[pescetom]

Someone wrote recently here that GIB plays all 4SF sequences as game forcing.
GIB system notes say that it plays 4SF, and the example suggests that 4th suit is artificial unless also a jump.
But yesterday I played a Free Trick & Cheat Randoms tournament (played with humans but nominally GIB 2/1) and when the auction went 1♠ 2♣ 2♥ with me holding an 18 HCP 2335 hand my first thought was to bid 3♦; but when I hovered over the bid it was explained as showing 4 card diamonds.
I had 3 lousy diamonds and was interested in slam, so I hesitated to figure out how to proceed and was promptly timed out.
Is this just a wrong explanation, or does GIB expect a real suit from Responder here?

[smerriman]

2♣ is forcing to game. 4sf is a way to create a game forcing auction. Thus that convention doesn't exist here. (Though some people say it when they really just mean an unrelated fourth suit artificial.)

Some play the fourth suit here as a 'punt', but GIB plays it as natural. Much more common is when you have a 4 card major and 5 card minor, where if you start with a 1 over 1 you'll never be able to properly describe your hand later. But agree it should really be a punt here.

Aside from that, 3♣ "shows" 6 clubs but should result in the right outcome (if you get a club raise it's where you want to be anyway).

[pescetom]

You're right of course, no need to force to game here, my question was whether this 4th suit is natural or not.
I've only ever seen a few pairs play it as natural and none of them knew what they were doing, nor does it seem a good agreement to me.
Yes 3C was one of the alternatives, so was 4NT although I didn't have much hope of that being natural to GIB here.

[Douglas43]

I'm with smerriman. IMO GiB plays 4th suit natural and forcing. FSF (British style) is a conventional bid which asks for information and normally denies that suit. N.b. to brits a punt is a gamble on placing the final contract, nit a waiting bid.

[pescetom]

Douglas43, on 2022-December-12, 00:56, said:

N.b. to brits a punt is a gamble on placing the final contract, nit a waiting bid.

I too was puzzled by the way 'punt' is used in this context of bridge discussion, but Google indicates a (US?) slang meaning of "to defer action or avoid taking responsibility" which is quite apt.
In UK terms, a jump by me to 6NT would have been a punt here.
The way I would propose to play 4th suit here is as an artificial DSI ('Do Something Intelligent').

[smerriman]

Ha, I've only seen the word used on BridgeWinners and didn't understand what it meant either; figured it must be a bridge thing

[pilowsky]

Ah - as in punt the ball (kick it before it hits the ground) - or kick the can down the road?

[pescetom]

pilowsky, on 2022-December-12, 22:48, said:

Ah - as in punt the ball (kick it before it hits the ground) - or kick the can down the road?

Exactly, although I don't know where the second meaning crept in.
The Rugby Union punt is to kick the ball before it hits the ground, an attempt to gain territory that inevitably consigns play to the opponents so speculative and best effort in nature. As I recall it, a perfect punt is one that bounces inside the play area and then goes out, as far away as possible. If it goes straight out the side not so good, and if it is too strong and straight then it is punished with a scrum on the spot. But we left these decisions up to the referee, not like bridge players do

[pilowsky]

In Australia the term is widely used.
A 'punter' is any people that gambles.
Of course, if it doesn't pay off you're considered to be a bit of 'drop-kick'.