ais523
2018-07-10 21:56:27 UTC
It's been recognised for a while that hands which have 5 hearts and 4
spades are awkward to deal with; various conventions (such as Flannery
and Kaplan) have been created to deal with this sort of hand. On the
other hand, in non-canape systems, the reverse holding (5 spades and 4
hearts) is normally considered fairly easy to deal with; just open
spades and rebid hearts, what's the problem?
However, in practice, I've found this system to be fairly awkward when
your partner actually has hearts (and not spades). In natural systems,
the bidding normally goes something like this:
1S 2H
3H
Now the issue is that the opener has a fairly wide strength range (11 to
15 or so – a stronger hand would likely reply 4H), and the responder is
still unlimited! Unlike with most sequences, we've ended up at the 3
level just agreeing the suit, and there's no room for invites or game
tries or anything like that; any further bids will be game forcing
simply by the nature of having gone above the last viable stopping
point.
I'm interested in whether this is generally agreed to be a problem, and
if so, what the common solutions are.
One solution I've seen is to lower the frequency of this situation
occurring by systemically requiring 2H over 1S to require five hearts.
(If you have four hearts and less than three spades, you must have a
four-card minor you can bid, hoping that the opener will respond with 2H
so that you can support it.) That doesn't help fix the situation when
it does arise, but it does reduce the number of hands that need to use
the bidding sequence in the first place.
Another potential solution is that used in 2/1. In that case, the
bidding in this situation would start like this:
1S 1NT
2H (could also bid 3H with a sufficiently strong hand)
and both the opener and responder are now somewhat limited (the opener
by the presence or absence of a jump reply, the responder by their
failure to make a 2/1 bid of 2H on the first round). That gives enough
options to the responder (raise anything to game, raise 3H to game but
pass 2H, raise 3H to game and invite with 3H over 2H, pass any bid in
hearts) that it's possible to pin down the combined strength of the hand
well enough to get a decent idea of whether game is worth trying (and
even to stop at the 2 level in the case where both hands are minimum!).
Of course, you also have to deal with the cases where the responder
doesn't have hearts; they have all the non-heart bids for that, but
likely won't have room to make a game try as that would be interpreted
as something else.
Assuming this situation is considered a problem, what other solutions
are generally used for it?
spades are awkward to deal with; various conventions (such as Flannery
and Kaplan) have been created to deal with this sort of hand. On the
other hand, in non-canape systems, the reverse holding (5 spades and 4
hearts) is normally considered fairly easy to deal with; just open
spades and rebid hearts, what's the problem?
However, in practice, I've found this system to be fairly awkward when
your partner actually has hearts (and not spades). In natural systems,
the bidding normally goes something like this:
1S 2H
3H
Now the issue is that the opener has a fairly wide strength range (11 to
15 or so – a stronger hand would likely reply 4H), and the responder is
still unlimited! Unlike with most sequences, we've ended up at the 3
level just agreeing the suit, and there's no room for invites or game
tries or anything like that; any further bids will be game forcing
simply by the nature of having gone above the last viable stopping
point.
I'm interested in whether this is generally agreed to be a problem, and
if so, what the common solutions are.
One solution I've seen is to lower the frequency of this situation
occurring by systemically requiring 2H over 1S to require five hearts.
(If you have four hearts and less than three spades, you must have a
four-card minor you can bid, hoping that the opener will respond with 2H
so that you can support it.) That doesn't help fix the situation when
it does arise, but it does reduce the number of hands that need to use
the bidding sequence in the first place.
Another potential solution is that used in 2/1. In that case, the
bidding in this situation would start like this:
1S 1NT
2H (could also bid 3H with a sufficiently strong hand)
and both the opener and responder are now somewhat limited (the opener
by the presence or absence of a jump reply, the responder by their
failure to make a 2/1 bid of 2H on the first round). That gives enough
options to the responder (raise anything to game, raise 3H to game but
pass 2H, raise 3H to game and invite with 3H over 2H, pass any bid in
hearts) that it's possible to pin down the combined strength of the hand
well enough to get a decent idea of whether game is worth trying (and
even to stop at the 2 level in the case where both hands are minimum!).
Of course, you also have to deal with the cases where the responder
doesn't have hearts; they have all the non-heart bids for that, but
likely won't have room to make a game try as that would be interpreted
as something else.
Assuming this situation is considered a problem, what other solutions
are generally used for it?
--
ais523
ais523