[shevek]

In straight Acol, 2-over-1s start at decent 9-counts.
Would you bid 2♥ over 1♠ with this:

♠6   ♥KJ9842   ♦A63   ♣T42 ?

If Yes, would you go lower?

If Yes, do you plan to pass 2♠?

If No, is it the stiff spade that puts you off? (You'd bid 2♥ with 2-6-3-2 say)

Or is it No because it's hearts? (You'd bid 2♣ with 1-3-3-6 because then opener's 2♠ rebid would guarantee six)

If it's still No, what's your minimum?

Thx

[EricK]

I don't think I would bid 2♥ with this. A rule of thumb is whether I am happy forcing to game opposite partner's minimum NT hand (here 15 points, presumably).

The 1633 vs 1336 distinction is another good point. The fact that your 6 card suit is ♥ gives you a very good opportunity to describe this sort of hand at the 2-level (1♠ 1NT 2m 2♥).

[helene_t]

Agree with Eric. Opener's 2NT is GF. Obviously we could miss game if opener has 16 points and passes 1NT.

[Gerben42]

The question I ask myself is: If partner has a strong NT, will I force to game? If yes, I can bid a 2/1. Given that partner opened 1♠, which is my shortness, I think a 2/1 is a mistake here.

The only bad thing that can happen is 1♠ - 1NT - Pass. I will bid 1NT, but would probably bid 2♥ with 3631 or even 2632.

[whereagles]

Would you bid 2♥ over 1♠ with this: ♠6   ♥KJ9842   ♦A63   ♣T42 ?

Yes and no. The 6th heart compensates for the 8 hcp but it still depends. If ♠x ♥KJ98x ♦AJxx ♣Txx is an acol "good 9", yes. Otherwise, no.


If Yes, would you go lower?

Normally no, but with more shape and better intermediates, say ♠x ♥KJT98xx ♦Kx ♣Txx, I would.


If Yes, do you plan to pass 2♠?

Only if 2♠ is non forcing and shows 6 cards. Since I don't think this is the case with acol, I'd rebid 3♥.


If No, is it the stiff spade that puts you off? (You'd bid 2♥ with 2-6-3-2 say) Or is it No because it's hearts? (You'd bid 2♣ with 1-3-3-6 because then opener's 2♠ rebid would guarantee six)

Both.


If it's still No, what's your minimum?

Probably the same hand with the heart ten.

[shevek]

helene_t, on May 27 2009, 02:29 AM, said:

Agree with Eric. Opener's 2NT is GF. Obviously we could miss game if opener has 16 points and passes 1NT.

Not that I don't agree but there are balanced 13-counts where game is good, let alone 16s:

♠Axxxx  ♥Qxx  ♦Kx  ♣Axx

Of course ♠KQxxx is not as good for you but they don't have to lead a club.

Everyone would get to 4♥ opposite a 15-17 1NT but it's less attractive opposite five spades. Plus partner may rebid 2NT with 5-1-3-4 say.

I guess it's sensible to play 2NT as GF but there's a case for allowing responder an out in his long suit.

[gnasher]

shevek, on May 27 2009, 12:24 PM, said:

Everyone would get to 4♥ opposite a 15-17 1NT but it's less attractive opposite five spades.

I thought you said "straight Acol"? Playing five-card majors this hand is significantly worse. Even given four-card majors, its value varies according to the likelihood that partner will open 1♠ when he has four spades and four-card minor; the answer to that question varies from "always" to "never".

Quote

Plus partner may rebid 2NT with 5-1-3-4 say.

I don't think he should. With an unbalanced 15-count, there's no great problem with bidding his second suit. After a 2NT rebid, we already have to sort out 5-3 spade fits, 4-4 minor-suit fits, slam vs game decisions, and possibly 5-2 fits when there's a weak side-suit. Allowing for singletons as well seems a complication too far.

[Cascade]

shevek, on May 27 2009, 11:24 PM, said:

helene_t, on May 27 2009, 02:29 AM, said:

Agree with Eric. Opener's 2NT is GF. Obviously we could miss game if opener has 16 points and passes 1NT.

Not that I don't agree but there are balanced 13-counts where game is good, let alone 16s:

♠Axxxx  ♥Qxx  ♦Kx  ♣Axx

Of course ♠KQxxx is not as good for you but they don't have to lead a club.

Everyone would get to 4♥ opposite a 15-17 1NT but it's less attractive opposite five spades. Plus partner may rebid 2NT with 5-1-3-4 say.

I guess it's sensible to play 2NT as GF but there's a case for allowing responder an out in his long suit.

In Acol I open my balanced 13s 1NT.

If the 5th spade was a club we would have a 4=3=2=4 and the same ten tricks.

Basically its a fact of life that either I am not going to get to all my 21 HCP games or I am going to go down a lot in game when I have 21 HCP and not 10 (or 9 or 11) tricks.

[shevek]

Cascade, on May 27 2009, 11:00 AM, said:

In Acol I open my balanced 13s 1NT.

If the 5th spade was a club we would have a 4=3=2=4 and the same ten tricks.

Basically its a fact of life that either I am not going to get to all my 21 HCP games or I am going to go down a lot in game when I have 21 HCP and not 10 (or 9 or 11) tricks.

Wayne,
Of course we'll miss 13 + 8 but I chose that hand to imply that there are a decent number of 15/16 counts where you will play 1NT with 4♥ cold.

As an aside, do you open 1NT with ALL balanced 12-14s? What about

♠AKJxx   ♥Axx   ♦xxx   ♣xx ?

Whether you do or not, do you use some sort of 5-card Stayman over a 12-14 NT?

Nick

[EricK]

A lot of discussions about Acol are misguided. Acol is not about bidding carefully to the correct contract in an undisturbed auction. Of course, it can do that on a large proportion of such hands, but not as often as more cautious systems. No, it is about putting a huge boot into the auction early on, "in quick, out quick" , and in general making it tough for opponents. Frequent opening bids of 1M or 1NT, light 2/1s and heavy use of limit bids all fall into these categories.

So (and here I am contradicting my original reply somewhat), If you want to bid 2♥ on the hand in the OP, go ahead. Maybe have a look at LHO first and see if he is just itching to get a 2m bid in.

[Cascade]

shevek, on May 28 2009, 06:31 PM, said:

Cascade, on May 27 2009, 11:00 AM, said:

In Acol I open my balanced 13s 1NT.

If the 5th spade was a club we would have a 4=3=2=4 and the same ten tricks.

Basically its a fact of life that either I am not going to get to all my 21 HCP games or I am going to go down a lot in game when I have 21 HCP and not 10 (or 9 or 11) tricks.

Wayne,
Of course we'll miss 13 + 8 but I chose that hand to imply that there are a decent number of 15/16 counts where you will play 1NT with 4♥ cold.

As an aside, do you open 1NT with ALL balanced 12-14s? What about

♠AKJxx   ♥Axx   ♦xxx   ♣xx ?

Whether you do or not, do you use some sort of 5-card Stayman over a 12-14 NT?

Nick

Obviously there are conflicting objectives here:

1. You want to get to game with 15/16 HCP BAL opposite 8 HCP with six hearts

2. You want to avoid game with misfitting 15/16 HCP opposite the same 8 HCP with six hearts

The balanced hands with 15/16 are more frequent than the misfits. So tend to be optimistic with your six-baggers I would guess is the optimal solution.

Obviously the better you fit with spades the more optimistic you can be.

Sharp cards that will be useful in partner's alternative contracts are good too.

Yes we bid 1NT with all balanced hands (and some unbalanced and semi-balanced) hands in range. Even your example hand. It is not ideal but after opening 1♠ we cannot ever show a balanced hand that is within our 1NT range. What we lose on the 1NT openings we hope to gain by the added definition to our 1Suit openings. Since changing to this style I like the feel of not having minimum balanced hands in our 1Suit openings.

Yes we play a checkback after Stayman to enquire about a 5-3 fit if necessary.

1NT 2♣ Normal Staym
2Maj 3♦ Do you have five?

This means that we can only find these 5-3 fits when we are game going and so may occasionally play the wrong part-score.

[shevek]

gnasher, on May 27 2009, 07:56 AM, said:

shevek, on May 27 2009, 12:24 PM, said:

Everyone would get to 4♥ opposite a 15-17 1NT but it's less attractive opposite five spades.

I thought you said "straight Acol"? Playing five-card majors this hand is significantly worse. Even given four-card majors, its value varies according to the likelihood that partner will open 1♠ when he has four spades and four-card minor; the answer to that question varies from "always" to "never".

Quote

Plus partner may rebid 2NT with 5-1-3-4 say.

I don't think he should. With an unbalanced 15-count, there's no great problem with bidding his second suit. After a 2NT rebid, we already have to sort out 5-3 spade fits, 4-4 minor-suit fits, slam vs game decisions, and possibly 5-2 fits when there's a weak side-suit. Allowing for singletons as well seems a complication too far.

My impression is that an Acol 1♠ is five around 85% of the time. I think most don't do it with 4333 and 4♠-4m requires chunky spades.

After 1♠ - 2♥

I would bid 2NT on

♠AQxxx   ♥x   ♦Kxxx   ♣AKx

not liking it much. Trouble with 3♦ is that partner's 3♥/♠ becomes meaningless. (if he has to choose one of them to give you a chance to bid 3NT)

[NickRW]

shevek, on May 28 2009, 01:30 PM, said:

My impression is that an Acol 1♠ is five around 85% of the time.

That all rather depends on your policy about opening 44 shapes.

If you've learnt Acol anything like recently, typically you'll be opening 44 shapes with the higher ranking suit. In that case 1♣ and 1♦ become relatively infrequent and 1M is often not 5 cards.

If on the other hand, you learnt Acol a long time ago, or you otherwise subscribe to the idea of generally opening 44 shapes with the lower ranking suit, then, yes, 1M is then usually five.

It is best to get that bit straight before worrying too much about rebids. There are pros and cons to both methods with some people having rather strong opinions - but I think both approaches are playable.

Nick

[gnasher]

shevek, on May 28 2009, 02:30 PM, said:

My impression is that an Acol 1♠ is five around 85% of the time. I think most don't do it with 4333 and 4♠-4m requires chunky spades.

That sounds like a regional difference - in the UK the methods you describe would usually be called "five-card spades" or "five-card majors", depending on what you do with 3433 shapes. The unqualified name "Acol" would imply four-card majors.

If I cared about such things, I might argue that living within a few miles of the Acol Bridge Club makes my usage more authentic than yours.

[Cascade]

NickRW, on May 29 2009, 02:31 AM, said:

shevek, on May 28 2009, 01:30 PM, said:

My impression is that an Acol 1♠ is five around 85% of the time.

That all rather depends on your policy about opening 44 shapes.

If you've learnt Acol anything like recently, typically you'll be opening 44 shapes with the higher ranking suit. In that case 1♣ and 1♦ become relatively infrequent and 1M is often not 5 cards.

If on the other hand, you learnt Acol a long time ago, or you otherwise subscribe to the idea of generally opening 44 shapes with the lower ranking suit, then, yes, 1M is then usually five.

It is best to get that bit straight before worrying too much about rebids. There are pros and cons to both methods with some people having rather strong opinions - but I think both approaches are playable.

Nick

My impression of the 4-card major style is temporally different than yours. When I read older texts they often open the higher of two four-card suits whereas in more recent times the texts recommend the lower of two four-card suits.

Maybe there is some renaissance of the former approach that I have not caught up with.

My experience (limited as it is) has been that regional differences are much more likely to affect the style than changes over time.

I agree that both styles are playable.

Discussions like this about the precise meaning of Acol remind me of an acrostic that appeared in the daily bulletin of the New Zealand Bridge Congress some years ago:

A ny
C ount
O r
L ength

[NickRW]

Cascade, on May 28 2009, 09:27 PM, said:

NickRW, on May 29 2009, 02:31 AM, said:

shevek, on May 28 2009, 01:30 PM, said:

My impression is that an Acol 1♠ is five around 85% of the time.

That all rather depends on your policy about opening 44 shapes.

If you've learnt Acol anything like recently, typically you'll be opening 44 shapes with the higher ranking suit. In that case 1♣ and 1♦ become relatively infrequent and 1M is often not 5 cards.

If on the other hand, you learnt Acol a long time ago, or you otherwise subscribe to the idea of generally opening 44 shapes with the lower ranking suit, then, yes, 1M is then usually five.

It is best to get that bit straight before worrying too much about rebids. There are pros and cons to both methods with some people having rather strong opinions - but I think both approaches are playable.

Nick

My impression of the 4-card major style is temporally different than yours. When I read older texts they often open the higher of two four-card suits whereas in more recent times the texts recommend the lower of two four-card suits.

Maybe there is some renaissance of the former approach that I have not caught up with.

My experience (limited as it is) has been that regional differences are much more likely to affect the style than changes over time.

I agree that both styles are playable.

Discussions like this about the precise meaning of Acol remind me of an acrostic that appeared in the daily bulletin of the New Zealand Bridge Congress some years ago:

A ny
C ount
O r
L ength

Maybe we're both a bit right and both a bit wrong here.

On the one hand I picked up my copy of "The Complete Book Of Bridge" by Reese and Dormer (this is a 73 book, reprinted and revised in 85 [not sure which bits would have been revised]) which actually gives rather mixed advice. This was still advising a 16-18NT - so it can't have received much revision in the 80s (as most were actually already playing it weak to my certain knowledge) - and which was, after all, post Precision appearing. Anyway, not directly quoting it never the less says:

4432
a) Open the higher of touching suits
b ) Open clubs with non touchers (if you have them of course)
c) With the pointed suits, open the one above your 3 carder.

4441
Open the one below the singleton.

A more recent Robson text that I leafed through in the library a few months back was advising the higher, except hearts and spades.

But it is certainly true that this continues to be debated - there were a couple of articles in English Bridge fairly recently - one advocating the higher and one the lower. And, yeah, you're right - there are some regional differences in the norm.

Personally, fwiw, I tend to think if you're going to play 4 card majors you might as well do it properly and open the higher. If you do it the other way your majors are mostly 5 anyway - but come without the guarantee - plus you lose the majority of the preemptive benefit - plus, depending on your rebid policy, you have to worry about possibly losing 4/4 major fits on some sequences - therefore ideally you need to worry about Crowhurst or some form of Checkback - so you might just as well go the whole hog and play - well - certainly at least 5 card spades anyway.

Nick

[shevek]

gnasher, on May 28 2009, 09:47 AM, said:

shevek, on May 28 2009, 02:30 PM, said:

My impression is that an Acol 1♠ is five around 85% of the time. I think most don't do it with 4333 and 4♠-4m requires chunky spades.

That sounds like a regional difference - in the UK the methods you describe would usually be called "five-card spades" or "five-card majors", depending on what you do with 3433 shapes. The unqualified name "Acol" would imply four-card majors.

If I cared about such things, I might argue that living within a few miles of the Acol Bridge Club makes my usage more authentic than yours.

When do you open 1S on 4 in "Acol"? (whatever that is)

Base point is simplified Kaplan-Sheinwold, so
5cM, 1NT = 12-14 no 5cM, 2NT = 20-21, 2C = any 21+
Rule of 20 for 10-11 counts, ignore pre-empts

So 1S on 4 = 0%

I got the following from fiddling with Tim Bourke's odds.exe
I'm not too good at this stuff so no guarantees ....

shape,  hcp,    %,   open 1S in KS?
5-332, 15-19 0.50 KS yes
5-332, 12-14 0.79 KS yes
4-333, 15-19 0.35 KS no
4-432, 15-19 0.94 KS no

5-422, 11-20 1.14
5-431, 11-20 1.39
5-521, 10-20 0.84
5-440, 11-20 0.13
5-530, 10-20 0.24
6-322, 11-20 0.61
6-331, 11-20 0.37
6-421, 10-20 0.62
6-511, 10-20 0.09
6-430, 10-20 0.18
6-520, 10-20 0.09
7-222, 11-20 0.06
7-321, 10-20 0.25
7-411, 10-20 0.05
7-330, 10-20 0.04
7-420, 10-20 0.05
total unb 1S (always 5+) 6.14%  KS yes

KS 1S opening for dealer = .50 + .79 + 6.14 = 7.43 hands in 100.

1) You want 1C to be 4+, so you open 1S on 4-333 15-19 counts.
then 1S on 4 = .35 of 7.78 = 4.5% of 1S openings.

2) You open 4-333 1C but 1S on 4-432 15-19 (without 4Hs)
then 1S on 4 = .94 of 8.37 = 11.2%

3) You open 1S on (1) & (2)
then 1S on 4 = 1.29 of 8.72 = 14.8%

4) You do (3) and remove 5M332 12-14 counts to 1NT
then 1S on 4 = 1.29 of 7.58 = 17.0%

Me, I open 1S on SOME 5M332 12-14s, NO 4333s, SOME 4-432s. About 8% on 4.

[helene_t]

The (new) textbooks we use for beginners recommend the priority H-S-D-C for balanced hands and
4441: 1♥
4414: 1♣
4144: 1♦
1444: 1♦

which is in agreement with Sandra Landy's "Standard English Acol" as described on the EBU site.

I have seen different rules in some older textbooks and I suppose some newish textbooks differ as well. From what I understand, lowest of two 4-fourcards is standard in Scotland.

[fromageGB]

Back to the original question, I haven't played ACOL for some years, but my opps will always reply 2H on that hand, and I would too, regardless of the strength of a NT opening or whether the spade open was 4 or 5.

Would I go lower? No.

Would I bid over two spades? This does depend on the length, and any partnership will have discussed it. If it shows 5, yes, I rebid 3H. If it shows 6, no. If it was a random partner in a Christmas party individual, I would assume 5 spades for the rebid.