[pescetom]

Cyberyeti, on 2022-December-25, 03:28, said:

I think there's a good case for Jacoby requiring 4 card support, imagine AQxxx, x, Qx, AQxxx opposite the actual S hand and Kxxx, AJxxx, Kx, Kx, the second is a really good slam, just requiring trumps 2-2, or trumps 3-1 and clubs 3-3 or 4-2, the first pretty much requires clubs 3-3.

Talking about the clubs, on the actual layout most people seemed to pull all trumps and run AKQ of clubs. Maybe I'm resulting or missing something, but wouldn't it be better to pull two rounds of trumps leaving the J out and then ruff the third club?

(On a diamonds 3 lead West took A and Q and continued with the 2. Pulling trumps, West contributed T4 and East 76).

[thepossum]

Cyberyeti, on 2022-December-25, 03:28, said:

I think there's a good case for Jacoby requiring 4 card support, imagine AQxxx, x, Qx, AQxxx opposite the actual S hand and Kxxx, AJxxx, Kx, Kx, the second is a really good slam, just requiring trumps 2-2, or trumps 3-1 and clubs 3-3 or 4-2, the first pretty much requires clubs 3-3. The ninth trump makes a hell of a difference, and knowing about it immediately is really useful.

I appreciate there is a reason why Jacoby requires the 4th trump but occasionally I like to take a risk - especially if I think 2NT is a decent bid
That's why I play "Jacoby" 2NT
I understand there is a risk of missing better heart fit

[pescetom]

thepossum, on 2022-December-28, 00:35, said:

I appreciate there is a reason why Jacoby requires the 4th trump but occasionally I like to take a risk - especially if I think 2NT is a decent bid
That's why I play "Jacoby" 2NT
I understand there is a risk of missing better heart fit

We play a 2NT response in an uncontested auction as a 3+ card invite, 3M being weak 4 card support: Opener can Checkback with 3♣ to enquire about 3/4 card support and shortage/shape.
Responder with a game force fit would bid 2/1 then 3M.
Fairly typical in North Europe.
Probably not ideal, but better than Jacoby in my experience.

[mikeh]

pescetom, on 2022-December-28, 16:10, said:

We play a 2NT response in an uncontested auction as a 3+ card invite, 3M being weak 4 card support: Opener can Checkback with 3♣ to enquire about 3/4 card and shortage/shape.
Responder with a game force fit would bid 2/1 then 3M.
Fairly typical in North Europe.
Probably not ideal, but better than Jacoby in my experience.

We’ve looked at modifying our forcing raise structure but concluded that we’d lose quite a bit in terms of albeit low frequency descriptive rebids by opener, since the partnership is basically forced to waste some valuable bidding space clarifying degree and strength of the fit shown by responder. Plus in one partnership, we’ve given up on the weak jump raise. It rarely results in a good score…often, especially if red, we’re down 200 against nothing or a partscore. So we lump it into 1N or a single (semi constructive) raise…the 4th trump with some shortness seems to work ok. 1M 3M is mixed.

Obviously it’s a question of balancing pros and cons, including how effective your J2N structure is. In one partnership it’s fairly simple (but far better than ‘standard which, imo, is not very good at all) and in the other it’s complex.

Since we design our methods for imps, and accurate slam bidding is far more an imp issue than a mp one, we don’t want to give up the low frequency but powerful J2N structure. And we really don’t want to give up on finding better fits, hence there is no way I’d ever play a forcing raise with 3 card support.

[DavidKok]

I recently read John Montgomery's system notes on Revision, a modern strong club system. It contains many new and good ideas and excellent explanations of them. I'm very happy to personally be playing the system pescetom describes, and I think it is superior to Jacoby-esque 2NT bids. But for people interested in discussions on J2N I can highly recommend pages 63 through 69 of the major suit structure of those notes (I'm not kidding, the whole system is 451 pages and the major suit openings document consists of 96). Available at https://bridgewithdan.com/resources/.

[nullve]

pescetom, on 2022-December-23, 08:08, said:

MP

---

How would/should this auction proceed in your preferred system (2/1, Acol or whatever)?
Opponents will remain silent throughout.

nullve-nullve:

1♠(1)-2♣(2)
2♥(3)-2♠(4)
3♦(5)-3♥(6)
3N(7)-4♠(8)
P

(1) "10-21-ish, 5+ S, unBAL"
(2) "NAT (GF), not-too-unBAL (GF) or LR+"
(3) "13-15-ish, says nothing about shape" (I used to laugh at this kind of system as a junior!)
(4) GF relay
(5) 12-14, 5S5m
(6) relay
(7) 5S5C2-D
(8) to play

Here, Responder is giving up over 3N knowing that 6♠ might be good opposite a perfecto like AQxxx x Qx AQTxx.

One reason I play this system is that I can stop in 2♠ after

1♠-2♣
2♦*-2♠**
P

* contains all "10-12" hands
** LR

and not leak anything about Opener's shape. Those are two good things.

[Douglas43]

Cyberyeti, on 2022-December-23, 12:52, said:

Any reason N doesn't have AQJxx, x, x, Axxxxx on this sequence ? and would you expect him to bid on ? slam is decent opposite that, great if partner has ♠10.

Fair question. I think being able to be descriptive with 5-5 is worth the risk of lack of differentiation from 5-6. An alternative with 5-6 is to bid clubs-spades-clubs-spades but I think that's more confusing and wouldn't want to try it at the table.

[pescetom]

mikeh, on 2022-December-28, 16:20, said:

We’ve looked at modifying our forcing raise structure but concluded that we’d lose quite a bit in terms of albeit low frequency descriptive rebids by opener, since the partnership is basically forced to waste some valuable bidding space clarifying degree and strength of the fit shown by responder. Plus in one partnership, we’ve given up on the weak jump raise. It rarely results in a good score…often, especially if red, we’re down 200 against nothing or a partscore. So we lump it into 1N or a single (semi constructive) raise…the 4th trump with some shortness seems to work ok. 1M 3M is mixed.

I find this weak jump raise quite effective (at MP) and rarely remember regretting the score, although I concede it might not be pulling its weight overall compared to 3-card invite or mixed. I'm not convinced the issue of opener description after 2NT invite is such a big deal: we will never miss a 4-4 fit in the other major, nor 3NT for that matter if both hands belong there, also opener who interrogates will often be able to figure out that responder has minors 5-2 or whatever and assess likeliness of fit without describing his hand to opponents.

My main concern about our 2NT is that the standard 3♦ rebid shows a hand that is close to accepting and asks responder to decide, which is essentially just blame transfer: probably it should be played as something more useful, such as a game force inviting a control-bid (suggestions are welcome here).

[DavidKok]

This sounds very similar to de Maas (which I play). It also uses 3♦ to kick the can back, but I've gotten good mileage from it. My openings are weak enough that your average 12-count with fit should not force to game, so distinguishing the crap from the sound openings is valuable. Also since our 2NT response ranges from basically a good 9 to a soft 14 responder will often have a good idea whether their hand is above average for the auction or not, the range is just very wide. I think we can only play a range this wide because we have a non-committal way to show extras below 3M.

[pescetom]

DavidKok, on 2022-December-29, 06:33, said:

This sounds very similar to de Maas (which I play). It also uses 3♦ to kick the can back, but I've gotten good mileage from it. My openings are weak enough that your average 12-count with fit should not force to game, so distinguishing the crap from the sound openings is valuable. Also since our 2NT response ranges from basically a good 9 to a soft 14 responder will often have a good idea whether their hand is above average for the auction or not, the range is just very wide. I think we can only play a range this wide because we have a non-committal way to show extras below 3M.

Fair enough. Our range is not quite that wide, but maybe it should be.