[sururi50]

Hi all,

Say; Prt opened w/ one level major than I have less than 6 HC points but have 7 or 8 cards minor.
What should I do? bid or not?

Ths in adv for responses...

[Cyberyeti]

I'm presuming you don't play weak jump shifts or you wouldn't be asking.

You either pass, or bid a slightly light 1NT and follow up by bidding your minor if you can

[sururi50]

 Cyberyeti, on 2018-August-24, 05:38, said:

I'm presuming you don't play weak jump shifts or you wouldn't be asking.

You either pass, or bid a slightly light 1NT and follow up by bidding your minor if you can

True I do not use WJS in response. I used to know WJS may be used only on overcall. I have observed on BBO that many bid it in response.
Just tried to understand if wjs -w/ less than 6 pts- is more preferable in those days..

[Tramticket]

 sururi50, on 2018-August-24, 07:29, said:

True I do not use WJS in response. I used to know WJS may be used only on overcall. I have observed on BBO that many bid it in response.
Just tried to understand if wjs -w/ less than 6 pts- is more preferable in those days..

A Weak Jump Shift response can be very useful. Imagine that your partner opens one heart and you hold ♠XX ♥X ♦QJT9XXX ♣XXX. You have a hand that is worth 5 tricks if played in diamonds, but absolutely worthless if played in any other strain. It would be great if you tell partner in one bid that you have this type of hand, with no support for partner's suit and unplayable anywhere else. It would be even better if you could pre-empt the opps a bit at the same time. Using the sequence 1♥-3♦ to show this hand pattern is very effective when it comes up.

But before you rush to change your convention card, consider whether you have better uses for the bid. If you play Strong Jump Shift responses at the moment, how will you now handle these hand types. Even if you don't like strong Jump Shifts, you may prefer to use the bid for Bergen Raises, Fit Jumps or Mini-splinters.

I do use WJS responses with one partner - but mainly because she is a big fan. In my experience, they can be reasonably effective but don't come up as often as you might expect.

[mikeh]

whether you respond to 1M with a weak hand and a long minor depends on what the hand looks like, and on what your agreements are.

Firstly, the requirement that one have at least 6 hcp in order to respond to an opening bid is outdated. Certainly there are very, very few experts who play that way.

It is probably fair to say that few good players would pass a 5 count that contained an Ace or a King.

That's a bit of a quibble.

Perhaps more importantly, look at your suit and hand. I doubt many would respond to 1S with, say, xx xx Jxxxxxx xx no matter what their agreement. The hand is too weak and the suit is too weak even if playing weak jumpshifts.

Playing weak jump shifts, one normally has a range of hcp for the call. Back when I would sometimes play WJS we used a range of 3-6 hcp (and, yes, the high end included hands that we would otherwise have responded by bidding 1N).

Personally, I think that WJS are a waste of time. They come up rarely and often lead to mixed or bad results when they do. Not always...sometimes they let you steal the board or otherwise work out well, and of course sometimes opponents misjudge the auction. That latter point means that they work better against weak opponents than they do against strong players.

More importantly, in my partnerships we have other uses for the jumpshift: uses that in our experience arise more often and with better upsides and fewer downsides.

Another factor is whether you play that a 1N response to 1M is forcing, semi-forcing, or non-forcing. Semi-forcing is an approach that is relatively new (altho it has been common for a passed hand response for many years, it is relatively new as a response by an unpassed hand and requires altering some sequences compared to playing it forcing, so it should not be adopted without research and thought), and not played, in my experience, by many players below the advanced or expert level.

If 1N is forcing, then it is relatively easy to bid 1N with a weak hand and a long minor and then one passes opener's rebid (if one is in a playable spot) or introduces one's suit next time.

So 1S 1N 2S 3C is usually played as weak, and opener is expected to pass unless he has an unusual hand (say, a maximum with a club fit).

The problem with this is when one has a hand just a little too weak to have responded 2C, but much stronger than a 'weak' hand. One still has to bid 1N then 3C, so in this sequence 'weak' is very wide range.

No methods are perfect. Most expert players simply accept that auctions such as 1M 1N 2x 3y (where 3y is not a jump) are wide-range. Problems do arise and sub-optimal results occur, but this is a price that these players are willing to accept in exchange for being able to use 1M 3y for something else.

If 1N is played as non-forcing, then nothing really changes except that one may now be playing in 1N!

Sorry for the long answer, but I hope this helps. The biggest take-ways should include, I hope, that one cannot come up with a way to deal with one sort of hand without compromising or altering how one deals with other types of hand. Bidding theory does not permit the efficient bidding of all types of hands, and efforts to change methods every time a problem hand comes up will lead to chaos and disaster.

Another is that one has to choose when to accept sub-optimal results as inevitable and to recognize that this can be a reasonable cost to pay in exchange for the gains that one gets on other, hopefully more important, hands.

Every time you think about adopting a way to bid certain hands, ask what you previously used that sequence for, and ask how, if you now use the sequence to fix the current problem, you are intending to deal with the former problem...and watch the likely ripple effect as you then look at what that means elsewhere in the system. A coherent method is intricately inter-related....one of the changes you will notice as your skill and knowledge level increases, is the extent to which this is true.

[Winstonm]

As Shakespeare might have said, To bid or not to bid, that is the question. To simplify an answer, without an agreed method to bid weaker-than-normal hands, pass is best in the long run. The problem, as MikeH alluded to above, is to define what constitutes a "weaker-than-normal" hand. If partner opens 1S, and I hold x, xx, KJxxxxxx, xx should I bid?

I think one quite important point that has yet to be discussed is that weak hands almost always play better if their long suit is trumps. For example, if the above hand is played in NT, and my partner has singleton A of diamonds, my hand is worthless; yet, in a diamond contract it is valuable.

The issue about whether or not to bid is more about your ability system-wise to reach a contract in your weak suit, IMO.

[sururi50]

Thanks a lot folks...

[GrahamJson]

One fairly common treatment has not been mentioned. This to play a jump shift of three of a minor as invitational, showing a good six card suit and about a 10 count. This is especially useful if playing 2/1 where a 1NT response has to cover a very wide range. It enables 1NT followed by a minor to be clearly weak.

On the subject of weak jump shifts most players on BBO seem to play them in the majors but without realizing their implications for the system structure as a whole. If WJSs are played it enables a simple rebid (e.g. 1D 1S - 2C - 2S) to be constructive, even invitational. As a consequence jump rebid (1D - 1S - 2C - 3S) can be played as forcing. This is the method used in the “Bridge Magazine Standard” system, which is claimed to be based on current expert best practice.

[PhilG007]

Respond 1NT This shows 6-9 hcps and denies a major suit. NEVER pass with 6 pts. You could easily miss
a game if partner opened on 19 and is testing the water

[msjennifer]

 sururi50, on 2018-August-24, 05:33, said:

Hi all,

Say; Prt opened w/ one level major than I have less than 6 HC points but have 7 or 8 cards minor.
What should I do? bid or not?

Ths in adv for responses...

The HCP point count is a very CRUDE method.The potential of a hand NEVER depends on the HCP count but upon where they are located distributed or concentrated.Whether one has support for openers suit or not.e.g with 5 points and pard opens 1S and one holds Qxxx,-Kxx-xxxx-xx.0ne supports by bidding 2S. Lets change the hand and make it Jx-Jxx-Qxxx-Jxxx and pard is a stranger,then one will PASS .If the 5 points are say,VOID-KQ10987654-xx-xx the same KQ i.e. 5 HCP suddenly become a Samson.There are quite a few books written on this topic which one can obtain and improve.One can not explain it with full justice in a column like this.