high. It will be hard to bid accurately from there - especially when you are in the slam range.
I usually allow one exception to game forcing in my regular partnerships and that is if we try for 3NT and don't find a stopper we can stop in four of a minor. Five of a minor simply requires extra values (high cards or distribution) to make eleven tricks. For example if the auction was 1S 2H; 3C 3D (4th suit) ... now if we don't find a diamond stopper we can play 4C.
Other than that though I would strongly recommend this new suit at the three-level is game forcing.
To me the problems with a 1RF with such 12 counts are that a) u are likely to end up in a no hope 22-23 hcp 3NT when there is no fit, when responder has say <2 spades, 5 hearts, <4 diamonds; and b) getting to the right game becomes problematic as responder as to make a stab at something, eg if he has a 6 card heart suit and good points he cant bid 3H as that may be passed so is 3NT or 4H the correct bid; c) on a rare day (for me) when there is actually a fit and slam is in the wind, suitable responses are hard to find if it is a 1RF sequence, eg has 3 spades and points for slam. If it was a GF then 3S followed by leisurely knowledgeable stroll to slam.
ReplyDeleteI took a look at DDA with the west hand pre dealt opposite a 10-11 hcp with 5 hearts, <3 spades, < 4 diamonds. 3NT made ~20% of the time. If anyone is interested, what I do is write a short scrip to select the [east] hands and then get a program called Dealer to generate [5000] deals which match west and my east specs. I then run these hands thru Bridge Analyser (costs ~$40) to generate the DDA "perfect vision" result on each deal.
ReplyDeleteThere is a good case for making a new suit at the three level GF (as with fourth suit forcing). That is, if there is a possible misfit then slightly underbid to start with. However, the English Bridge Union Standard on Acol (revised last year) only refers to a new suit at the three level as a one round force, so when playing with a new partner you should decide how you want to treat it or the partnership may be shortlived.
ReplyDeleteI think you are misreading the English Bridge Union Standard Acol system. In the file entitled "Standard English Modern Acol System File". It clearly and unambiguously states:
Delete"A reverse at the three level is always forcing to game."
A reverse is defined in the same document as:
"A reverse bid is one that would require responder to go to the three level to give preference to opener’s first suit. An alternative definition is to imagine a barrier at two of opener’s first suit; opener reverses by bidding above that barrier."
In this auction 1S 2H ... 2S is the barrier so that a bid of 3C or 3D is by their definition a reverse. In older text books these bids were called "high reverses". I don't like that terminology but that is just jargon and doesn't affect the meaning. I prefer to think of reverses only in a higher ranking suit and usually at the two-level. I think that conforms to what "reverse" means - bidding your suits in the reverse order: lower first then higher.
At any rate a bid of 3D is unequivocally defined as game forcing in that document. Its available here and is a very useful resource at least as a starting point to establish partnership agreements:
http://www.ebu.co.uk/documents/laws-and-ethics/convention-cards/foundation-levelv2-system-file.pdf
In other situations they describe responder's new suit at the three level as simply "forcing". In practice though as was pointed out above this is forcing to game. In particular if partner has an appropriate stopper you are requesting a bid of 3NT. Partner won't be very happy if you force and you end up in 3NT with a combined 22-23 points regularly. Therefore you need game values to be making these bids.
Shading on values is only reasonable when you have so much distribution that you can insist on playing in a suit. Even then you still might need to exercise some prudence.
Hi Anon. I took a look at the EBU website. I think I found the relevant pdf (modern acolv2- system-file), but under section 2.5.3 it says "A reverse at the three level is always forcing to game." Am I looking at the wrong doc? But agree the key thing is that partners should agree!
ReplyDeleteReading the EBU document more carefully I agree you have to infer that a new suit by opener at the three level is game forcing, although they have a very round about way of specifying this. As Wayne notes, their definition of a reverse is not one that old-timers would recognize.
ReplyDelete