[bowbells]

Hi

I have been looking at introducing NMF into my game but I am told that it is only useful for 2/1 (I play SAYC). The case against it so I have been informed is that it often wrongly used as a new minor if often NOT forcing.

Eg. 1♣, 1♠ 1N 2♦ – In this auction I am told that the 2D bid is shows a dislike of playing NT, is NOT forcing and is asking opener to chose suit preference of ♠ or ♣.

What I understood of NMF (wrongly or rightly) is that you would not use it with a weak hand of 6-9 points so the new minor is not used to sign off in a preferred suit as in the above example. As you use NMF with a good 10+ hand (as responder) the new minor would CERTAINLY be forcing??

Can I not presume that if both partners have agreed on using NMF then a NEW minor would therefore be forcing?

As a beginner/intermediate I do not have years of experience under my belt and I wondered if NMF would add any value to my game.

Comments welcome.

[paulhar]

I know my opinion is going to be unpopular but I think you should add NMF to your arsenal if you feel you need it; i.e. you are confident with basic bidding. If you don't feel you need it, concentrate on honing the finer points of basic bidding first.

OK, done with the contraversial stuff. Onto NMF.

I play it. I think it will help you if you're finding it hard to bid your strong hands after partner has rebid 1NT or 2NT. Apparently decent players feel that some convention should be used because on the thread in the General Bridge Discussion forum on bidding after a 2NT rebid, I stated in the initial post, please assume NO CONVENTIONS. As many posts as not ignored my request and stated that some convention was needed. Now some of these guys are pretty good players; they should be able to get along without a convention. But they refuse to... so THEY think they need something, and NMF was a popular choice.

In any event, this has been discussed before and others have said it better than I could, so, click on this link. Then, click on the link in the second post for a good explanation. (I'll repeat the link here.)

THE PRIOR FORUM POSTINGS:

http://bridgebase.lunarpages.com/~bridge2/...r+forcing"

BEN'S SUGGESTED READING:

http://www.bridgeguy...norForcing.html

I hope he would still suggest it or I have committed yet another faux pas

I just looked at this link. There are some complications in the article that many (if not most) are not aware of, like this stuff about raising the NMF without stoppers. Even the clickable 'simplified NMF' is pretty complicated! Oh, my! You won't know what version of NMF your partner is playing. Don't worry too much about it. The important stuff is:

You: 1 of a minor
Pard: 1 of a major
You: 1 Notrump
Pard: 2 of the other minor (NMF - alert!)
You: Support the major with 3. (Some jump with a max, some don't. If you do, partner should understand.)
Bid the other major if you have 4 of them.
Otherwise bid something that feels right. Your partner should have at least an invitational hand.

The other important thing:

You: 1 of a minor
Pard: 1 of a major
You: 2 notrump
Pard: 3 of the other minor (NMF - alert!)
Bid the same way, but at the 3 level. Tend not to bid higher than 3NT since that's a likely game. You might have bypassed a 4-card spade suit to bid 3NT so the auction 1C-1H-2NT-3D-3S is not unlikely.

NMF over a 2NT rebid is game forcing. Responder, if playing NMF, can sign off in his major at the 3 level by just bidding it (1C-1H-2NT-3H.) If you are NOT playing NMF (or some other fancy convention), I think this sequence needs to be forcing.

I think that most play 1C-1H-2NT-3C (same minor) as a slam try in clubs. Forget the hearts - 3NT is a signoff now and anything else is a cue-bid, encouraging your partner to move toward six clubs.

Don't sweat the complicated stuff, your partners probably aren't playing it the same way anyway.

Agreeing to play NMF, you and your regular partners need to discuss the differences between auctions like:
1C-1H-1NT-2D-2NT-3C, and 1C-1H-1NT-3C
1C-1H-1NT-2D-2NT-3H, and 1C-1H-1NT-3H
etc.

NMF gives you many more ways to bid responder's hands but it only does you some good if you have good agreements about these auctions. In general, I think most play that an auction that goes through NMF to reach the same spot is stronger than one that could have used NMF and didn't.

[Cascade]

Paul's advice is great:

Quote

concentrate on honing the finer points of basic bidding first

The reality is that New Minor Forcing will come up once every couple of sessions or so (maybe even slightly less frequently) and it might add some definition to your other bids a similar (but probably slightly less frequent) number of times. This means that there are better things for you to be concentrating your efforts on as a beginner/intermediate, namely basic general bidding judgement and card play.

Having said that New Minor Forcing makes it easy to find your 4-4 and 5-3 major fits and therefore to choose between 4Major and 3NT. It also adds definition to other auctions. However if you are going to play New Minor Forcing seriously then you need to discuss the implications of many of these sequences with your partner.

[luke warm]

at first i simply played checkback stayman... then went to nmf... and now, 2 way checkback... of the 3, 2 way ckback is (to me) far superior

[Free]

I play Checkback, 2-way checkback is nice, but not convincing for me, and NMF is nuts imo, especially when you have to bid 2♦, the inefficiency is clear.

[EarlPurple]

Not sure exactly what is the difference between "checkback" and "checkback-stayman" and nmf. I thought it was just different names (i.e. in the UK, those who have the style to open the minor and thus need it called it "checkback" while the US call it "nmf").

That is, in the sequence that starts with 1D.

Because I think checkback is always a 2♣ bid and applies often to 1♥=1♠=1NT

[Free]

I don't think there's a difference between Checkback, Checkback-Stayman and Crowhurst. It's always the same principle, but sometimes it uses other bids:

Checkback:
1X-1M-1NT-2♣

NMF:
1m-1M-1NT-2Om

2-way Checkback:
1X-1M-1NT-?
2♣ = puppet to 2♦
2♦ = GF relay

[1eyedjack]

I think that the difference between standard checkback and NMF only arises after a 1NT rebid following a 1C opener: Then, playing checkback, 2C is the artificial forcing bid by responder, where 2D would be playing NMF.

[Rado]

Hi all,
Please correct me If I'm wrong:
"when I learned natural methods with 5 card Majors it' was GENERAL rule that new suit is forcing 1 round"
NMF is just a nice continuation of the above.
Sure simple 2♣ (Roudi) or 2 -way checkback are further improvements of the above idea.
Rado

[Flame]

Rado, on Jul 28 2004, 05:40 PM, said:

Hi all,
Please correct me If I'm wrong:
"when I learned natural methods with 5 card Majors it' was GENERAL rule that new suit is forcing 1 round"
NMF is just a nice continuation of the above.
Sure simple 2♣ (Roudi) or 2 -way checkback are further improvements of the above idea.
Rado

Not after 1NT rebid, the natural way would be to play 2c2d/2h/2s as weak and NF.
ofcourse i wouldnt advice that.

[Rado]

seems different schools Flame:-)

[Trpltrbl]

Play 2 way NMF, also known as XYZ.
It differs between, invitational hands and GF hands.

Mike

[plum_tree]

At novice/beginner level no need to get tangled up in all the fancy names mentioned here (NMF, Checkback, 2 Way CB, XYZ). At this level the simplest rule to follow is that the introduction of a new suit is forcing for 1 round. Give suit preference, bid NT with no preference or return to own suit if it is self containing.

[1eyedjack]

plum_tree, on 2013-June-17, 23:42, said:

At novice/beginner level no need to get tangled up in all the fancy names mentioned here (NMF, Checkback, 2 Way CB, XYZ). At this level the simplest rule to follow is that the introduction of a new suit is forcing for 1 round. Give suit preference, bid NT with no preference or return to own suit if it is self containing.

Oops, clicked on upvote instead of reply.
There really needs to be a way to undo these.

Anyway, back on thread, I think that for a beginner the general rule following a 1NT rebid is that a new-suit is non-forcing unless responder makes a bid that promises extras. Perhaps of more use to the beginner than learning rote rules is to understand why they are rules. It aids the memory if nothing else. The point here being that the 1N rebid has a narrow limit on strength, so most of the time responder knows what level to play and is interested only in strain, which being the case does not particularly have a reason to force the bidding higher if already in the desired strain. It is also important that beginners are taught standard methods, even if illogicial, and the standard method is that a new suit here is non-forcing (unless showing extras).

That aside, I think that the advice stated in the above post is positively dangerous. If I have a weak responder with 5S and 4H and it starts 1C-1S-1N, the last thing that I want partner to do is rebid 2N after I offer 2H, as you seem to suggest. 2H asks partner to choose between H and S, and nothing else.

I probably should offer an upvote simply as a prize for resurrecting a thread from 2004, but someone recently capped that with a response to a 2003 post so this one fails to get the cigar.