[kenrexford]

An auction last night provides an example of a place for a possible reshuffling of priorities.

1♠-P-1NT(forcing)-P

2♣(3+)-X-P-2♥

P-P-3♣-P-?

In this sequence, Opener's hand cannot logically grow up that much unless he has unannounced length in clubs. A common bid that I have made and seen, and that in fact was made at the table, was a 3♠ rebid, showing black suit length with a spade suit playable opposite, perhaps, even a stiff honor. E.g., ♠AKQ10x ♥xx ♦x ♣Axxxx. Now, maybe this is a 2♠ call after 2♦, but pretend that it is not just for discussion purposes, if you will.

In the auction last night, my partner was dealer and did, in fact, rebid 3♠. The problem, however, was that I had run out of space to determine where he was short, if anywhere, and shortness made the difference as to whether I tried 5♣, as I had 0-3-5-5 shape with three small hearts. Maybe v-xxx-Q10xxx-KQJxx. I did not know whether the opponents had a heart fit or not. Opposite AKQxx-x-Kx-Axxxx, I like 5♣. Opposite AKQJx-xxx-v-Axxxx, I hate 5♣. I might even like 5♣ opposite KQJ10x-x-Kx-Axxxx.

How much nicer if the cheapest call (here, 3♦) by Opener said that he had this hand? I could then relay 3♥ to ask more.

With the hand that would bid 3♦ normally (whatever that hand is), I shift that to 3♠.

The idea, stated as a general principle:

When in any auction there is only one possible natural suit partner might want to introduce, and very little reason to bid at all unless he has that one suit, then the cheapest call in any new suit shows that suit.

The corollaries, perhaps:

If there are plausible reasons for bidding other than a holding in that one suit, shift the meanings of the relay and the rebid of the suit naturally.

After any cheapest-new-suit flag, a relay back asks for more information.

[cherdano]

Some people play Kokish here: bidding a 3rd suit shows shortness in that suit.
I prefer Kokish inverted: bidding a 3rd suit shows shortness in the 4th suit. (Some might call it "bidding out your shape" but that unnecessarily obscures the subtleties and thoughts behind the method.)

[PhilKing]

By bidding, you are punishing partner for competing. So to have a special gadget to do that in more convoluted ways does not seem that useful to me.

[Zelandakh]

It sounds like you have invented gropes and they are indeed a useful tool - see the recent jump shift thread for an example that might be to your taste.

In this auction it seems to me that we are most likely to want to bid 3red with a hand that expects clubs to run and no certain heart stopper. Here there is plenty of space to differentiate between full stoppers and half stoppers and whatever else but change the auction to 1♥ - 1NT; 2♦ - (X) - P - (2♠); P - 3♦, and now it is only possible to find out everything by using 3♥ artificially. But this is such a small window that I would imagine the overhead of including it is considerably greater than the resulting benefit.

[FrancesHinden]

Was there some obscure reason for not raising clubs over the double? Perhaps telling partner you have 5-card support for his second suit is worth doing so at once?

[kenrexford]

FrancesHinden, on 2015-July-12, 05:24, said:

Was there some obscure reason for not raising clubs over the double? Perhaps telling partner you have 5-card support for his second suit is worth doing so at once?

Truth? This partner is dangerous. If I raise to 3♣ immediately, he will go nuts, because he passed a 2♠ bid initially that should have been bid. So, with a void in his spades, I walked slowly. 3♣ would be my bid with stiff honor in spades, where 4♠ might make sense.

In practice, this "worked," in that I avoided the original overbid. But, even the paused delay brought about an overbid, the PhilKing punishment I tried to avoid by passing initially.