[jillybean]

akwoo, on 2025-November-17, 19:33, said:

I think there is an elephant in the room that you're not acknowledging, perhaps not even noticing.

Before anything about this bid, you teach players to have some competence at playing in NT, and some tolerance for going down on unfortunate lies of the cards. Otherwise, you have players who are afraid to bid 1N after 1♣-1♥ on, say, xxx Axx Qx AKxxx, or even xxx Axx Qxx AKxx. Players who are afraid of playing 1N start making 2♣ rebids on those hands.

Fundamentally, playing in NT is harder than playing in a suit because, when playing in a suit, you can often get away with counting just trumps, whereas, when playing in NT, you don't know which suit to count (and don't have the mental capacity to count more than one). This may not be something you can overcome completely, but you might be able to convince players that it's better to do the right thing in the bidding while their play skills slowly catch up.

Once players are willing to play in 1N, you teach them that 2♣ promises 6, but sometimes every bid available to them breaks a promise and they have to somehow lie. These hands don't come up that often, so it's really not that much of a problem if they end up making the wrong lie on them. So sometimes they get one bad board for making a terribly understrength reverse into 2♦. Not a big deal, especially if their partner can't recognize reverses and sometimes passes them anyway.

Hmm, I'm not sure where you get that impression, I am specifically talking about hands unsuitable for a 1nt rebid

jillybean, on 2025-November-17, 07:45, said:

We know 2C denies 3or4 hearts, spades and the ability* to bid nt

How to become confident bidding and playing 1nt deserves its own thread

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

basically if you allow

#1 3 card raises of partner major
#2 1NT rebid with 5422
#3 1NT rebid with a singleton in partners suit

You may have covered all hand types, that are possible,
and that cannot introduce a new 4 card.

If this is the case, rebidding promises 6.

Now from the above list, only #2 is fairly standard, #1 and
#3 should be discussed and req. add. work on the rest of your
system. Which is doable.

Not sure i would want go there, when disallowing #1 and #3,
and rebidding a 5 card suit works similar well.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Huibertus]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-November-17, 08:28, said:

5♣4♦22 outside NT range what do you do ?

6 with one possible exception: You have agreed NOT to bid 1♦ - 1M - 2♣ with a weak 4♦/5♣ opening.

[Huibertus]

P_Marlowe, on 2025-November-17, 08:39, said:

Why?

What is wrong with opening your longest suit?


And you do the same with 5431? The single being hearts?

Why? What is wrong with opening your longest suit?

The amount of information your rebid shares. 1♣ 1M 2♣ "I have 5+♣" identifies 5 cards. 1♦ - 1M - 2♣ "I am 5♦+/4+♣ or 4+♦/5♣ Identifies 8 cards. It helps partner's bidding a lot more. Of course it has it's downside too with regards to not being sure this shows 5♦.

[Huibertus]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-November-17, 08:47, said:

This is very uncommon in the UK, more so in other parts of the world (or in a strong club setting obviously), the problem with this is that there is a danger of playing a 4-2 fit instead of 5-2

And how does rebidding a 5 card ♣ on a weak hand prevent a 5-2 fit (♣) when there is a potential 4-3 or 4-4 fit ♦ available on the same hand?

[DavidKok]

There are different styles here, but I am very happy to not be playing the style that the majority of the comments here are advocating. I certainly wouldn't share this thread with a beginner.

[Cyberyeti]

Huibertus, on 2025-November-18, 02:47, said:

And how does rebidding a 5 card ♣ on a weak hand prevent a 5-2 fit (♣) when there is a potential 4-3 or 4-4 fit ♦ available on the same hand?

It doesn't, but you won't be in a 4-2 fit.

[jillybean]

DavidKok, on 2025-November-18, 02:49, said:

There are different styles here, but I am very happy to not be playing the style that the majority of the comments here are advocating. I certainly wouldn't share this thread with a beginner.

Please elaborate

No one has mentioned the “forcing” short club openings.

[DavidKok]

I'm sorry, I was not thinking of a modified opening structure. Personally I recommend:

• Open your longest suit with an unbalanced or semibalanced hand. In particular, 4♦5♣ opens 1♣.
  
• Reserve the 1NT opening and rebid for balanced hands, but see the next point.
  
• Excercising judgement to treat a semibalanced or unbalanced hand as balanced (or to use some other shape distortion) is always allowed. However, this is the exception, not the rule, and the system needs a 'normal' way to bid these hand patterns.
  
• This means that a 2♣ rebid (on 1♣-1M) and a 2♦ rebid (on 1♦-1♠) can be a five card suit, even a weak one.

I dislike reserving the 1NT rebid (and opening!) as a more generic catchall, especially with shortage in partner's suit, for a few reasons:

• That approach only works some of the time, as opener needs to be within the strength range of a 1NT rebid for this to be a good candidate for the smallest lie. E.g. a 15- or 16-count 3=1=4=5 is still in trouble on 1♣-1♥.
  
• In my system, responder is in a great position to find the best partscore or game over a 1NT opening or rebid. If those bids may contain a singleton or two doubletons, especially in responder's long suit, hand evaluation, competitive decisions after (2-level in particular, but really any) interference and pass/correct decisions become much more difficult.
  
• The balanced hands are much more common, and I'm not willing up incur a loss frequently (by adapting my NT structure) to gain rarely (by staying lower on specific semibalanced and unbalanced hands).
  
• The 2m rebid on 5 cards only rarely costs. It is very uncommon for this rebid to give responder an actual problem, and if desired that frequency can be driven even lower with some gadgets. But even in simple standard I don't actually consider it to be a problem.
  
• Opening your long suit first (even 1♣) has ways to gain not just when partner bids our short suit, but also when the auction gets competitive, partner shows a balanced hand or partner bids one of our not-short suits. I think changing opening requirements over this is a case of the tail wagging the dog (plus it doesn't solve what to do with 4♥5m).

[bluenikki]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-November-18, 02:50, said:

It doesn't, but you won't be in a 4-2 fit.

But you might be in a 5-1 or 5-0.

[Cyberyeti]

bluenikki, on 2025-November-18, 06:23, said:

But you might be in a 5-1 or 5-0.

Unlikely, partner would have opened with 5-5 reds or 4-4/5 majors and had a 5 card multi available in my world, plus would have responded 1♠ with a bad 5-5M

[jillybean]

OK, after many years of distorting minor openings to avoid rebedding a 5 card club suit I am going to simplify and adopt "expect 6, could be 5"
As you say, low frequency and potential problems, and even less so playing weak nt

thanks all

I will see how many 44 diamond fits we miss (walsh)