[cherdano]

Impact, on Aug 1 2007, 06:18 PM, said:

Hannie, it is a matter of partnership agreement but to restrict fit jumps to 4 card support (unless playing 4 card suit openings) severely restricts your options in competitive situations and the frequency will be way down 9when you know youu have at least an 8 card fit isn't it better to indicate to partner before the acution comes back to you at some stratospheric level?).

Once you acknowledge that such is the case with your cue raise you might as well run with it in other situations: more bang for your buck and consistency.

If you look what went wrong with our auction (if anything) is that we ended up in a slam despite having trumps that are too bad. A good advertisement for reserving some jumps to show good trumps, isn't it?

[Impact]

Arend, your agreements are your own but

a) one hand proves nothing

adjectival bridge so that you define the bid to mean basically what you hold is very convenient - but not bridge (I'm not accusing you of doing this but favourite treatments with ridiculously low frequency that distort bidding on many other hands, but are spruiked by their procreators for the one time in a blue moon that they occur...)

c ) you end up with an omnibus cue-bid in this auction with neither hand defined. and the same basis of supoort which you decry for the fit-jump...

d) I premised my comments with the point about "choice of evils" but I preferred - particularly in a competitive auction - to give as much of an indication of the nature of my hand as I could to help partner should the auction - and stakes - escalate. Of course if you were Al Roth, your impeccable judgement would have allowed you to make the most flexible lowest call or even pass confident that you would be better placed on the next round (insert smiley tongue in cheek here) but the rest of us and our partners tend to need help!!

FWIW if you maintain your view and agreement as to requirements for fit-jumps, the "round the clock" bidding ie D tehn C then H over a presumed NT bid is the corollary.

I noted that such a system is great if you are confident that the opponents will not raise the ante but your hand strongly suggests the opposite.

Interestingly if my D were significantly stronger and longer (eg DAKJ9xx) I would be inclined to bid the D and withhold the Txx support - treating it as delayed support only (a bit like the adjustment you make with 74s with good 7 card suits : you treat it as a single-suiter unless partner introduces your 4carder) - but these later points are matters of judgement.

regards