[rcbought]

---

I opened 1♥ sitting west (south passed) and my partner bid jacoby 2NT. I know it is my first responibility to bid my singleton at the 3 level but i have 2 and i opened with the rule of 20. What should i bid next?

[pbleighton]

You have a good 5 card side suit. Bid 4D. Some play this as showing extras, but unless you have that agreement, this is the correct bid.

Peter

[tipi2]

bid 4d showing 2nd 5 card suit, usually as good or better than the opening suit...and pray

[pclayton]

tipi2, on Nov 14 2004, 05:31 PM, said:

bid 4d showing 2nd 5 card suit, usually as good or better than the opening suit...and pray

Heh; I love this hand opposite a good 4 card raise. Hopefully pard realizes the value of his black suit aces. We are cold for a grand opposite: Axx, AKxx, xx, Axxx.

[EricK]

pclayton, on Nov 15 2004, 03:47 AM, said:

tipi2, on Nov 14 2004, 05:31 PM, said:

bid 4d showing 2nd 5 card suit, usually as good or better than the opening suit...and pray

Heh; I love this hand opposite a good 4 card raise. Hopefully pard realizes the value of his black suit aces. We are cold for a grand opposite: Axx, AKxx, xx, Axxx.

...and you are not making 4♥ opposite ♠KQJ ♥T863 ♦QJ ♣KQJ2 !

Eric

[Flame]

Nothing to be ashame of in your hand (you nemtioned rule of 20 as u felt weak)
you got a great hand enough for 4D.

[whereagles]

hum.. I might sieze control and bid 4NT Trouble is the 5-level isn't safe opposite 1 key. With great reluctancy, I'd have to bid 4D.

[Free]

4♦. 4♥ would be too weak, and showing only 1 stiff is asking for trouble since you'll show the wrong one Perhaps you aren't strong in HCP, but your hand is awsome! You have only 5 losers, and partner has a GF raise opposite a 5 card. Slam is very close if partner has Aces, and after 4♦ he should realize that his black K's and Q's are worth nothing without the Ace...

4♥ might be down, but there's no way anyone is gonna stop lower, so I wouldn't worry about that too much Eric

[EricK]

Free, on Nov 15 2004, 09:59 AM, said:

4♦. 4♥ would be too weak, and showing only 1 stiff is asking for trouble since you'll show the wrong one Perhaps you aren't strong in HCP, but your hand is awsome! You have only 5 losers, and partner has a GF raise opposite a 5 card. Slam is very close if partner has Aces, and after 4♦ he should realize that his black K's and Q's are worth nothing without the Ace...

4♥ might be down, but there's no way anyone is gonna stop lower, so I wouldn't worry about that too much Eric

Obviously we are getting to 4♥, and games occasionally go down.

The point I was trying to make was that it is a rather optimistic to be thinking of grand slams when game isn't even certain.

Eric

[whereagles]

EricK, on Nov 15 2004, 02:17 PM, said:

(...) when game isn't even certain.

knock on the wood!

[pclayton]

EricK, on Nov 14 2004, 11:36 PM, said:

pclayton, on Nov 15 2004, 03:47 AM, said:

tipi2, on Nov 14 2004, 05:31 PM, said:

bid 4d showing 2nd 5 card suit, usually as good or better than the opening suit...and pray

Heh; I love this hand opposite a good 4 card raise. Hopefully pard realizes the value of his black suit aces. We are cold for a grand opposite: Axx, AKxx, xx, Axxx.

...and you are not making 4♥ opposite ♠KQJ ♥T863 ♦QJ ♣KQJ2 !

Eric

Fair enough, but I still like our chances for slam against some most 1♥ openers.

[inquiry]

You got to be making a slam try on this hand, it is that simple. If you play yucky old style jacoby 2NT, gut it out and make a stab at it the best you can. If you play one of the new versions, like bergen Jacoby 2NT, or Jacoby 2NT PLUS, you can make your slam try with this hand starting at the three level.

Ben

[PriorKnowledge]

Isn't this BIL? The "standard" J2N responses are (in order of priority):
4 of new suit = 2nd good 5 card suit (good = 2 of top 3 honors)
3 of new suit = singleton or void
3N = good hand (about 15-17 hcp)
3 of major = strong hand (about 17+ hcp)
4 of major = none of the above

Obviously, if u are 5-5, u have a shortness, but showing a 2nd good 5-card suit is higher priority.

Before everyone jumps on me with improvements, if you are sitting down and said nothing more than "Jacoby 2N", this is the rebid structure you should expect.

[inquiry]

PriorKnowledge, on Nov 15 2004, 05:12 PM, said:

Isn't this BIL? The "standard" J2N responses are (in order of priority):
4 of new suit = 2nd good 5 card suit (good = 2 of top 3 honors)
3 of new suit = singleton or void
3N = good hand (about 15-17 hcp)
3 of major = strong hand (about 17+ hcp)
4 of major = none of the above

Obviously, if u are 5-5, u have a shortness, but showing a 2nd good 5-card suit is higher priority.

Before everyone jumps on me with improvements, if you are sitting down and said nothing more than "Jacoby 2N", this is the rebid structure you should expect.

I am not exactly sure who that comment was directed too, but I will assume me, so I will answer it. Note this isn't the BIL (whch stands for Beginner Intermediate Lounge), which is a private club in the BBO. This is the BID, Beginner, intermediate discussion group. Just so you know these are not equal.. maureen does a lot of hard work for the BIL, this is just a place where people (including BIL members) are free to come and discuss issues of interest and skill level appropriate for beginners and INTERMEDIATES.

With that minor housekeeping point out of the way, as noted this dicusssion group is for beginners but also intermediates. And intermediates from all over the world. The question related to Jacoby 2NT, and there are three options with this hand... Bid a singleton at the three level. Bid your four card suit at the four level (As long as you don;t play 4D shows a void, which is horrible waste), or treat this as a minimum hand and jump to 4H.

I don't see anyone suggesting bidding JACOBY 2NT anyway but the normal ways. I did suggest that there were alternatives, including bergen "new Jacoby 2NT" structure that is in one of his bookd (Better bidding with bergen, volume 2 I think)... and jacoby 2NT Plus (my personal favorite). But my reply was if you don't play one of these, you have to muddle along the best you can trying to find slam (this was meant as both a critique of normal jacoby, and to suggest that 4♥ was not a good bid, and that 4♦ and pass partners 4♥ bid seems chicken to me). But in my opinion a fair percentage of Intermediate players will have heard about at least one if not both of these alternatives. A huge percentage of european intermdiates play 2NT as limit raise PLUS already, and so will have an altered response schedule. And people who do play original jacoby might see that this hand could be difficult for normal Jacoby,and therefore might want to take this opportunity to investigate alternative methods such as those that might get suggested here. That is sort of the general purpose of a discusssion thread, to discuss, and offer some insight to alternative approaches.

Ben

[Chamaco]

The "mechanically correct " bid would be 4D response to 2NT, showing a good second suit.

However, here the slam depends only on top controls, and Roman Key Card Blackwood is great for that, so take the easy route, and bid 4NT.
But the most important thing is that bidding 4D will not help pard taking the correct decisions because he ignores of the side singletons. Even if he holds 3 key cards (quite likely given he used J2NT) he will signoff in 4H smelling a misfit when he has shortness in diamonds,and we'll be left in doubt: shall we bid 4NT after his signoff ? if so, it was better to do it right away.
Should we cuebid past game ? if so, we did not gain anything by avoiding 4NT at previous bid (we commit to the 5 level anyways).


Sure, as Whereagles has pointed out, 5 level is not safe if pard has only one key, but geez, if my pard has only 1 keycard, there are very few hands with which he could bid Jacoby 2NT (assuming you play it the standard way, GF guaranteeing an opening hand) !

If he has 2 keycards we'll settle in 5H, if he has 3, we'll bid 6, if he has 4... well I do not like daydreaming !

Sometimes bad luck will strike and pard will have a hand similar to the one posted by EricK
♠KQJ ♥T863 ♦QJ ♣KQJ2

But bridge is a percentage game.


(the hand posted by EricK is really antipercentage:
when we hold a 6 trumps and pard has 4, the percentage of pard not holding at least A or K in trumps is about 20%. And this does not even account for the possibility by pard of holding more than 4 trumps.
To this you must add the probability of not holding any side ace, which lowers the percentage of bad hands held by p.
)
If you bid 4D, pard will often devaluate his hand if he holds no diamonds values, even if e has side controls.

You will miss MANY slams, by far too many slams by using the "scientific" approach (4D) catering for some 5 or 10% bad partner's hand, which would lead you to a few bad 5H contracts bybidding RKCB.

On balance, taking over and bidding RKCB will pay off more often than it backfires.
This is easy to check: running a simulation should, IMO show that bidding 4D will not help pard taking the correct decisions (he ignores of the side singletons) and if he signoff you'll be left wondering whether bidding NT or not; and it should show that a very large number of hands will be easy to bid with RKCB.

[luke warm]

i'd bid 4D and, if partner signed off, 4NT... this hand is fabulous with the ♥ fit.. hard for me to imagine a hand that doesn't at least have a play for slam, at least one worth 2nt from pard

[Chamaco]

luke warm, on Nov 21 2004, 03:57 PM, said:

i'd bid 4D and, if partner signed off, 4NT...

So why not 4NT right away ? :-)

[luke warm]

because partner might bid 4nt ... let him have a chance to evaluate a double fit, if one exists

[pclayton]

I think I'm making my bed with 4♦. If pard can't make a move, I'm content.

Typically, for 4♦ I'm holding: x, Qxxxx, AKxxx, Kx when I make this call. I'm slightly better than this in that I hold a 6th heart; a value will be very hard to gauge later. As far as I can tell, assuming pard has 4 trump for the J2N raise, the 6th heart is only relevant when pard holds Axxxxx of trump.

So I will bid my hand and respect pard's decision.

[Chamaco]

luke warm, on Nov 21 2004, 04:11 PM, said:

because partner might bid 4nt ... let him have a chance to evaluate a double fit, if one exists

But if he signoffs (e.g. deevaluate hois hand based on diamond misfit) and u will bid 4NT anyways, then there is nothing gained.
Lookinmg at out hand, we kno pretty much that most likely the slam here does not depend on a misfit/double fit in side suits, it just depends on top controls, and we have a perfect tool to ask for them without giving to the opening leader the info that our strong suit is diamond...