[Wackojack]

---

I recall recently a thread that discusssed what system should a beginner start on. 2 over 1 was a popular suggestion because of its simplicity.

I picked up Zel as a partner yesterday and we agreed 2 over 1 even though I guess we had better knowledge of Acol than 2/1. With my turn to bid after partner's reverse into 2♠ I was not sure of the the normal continuations. I decided that 2N was a natural invite and 3♣ would be weak. I bid 2N, partner bid 3♣. Although it was obvious to me that he took 2N as a Lebensohl type bid, to be consistent with my 2N underbid I passed. OK my bidding was consistent with partner having only about 15HCP, which with my knowledge of 2/1 is far too few to be realistic. Stupid me

Checking BBO Adv I see that 2N is used as Ingberman transfer to 3♣ and so a direct 3♣is used as a natural game force. (So apologies to Zel) However, although I can see the advantage of the use of 2N Ingberman in the sequence 1♦-1♠-2♥-2N where 3 suits have been bid naturally and responder needs to sign off in openers minor. The sequence 1♥-1N-2♠is different in that only 2 suits have been bid. Is not the situation here more analagous to a Flannery 2♦opening bid showing 5+♥and 4♠? So 1♥-1N-2♠ = Strong Flannery by opener and nebulous 6-12 by responder. In this case a response of 2N would an artificial asking bid and the the strongest available and bids of a minor suit would be weaker inviting 3NT.

Comments on this? And how do teachers of beginners handle this?

Incidentally in Acol it is interesting. 1♥-2♣-2♠(GF)-3N (nat no extras) -pass.

[helene_t]

We once had a discussion about Flannery at a Dutch bridge forum. Onno Eskes was strongly against. I reminded him that if he and Marion Michielsen had had good agreements about 4♠5♥ hand, he wouldn't have won the IMP magazine's macho behaviour award. Which he got for opening 1NT with a hand like Zel's because he didn't have good agreements with Marion about how to continue after a 2♠ reverse.

So it is apparently not something that goes without saying whether 2NT is natural or Lebensohl. I recall Fred once said it should be natural.

TBH I think you can just bid 3NT after 2♠. Otherwise, you can bid it after 3♣. But yes, I wasn't one of those who advocated 2/1 for beginners. I don't think it is easy.

[mgoetze]

There are so many different bridge hands, I don't think it's reasonable to expect a beginner to be able to bid all of them. Yeah every once in a while a beginner will pop up here in the forum and ask what he was meant to do with his 23 HCP 4441 hand with a stiff K. Everyone agrees on the answer (treat it as balanced), that doesn't mean you need to start including this in a beginner's course.

[awm]

There are a lot of differences between this 2♠ bid and Flannery: you won't have a good fit for either suit here (whereas that's certainly possible opposite Flannery) and you have no way to play in either 2M contract (because 2♠ is forcing and you are already past 2♥). This suggests playing pretty different continuations.

It seems pretty unlikely that you want to play in exactly 3m here; you need a fairly unusual hand (pretty long suit, very weak, might've bid a WJS if you play those) and even then you could easily catch partner with extreme shortness and go down. Seems to make sense to play 2NT as NF in this case, and other calls forcing. In fact you could probably use 3M as artificial (since you won't have four spades and three hearts is unlikely) so maybe 3m is NF natural and 3M is GF with the respective minor? But that could get complicated and easy to forget.

[Jinksy]

I'm a fan of playing transfer responses from (at least) 2N upwards after a reverse. Surely not optimal, but relatively simple, and I think a big gain over natural, and IMO a moderate one over Lebensohl.

[barmar]

Wackojack, on 2014-December-13, 05:17, said:

Comments on this? And how do teachers of beginners handle this?

I suspect that beginners aren't taught any kind of lebensohl. They probably just bid naturally after reverses.

My suspicion is that beginner classes don't even go into detail about reverses at all. I've encountered many novices who made reverse bids and had no idea that they were supposed to have big hands for it.

[wank]

Wackojack, on 2014-December-13, 05:17, said:

Incidentally in Acol it is interesting. 1♥-2♣-2♠(GF)-3N (nat no extras) -pass.

3nt does show extras, be it in acol, 2/1 or snap. there's no such thing as fast arrival in no-trumps.

[fourdad]

Wackojack, on 2014-December-13, 05:17, said:

---

I recall recently a thread that discusssed what system should a beginner start on. 2 over 1 was a popular suggestion because of its simplicity.

I picked up Zel as a partner yesterday and we agreed 2 over 1 even though I guess we had better knowledge of Acol than 2/1. With my turn to bid after partner's reverse into 2♠ I was not sure of the the normal continuations. I decided that 2N was a natural invite and 3♣ would be weak. I bid 2N, partner bid 3♣. Although it was obvious to me that he took 2N as a Lebensohl type bid, to be consistent with my 2N underbid I passed. OK my bidding was consistent with partner having only about 15HCP, which with my knowledge of 2/1 is far too few to be realistic. Stupid me

Checking BBO Adv I see that 2N is used as Ingberman transfer to 3♣ and so a direct 3♣is used as a natural game force. (So apologies to Zel) However, although I can see the advantage of the use of 2N Ingberman in the sequence 1♦-1♠-2♥-2N where 3 suits have been bid naturally and responder needs to sign off in openers minor. The sequence 1♥-1N-2♠is different in that only 2 suits have been bid. Is not the situation here more analagous to a Flannery 2♦opening bid showing 5+♥and 4♠? So 1♥-1N-2♠ = Strong Flannery by opener and nebulous 6-12 by responder. In this case a response of 2N would an artificial asking bid and the the strongest available and bids of a minor suit would be weaker inviting 3NT.

Comments on this? And how do teachers of beginners handle this?

Incidentally in Acol it is interesting. 1♥-2♣-2♠(GF)-3N (nat no extras) -pass.

In all honesty, the above discussion would turn a beginners brain to MUSH!!
That SAYC is not even mentioned as the beginners tool to learn seems odd.
The SAYC bidding here is short sweet and direct to the best contract.......

1S-2C-3NT....DONE!!

The responders 9HCP and 6+ card suit are as good as the 10HCP that 2C tells partner. Opener adds 10 to his holding looks at his tenace, adds to 25+ and bids the game. As 2C denies 4 spades, what is the point of the reverse?

Beginners need first and foremost a basic understanding of fundamentals taught directly and simply.

Responder, holding 16+ can investigate slam as the 3NT bid is descriptive and NOT necessarily a shut off.

Beginners cannot and should not be expected to know either the conventions or how to handle them in the machinations above.

[gordontd]

fourdad, on 2014-December-14, 07:09, said:

Responder, holding 16+ can investigate slam as the 3NT bid is descriptive and NOT necessarily a shut off.

Sure, it's descriptive. It just doesn't describe this hand.

[1eyedjack]

fourdad, on 2014-December-14, 07:09, said:

In all honesty, the above discussion would turn a beginners brain to MUSH!!
That SAYC is not even mentioned as the beginners tool to learn seems odd.
The SAYC bidding here is short sweet and direct to the best contract.......

1S-2C-3NT....DONE!!

The responders 9HCP and 6+ card suit are as good as the 10HCP that 2C tells partner. Opener adds 10 to his holding looks at his tenace, adds to 25+ and bids the game. As 2C denies 4 spades, what is the point of the reverse?

Beginners need first and foremost a basic understanding of fundamentals taught directly and simply.

Responder, holding 16+ can investigate slam as the 3NT bid is descriptive and NOT necessarily a shut off.

Beginners cannot and should not be expected to know either the conventions or how to handle them in the machinations above.

Although this thread is not in the beginners forum, if any beginners happen to be reading this thread, may I point out that ...
1) In the alternate thread referred to, SAYC very definitely featured as a possible alternative for a beginner to learn.
2) In SAYC you would open the South hand 1H, not 1S
3) In neither SAYC nor in 2/1 does a 2C response to 1H deny a 4 card Spade suit, so leaping to 3NT when opener holds 4S does not make a lot of sense

In one aspect I agree with this post. Beginners need first and foremost a basic understanding of fundamentals taught directly and simply. And the first step to that is not paying heed to the post to which this is a response.

[steve2005]

if u consider your hand worth a 2/1 in ACOL I submit you should force after a reverse and bid 3♣. you have ♦ stopper so 3N will be ok if opener doesn't have extra length in the majors and is short in ♣

[wank]

edit: nevermind. i realised what you meant eventually.

[adamw]

Wackojack why do you think it's important to reach 3NT on this deal? You have enough that it will have play but only six winners on top and a fair bit of work to do. Even with clubs 3-3 and the SK onside you could easily lose two hearts, two clubs, and a spade. NV I see no need to push.

As for the best methods here, my take is that any agreement at all will put a pair ahead of the field. This is a good sequence to discuss with your favorite partners.

[steve2005]

adamw, on 2014-December-15, 01:06, said:

Wackojack why do you think it's important to reach 3NT on this deal? You have enough that it will have play but only six winners on top and a fair bit of work to do. Even with clubs 3-3 and the SK onside you could easily lose two hearts, two clubs, and a spade. NV I see no need to push.

As for the best methods here, my take is that any agreement at all will put a pair ahead of the field. This is a good sequence to discuss with your favorite partners.

You have 27 hcp between you, pretty hard to stay out of game even if it's not great. But I agree this sequence is not well discussed by many partnerships.

[PhilKing]

I mentioned in another thread a short while back that it is superior to play 2NT as a game force and a direct 3m as weak in this sequence. There are a couple of reasons, but look what happens here - opener patterns out with 3♦ and now we can just insist on playing in 4♠, which looks like a great spot to me.

[Zelandakh]

It was a bit of a shock to see my name come up in the BBO News - maybe such threads should be excluded from the automatic thread selection algorithm? In any case, I assume Lebensohl because I was with Jack and would have assumed natural with (almost) anyone else in the club. My own preference for this sort of spot is for transfers and I think this auction is perfect for them. Obviously that would be silly with a pick-up though.

Phil, is your 2NT GF idea designed for 2/1, Acol/SAYC or both? It seems to me that it probably offers more in 2/1 where the question of slam comes into the frame but these things are difficult to judge without having tried them out.

[PhilKing]

Zelandakh, on 2015-January-04, 03:52, said:

Phil, is your 2NT GF idea designed for 2/1, Acol/SAYC or both? It seems to me that it probably offers more in 2/1 where the question of slam comes into the frame but these things are difficult to judge without having tried them out.

I think it's better for partscore, game and slam! The advantage would be tiny playing Acol, where the 1NT response has the narrowest range. But as far as I can see there are no downsides when compared to Lebensohl. In Acol, 2NT nat NF might well be best.

[Wackojack]

Thanks for all the replies. What I get from this is:

1. The 2/1 system is just as frought with wrinkles as any other system so it is a moot point that it is best to teach 2/1 to absolute beginners. As was said in the other thread- learn the system that most people play in your particular area.

2. Experienced partnerships that have ambition need have discussions to sort out what 2N would mean in the sequence 1♥-1N-2♠-2N.

3. Playing 2/1 1♥-1N-2♠-3N-pass stands out as a practical natural bidding sequence for the 2 hands in question.

[Zelandakh]

PhilKing, on 2015-January-04, 05:08, said:

But as far as I can see there are no downsides when compared to Lebensohl.

Do you also think there is no downside in comparison with transfers? And if so is that only on this sequence or also for other reverse auctions?