[mike777]

Anyone play or play against the Schuler Shift?

Read an old bridge winners post on it.
Pros,Cons? Do you use it?

I understand it is 12 years old but it is new to me.
😊

[DavidKok]

I have briefly played it before, unfortunately only for a short time.

To my understanding it is a nice way to improve 2/1 auctions. I believe it is superior to standard (where going past 2M shows extras) and can be superior to 'shape first'. One of the big issues with standard is that it bunches the 6(+)cM hands and the minimum hands. Many players struggle with disambiguating those, and I've had long and painful discussions about this in the past. In my experience people simply do not know how to bid on a 2/1 1M-2X; 2M start. The shift eliminates that problem, at low cost.

One of the big advantages of Schuler Shift over other 2/1 modifications is that it applies to five out of six 2/1 auctions (1♦-2♣ is excluded, as far as I know). A lot of artificial 2/1 structures for 1M-2♣ exist, but the other three 2/1 auctions can use some love as well.

There is a little addendum as well, taking 1♠-2♣; 2NT* as an example. If responder has 2(+) spades they can bid 3♠, setting trumps. If they have 0-1 spades then the hand is autmatically not balanced, and therefore unbalanced with primary clubs. Therefore responder can bid one of 3♣ (shows 6(+)), 3♦/3♥ (shows 4 in the suit shown, 5(+)♣, and concerns about the remaining suit) or 3NT (1=4=4=4 or 0-1♠ with all three suits covered). This means that natural bidding works quite well over the Schuler Shift, even in a style where 2♣ is CLUBS or BAL or FIT.

[mw64ahw]

I play the version below, which takes the idea in a slightly different direction with a couple of tweaks in the context of my complete system. It denies 3♠ unless choice of slams with 5♣. The other modification you can make is to include invitational 6♦ hands, which can be passed out when opener is minimum.

https://bridgewinner...us-2c-response/

[mikeh]

I’ve not played it. I dislike methods that intentionally wrongside notrump, as does the shift. Responder doesn’t always hold two card support and sometimes, even when he does,notrump is the right strain,and more often than not it’s from responder’s side


As for our own methods, over 1M 2C we play 2D by opener is the default bid, showing only a five card major and the inability to bid anything else…all other bids are tightly constrained.

Over 1H 2D we play 2S as the 6 card heart suit, without 4 spades, leaving the 2H rebid as denying 6+ heaets unless opener also has 4+ spades.

We’re toying with a more complex 1M 2C structure but are working out later round nuances before deciding whether to adopt it.

Our method,I think,works particularly well in combination with our intermediate two bids, so that 1M 2C 2M shows a great 13+ or better, which we’ve found helps responder evaluate for slam purposes a bit more aggressively than when opener could have his shapely 11 (or 10….I’d never bid a standard weak 2S with,say, AQJxxx x Kxxx xx)

[jdiana]

Immodestly linking to one of my own posts on BW, there are some good comments in this thread. In particular, if you scroll down, you'll find a comment from John Schuler, which you might find useful.

https://bridgewinner...ding-21-debate/

[jillybean]

I've started playing it again, twice a month with my "serious" partner - too early to tell.
Simply having it well defined and discussed is a huge plus.

[awm]

Elianna and I play something similar over 1M-2♦ and 1♠-2♥, but prefer to use 2♦ as catch-all over 1M-2♣. Of course, we don't play 2/1 GF, but since we play intermediate two bids in the majors, the hand with 6+M is a game force opposite a 2/1 response. This fits pretty neatly, as we have 1♠-2♥-2♠ = "either less than game values or a balanced hand" and 1♠-2♥-2NT = game force 6+♠ and 1♠-2♥-3x GF natural.

While I'm sure you can construct hands where 3NT is best despite opener's 6-card major and it has to be played from responder's side, we haven't found this to be a big problem in practice and being able to distinguish these hand types has been a big winner for us (we've had several hands where we had an easy auction to 4M and expert opponents at the other table went down in 3NT because they couldn't accurately diagnose the 6-2 fit).

[DavidKok]

One of the big advantages of the Schuler Shift over other modified 2/1 approaches is its simplicity. I think it is possible to do better by using entirely artificial continuations on 1M-2♣, possibly also 1♦-2♣, and then rearranging bids differently on 1♠-2♦ as well as there is an extra step. Some of the posters here are presenting their conventional continuations as alternatives - just make sure you also give all the competitive agreements if fourth seat interferes. I love playing against the "invitational raise or GF natural" 2/1 school in particular, they are so easy to take out of preparation. Overcall and now both hand types feel they have left something unsaid.
However, in my experience, people don't make such detailed agreements. In my regular club play I encounter quite a lot of half-assed 2/1 structures, where people include one or two modifications but don't think of the implications or continuations. These are decidedly anti-percentage, and I consider them sophistry. It's not the case that more complicated rules mean better scores. In fact, I've frequently seen both experts and 'experts' make a mess of the 1M-2X; 2M auction in standard.
What's more, the fear of wrongsiding 3NT is widely overblown. I've played 'shape first' for a long time (about 1.5 years) and Schuler Shift for a shorter time (3 months), and wrongsiding did not cost a single time. It definitely can happen, it's not too difficult to construct a hand where it does, and I've run some double dummy simulations to check the frequency. It's just very rare. I'd much rather have a frequent, useful, way to assign the 2NT rebid over a low single digit percentage fear that failed to materialise in the first nearly two years of playing the method.

I wrote a summary of five 2/1 styles in a recent thread. Two of those were entirely artificial, e.g. 2♣ GFR but also a less complete version of it. Of all the styles I recommend against that the most. In my experience people love to (over)complicate their 2/1 rules, which easily ends up costing a lot more than it gains.

[jdiana]

Does anyone know of any good writeups of the Schuler shift other than Gumperz's articles and this write-up by Neil Timm?

https://www.bridgewe...ler%20Shift.pdf

John Schuler was working on a Bridge Winner article a couple of years ago but I don't think he was able to finish it. I'm not a BW subscriber so if anyone knows of an article there (or anywhere) that discusses it, please let me know.

I'm not playing right now so it's not something I would implement anytime soon, but Mike's post reminded me about it and I like to save these things. You never know.

[DavidKok]

Andrew Gumperz' article looks decent though incomplete. The linked PDF seems less accurate to me. Either way I do not know of better sources.