[Echognome]

jdonn, on May 3 2007, 07:34 AM, said:

No, it's like raising partner's major suit response to an opening bid. It "shows" 4, but is clearly the best bid on a substantial minority of hands with 3. But if the auction becomes competitive or such that you have no way to find out which, you will assume it's 4. Same for this type of bid.

I disagree. It's like overcalling on a 4 card suit. Hence my point about "often 4 cards".

I don't see your analogy of an auction such as 1♣ - 1♥ - 2♥ as ostensibly 4 when you're agreed to raise on 3 (with e.g. a minimum hand and shortness). Then your agreement is that you raise with 3-4 card support! Calling it anything else is kidding yourself and I would even go far as to say it wouldn't be full disclosure not to say that it's "often 3 card support".

At the end of the day, it's all down to frequency. My argument is that the way many people play it, raising responder's 1M response with 3 cards is more frequent than overcalling on a 4 card suit. Of course if you play the overcall structure or some other methods, that may not be the case.

So again, it's semantics. But if you want to say my analogy wasn't germane, then I stand my ground and say the analogy you gave is less germane.

[cherdano]

mikeh, on May 3 2007, 09:34 AM, said:

cherdano, on May 3 2007, 10:18 AM, said:

Echognome, on May 3 2007, 09:14 AM, said:

Jlall, on May 2 2007, 11:42 PM, said:

umm...when you have a 5-3 fit it's bad for your bid to have shown 4+. When you have a 4-4 fit it's good for you to be able to bid a 4 card suit. However, you are less likely to have a 4-4 fit when partner has shown a 5+ card suit somewhere else and you might well find it anyways if you bid something else unless parnter is minimum.

Again, I don't disagree with the premise, but by this argument if playing 5cM, 2/1's should show 5 card suits.

They do for me.

Well, never having played with you, it's tough to dispute this, but I suspect that you are in a tiny, tiny minority.

Partner opens 1♠ and you hold x AKJx Qxxx AKJx: you bid a forcing 1N? Or do you (like 99.99999% of the rest of the world) bid 2♣?

I was just being a smart-ass. I like to play 2♣ as artificial, including both a natural GF and a balanced GF. So with this hand, I would never show clubs, I would show it as a balanced GF (which I would also do with, say, 3=4=4=2, so unlike the standard 2♣ punt with, say, 3=4=3=3 it really doesn't show clubs).
Anyway, my point was that it is indeed desirable to have 2/1s show 5 cards.

Frances said:

Some people play a 2C response as artificial, or a 2NT response as artificial, to make other 2/1s show 5.

You mean an artificial 2N showing a balanced GF?

[jdonn]

Echognome, on May 3 2007, 10:44 AM, said:

jdonn, on May 3 2007, 07:34 AM, said:

No, it's like raising partner's major suit response to an opening bid. It "shows" 4, but is clearly the best bid on a substantial minority of hands with 3. But if the auction becomes competitive or such that you have no way to find out which, you will assume it's 4. Same for this type of bid.

I disagree. It's like overcalling on a 4 card suit. Hence my point about "often 4 cards".

I don't see your analogy of an auction such as 1♣ - 1♥ - 2♥ as ostensibly 4 when you're agreed to raise on 3 (with e.g. a minimum hand and shortness). Then your agreement is that you raise with 3-4 card support! Calling it anything else is kidding yourself and I would even go far as to say it wouldn't be full disclosure not to say that it's "often 3 card support".

At the end of the day, it's all down to frequency. My argument is that the way many people play it, raising responder's 1M response with 3 cards is more frequent than overcalling on a 4 card suit. Of course if you play the overcall structure or some other methods, that may not be the case.

So again, it's semantics. But if you want to say my analogy wasn't germane, then I stand my ground and say the analogy you gave is less germane.

Uh you lost me with this post lol. You took my analogy and inserted an agreement I never assumed, and then everything else you wrote went totally over my head. But ok!

I don't even know what analogy of yours you think I was criticizing. I was just saying you would still define the bid as 5+ even if on some minority of hands with 4 you consider it the best bid. Calling it 4+ implies that you make the bid at least most of the time with 4.

[FrancesHinden]

cherdano, on May 3 2007, 04:46 PM, said:

Frances said:

Some people play a 2C response as artificial, or a 2NT response as artificial, to make other 2/1s show 5.

You mean an artificial 2N showing a balanced GF?

Ah well, to us English brought up with limit bids 2NT showing a balanced GF is indeed artificial.

[Echognome]

jdonn, on May 3 2007, 07:48 AM, said:

Calling it 4+ implies that you make the bid at least most of the time with 4.

Ok. This is clearly the point I'm misunderstanding. And I'm sure it's in part my ignorance of what you are trying to say. The following points will certainly help me understand.

In the ACBL, you have checkboxes for minimum length say in opening a major or a minor. Suppose that you sometimes open 1M on 4 cards in 3/4 seat. How often must that be the case before you should check that the min length in those positions is 4 cards vs 5 cards?

Related point. I believe there's also a checkbox on the CC that says for overcalls something like "often 4 cards". I presume for *that* checkbox one would have to regularly overcall on 4 cards (say 50+% of the time) in order for it to make sense to check the box.

Finally, we have a different question which is if the opponents asked you about a bid and asked you the min length for the bid, what would you respond if the auctions were: (uncontested) 1♣ - 1♠ - 2♠ or (contested) (1♣) - 1♦ - (P) - 1♠

[han]

I have 5+ most of the time. Partner will bid over my 1M most of the time. I would say it shows 4+ and is NF because it is not very rare for me to have 4 and it is quite common for partner to pass it. If the auction gets highly competitive then partner will likely play me for 5+.

I think this fits well with the overcalling style I'm trying to use.

[EricK]

It is not generally a good idea to make very light overcalls of 1♦ over 1♣. They don't take up much room (in fact they can give the opps more options) and rarely lead to a good save. If you believe this and are in the habit of opening fairly light, a 1♦ overcall will look very like a 1♦ opening (but better defined in terms of length). In that case, it must make some sort of sense to treat the 1♦ as if it were an opening and play systems on.