[Winstonm]

andy_h, on Feb 2 2009, 09:20 AM, said:

JLOL, on Feb 2 2009, 05:19 AM, said:

Seems like an obvious 2H bid ?!

Also 3D sounds like 0544 to me!

I agree. Thought this was trivial!

Trivial Pursuit?

[RichMor]

Winstonm, on Feb 1 2009, 12:30 PM, said:

1H-1S
2C-2D

---

Here is the premise: if 4th suit forcing is defined as artificial, it follows that the best use of continuations should not attempt to establish a fit with the 4th suit, i.e., a raise of that suit does not need to show 4-card length and in fact may be better used than 4-card length.

I would argue that conventional wisdom should say that the best response with the above hand is 3D.

I bet someone here may well disagree. 

Maybe 3♦ should show something like:

♠)x
♥)KQxxx
♦)Axx
♣)KJxx

We would prefer that pard declared NT with Qx or the like in Diamonds.

[Old York]

Hi

I think that partner has used 4SF simply to show a 5 card spade suit, asking for support. You have an ugly decision to make, but the most honest rebid is 2 Hearts.
On a bad day, (I have many) I might try 3NT
This hand is going to play badly in any denomination unless partner has a great deal of undisclosed strength, so leave the decision to him/her

Tony

[gnasher]

I think that being able to show specifically a 0544 shape is much less valuable than being able to distinguish between a hand with six hearts and an awkward hand without a good bid. The six-card suit won't necessarily come to light after an ambiguous 2♥. What about
  1♥-1♠
  2♣-2♦
  2♥-3♥
or
  1♥-1♠
  2♣-2♦
  2♥-3♣
  3♠
However, Justin's point about keeping the bidding low on the hands where you need to explore options is also valid. Why not play that 2♥ shows a 2524 or a stopless 1534, and 3♦ shows six hearts? Extending the principle, after any two-level fourth suit bid, I play that step one shows a hand without an obvious bid, and raising fourth suit shows an extra card in the step-one suit.

[jdonn]

gnasher, on Feb 3 2009, 02:55 PM, said:

Why not play that 2♥ shows a 2524 or a stopless 1534, and 3♦ shows six hearts?  Extending the principle, after any two-level fourth suit bid, I play that step one shows a hand without an obvious bid, and raising fourth suit shows an extra card in the step-one suit.

I think using 3♦ as 6+ hearts wastes way too much space for way too common a hand. At least when it's 0544 it's uncommon, shows your entire hand, and that's aside from not risking misunderstandings.

As for your example auctions, true the sixth heart is not established on the first auction but at least the fit is known by both players, and opener can use the extra length as part of his evaluation. On the second auction I really don't understand what you are talking about, of course opener would bid 3♥ not 3♠ to show his 6-4.

[Winstonm]

jdonn, on Feb 3 2009, 03:10 PM, said:

gnasher, on Feb 3 2009, 02:55 PM, said:

Why not play that 2♥ shows a 2524 or a stopless 1534, and 3♦ shows six hearts?  Extending the principle, after any two-level fourth suit bid, I play that step one shows a hand without an obvious bid, and raising fourth suit shows an extra card in the step-one suit.

I think using 3♦ as 6+ hearts wastes way too much space for way too common a hand. At least when it's 0544 it's uncommon, shows your entire hand, and that's aside from not risking misunderstandings.

As for your example auctions, true the sixth heart is not established on the first auction but at least the fit is known by both players, and opener can use the extra length as part of his evaluation. On the second auction I really don't understand what you are talking about, of course opener would bid 3♥ not 3♠ to show his 6-4.

Another advantage to using 3D to show a 6-card heart suit it that now a direct 3H over the 4th suit bid could become more specific - great suit, extra values, whatever.

[JLOL]

3D showing 6+ hearts is also way too poorly defined and frequent. Again you are using up a whole level of bidding room and forcing partner to sometimes guess what to do and not clarify his hand at all.

I don't think it is overloaded or overly ambiguous to be bidding 2H with both hand types. You have a ton of room. As for gnashers example auction of:

1H 1S
2C 2D
2H 3H

I don't understand why you are concerned about opener not having shown his sixth heart yet, but are not equally concerned with

1H 1S
2C 2D
3D 3H where 3D shows 6 hearts, and responder has not shown his THIRD heart. Heck, responder will probably need to bid 3H on a stiff sometimes.

Giving responder room to clarify his hand type when he has made 1 natural bid so far compared to opener having made 2 natural bids is really important. You can easily survive after 1H 1S 2C 2D 2H 3H not having shown a 6th heart yet, for starters if opener ever cuebids diamonds then he had 6 hearts, and most likely if he makes 2 slam tries period he had 6 hearts. And even if he doesn't get to show his 6th heart you have still set trumps at the 3 level, responder is known to have 3 hearts, and you can focus on whether or not you have the values for slam anyways. The 6th heart will be evaluated by opener as a good thing for slam.

In other auctions if opener has not been able to rebid his hearts with 6 because perhaps they were quite poor then responder will later be able to show tertiary support of hearts anyways and back into the fit, and usually opener would be fine rebidding his hearts anyways with 64.

[H_KARLUK]

2NT

[Winstonm]

Quote

3D showing 6+ hearts is also way too poorly defined and frequent. Again you are using up a whole level of bidding room and forcing partner to sometimes guess what to do and not clarify his hand at all.

I have to admit part of my problem is simply a strong bias against 4th suit forcing.

Still, it is important to understand what reasons responder may have for bidding the 4th suit. Most play this a creating a game force, so I use that as a start.

A couple of things seem obvious - reponder does not want to sign off in 4H or 3N, so those are ruled out. What might he want to know or show? Support for his suit, slam interest, or uncertainty about stoppers for 3N. Really, only the slam interest in opener's second suit creates a problem. And in actuality this isn't as much of a problem as it seems because a double jump could always be used as a forcing raise. Sure it skips a level, but so what? 1H-1S-2C-4C still leaves lots of room on the way to 5, 6, or 7 clubs.

Opener would show 3-card support for spades, would bid NT with a stop, so the only other hand worth worrying about is the heart slam interest hand. And there a 3D bid showing 6 hearts doesn't slow anything down.

It looks to me as though the strongest argument against is the club slam-interest hand. But as I point out, if you hate 4th suit as much as I do you can always just bid 4C forcing and not worry about 4th suit.

[barryallen]

skaeran, on Feb 1 2009, 02:58 PM, said:

This is a typical case for agreements.

I'm used to rebidding 3♦ with this hand, showing 2-3 small. That's how I played it with Helgemo ages ago (he was only 17 back then), and with all partners since then. I believe that's the most common treatment over here.

If you play 3♦ as natural, showing four, 2♥ as the default bid on hand that doesn't fit any other rebid seems best to me.

I like this bid, but would add the following proviso's
2♦ has to be forcing and acceptable points wise to the 3 level.
Raising to 3♦ must contain a partial stopper with 2-3 and sufficient to make 3nt viable.
All the other strengths and distributions can then fit in easily around this?

[H_KARLUK]

Winstonm, on Feb 1 2009, 07:30 PM, said:

1H-1S
2C-2D

---

Here is the premise: if 4th suit forcing is defined as artificial, it follows that the best use of continuations should not attempt to establish a fit with the 4th suit, i.e., a raise of that suit does not need to show 4-card length and in fact may be better used than 4-card length.

I would argue that conventional wisdom should say that the best response with the above hand is 3D.

I bet someone here may well disagree.  

Opener described his deal with a limit range rebid. 9 cards known.

Outside values :
♠KQJ
♥AJ
♦AKQ
♣AQ

Then the questions are which system and what gadgets do that pair apply and fourth suit forcing 1 round or game forcing in their partnership agreement.

Classicaly 4th suit forcing convention implies that the bidder has no good bid, but nonetheless has something of value, and wishes to continue searching for a contract. It returns th bidding to partner, asks to find a bid or to further describe his hand.

This convention was introduced by the British bridge author Norman Squire.

They might have 24-25 + high card points around, so there may be a nice chance some game contract could be viable. There are times doesn't have a good bid to make. But there are also times to stop/land in a reasonable level and suit/NT.

[Winstonm]

barryallen, on Feb 7 2009, 06:22 AM, said:

skaeran, on Feb 1 2009, 02:58 PM, said:

This is a typical case for agreements.

I'm used to rebidding 3♦ with this hand, showing 2-3 small. That's how I played it with Helgemo ages ago (he was only 17 back then), and with all partners since then. I believe that's the most common treatment over here.

If you play 3♦ as natural, showing four, 2♥ as the default bid on hand that doesn't fit any other rebid seems best to me.

I like this bid, but would add the following proviso's
2♦ has to be forcing and acceptable points wise to the 3 level.
Raising to 3♦ must contain a partial stopper with 2-3 and sufficient to make 3nt viable.
All the other strengths and distributions can then fit in easily around this?

This makes some good sense to me. I have been looking at the question backwards, perhaps. The question is what information does 4th suit bidder need?

What are some of the priorities for the responder? Fit, stopper, shape, partial stopper, save room.

1. Fit - this seems the best first - a 3-card support of partner's suit.
2. Divergence Point - classical 4th suit says priority #2 is either A) stopper or B) room saving.

Is this best? What about the partial stopper hand? Isn't this the most difficult hand of all to show? And if we use 3D as a partial stop, we could always assign the 0544 hand to a 3S bid, which I bet is mostly a non-bid for most.

[fullers]

2♥ bid seemed more sensible to me. Doesn't 2NT and 3♦ bids promise ♦ stopper or stoppers in this auction?

[skjaeran]

fullers, on Feb 9 2009, 11:05 PM, said:

2♥ bid seemed more sensible to me. Doesn't 2NT and 3♦ bids promise ♦ stopper or stoppers in this auction?

2NT obviously shows at least one stopper. The meaning of 3♦ differs, some (most?) play it as natural, showing a real suit (0544) and some (many over here) play it as denying a stopper and the ability to make some other descriptive bid (Jx/Jxx or worse, and a hand the other camp would rebid 2♥ with).

[kfay]

I'm watching the Norwegian Premier League Vugraph Broadcast right now. I can't say I've really kept up with this thread but here's a hand that just came up:

Scoring: IMP

1♥-1♠
2♣-2♦
3♦-3♥
4♥

---

W is Grotheim and E is Tundal.

Operator says 3♦ shows 2-3 small diamonds.

Judy Bramly says 'Most (kibs) think 3♦ shows 2 small - hilarious'

Just what happened at the table.

[Winstonm]

On further review I think the case for 3D showing 4-card diamonds is grossly overstated. If the reason for bidding 2H is to keep the auction low to allow responder to clarify his hand those reason don't disappear simply because opener is 0544. Also, finding a 4-4 or better diamond fit seems extremely unlikely so again the 3D bid showing real diamonds seems wasted.

[mike777]

2h over 2d....I live with it.
1) deny 3s
2) deny solid d stopper
3) deny 5c
4) deny 4d

I think pard will assume 11-13 hcp and 5h and 4c.

therefore pard may not bid 2d 4sf but that is another post.

[Lovera]

Winstonm, on 2009-February-03, 14:18, said:

Another advantage to using 3D to show a 6-card heart suit it that now a direct 3H over the 4th suit bid could become more specific - great suit, extra values, whatever.

Interesting topic that I believe is still open today to find a solution to this support bid(=raise) in the fourth suit bidded by the partner. Since it is from 2009, however, I ask for confirmation that there have been no updates in this regard. I am of the opinion that it is necessary to accept a good part of the answers of this excellent convention and also that the use must be extended also to cases in which the fourth suit is declared above the two suits possessed by the opener.

[Lovera]

In the meanwhile i suggest an YouTube video on this argoument:https://youtu.be/w5r6FRePCyc
Other three are in Novice and Beginner Forum "Fourth Suit Forcing" on 2018 (in #26 and also in #30 that you can watch inserting my nickname in search box).
Anyhow:#26https://www.bridgeba...post__p__942813
#30https://www.bridgeba...post__p__946037

[Lovera]

To make it simpler, when the partner uses this convention to make a situation of (game) forcing if the responses concern the partner (asking for a support or control) it ends in game in the partner suit or 3NT. Bidding becomes interesting when there is support in the second suit by opener (probably a 4-4 fit) and you also have a second fit which opens up the possibility of a slam.