[0 00b]

hi

just need some guidance here


playing any system, in this case it was acol with 4 card majors and a weak NT, after

1d-1s-2d

is 3s forcing ?


if not, how do you show a long spade suit (7+) with slam interest ?

if it is forcing, how do you show a long spade suit (6) with invitational values, if there can be such a hand ?

[mikeh]

0 00b, on 2018-September-24, 15:39, said:

hi

just need some guidance here


playing any system, in this case it was acol with 4 card majors and a weak NT, after

1d-1s-2d

is 3s forcing ?


if not, how do you show a long spade suit (7+) with slam interest ?

if it is forcing, how do you show a long spade suit (6) with invitational values, if there can be such a hand ?

I have no idea how acol handles this but acol was famous for having relatively few forcing calls. Since this is (usually) playeda s non-forcing even in NA, I have to think it would usually be non-forcing in acol.

As to how one forces, this is a weakness in standard theory, and different partnerships have different answers.

Probably the most common 'fix' is to use 3C as artificial...it may or may not be natural, but it is definitely forcing. Note that opener can't raise to 4C and logically would rarely, if ever have the hand where that made sense. With 4+ clubs, opener would usually bid 2C, not 2D, and with 5+ clubs, responder would have bid 2C originally, unless his spades were at least as long as his clubs.

In one partnership, we used 2H as artificial but that required detailed agreements, including using 2N (instead of 2H) as showing hearts! Not advised for the casual partnership. My advice, use 3C as the fudge with the forcing hand...3S next is forcing

[helene_t]

Welcome to the forum!

This is by default non-forcing in Acol. There are three reasons for this:
- Acol players quite often bid 5-card suits twice, which means that it is not attractive for responder to pass the 2♦ rebid with a 5-count and six spades. Hence, 2♠ would be 5-9 and 3♠ a bit more than that which wouldn't make it forcing
- The general philosophy in Acol is that when in doubt, assume non-forcing
- Acol is almost always played with strong jump shifts

So the answer to your second question is that you start with 2♠ to establish a game force.

[ahydra]

Play weak jump shifts: 1D-2S shows 4-7 points or thereabouts and 6 cards. Now your 2M rebid can be more constructive (~8-11) and your 3M jump becomes game forcing, not necessarily slam interest, but showing 6 cards.

Failing that, make up fake minor suits (3C here). This is known as "third suit forcing" and a very useful tool after opener rebids a suit. Say partner continues with a wooden 3D, now you bid 3S to show a GF hand with 6 spades.

ahydra

[HardVector]

ahydra, on 2018-September-24, 18:20, said:

Play weak jump shifts: 1D-2S shows 4-7 points or thereabouts and 6 cards. Now your 2M rebid can be more constructive (~8-11) and your 3M jump becomes game forcing, not necessarily slam interest, but showing 6 cards.

Failing that, make up fake minor suits (3C here). This is known as "third suit forcing" and a very useful tool after opener rebids a suit. Say partner continues with a wooden 3D, now you bid 3S to show a GF hand with 6 spades.

ahydra

Better yet, play strong jump shifts. Unless you have some sort of system to deal with these kind of problems, it's best to retain the "old fashioned" understanding of strong jump shifts. It makes bidding these kind of hands ridiculously simple. 1d-2s...poof! Now you are in a game force, and partner know you have a good 6+ card spades suit with around 15+ pts. In my opinion, having a bid that shows a trash hand with long spades is overrated. As soon as the opponents hear that there is a 0-4 pt hand out there, they are going to aggressively compete.

[0 00b]

ok thank you all for your contributions.

please forget that i mentioned i was playing acol at the time this came up. i think it is a valid question in any modern system.

we play weak jump shift and NMF, so I guess that means that 3c is the only way to force.

but i do find it strange that 1d-1s-2d-3s is not forcing, since it doesn't make sense for it to be invitational, since there is no suit agreement. i.e., would a hand with 6 spades and invitational values want to be at the 3 level opposite an unbalanced minimum opener ?

x KQxx AKxxx xxx opposite AJxxxx xxx x KQx

3s seems too high.


so with a hand with long spades and invitational values, i would expect a 2s rebid, which would free up 3s to be GF with long solid spades (no support required), which gives room to cue bid etc. And with 6 broken spades, I would expect a sequence via a 3c NMF, so that opener can show some support for spades, or revert to NT if he doesn't.

so with something like

AKQxxx(x) xxx x KQx i would use 3s (and I want to know about a h control)

but with something like

AQJxxx xxx x KQx i would use 3c then 3s

I hope this clarifies my original question and thank you again for your contributions. much appreciated.

[pescetom]

0 00b, on 2018-September-27, 13:44, said:

ok thank you all for your contributions.

please forget that i mentioned i was playing acol at the time this came up. i think it is a valid question in any modern system.

we play weak jump shift and NMF, so I guess that means that 3c is the only way to force.

but i do find it strange that 1d-1s-2d-3s is not forcing, since it doesn't make sense for it to be invitational, since there is no suit agreement. i.e., would a hand with 6 spades and invitational values want to be at the 3 level opposite an unbalanced minimum opener ?

I'm no Acol expert let alone fan, but I think you're off the beaten path.
As others have said, the natural treatment of such a hand is a strong jump shift, at 2 or even 3 level.
If you really must play weak jump shifts and Acol at the same time then yes, your only forcing option is to fake 3C.
But you shouldn't find it strange that 1d-1s-2d-3s is not forcing, in any natural system repetition of responder's suit is non forcing even if it shows strength.
If you want to play weak jump shift and similar gadgets then maybe you should adopt a more modern and congenial system.

[sfi]

0 00b, on 2018-September-27, 13:44, said:

we play weak jump shift and NMF, so I guess that means that 3c is the only way to force.

One option you might want to consider is to make 1D-2S invitational. That way you easily separate 2S and 3S in the auction under discussion. Now 3S is clearly forcing and 2S is clearly less than invitational.

You do lose a way to bid the weak hands with a long major, but often you can get away with responding 1S and rebidding 2S with them.

Just something to consider...

[dokoko]

Playing 1♦-2♠ as purely preemptive hinders constructive bidding.

You may either play the jump shift as invitational and bid 1♦-1♠;2♦-2♠ with weaker hands or vice versa (dividing a range of 5-11 pts between the two). That way you can use responder's jump in his own suit as forcing and avoid a final contract of 3♠ on a misfit.

Nonetheless you should have a way to show a gameforcing hand with a relatively weak 6-card major by using some artificial forcing rebid (2♦ over 1♣-1M;2♣ - 3♣ or 2oM over 1♦-1M;2♦), so your jump rebid promises a good suit.

[Tramticket]

0 00b, on 2018-September-27, 13:44, said:

please forget that i mentioned i was playing acol at the time this came up. i think it is a valid question in any modern system.

we play weak jump shift and NMF, so I guess that means that 3c is the only way to force.

I don't think that it is possible to forget that you are playing Acol. One of my big complaints is people grafting on their own pet conventions and treatments onto a system without thinking whether the treatment is appropriate and compatible with the system. I have let off steam about this before - Support Double, Bergen Raises, Flannery etc are NOT COMPATIBLE with Acol.

So apologies for another rant but there is a reason why Acol usually includes Strong jump Shifts. Acol has too few forcing bids available, not too many and it it can't have escaped your notice that the trend in bidding systems is to make more bids forcing (see for example the 2 over 1 GF system). The Strong Jump Shift is a necessary component in a whole Acol structure and if you choose to change this it will leave a gap that needs to be filled. When you discussed with your partner that you would like to play Weak Jump Shifts you should also have discussed how you would handle strong hands that need to force. I'm not saying that it is impossible to play Acol with other Jump Shift methods (I even do this myself at the insistence of one partner), but it does need compensating system changes to make it work. I would suggest that you would certainly need to to discuss Third Suit Forcing (or a Bourke relay), making sure that you and partner are agreed on which continuations are forcing, you should agree that Fourth Suit Forcing is game forcing (it is only a one-round force in traditional Acol). Similarly, it is possible to play that the sequence 1♦, 1♠; 2♦, 3♠ is forcing (this may be a wise choice), but if you play this method you need to discuss how you will deal with an invitational strength hand. (Others on this forum have already made some suggestions).

[dokoko]

Tramticket, on 2018-September-28, 01:52, said:

[...] you should agree that Fourth Suit Forcing is game forcing [...]

4th suit game forcing is a treatment for lazy players who don't want to understand which sequences are logically played as forcing and which are not. The downside is that the convention can no more be used for the hands it was created for (5cd major invitational without stopper in the 4th suit).

[pescetom]

dokoko, on 2018-September-29, 12:57, said:

The downside is that the convention can no more be used for the hands it was created for (5cd major invitational without stopper in the 4th suit).

I agree that in most other situations it should not automatically be game forcing.
But why do you say that it can no longer be used for the hands it was created for?

[Tramticket]

dokoko, on 2018-September-29, 12:57, said:

4th suit game forcing is a treatment for lazy players who don't want to understand which sequences are logically played as forcing and which are not. The downside is that the convention can no more be used for the hands it was created for (5cd major invitational without stopper in the 4th suit).

I don't agree. I can't comment on other systems, but the simple fact is that Acol needs more game forcing sequences and this is a very necessary gf bid. And yes, I do have a very sound understanding of which Acol bids are forcing and resent being called lazy.

No 4SF was NOT created for "5 card major invitational without a stopper". It was created for hands that need to force without a clear bid. It needs to cater for many hand types and to restrict it in your way is simply daft and completely wrong.

[johnu]

dokoko, on 2018-September-29, 12:57, said:

4th suit game forcing is a treatment for lazy players who don't want to understand which sequences are logically played as forcing and which are not. The downside is that the convention can no more be used for the hands it was created for (5cd major invitational without stopper in the 4th suit).

Yikes

[nullve]

0 00b, on 2018-September-27, 13:44, said:

please forget that i mentioned i was playing acol at the time this came up.

I don't think it matters, but ok!

0 00b, on 2018-September-27, 13:44, said:

we play weak jump shift and NMF, so I guess that means that 3c is the only way to force.

But if you play

1♦-?:

(...)
2♦ = "4-7, 6+ M" ("Multi")
2♥ = "5-9, 5+S4+H" ("Reverse Flannery")
2♠ = INV+ D raise ("Inverted raise")
(...),

then 2♥ over 1♦-1♠; 2♦ (or 1♦-1♠; 2♣ will already promise INV+ values, so you may want to play it as 3SF (4SF) instead. And don't have to jump to 3♠ on INV hands with 6+ S, either. Just rebid 2♠("8-11, 6(+) S") over 1♦-1♠; 2♦ (and 1♦-1♠; 2♣).

[0 00b]

Tramticket, on 2018-September-28, 01:52, said:

I don't think that it is possible to forget that you are playing Acol. One of my big complaints is people grafting on their own pet conventions and treatments onto a system without thinking whether the treatment is appropriate and compatible with the system. I have let off steam about this before - Support Double, Bergen Raises, Flannery etc are NOT COMPATIBLE with Acol.

So apologies for another rant but there is a reason why Acol usually includes Strong jump Shifts. Acol has too few forcing bids available, not too many and it it can't have escaped your notice that the trend in bidding systems is to make more bids forcing (see for example the 2 over 1 GF system). The Strong Jump Shift is a necessary component in a whole Acol structure and if you choose to change this it will leave a gap that needs to be filled. When you discussed with your partner that you would like to play Weak Jump Shifts you should also have discussed how you would handle strong hands that need to force. I'm not saying that it is impossible to play Acol with other Jump Shift methods (I even do this myself at the insistence of one partner), but it does need compensating system changes to make it work. I would suggest that you would certainly need to to discuss Third Suit Forcing (or a Bourke relay), making sure that you and partner are agreed on which continuations are forcing, you should agree that Fourth Suit Forcing is game forcing (it is only a one-round force in traditional Acol). Similarly, it is possible to play that the sequence 1♦, 1♠; 2♦, 3♠ is forcing (this may be a wise choice), but if you play this method you need to discuss how you will deal with an invitational strength hand. (Others on this forum have already made some suggestions).

Many thanks for this. Much appreciate. Yes I understand what you are saying and if it were down solely to me we'd be playing 2/1. But my partner's been playing Acol all his life and won't change. So it's Acol with additions, since we play quite a few of the features of more modern systems, (bergen, inv m, nmf. wjs, 4sf as GF etc). It seems to work reasonably well. 3rd suit forcing is something we do naturally I think but a Bourke relay is too advanced.

But I'll take this away from this discussion:

1d-1s-2d-3s as GF with very good spades, suite set, controls to follow (I can't see another way to show this hand and have room to show controls)

1d-1s-2d-2s as NF but fairly wide ranging, perhaps 8-11 - i'd expect an opener with 3s and slightly better than minimum to make a move after 2s

1d-1s-2d-3c-3d/3h-3s as 6 spades, near GF, perhaps passable with 0-1 spades

I still don't see the need for an invitational bid until you have some sort of fit. So with invitational values and 6 spades, I think I'd stick with 2s as responder's rebid. We may miss game when opener has a bit more with 2 spades and responder is maximum for 2s with 6, but I can't see a structure that addresses these situations and allows space for the big spade hand to get info on controls.

[0 00b]

dokoko, on 2018-September-27, 23:53, said:

Playing 1♦-2♠ as purely preemptive hinders constructive bidding.

You may either play the jump shift as invitational and bid 1♦-1♠;2♦-2♠ with weaker hands or vice versa (dividing a range of 5-11 pts between the two). That way you can use responder's jump in his own suit as forcing and avoid a final contract of 3♠ on a misfit.

Nonetheless you should have a way to show a gameforcing hand with a relatively weak 6-card major by using some artificial forcing rebid (2♦ over 1♣-1M;2♣ - 3♣ or 2oM over 1♦-1M;2♦), so your jump rebid promises a good suit.

thanks for that. interesting.

[helene_t]

You can also play the jump shift as weakish/semipreemptive, say 4-8 points. Then
1♦-1♠
2♦-2♠
becomes constructive, 9-11, and
1♦-1♠
2♦-3♠
becomes forcing.

So there are three options. one-suited hands with spades can be weakish, invitational or forcing, and if the jump shift covers one of the options, the simple shifts needs only to cover the two others.

[Tramticket]

0 00b, on 2018-September-30, 17:10, said:

But I'll take this away from this discussion:

1d-1s-2d-3s as GF with very good spades, suite set, controls to follow (I can't see another way to show this hand and have room to show controls)

1d-1s-2d-2s as NF but fairly wide ranging, perhaps 8-11 - i'd expect an opener with 3s and slightly better than minimum to make a move after 2s

1d-1s-2d-3c-3d/3h-3s as 6 spades, near GF, perhaps passable with 0-1 spades

I still don't see the need for an invitational bid until you have some sort of fit. So with invitational values and 6 spades, I think I'd stick with 2s as responder's rebid. We may miss game when opener has a bit more with 2 spades and responder is maximum for 2s with 6, but I can't see a structure that addresses these situations and allows space for the big spade hand to get info on controls.

Helene_T summarised it well, there are three sequences: (1) 1♦, 2♠; (2) 1♦, 1♠, 2♦, 2♠ and (3) 1♦, 1♠, 2♦, 3 ♠ which can neatly cover three ranges. But there are more ranges that you might want to cover: 0-4, 5-8, 9-11, 12-15 game force, 16+ looking for a slam.

The traditional Acol approach is to pass with the lowest range 0-4, jump shift (sequence 1) with the 16+ range, use sequence 2 with the 5-8 range, sequence 3 with the 9-11 range and with the 12-15 range you either jump to 4♠ if the suit is sufficiently robust or make a change of suit (to another three-card suit where you have values).

You can change these around, but if you are using the jump shift to show a pre-emptive (0-4) range you are in danger of leaving a hole. If you look at your scheme, you have defined 1♦, 1♠, 2♦, 2♠ as 8-11. This will leave you a problem holding ♠KQTXXX ♥XXX ♦X ♣XXX: do you pass the 2♦ rebid? This might be playable and might be reasonable at IMPs, but will often be the lower scoring contract at match-points. If you choose instead to bid 2♠, the bid then becomes very wide ranged (5-11), which I suggest is unmanageable.

Remember also that there are other related sequences such as: 1♦, 1♠, 2♣, 2♠/3♠ and 1♦, 1♠, 1NT (15-17 if playing Acol?), 2♠/3♠. In designing the system, you need to consider whether the strengths of corresponding bids will be the same in each case.

[HardVector]

I'm going to make one more tilt at my windmill here. Most standard systems have a bid that creates a forcing auction for the opener, that is usually 2c. Why are people so reluctant to include a bid that responder can use to create a forcing auction in using strong jump shifts? It's been a part of standard bidding since the beginning of the game, but I've noticed in the last 10 years that it's completely disappeared and I keep seeing discussions like this in which the question is, "How do I bid this hand?" and I see a strong jump shift candidate. If you want to play weak jump shifts, you MUST create some vehicle that will allow responder to constructively drive the auction to the correct level/strain with a big hand. Weak jump shifts are used to destroy the opponents auction, not yours.