[wyman]

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Agreements: All X's negative. Lebensohl direct denies. Frequent upgrades to 1N, including many 14s with a 5+ card suit or with spot cards and including a number of 6322 hands.

Q1: Is 3S the only call you consider?

Q2: Is a new suit by opener natural over 3S?
Q2a: If not, what's opener do with a 2326 hand? And how will you ever show diamonds (certainly we may have a 9 card diamond fit)?
Q2b: In either case, what's your call with, say: xx/Jxx/AQxx/AKJx?

Q3: What's your call after 1N (2H) 3S (P); 4S (P) ?

[jmcw]

 wyman, on 2011-October-01, 15:44, said:

---

Agreements: All X's negative. Lebensohl direct denies. Frequent upgrades to 1N, including many 14s with a 5+ card suit or with spot cards and including a number of 6322 hands.

Q1: Is 3S the only call you consider?

Q2: Is a new suit by opener natural over 3S?
Q2a: If not, what's opener do with a 2326 hand? And how will you ever show diamonds (certainly we may have a 9 card diamond fit)?
Q2b: In either case, what's your call with, say: xx/Jxx/AQxx/AKJx?

Q3: What's your call after 1N (2H) 3S (P); 4S (P) ?

Tough problem with the given distribution.

Q1: No I would X with this hand
Q2: A new suit bypasses 3NT. It can be natural and I would treat it so.
2a: Do you mean ♣?
2b: 4♣
Q3: 5♠

[wyman]

 jmcw, on 2011-October-01, 17:59, said:

2a: Do you mean ♣?

No, I meant if 4♣ is a spade cue, then it seems impossible for you (responder, holding the given hand) to show your second suit, except over 3N.

[semeai]

 wyman, on 2011-October-01, 20:48, said:

No, I meant if 4♣ is a spade cue, then it seems impossible for you (responder, holding the given hand) to show your second suit, except over 3N.

If partner bids 4♣ as a spade cue, why would you need to show your second suit?

PS Q1 yes, Q2 abstain, Q3 slam

 jmcw, on 2011-October-01, 17:59, said:

Q3: 5♠

Wouldn't this ask for a heart control?

[ggwhiz]

On this hand I don't really care. I'm bidding 3♠ followed by 6♦ whether pard raises or not. They could have 3♠ and 4♦.

If they have 2-3-2-6 shape it's not something I should cater to.

[wyman]

 semeai, on 2011-October-01, 21:45, said:

If partner bids 4♣ as a spade cue, why would you need to show your second suit?

Sorry. My point is that if you play 4m as a cue in spades, opener gets jammed into 4S with a lot of hands (pretty much all where he can't bid 3N, in fact), after which you'll have a hard time finding 6D when it's right.

[ggwhiz]

A 3♥ cue might work here hopefully showing a big 2-suiter (any 2) as I play in other situations such as directly over a 2♥ opening.

If pard bids 4♣ over this, you can bid 4♦ forcing and even sniff for the grand.

Tough agreement to have in place for a once in a lifetime hand though.

I'm still just showing my spades and blasting a diamond slam on this one.

[semeai]

 wyman, on 2011-October-01, 23:39, said:

Sorry. My point is that if you play 4m as a cue in spades, opener gets jammed into 4S with a lot of hands (pretty much all where he can't bid 3N, in fact), after which you'll have a hard time finding 6D when it's right.

Okay, I suppose there will be hands with Hx in spades and no heart stopper that will guess to bid 4S instead of 3NT. But I think most hands with xx in spades and no stopper will just bid 3NT anyway. Or did 3S deny a stopper for you? Standard Lebensohl as I know it uses 2N..3S as invitational and 3S direct as forcing. If 3S did deny a heart stopper, then definitely you'd play 4m as natural.

Assuming 3S says nothing about a ♥ stopper, I don't think I'd bid anything other than 3NT or 4S as opener very often. The comment by ggwhiz about responder bidding 6D over 4S is pretty good: you could even find partner with just Hx in spades but a better diamond fit sometimes.

Surely it isn't optimal just to bid 3NT or 4S all the time. I still don't want to bypass 3NT with ♠xx ♥xxx, but there's room to distinguish a normal 3-4 card raise, a great 3-4 card raise, and hands with Hx. You could play something artificial allowing you to show all three of these, or maybe just agree that 4m is natural suggesting ♠Hx (since you wouldn't bypass 3NT with ♠xx usually). I don't like cuebidding here since we're the limited hand, but one artificial bid suggesting slam positive values with a spade fit could be worthwhile if you're going to go the artificial route and reserve one bid for these. (Really I wouldn't want to agree to anything artificial here since it wouldn't come up often enough.)

[BunnyGo]

 ggwhiz, on 2011-October-02, 10:43, said:

A 3♥ cue might work here hopefully showing a big 2-suiter (any 2) as I play in other situations such as directly over a 2♥ opening.

If pard bids 4♣ over this, you can bid 4♦ forcing and even sniff for the grand.

Tough agreement to have in place for a once in a lifetime hand though.

I'm still just showing my spades and blasting a diamond slam on this one.

We play this as a 4 card spade suit without a heart stopper.

[aguahombre]

I won't pretend to have this gadget yet, but maybe we should give up Texas after a natural 2H or 2S overcall (only) and adopt leaping Mikeish 4m bids.

We still could show a spade hand via 3S direct, but would cue over 3nt rebid with a non-texas (stronger) 6-bagger and just rebid 4S with it.

[pooltuna]

Q1] No Since 3♥ is not needed as stayman it is either a transfer or slam interest of some sort. Is 2♠ forcing?

Q2] I think it is best played as a Qbid in support of ♠
Q2a] Bid 3NT?
Q2b] Well didn't 3♠ promise a ♥ stopper? So I would say 3NT

Q3] Well you look system screwed so I would try 6♦ as a slam choice.

[aguahombre]

 pooltuna, on 2011-October-02, 12:28, said:

Q2b] Well didn't 3♠ promise a ♥ stopper?

Whether playing "fast shows" or "fast denies", it does not apply in this case. The difference between 2nt-then 3s and a direct 3S is the difference between non-forcing (invite) and forcing, without reference to heart stops.

[Zelandakh]

A question to the OP: What would an immediate 4C, 4D or 4S response mean? I am assuming 4H would be Texas for 4S.

One possibility is to use these bids for 2-suiters, for example 4m showing that minor plus spade and 4S showing both minors, or you could have 4m show spades plus the opposite minor, it does not really matter. Given the agreements in place it seems to me this is more useful than the alternative of using these bids for 1-suiters.

[wyman]

 Zelandakh, on 2011-October-03, 08:11, said:

A question to the OP: What would an immediate 4C, 4D or 4S response mean? I am assuming 4H would be Texas for 4S.

One possibility is to use these bids for 2-suiters, for example 4m showing that minor plus spade and 4S showing both minors, or you could have 4m show spades plus the opposite minor, it does not really matter. Given the agreements in place it seems to me this is more useful than the alternative of using these bids for 1-suiters.

This is a good point and something I'll discuss with my regular P. I would think 4S is to play so I'm not sure we've ever discussed the difference between 4H-->4S and 4S direct. I would think undiscussed 4m would be slammish in m, but a leaping Michael's-ish structure might make a heck of a lot of sense. Thanks for the suggestions.

Now, do you guys do the same sort of thing over known 2-suited overcalls (e.g., 2H = H+S, or 2H = H+C)? We play an unusual/unusual type thing at the 3-level, but again the 4-level is pretty wide open.

[Cyberyeti]

Given the disparity in suit quality, I might bid this as if 0526 and bid 3♦ first. I certainly want to play in diamonds rather than spades opposite say xxx, Kx, Kx(x), AKQxx(x).