[Blofeld]

mikestar, on Nov 2 2006, 11:44 AM, said:

You are missing my point--I think most experts would bid 2♥ on the hand you gave, but my entire argument was concerning 5-5 hands! No 5-4 you can show me has any bearing on the question. Given KQJxx AKxxx Ax x will any expert risk being passed in 2♥? Surely at the very least a subtantial minority will force with this hand--and I expect it to be a majority choice.

But 5-5 hands a lot worse than that are making game opposite our hand.
Kxxxx AKxxx Kx x
QJTxx KQJxx x Ax
KQJxx KQJxx xx x

Also, some 5-4 hands will be making game, and bidding will let you reach these games where passing would not. Which is why it's relevant that partner would bid 2♥ with many of these.

[mikeh]

mikestar, on Nov 2 2006, 11:44 AM, said:

mikeh, on Nov 2 2006, 05:57 AM, said:

bid_em_up, on Nov 1 2006, 09:42 PM, said:

Partner will not hold 17. He would have bid 3H over 1N. 

Not if he knows how to play the game: poll true experts on AQJxx AKxx Kxx x and I would bet that fewer than 20% would bid 3♥... and this is a GREAT 17 count.

Ok, so I hold the ♠A: make it KQJxx AKxx Kx Jx.. no expert I know would bid 3♥ on this. Not to say that I know all experts... maybe some players better than me would choose 3♥, but I doubt it.

You are missing my point--I think most experts would bid 2♥ on the hand you gave, but my entire argument was concerning 5-5 hands! No 5-4 you can show me has any bearing on the question. Given KQJxx AKxxx Ax x will any expert risk being passed in 2♥? Surely at the very least a subtantial minority will force with this hand--and I expect it to be a majority choice.

Part of the problem is that you are confusing my response to bid-em-up with a response to your earlier post. I was attempting to rebut the (clearly wrong) statement that the 2♥ bidder could not hold 17 hcp. Your comment was different: it was that opener was unlikely to hold an 'invitational' 5-5 hand, since most experts would upgrade in order to avoid missing a game.

I started replies to your post several times, but alwys stopped because you raise a profundly complex issue, that involves one of the fundamental weaknesses in standard bidding.

It may seem like semantics, but in my view the vast majority of experts will bid 2♥ with 'invitational' 5-5 hands. So I strongly disagree with your suggestion that most experts, or even a substantial minority of them, would choose 3♥ rather than risk missing a game. The reason I say this is semantics is that I suspect that you and I have different meanings attributed to the word 'invitational' in this context. Thus KQJxx AKxxx Ax x would not, to me, be an invitational hand over a 1n response to 1♠. Maybe if the x's were" KQJ32 AK432 A2 2, I would downgrade to invitational if white at imps or at mps, but I'd never risk missing a vulnerable game by bidding only 2♥.

Change this to KJ10xx AKJxx x AJ and I have the same hcp, and I would unhesitatingly rebid 2♥ over 1N.... and this is a hand I would classify as invitational, such that over a 2♠ preference by partner, I would bid 3H and reach (on the given hand) 4♥.

The point is that opener's 1♠ possesses enormous range, and the 2♥ rebid does not simply 'halve' the range: it excludes only the very top of the range: the hands that are worth a game force opposite a potentially weak, misfitting 1N response. Now, obviously, it is impractical to require that opener, for a gf jumpshift, must hold a hand that assures that game has a good play opposite all 1N responses, but it should produce a play for game opposite reasonable minimums.

This means that the simple 2♥ rebid is still wide range. This in turn means that the partnership must accept a balance between getting too high opposite minimum opening bids, catering to 'invitational' hands and missing games by staying low to avoid getting too high

It is possible to reduce the costs associated with this dilemma by lowering the standards needed for jumpshifts, to include, in the game force category, hands of lesser value. However, that merely shifts the source of loss into a previously robust part of the methods, and compounds problems by now reducing the accuracy of slam bidding on those infrequent hands in which responder's hand upgrades to a slam try opposite a jumpshift.

In my experience, the vast majority of experts prefer to keep the jumpshift as very strong (and anyone who thinks that there is no meaningful difference between various 5512 17 counts is a non-expert) and confine the ambiguity to the arena of the 2 level change of suit. Where the expert community is aggressive, in this field, is in their willingness to bid over a simple change of suit: i.e., in our sequence, over the 2♥. This thread generated so much discussion because the hand hits the seam between most players' style in this issue.