[jillybean]

I failed here

---

[smerriman]

Double?! I can't recover from the first round mistake now.

[jillybean]

Massive failure, thinking my hand is too good for 2H

Let's say we were playing NFB's

[mw64ahw]

4♠ showing 2 keycards works for me. Now let's see if East has a ♠ control by bidding 4N.

[mikeh]

jillybean, on 2024-December-20, 14:28, said:

Massive failure, thinking my hand is too good for 2H

Let's say we were playing NFB's

How on earth can a hand be too good for 2H? It’s literally impossible to have a hand ‘too powerful’ for 2H, which is 100% forcing on partner, so long as fourth seat passes.

The only exception, which applies to nobody these days, is if your had game in your own hand and was playing with a frequent psycher…..but even then (and I speak from experience) you just bid 2H and take your poison if he has psyched and 2H is passed out.

Just a refresher

You double 1S with any hand of sufficient strength to want to compete and containing 4 hearts. No upper limit.

You may have 5+ hearts but in that case you’re too weak for a 2H bid over 1S…different players will have different thresholds but xx AJ10xxx xx Ax would be a minimum for me…I used to have a higher threshold but experience suggests bidding rather than doubling.

2H is 5+ in length and ranges from your threshold minimum up to every missing high card points….certainly a 20 vpcount is possible.

As for NFB….they enjoyed a short-lived bit of pseudo-popularity some decades ago but one rarely encounters them these days…I think one pair played them either in the WC in BA or the NABC a couple of weeks back. My advice (and I say this as someone who played them briefly) is to run away from them as fast as possible. There’s a good reason so few experts use them.

[awm]

Negative free bids seem very standard in Poland and I’ve seen many experts play them. They don’t seem like a good method to me either though.

Here I think you must make some move towards slam. Exactly what may depend on agreements but I think 5♦ is the most unambiguous if you don’t have a solid partnership.

[jillybean]

Here's the full deal

---

[pilowsky]

awm, on 2024-December-20, 17:39, said:

Negative free bids seem very standard in Poland and ....

Discussed in detail a few years back: https://www.bridgeba...tive-free-bids/

[Zelandakh]

awm, on 2024-December-20, 17:39, said:

Negative free bids seem very standard in Poland and I’ve seen many experts play them.

Also very popular in Germany, as pointed out by Rainer in the thread pilowsky linked to. Both NFBs and forcing have lost a huge amount of ground at expert level due to the increasing use of transfers in competitive auctions. I think this is more where the NFB pairs went than converting back to "standard".

[pescetom]

 Zelandakh, on 2024-December-21, 07:51, said:

Also very popular in Germany, as pointed out by Rainer in the thread pilowsky linked to. Both NFBs and forcing have lost a huge amount of ground at expert level due to the increasing use of transfers in competitive auctions. I think this is more where the NFB pairs went than converting back to "standard".

NFBs were very popular in Italy until quite recently, but have now almost disappeared (newer players may not even know they exist). At club level, most converted to "standard" that everyone else was now playing, at higher levels transfers are more common.

[pescetom]

 awm, on 2024-December-20, 17:39, said:

Here I think you must make some move towards slam. Exactly what may depend on agreements but I think 5♦ is the most unambiguous if you don’t have a solid partnership.

If you had a solid partnership before this board, you no longer have one now
But I agree that 5♦ is the best chance of surviving the post mortem relatively unscathed. If partner can find 5♠ then bid the slam and look confident. If not, then pass 5♥ in tempo.

[Zelandakh]

We are focussed here on West's bidding but perhaps we can also cast a glance across the table. Assuming the double is negative rather than takeout, what should 3♦ and 4♦ (instead of 3♥) calls mean here?