[paulsim]

Hi folks,

What's standard? Invitational or GF?
And what is the best approach?
Should all them play the same way?

A.-

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B.-

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C.-

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Thanks all
Happy New Year

Kind Regards,
Paul_S

[mw64ahw]

Not sure what's standard (I suspect GI), but I play it both ways depending on the partner.

[DavidKok]

Oh hey, it's time for my favourite part of bidding theory again.


In standard these bids are invitational.

Best, in my opinion, is to play it as a slam try. This is possible because, when partner opens 1♦, you have two ways to go to 2♠: directly (1♦-2♠) and delayed (1♦-1♠; <something>-2♠). I prefer using one of these sequences as weak (4-8) and the other as invitational (9-11). Personally I prefer the weak jump, but some people swap them around. This frees up the jump to 3♠ on the second round for a stronger hand - invitational hands can rebid 2♠ in my system and stay lower on a misfit or opposite a minimum. This combines really well with my system requirements that the 1NT rebid never contains a singleton (permitting responder to jump to 4♠ with 6 cards and a non-slammish game force) and 3-card unbalanced raises (finding the 5-3 fits, whereas these agreements above cater to finding 6-2 fits).

Standard the rebids over all three are slightly different - the same meaning, but different hand types. Over the 1NT rebid opener is limited and has 2 or 3 cards in support (again, depending on partnership agreement). This means responder is in a great position to set the denomination or place the contract. Most people also play a gadget like XYNT/NMF/Checkback/2-Way Checkback over the 1NT rebid, so there is plenty of space to distinguish weak, invitational, game forcing and slam try hands even without my first round jump response agreement.
2♦ is limited - normally 11-14 with 6(+)♦ or around 11-bad 16 with 4♥5(+)♦. This is a wider range than the 1NT rebid (12-14) and places fewer constraints on shape (opener can still have 0-1 spades). In my system unbalanced minima raise on 3 cards, so this 2♦ contains at most two spades. You therefore need a way to investigate a 6-2 fit but sign off in 3NT when none is available, unlike the 1NT auction before. I prefer to do this via 3rd suit game forcing (2♥ here) as it's cheap and effective, opener can rebid 2♠ with a doubleton and the higher bids show short spades and clarify the hand type. Easy.
2♣ is wide range - normally 11-17 or so. Again my 3 card raise argument applies, but it might not for you. The odds of opener having spade length are also lower, as we already know of 9 cards in their hand¹ that are not spades. I would play the same continuations, and use 2♥ 4SGF to search for a fit if we don't want to set spades, but the collection of hands on which a trump-setting 3♠ jump is appropriate are again different from the previous two scenarios.


My key advice here is to cater your 1X-2Y jump responses (Y higher than X) to solve problems you might have if opener rebids 2-of-a-suit or 3-of-a-suit. If opener rebids at the 1-level, especially 1NT, life is a comparative breeze (though I still see people struggling with their NT ladder sometimes). It's the suited responses where you need clear agreements. My suggestion is weak jump responses, mandatory 3-card raises with unbalanced minima, and 3SGF and 4SGF to simplify strong auctions. This covers a lot of the problem hands with not that much artificiality.

¹I also bid this way with the dreaded 1=4=4=4 exactly, and some people also bid this way with x=y=4=5. Technically we therefore only know of 8 cards. However, for me this sequence almost always shows 5(+)♦4(+)♣, and I think it's closer to the truth to assume 9 cards as a given and pay up if this comes up opposite 1=4=4=4 (and even then we usually don't play the minor suit).