[ggwhiz]

Zelandakh, on 2012-March-16, 03:45, said:

2♥ rebid? or 2♥ opening? This looks like the latter to me...

100%. Meanwhile 2♥ is called for to discourage pard (the 1♠ response did nothing to help this hand). Meanwhile responder bidding 3nt over 3♥ is such a serious failure to pay attention that I bar them from any criticism.

[ArtK78]

aguahombre, on 2012-March-17, 09:27, said:

I might point out that SAYC is the framework for this thread.

Weak two's are 5-11, and there is no redefinition of a 2-bid opener in 4th chair. You might judge to open this hand 2H, but it does not show partner that you have more strength than you would have in another seat.

This treatment of a 4th-chair 2bid might be widely practiced, but it is not part of the Yellow Card, and not one of the areas of the Yellow Card predesignated system which is flexible. If this is an opening 2-bid in your agreed style, you are not playing SAYC.

Of course a 4th seat weak two bid is different than a weak two bid in any other position. Why would anyone play a weak two in 4th seat as 5-11 HCP? The fact that it is not mentioned in the SAYC booklet doesn't mean that it isn't true. This is not a systemic issue.

[HighLow21]

ArtK78, on 2012-March-17, 13:05, said:

Of course a 4th seat weak two bid is different than a weak two bid in any other position. Why would anyone play a weak two in 4th seat as 5-11 HCP? The fact that it is not mentioned in the SAYC booklet doesn't mean that it isn't true. This is not a systemic issue.

Actually I'm kind of amazed that 4th seat 2-level bids are indeed not covered in the SAYC booklet. Maybe the guardians of SAYC disagree on the treatment of them.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

aguahombre, on 2012-March-17, 09:27, said:

I might point out that SAYC is the framework for this thread.

Weak two's are 5-11, and there is no redefinition of a 2-bid opener in 4th chair. You might judge to open this hand 2H, but it does not show partner that you have more strength than you would have in another seat.

This treatment of a 4th-chair 2bid might be widely practiced, but it is not part of the Yellow Card, and not one of the areas of the Yellow Card predesignated system which is flexible. If this is an opening 2-bid in your agreed style, you are not playing SAYC.

As Johnnie Carson would say: " I did not know that ".

[jillybean]

aguahombre, on 2012-March-17, 09:27, said:

I might point out that SAYC is the framework for this thread.

Weak two's are 5-11, and there is no redefinition of a 2-bid opener in 4th chair. You might judge to open this hand 2H, but it does not show partner that you have more strength than you would have in another seat.

This treatment of a 4th-chair 2bid might be widely practiced, but it is not part of the Yellow Card, and not one of the areas of the Yellow Card predesignated system which is flexible. If this is an opening 2-bid in your agreed style, you are not playing SAYC.

I think we have moved past the initial (SAYC) question

[mike777]

jillybean, on 2012-March-17, 18:05, said:

I think we have moved past the initial (SAYC) question

fwiw I would open pards hand one club and end up in 2h or 3h in the 6-1 fit.


1c=1h
1s=2c(forces 2d)
2d(forced)=2h or 3h.(invite)

[aguahombre]

mike777, on 2012-March-17, 18:48, said:

fwiw I would open pards hand one club and end up in 2h or 3h in the 6-1 fit.


1c=1h
1s=2c(forces 2d)
2d(forced)=2h or 3h.(invite)

Apparently we haven't moved past the SAYC part, but rather just ignored it as a condition in the OP.

[rmnka447]

The hand is worth an opening bid. You have 3 Quick Tricks and 12 HCP so the hand is worth a 1 H bid.

But the hand is a bear minimum. Why?

There are a number of reasons.

Let's say your hand instead of what you held, the hand was S x H AKxxxx D AJxx C xx. This is a much stronger hand because the As are in your long suits making them stronger. The minor honor, in this case, the J, is working in association with a higher honor. The "same" 12 points -- 2 As, a K and a J, but a much better hand.

Let me carry this example one step further and change the example hand even further -- say the hand was S x H AK109xx D AJ10x C xx. The difference this time is that you have intermediate cards working in conjunction with your honors in your long suits. They have created tenace positions in those suits that can reduce the number of loser in those suits.

As you can see, there are a number of factors that increase or decrease the trick taking power of any hand given a particular "set" of points -- honors, especially high honors in long suits, minor honors (i.e. Qs and Js) working in conjunction with As and Ks, and having good intermediates with your honors.

Now let's look at the actual hand you held -- S A H AKxxxx D xxxx C Jx. One of your As is a singleton rather than in a long suit. Your second suit has no high honor. The J is not working with any other honor (often referred to as a dangling J) and, in fact, is in a doubleton making it virtually worthless. So although you have the values for an opening bid, there are several negative factors to the hand.

Top tournament players go through the process of mentally evaluating these factors when looking at their hands. If the positives and negatives off set each other, they'll treat the point count at about where it is. If there are more negatives, then they'll tend to treat the hand as if it were less in value. Conversely, if there are more positives, they'll treat as if were slightly higher in value. Most of them don't necessarily quantify this difference -- but you will hear them refer to a point count as "good", "great", "bad", etc.

Your hand would probably be called a "terrible" 12 and at every opportunity they would take the minimum action available.

So after partner bids 1 Spade, you take the minimum action of rebidding your heart suit.

1 H 1 S
2 H

and after partner invites with 2 NT, you simply rebid your hearts again -- bringing home the message that you have an opener with a H suit and that's about it.

1 H 1 S
2 H 2 NT
3 H

If partner wants to go further he is on his own.

BTW, Marty Bergin wrote a short, fairly cheap (7 or 8 bucks) book on Hand Evaluation that goes into the concepts introduced above in more detail and is an excellent introduction to this facet of bidding. I think it's still available.

[helene_t]

I strongly believe 3♥ should be forcing. I usually agree with Nigel but his suggestion to bid 3♣ with hands that want to force is not my cup of tea. OTOH I can certainly imagine playing 3♣ as non-forcing (0544 11-count).

KenRexford once said (I don't know how standard this is) that in fouth seat, opening 1♥ and rebidding 2♥ should be weaker than opening 2♥. In that style your hand is probably just good enough to open 2♥.