[dake50]

'helene_t'
I am surprised that everyone say it is forcing. I would assume nonforcing but mildly constructive. Maybe people who are used to strong nt assume that the defense against weak nt is primarily constructive but that should in my opinion not be the case, at least not at mp.
Many play a defense against 1NT that allows them to distinguish two-suited from 1-suited hands. If 2♠ promises a 1-suited hand there is of course no need to bid with a non-constructive hand. But our overcalls are wide ranging and responder will more often have an invitational hand than a gf hand.

*** Getting to 3C is such a small/rare target.
That is why 3C forcing > 3C club constructive > 3C clubs weak.
Can 2S be bid when 2S is unplayable?
So must your bidding have a rescue of 2S?
A suggestion to play 3C on this "little" (no game) hand?
Seems great investment of bidding into that "little" hand - misspent investment, I say.

[benlessard]

Can 2S be bid on a 5 card suit ? if yes than you need a way to bid 3C forward going but not forcing.

If 2S always promise 6 than I guess 3C should be forcing.

[Cyberyeti]

benlessard, on 2014-March-21, 16:11, said:

Can 2S be bid on a 5 card suit ? if yes than you need a way to bid 3C forward going but not forcing.

If 2S always promise 6 than I guess 3C should be forcing.

2♠ in principle shows 6, but just might be 5 good spades and a bad 4 card minor at MPs.

[Jinksy]

With most pickup partners, I suggest a simple maxim at the start of the session (nicked from someone I used to play with): 'If in doubt, it's forcing.'

[Cyberyeti]

Jinksy, on 2014-March-22, 06:01, said:

With most pickup partners, I suggest a simple maxim at the start of the session (nicked from someone I used to play with): 'If in doubt, it's forcing.'

This is my normal approach, not however my partner's

[jogs]

helene_t, on 2014-March-19, 15:41, said:

I am surprised that everyone say it is forcing. I would assume nonforcing but mildly constructive. Maybe people who are used to strong nt assume that the defense against weak nt is primarily constructive but that should in my opinion not be the case, at least not at mp.

For Americans all undiscussed ambiguous auctions are forcing. For acol players all undiscussed ambiguous auctions are non forcing.

[bluecalm]

I would assume forcing for everybody I play with. I don't have a view about what is better (forcing or constructive NF), intuitively forcing is more frequent and more useful though.

[Cascade]

bluecalm, on 2014-March-22, 22:22, said:

I would assume forcing for everybody I play with. I don't have a view about what is better (forcing or constructive NF), intuitively forcing is more frequent and more useful though.

I can't believe forcing is more frequent. One opponent has shown about a third of the deck. Depending on style partner has shown a similar strength. It doesn't make sense that we will more frequently have almost all of the remaining strength to justify a force. To me intuitively it is much more likely that the outstanding strength is divided between the two other hands.

[aguahombre]

Cascade, on 2014-March-23, 00:49, said:

I can't believe forcing is more frequent. One opponent has shown about a third of the deck. Depending on style partner has shown a similar strength. It doesn't make sense that we will more frequently have almost all of the remaining strength to justify a force. To me intuitively it is much more likely that the outstanding strength is divided between the two other hands.

We will not more frequently have almost all of the remaining strength to justify a force. However, I don't think that is the point. We are bidding 3 Clubs, and need to consider only those hands which want to bid 3 Clubs after partner has overcalled 2S. A whole lot of hands with club length should not be bidding anything at all...trying to correct the strain at a higher level opposite probable shortness in the new suit. It is more frequent that when we do bid 3C we want it to be forcing.

[whereagles]

Standard meta-rules go in the direction "new suit at the 3 level by unlimited hand is game forcing".

So there.

[helene_t]

aguahombre, on 2014-March-23, 01:58, said:

A whole lot of hands with club length should not be bidding anything at all...trying to correct the strain at a higher level opposite probable shortness in the new suit. It is more frequent that when we do bid 3C we want it to be forcing.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that 3♣ should be to play.

But when my partner makes an overcall I take her for about 8-15 points. With 16 points I would like to force but those hands are rare and many of them can just bid 3NT.

11-14 points with six clubs is probably more frequent, and if 3♣ is forcing, with those hand I would just have to pass or blast.

[Cyberyeti]

helene_t, on 2014-March-23, 05:44, said:

I don't think anybody is suggesting that 3♣ should be to play.

But when my partner makes an overcall I take her for about 8-15 points. With 16 points I would like to force but those hands are rare and many of them can just bid 3NT.

11-14 points with six clubs is probably more frequent, and if 3♣ is forcing, with those hand I would just have to pass or blast.

I think it's F1 not FG, you bid 3♣ and you can pass 4♣/3♠

Also depends what you overcall 3♠ over 1N with, some of the weaker hands with more spades may be excluded.

[mcphee]

forcing

[aguahombre]

helene_t, on 2014-March-23, 05:44, said:

I don't think anybody is suggesting that 3♣ should be to play.

But when my partner makes an overcall I take her for about 8-15 points. With 16 points I would like to force but those hands are rare and many of them can just bid 3NT.

11-14 points with six clubs is probably more frequent, and if 3♣ is forcing, with those hand I would just have to pass or blast.

We seem to be working on different assumptions. A hand with 8-12 in playing strength is not overcalling over a weak NT here. Everything changes if we make the same overcalls vs. a weak one as we do over a strong one...including the need for 2NT to be unnatural as a force.

[helene_t]

Yeah I suppose that is the root of our disagreement. If 2♠ promises 11-15 points and six spades I would play 3♣ as forcing as well. With most partners I play Landy which means that 2♠ will often be a 5-card suit. Obviously, the more likely it is to be a 6-card suit the more attractive to play 3♣ as forcing.

When I moved to England 7 years ago and had to get used to the weak NT I thought I would have to play a constructive defense. But after some time I realized that it happens quite rarely that we can bid and make game after they open 1NT, especially when we don't have a major suit fit. In the meantime we lose a lot of matchpoints if we don't overcall with shapy 8-counts.

Maybe it ought to depend on scoring and vulnerability, though.

If we are going to play clubs it is almost always 3♣ we want to play - AFAIR it has only happened once to me that a 4m or 5m contract was right for us after their 1NT opening. It is of course different when advancer has hearts, and I can imagine that 3♥ should be forcing although I play that as NF as well for consistency.

[jogs]

Cascade, on 2014-March-23, 00:49, said:

I can't believe forcing is more frequent. One opponent has shown about a third of the deck. Depending on style partner has shown a similar strength. It doesn't make sense that we will more frequently have almost all of the remaining strength to justify a force. To me intuitively it is much more likely that the outstanding strength is divided between the two other hands.

In contested auctions the frequency of forcing hands is low compared the the frequency of non forcing hands. It is much more pragmatic to play it non forcing. Unfortunately it is difficult to convince partners of this view.

[gnasher]

helene_t, on 2014-March-23, 12:08, said:

If we are going to play clubs it is almost always 3♣ we want to play - AFAIR it has only happened once to me that a 4m or 5m contract was right for us after their 1NT opening.

How often has it happened that advancer wanted to bid a non-forcing 3m, and that would be a better contract than 2M?

[helene_t]

Not so often. More often advancer has an invite but 3c is the last makeable spot

[aguahombre]

helene_t, on 2014-March-24, 17:14, said:

Not so often. More often advancer has an invite but 3c is the last makeable spot

That leads us back to the difference between the best possible result and the best result possible. Maybe struggling through in 2S will work out as well or better than the resulting 3 or 4-level contract. That is the decision we make if we bid a constructive but n.f. 3C. It is not part of our thought process if our 3C is forcing.

[jogs]

aguahombre, on 2014-March-24, 18:27, said:

That leads us back to the difference between the best possible result and the best result possible. Maybe struggling through in 2S will work out as well or better than the resulting 3 or 4-level contract. That is the decision we make if we bid a constructive but n.f. 3C. It is not part of our thought process if our 3C is forcing.

There is a tendency for players to search for the post mortem optimal result for this board. I prefer to search for the result with the highest expected value against the space of all possible layouts.