[shnk]

1♥ - (Dbl) - ?

What should 1S be here in terms of spade length/strength? Is it forcing?
How about 2C/2D?
Should we always start with a redouble with strength?
What should redouble then new suit mean?

[Fluffy]

totally ignore the double.

redouble is not what you should bid with strenght, if you have a suit bid it before the opponents jump around.

redouble shows a balanced/2 suiter hand without support that wants them to play doubled. So redouble + suit means you have a strong hand with 4/5 cards on the suit you bid, but no 4 cards on the suit the opponents bid, and is forcing 1 round.

[Cyberyeti]

A bid that's worth discussing is 1M-X-1N, you can play it as 8(7)-9 bal or you can play it as a heart raise (probably or some other things). I'd recommend switching to fit jumps (hand worth a decent preemptive 3M or better) over the double, so if you played Bergen, you lose a load of raises so having an extra one through 1N can be handy.

[PhilKing]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-July-25, 04:41, said:

A bid that's worth discussing is 1M-X-1N, you can play it as 8(7)-9 bal or you can play it as a heart raise (probably or some other things). I'd recommend switching to fit jumps (hand worth a decent preemptive 3M or better) over the double, so if you played Bergen, you lose a load of raises so having an extra one through 1N can be handy.

Have you considered not posting in the N&B section?

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2013-July-25, 06:12, said:

Have you considered not posting in the N&B section?

I'm not completely au fait with what beginners are taught in the US, but I certainly stopped playing 1♠-X-1N as natural when I was a beginner. I assumed Bergen raises were standard beginner stuff in the US, I may be wrong.

[Vampyr]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-July-25, 06:27, said:

I'm not completely au fait with what beginners are taught in the US, but I certainly stopped playing 1♠-X-1N as natural when I was a beginner. I assumed Bergen raises were standard beginner stuff in the US, I may be wrong.

Then when they are advanced they move on to limit raises.

[Cyberyeti]

Vampyr, on 2013-July-25, 08:10, said:

Then when they are advanced they move on to limit raises.

From memory, they seemed to occur often enough in the old B/I that I got the impression that bergen was taught pretty early.

[mikeh]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-July-25, 08:26, said:

From memory, they seemed to occur often enough in the old B/I that I got the impression that bergen was taught pretty early.

What did you think the 'I' stood for?

And are you serious? A beginner or novice is taught Bergen??????? I know some beginners and novices....they ask me questions quite often. I have taught beginners and novices. Your experience is contrary to everything I have learned from mine.

[mikeh]

To the OP:

Traditionally, at least in NA, the approach was that one redoubled with all hands of 10+ hcp. Old textbooks on bidding will still describe that method.

However, several decades ago, experienced players realized that this was inefficient. Say you held KJxxx xx Qxx Axx and partner opened 1♣. You redouble RHO's double and LHO jumps pre-emptively in hearts. Back to you: you haven't so much as hinted at your spade suit and now the auction is dangerously high.

So these players began to respond at the one-level as if ignoring the double, and this has become standard..in terms of a suit response.

Thus with my example hand, you'd bid 1♠. You'd also bid 1♠ with, say QJxx xxx Axx xxx. IOW, you make the very same response as you would had RHO passed.

In this method, you use redouble to show a hand with interest in doubling them: 10+ hcp, no good fit for partner, and (usually) no 5 card or longer suit of your own.

1N, btw, is usually played as a bit stronger, on the low end, than had RHO passed. So after 1♥ [x] 1N would show 8-10 in this style, and it wouldn't be forcing even if you'd normally play 1N as a one round force. That force is taken off by the double. With, say, a balanced 6 count, and no raise, you'd pass..which you wouldn't do had rho passed.

Matters, unfortunately, don't end there. We have the problem of what does a 2-level response mean?

1♥ [x] 2♦?

In the standard model I am discussing, where 1♠ would be as if RHO hadn't doubled, 2-level responses are usually treated differently. Here, we do NOT ignore the double. The standard meaning is that a 2-level suit bid shows a long suit in a modest hand and denies a primary fit for partner. Thus I would bid 2♦ in this sequence with xx xx KQ109xx Jxx.

This causes problems in those rare cases in which responder has a 2-level response hand with real values. These are rare because opener has values, and so does rho, which means that responder will not hold a genuine 2/1 as often as would be expected were RHO to have passed. Rare is not the same as never.

In the traditional method, responder has to double with a really good hand and a long suit that he can't bid at the one-level. He doubles, ostensibly balanced with interest in defending, and then bids his long suit next, cancelling the 'balanced' method.

You can readily see that this is less than ideal.

Many experienced players use transfers of one sort or another, which permits one to have one's cake and eat it as well. Thus for me, if I responded 2♣ over a double of partner's 1♥, I would be showing 5+ diamonds and a hand ranging from my earlier example of xx xx KQ10xxx Jxx up to a very good hand indeed: the transfer ensures that I always get another chance to bid the strong hands, since partner isn't allowed to pass my 2♣.

I mention this not to persuade you to take up transfer advances...they are tricky and require discussion with partner (if I were to outline my preferred method as in a teaching guide, I'd need a couple of pages or more)...but to let you know that while the standard method is less than perfect, you can eventually look forward to learning other means. In the interim, understanding the standard model will help you in almost all partnerships and situations.

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on 2013-July-25, 09:46, said:

What did you think the 'I' stood for?

And are you serious? A beginner or novice is taught Bergen??????? I know some beginners and novices....they ask me questions quite often. I have taught beginners and novices. Your experience is contrary to everything I have learned from mine.

Please stop battering me for this, I already said I'm from the UK where you never meet such methods in poor to average clubs and thus have no idea what is taught to US beginners. I saw Bergen often enough in B/I to think it wasn't just "Is" playing it (I never expected novices to play it).

[Vampyr]

Jordan, or Truscott, is a very useful convention. After opponent's takeout double, responder bids 2NT to show a fit (generally 4 cards) with opener and invitational or better values. You give up nothing, since with 10+ balanced and no primary fit you would redouble.

[blackshoe]

Heh. I have a partner who insists that "Jordan" and "Truscott" are two different conventions - "Jordan" only applies over 1m doubled. I asked her where she got that idea. Her answer was, effectively, "everybody knows that!"

[shnk]

I decided to ask this question in a very general way because partner and I weren't sure about a couple things, namely the strength of a 2/1 after a double and how to handle a 3-card limit raise type hand.

mikeh addressed the former question quite well. Thank you.

mikeh, on 2013-July-25, 10:04, said:

In the standard model I am discussing, where 1♠ would be as if RHO hadn't doubled, 2-level responses are usually treated differently. Here, we do NOT ignore the double. The standard meaning is that a 2-level suit bid shows a long suit in a modest hand and denies a primary fit for partner. Thus I would bid 2♦ in this sequence with xx xx KQ109xx Jxx.

I am aware that some play a transfer system here and I see the utility but I'm not interested in that in this partnership.
We are playing that Jordan/Truscott promises 4 card support for a major. Also any jump is preemptive including the raise to 3H? So to show a limit type raise with 3 card support, we are redoubling first, and I have been convinced that that is less than ideal. Do you include 3 card raises in the 2NT response?

[Vampyr]

shnk, on 2013-July-25, 17:08, said:

I am aware that some play a transfer system here and I see the utility but I'm not interested in that in this partnership.
We are playing that Jordan/Truscott promises 4 card support for a major. Also any jump is preemptive including the raise to 3H? So to show a limit type raise with 3 card support, we are redoubling first, and I have been convinced that that is less than ideal. Do you include 3 card raises in the 2NT response?

When not playing transfers, I do the same as you. No, it's not ideal, but it works tolerably well.