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responding with five card major

#1 User is offline   jackmiller 

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Posted 2020-November-24, 06:13

Partner opens one club. I have five hearts and ten points, so I bid one heart. Partner bids two clubs. I have two small clubs, three spades and three diamonds. Now what? Does he have six clubs? Can I rebid hearts with five? If he had rebid 1 NT I could have bid cheaper minor to show my five hearts, but how do I show it now? This is a good reason to say his club rebid has to be mean he has six, in which case I can pass, but that doesn't seem so great either. Thanks!
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#2 User is offline   gordontd 

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Posted 2020-November-24, 07:58

It depends how strong your hand is. If weak, you can pass 2C. You don't want to rebid your hearts since you might be removing a 6-2 fit to a 5-1 or 5-0. If you have an invitational hand you can either bid 2NT or bid a new suit, probably 2D.
Gordon Rainsford
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#3 User is offline   Stephen Tu 

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Posted 2020-November-24, 09:03

View Postjackmiller, on 2020-November-24, 06:13, said:

Partner opens one club. I have five hearts and ten points, so I bid one heart. Partner bids two clubs. I have two small clubs, three spades and three diamonds. Now what? Does he have six clubs? Can I rebid hearts with five? If he had rebid 1 NT I could have bid cheaper minor to show my five hearts, but how do I show it now? This is a good reason to say his club rebid has to be mean he has six, in which case I can pass, but that doesn't seem so great either. Thanks!


Partner should have 6 clubs the vast majority of the time. It's a common beginner mistake to rebid clubs on (233)5 balanced shape which is bad; with this shape should rebid some number of NT (or opened NT to begin with if in range). With your 10 points 3532 you probably shouldn't pass this (maybe pass some sketchier 10s with stray jacks), as game might be possible; you would bid 2nt or 3c depending on honor distribution. You would pass with < 10.

The only possible exception should be if partner has 3=1=4=5 shape, depending on style. There are a lot of possible strategies with this shape (and less than reverse strength), all of which have strengths and weaknesses. Some will open 1c and rebid 2c. This allows 1nt rebid to guarantee 2 hearts, so you can rebid 2H on 5 cds freely and not worry about 5-1 fits, and frequently improve the contract. But then partner will often leave you in 2c (since might have 6/7) and that may be 5-1 or even 5-0 fit. Some open 1c and rebid 1nt, but then 2H rebid on 5 is more dangerous. Finally some people, particularly with weaker club suits and good diamonds, open 1d and rebid 2c. But this obfuscates minor suit length, and can lead to 2d in 4-2 fits when clubs were better.

After 1m-1H-1nt, you can rebid 2H on 5 to signoff. You typically only rebid a minor with invitational+ values, and playing some sort of convention. Which minor you bid depends on which convention you are playing. It's never called "cheaper minor", which would imply always 2c; this is just called "checkback stayman". "New minor", or the minor partner didn't open, is probably the most common first taught to beginners in America, and is what the BBO bots play. But most popular among advanced/experts these days are "two-way puppet checkback" and "XYNT" variants, where both 2c and 2d are used artificially over 1nt, with 2d being used on GF hands, and 2c being used on mostly invitational hands (and 2 diamond signoffs, and possibly club signoffs depending on agreements).

After 1c-1h-2c, now you only try to show 5 hearts if you have invitational+ values, you can't afford to rebid 2H on 5 since partner might not have any. Occasionally you are like 3541, pass 2c and find partner was 3316 or something and hearts were better. Oh well, you can't get them all right; more often 2H will get you somewhere worse, a 5-1 or 5-0 heart fit when you had a 6-1 or 6-2 club fit. Bidding 1c-1h-2c-2h is supposed to be 6+ hearts.

Often with an invite only (rather than GF), you can't show 5 hearts right away, your sensible rebid is 2nt or 3c despite holding 5 card hearts. Partner should bid 3H with 3 cd hearts if accepting the invite along the way, but otherwise you will miss a possible 5-3 fit. You *might* be able to bid 2d with some inv only hand and 5 cd hearts, but this depends on agreements, there are some that play this sequence as game forcing rather than only one round forcing.
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#4 User is offline   akwoo 

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Posted 2020-November-24, 18:37

As you can see, you've found a problem in standard natural bidding.

This problem was solved 50+ years ago, originally by improvisation, and then soon by explicit agreement. Almost all non-beginners play 2 in this situation as an artificial bid, forcing for one round (though sometimes it's played as forcing to game), saying nothing about diamonds, but promising at least roughly 10 points.

Even if you haven't agreed this with your partner, it's usually (but not always) a pretty harmless lie since it's a forcing bid.

Opener now bids 2 with 3 hearts and a minimum, 3 with 3 hearts and more than a minimum, and something else descriptive with less than 3 hearts.
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#5 User is offline   Zelandakh 

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Posted 2020-December-20, 06:12

View Postjackmiller, on 2020-November-24, 06:13, said:

Partner opens one club. I have five hearts and ten points, so I bid one heart. Partner bids two clubs. I have two small clubs, three spades and three diamonds. Now what?

With a weak hand you now pass. With an invite you bid 2NT. With a GF hand you do best to manufacture a forcing rebid to get partner to describe their hand further.

View Postjackmiller, on 2020-November-24, 06:13, said:

Does he have six clubs?

Partner has either 6+ clubs or 5 clubs and 4 diamonds.

View Postjackmiller, on 2020-November-24, 06:13, said:

Can I rebid hearts with five?

The rule with a weak hand on such auctions is that you should only rebid your suit with a hand playable opposite a singleton and reason to believe it will improve the result. In practice this means you should only rebid hearts with a 6+ card suit.

View Postjackmiller, on 2020-November-24, 06:13, said:

If he had rebid 1 NT I could have bid cheaper minor to show my five hearts, but how do I show it now? This is a good reason to say his club rebid has to be mean he has six, in which case I can pass, but that doesn't seem so great either. Thanks!

It is a feature of natural bidding that you often do not show a 5 card suit directly but rather you allow partner to show 3 card support. The invitational case is a good example of this; after 2NT it is incumbent on Opener to show 3 card heart support on the way to 3NT if accepting the invite. It does mean playing 2NT rather than the superior 3 when Opener is not accepting but the only real way of avoiding such a seam is to move over to a conventional approach as outlined by previous posters.
(-: Zel :-)

Happy New Year everyone!
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#6 User is offline   morecharac 

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Posted 2020-December-21, 09:47

View Postjackmiller, on 2020-November-24, 06:13, said:

Partner opens one club. I have five hearts and ten points, so I bid one heart. Partner bids two clubs. I have two small clubs, three spades and three diamonds. Now what? Does he have six clubs? Can I rebid hearts with five? If he had rebid 1 NT I could have bid cheaper minor to show my five hearts, but how do I show it now? This is a good reason to say his club rebid has to be mean he has six, in which case I can pass, but that doesn't seem so great either. Thanks!

Hands like this make me glad we avoid that six-to-repeat maxim. So many workarounds required to cover its shortcomings. For us, repeating a minor opener promises five, any other repeat of an unsupported suit promises one more than the last time we bid it.

Let's see, by logic chain:
1) 12+10 = 22 HCP, so probably safe to the three level with anything resembling a fit or a long suit. I'd assume 12-14 for opener because opening light with minors and short majors serves only to make it easier for opponents to describe their hands via overcall.

2) Opener lacks four spades and has some reason to avoid 1NT, so assume a void or singleton somewhere, odds being it's in your suit. Even allowing for two-card support, at best (for you) opener has 3=2=3=5, but that should have been safe enough for 1NT. Partner won't have five diamonds unless he has six clubs, so clubs are always your best fit. Some people think of 4-4 as superior to 5-3 but 5-2 is always better than 4-3 for drawing trump, even if you have to take the foie gras approach.

3) Where are your HCP? Concentrated in hearts or spread out? Any running club holding by opener probably means almost nothing outside the clubs. Do you gamble and rebid your hearts, hoping for two-card support or a pull to 2NT without it? At IMPs I'd expect 2 from a competent pair, 2NT from a pair averse to the minors because they follow maxims. At matchpoints I'd expect a higher proportion of 2NT with stronger competition because of relative risk vs. reward.

Personally, I'd want to be in 2 regardless because good hearts would run after drawing trump, bad hearts could be ruffed by the longer trump holding, and a heart void by opener means you're in the best seats for the horror show to come. I might miss 2 sometimes (lightning in a bottle) and 2NT might make (~50%, give or take, depending on side suits) but some of our best results come from a willingness to play safe minor partials, which are much easier to find with a willingness to rebid five-card suits. Success is relative; for us 60% is an outstanding club game. But oh, that feeling from making 3 when 1NT fails or finding 6 when everybody else stops in 3NT because they disdain the minors...

It really comes down to how willing you are to accept the occasional bad result from not following conventional wisdom.
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