[bilalz]

We play Acol (opening and bidding 4 card suits up the line). We have 1c-2c and 1d-2d as game forcing bids (they deny 4 card majors). For the sake of completion, we use criss-cross (1c-2d and 1d-3c) for unbalanced invitational hands and 1m-2nt for balanced invitational hands.

What I hoping someone can help us with is some sort of system of continuations to explore our hands further (mostly to reach slams in minors but also avoid the odd bad 3nt spot) as we have plenty of space left. Kaplan bidding (showing major suit stoppers) seems primitive and unnecessary as we have already shown game forcing values, maybe someone has some relay system to show distributional hands. You can assume IMPs scoring if that makes a difference. We will play this both at IMPs and MPs but team matches are more important as we all know. Many thanks in advance.

[haka9]

I played some years ago 1m-2m game forcing. New suit at two level was natural four cards, aiming to 3 NT or 4 M with 4-3. 1m-2m-3m was 16+. After this new suit at three level was minimum and denied anything in suit. 1m-2m-3m-4m was 15+ with slam interest. 1m-2m-3m-new suit at four level was short. 1m-2m-2NT denied 4 card major and 16+. After 2 NT new suit showed something for NT bidding suits from below.

Opener's jump to three level in new suit was AK or KQJ in suit and slam invitation. Opener's jump to four level was void.

Not perfect, but we played this system many years with varying success.

[bilalz]

haka9, on 2018-November-19, 02:07, said:

I played some years ago 1m-2m game forcing. New suit at two level was natural four cards, aiming to 3 NT or 4 M with 4-3. 1m-2m-3m was 16+. After this new suit at three level was minimum and denied anything in suit. 1m-2m-3m-4m was 15+ with slam interest. 1m-2m-3m-new suit at four level was short. 1m-2m-2NT denied 4 card major and 16+. After 2 NT new suit showed something for NT bidding suits from below.

Opener's jump to three level in new suit was AK or KQJ in suit and slam invitation. Opener's jump to four level was void.

Not perfect, but we played this system many years with varying success.

Thanks Haka. Hopefully I get some more replies as well and then I can decide but yours is pretty decent already I must say.

[akwoo]

1) Some people play that a new suit (after 1m-2m) shows shortness (singleton or void). I generally don't like it, but it's an option to consider.

2) Assuming you're playing 12-14 1N openings, I think 15-16 balanced should bid 3N, and 17+ balanced should bid 2N. It's up to you how to distribute the single-suited unbalanced hands in 3m, 2N, and 3N. This may depend a lot on whether you are optimizing your system for matchpoints or IMPs, because at matchpoints, bypassing 3N for 5m is generally quite bad, but it's not such a big deal at IMPs.

[ggwhiz]

We play the stoppers up the line bit but although not 100% defined have discussed how to turn them in to cue bids/slam tries. ie.

1m - 2m
2M - 2nt
new suit by opener cancels the stopper thing, slam try demands a return cue or I would have bid 3nt already

1m - 2m
2M - new suit may still be concerned about the 4th suit but will remove 3nt revealing a slam try/cue bid. If responder bids 2nt opener can cue below 3nt with any decent minimum.

Unless 4nt is a jump, it's a suggestion to play in this style