[mamo2500]

When playing fourth suit, which do you prefer?
Forcing for one round only or forcing to game?
And why prefer one to the other?

Regards

Marianne

[Gerardo]

Forcing to game.

It allows to support a minor after showing a major, and still stay under 3NT if needed, and generally save space when you need it.

[inquiry]

I prefer a hybrid...

If the 4th suit is at the three level, i prefer it forcing to game.
If the 4th suit is a reverse at the two level, i prefer it forcing to game
If the 4th suit is at the two level, and is below responders first suit, i prefer it just as forcing, but not to game.

[helene_t]

I prefer GF for two reasons:
- Easier to remember. If it's not GF you have to remember which subsequent biddings are forcing and which are not.
- If opener has to jump with any 14-pointers because a non-jump would not be forcing, those jumps take away too much bidding space without clarifying opener's hand.

There is one exception:
1♣-1♦
1♥-1♠*
If you play 1♠ as FSF it should probably not be game forcing since there's plenty of bidding space left. In fact it might not even need to be invitational.

[awm]

I prefer game force. The hand where invitational really wins is very specific. For example:

1♦ - 1♠ - 2♣...

Normally you can bid 2NT or 3♣ or 3♦ with an invite. The only time you really have a problem is when you have no heart stopper, fewer than three diamonds, and fewer than four clubs. Since a four-card heart suit is probably worth considering a stopper in any case, this basically means you have to be 5-3-2-3 exactly with weak hearts. Yes, this hand does occasionally come up, but frequency-wise playing GF will be better any time you have a game force, since you get to describe your hand more cheaply.

An interesting alternative is to play fourth suit as exactly invitational, or a GF with the awkward hand, whereas direct three-level bids are all game force. This potentially has advantages and I play this in some sequences and some partnerships. But I don't think "inv+" is really a good treatment, especially in my preferred style where opener often raises a major-suit response with three-card support (so I'm happy to bid 1♦-1♠-2♣-2NT with five spades, we won't miss a fit).

[foo]

inquiry, on Nov 24 2007, 01:00 PM, said:

I prefer a hybrid...

If the 4th suit is at the three level, i prefer it forcing to game.
If the 4th suit is a reverse at the two level, i prefer it forcing to game
If the 4th suit is at the two level, and is below responders first suit, i prefer it just as forcing, but not to game.

I'm with Inquiry on this. Unfortunately, you have to be in the right partnership to play anything more complicated than the "standard" 4th Suit GF.

[mike777]

1) Prefer game force, makes game biddding or slam bidding easier though we all know going through 4sf can also be a mess.
2) Why bother to stop on a dime with an invite hand? Do your opp defend perfectly?

[P_Marlowe]

Forcing for one round (*).

Why? 4th suit was invented for a certain class
of hand, and it works perfect for those hands,
and that are hands, which quite often just want to
invite.

Someone said, fourth suit as inv.+ is better but
more complicated than if the fourth suit would be
gameforcing.

(*) Of course the fourth suit is forcing to game
if it occurrs on the 3 level, and if the guy who
used it bids again.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[skjaeran]

Always GF for me. Only exception would be 1♠ if playing standard or Walsh.

[benlessard]

Im challenging everybody who read this post to find a hand where my method will give inferior result compare to 4suit GF.

I prefer a modern approach wich is quite simple.

Just reversing the INV hands and the GF hands

4th suit like our new minor is the only inv and is always inv. 2 level is to play (2Nt and higher is GF)

So what used to be INV is now GF and the 4Th suit is now INV.

1D----1H----2C----????

2D,2H is to play (non-invitationnal)

2S is INV (replace, all nat INV 2Nt,3C,3D,3H)

2Nt & higher is GF


The big difference is that on GF hand we know the fit instantly. And we are better placed to find stoppers half a stopper to rightside the contract.

if you play
1D----1H----2C-----2S as GF

and partner bid 3D.

You are badly placed to show a club fit.

Worse
1D----1H----2C-----2S (GF)
3H----???

How do you handle a slammish hand with a m fit ?


There no downside to my method just a more complicated pass or correct responses.

1D-----1H-----2C------2S(inv)
???

2Nt I would refuse a bal inv.*
3C I would accept a bal inv but refuse a club INV
3D i would accept a bal inv or a Club inv but refuse a D INV
3H GF with H fit
3S GF with half a stopper
3Nt GF with S stopper.

We dont really lose precision because after a 4th suit inv there is no slam possibility. However we sometimes wrongside with a INV hand facing a maximum.

A positive thing is that it allowed us to sometime stop in 2M

1D-----1S-----2C-----???

here with a long S INV you have to bid 3S.

With my method just bid 2H. if partner rebid 2S (wich mean he refuse a 2S inv) you pass and play 2S instead of 3S.

1D-----1S-----2C-----???

what do you do with S&H INV in my method you just bid 2H. partner will respond 2S and i comeback at 3H showing 5-5 INV.


Our only bad result so far have come from not playing the hand from the same side when 1 side bid 2Nt.


Im challenging everybody who read this post to find a hand where my method will give inferior result compare to 4suit GF.

[lexlogan]

mamo2500, on Nov 24 2007, 05:28 PM, said:

When playing fourth suit, which do you prefer?
Forcing for one round only or forcing to game?
And why prefer one to the other?

Regards

Marianne

This goes hand-in-hand with how you play responder's rebids. In Old Goren, all jump rebids by responder were game-forcing; an invitational hand was supposed to make two forcing bids, which was difficult without the fourth-suit convention. In the modern style, a jump rebid is usually invitational, except in a new suit (which would mean the fourth suit in a potential FSF auction.)

Having multiple game-forcing bids (so you can make a descriptive bid at the same time you set up the force) is probably best for most slam hands; so it makes sense to use the fourth suit as a one-round force in that style. For matchpoint bidding, it's nice to have multiple game invitational hands (which come up more frequently than the game-forcing ones), so it makes sense to treat the fourth suit as a game force.

All in all, it's probably easier to remember 4th suit as a game force.

[awm]

There are certainly hands where 4th suit invitational is inferior to 4th suit game force. For example, after 1♦-1♠-2♣:

♠AKxxx
♥Axxx
♦x
♣KJx

Give opener one of:

(1) ♠x ♥xx ♦AKxxx ♣AQxxx
(2) ♠xx ♥Kx ♦KQJxx ♣Axxx
(3) ♠Qx ♥xx ♦KQJxx ♣Axxx
(4) ♠Qx ♥x ♦AKJxxx ♣Qxxx

Playing 4th suit GF, it's not hard to reach 6♣ on (1), 3NT on (2), and 4♠ on (3) and (4).

Playing 4th suit exactly invitational, the problem is that you don't know strain at responder's second call. Probably your best bet is to bid 2NT GF, but it seems like both (2) and (3) are very normal 3NT calls over this, and it's not totally clear after 1♦-1♠-2♣-2NT-3♦ on hand (4), that 3♠ is necessarily a suggestion to play in spades and not a cue for diamonds.

This problem only gets worse if you give opener no heart stopper at all, for example:

AKxxx
xxxx
x
AKx

The point is that 4th suit forcing serves two purposes: first, to help distinguish game force hands from invite hands (by giving two sequences to reach 3m for example), and second to probe for strain when it's not clear where to play the hand. In general, when you have no doubt about strain you will do slightly better when you can make a direct bid rather than going through 4sf, since sometimes opener's rebid creates awkwardness. When you have doubt about strain, you are much happier to go through 4sf. The "inv+" style puts all hands with doubt about strain through 4sf, but this is a bit of an overload at times.

[P_Marlowe]

awm, on Nov 25 2007, 03:32 AM, said:

There are certainly hands where 4th suit invitational is inferior to 4th suit game force. For example, after 1♦-1♠-2♣:

♠AKxxx
♥Axxx
♦x
♣KJx

Give opener one of:

(1) ♠x ♥xx ♦AKxxx ♣AQxxx
(2) ♠xx ♥Kx ♦KQJxx ♣Axxx
(3) ♠Qx ♥xx ♦KQJxx ♣Axxx
(4) ♠Qx ♥x ♦AKJxxx ♣Qxxx

Playing 4th suit GF, it's not hard to reach 6♣ on (1), 3NT on (2), and 4♠ on (3) and (4).

Playing 4th suit exactly invitational, the problem is that you don't know strain at responder's second call. Probably your best bet is to bid 2NT GF, but it seems like both (2) and (3) are very normal 3NT calls over this, and it's not totally clear after 1♦-1♠-2♣-2NT-3♦ on hand (4), that 3♠ is necessarily a suggestion to play in spades and not a cue for diamonds.

This problem only gets worse if you give opener no heart stopper at all, for example:

AKxxx
xxxx
x
AKx

The point is that 4th suit forcing serves two purposes: first, to help distinguish game force hands from invite hands (by giving two sequences to reach 3m for example), and second to probe for strain when it's not clear where to play the hand. In general, when you have no doubt about strain you will do slightly better when you can make a direct bid rather than going through 4sf, since sometimes opener's rebid creates awkwardness. When you have doubt about strain, you are much happier to go through 4sf. The "inv+" style puts all hands with doubt about strain through 4sf, but this is a bit of an overload at times.

You need better examples.

#1

1D.... - 1S
2C.... - 2H (1)
3C.(2)- 4C (3)
... (4)


(1) 4th suit forcing, inv.+
(2) 5-5, can be passed
(3) natural, forcing
(4) 6C

#2

1D.... - 1S
2C.... - 2H (1)
2NT.(2) - 3NT (3)

(1) 4th suit forcing, inv.+
(2) stopper in hearts, min, can be passed
(3) so be it

#3 / #4

1D.... - 1S
2C.... - 2H (1)
3D. (2) - 3NT (3)

(1) 4th suit forcing, inv.+
(2) 5-4, no 3 card spade support,
no stopper in hearts, min,
can be passed
(3) so be it

I am not sure if 4S is better than 3NT, but it
is certainly not bad, at least #3

With your last example opener bids 3H showing
max., but denying 3 card spade support and a
heart stopper, asking the reponder about a heart
stopper.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[helene_t]

Benlessard's method looks similar to Pavlicek's method which has been reinvented here a couple of times (by Han and by me and probably by others). I have never actually played it but I would like to, I think it's sound.

[1eyedjack]

Independently but certainly not originally I (with reg p) evolved into Benlessard's philosophy in this area, although I would not claim that it is devoid of problem hands. awm's point is valid and is along similar lines to Frances Hinden's objection when I posted something along similar lines in April 07:

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...ndpost&p=186294

I see that Hannie got there much earlier (thinking only of these forum pages), in Feb 05:

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...indpost&p=54793

[awm]

My response was to Benlessard's "exactly invite" method, not to "invitational-plus."

The issue is that he's using direct bids as GF and fourth suit as "invitational exactly" with paradox style responses. This leaves no room for any hand with doubt about strain, regardless of strength, since a game force must specify strain directly and opener's priority opposite "4th suit" is to show which strain-specific invites he accepts, not to describe his own hand further.

With the invitational-plus method, these hands are not particularly problematic. The invitational-plus method is actually great on hands with doubt about strain. The issue there is hands with game forcing values where strain is known, for example:

♠AKxx
♥Kxx
♦xx
♣KJTx

(1) ♠x ♥QJx ♦KQxxx ♣AQxx
(2) ♠x ♥AJx ♦Axxxx ♣AQxx

On both hands we see 1♦-1♠-2♣. Responder really wants to issue a slam try in clubs. But of course 3♣ is not forcing, so we start with 2♥ as 4th suit invitational-plus. Now opener must rebid 3NT on both example hands, because 2NT would be non-forcing. This makes it rather hard to stop in 3NT on hand (1) while reaching a decent 6♣ on hand (2).

If we used 4th suit GF, we would see 1♦-1♠-2♣-2♥-2NT-3♣ on both hands and then opener can bid 3NT on hand (1) or cooperate with the slam try in (2). Of course, this set of hands is not a problem for "4th suit exactly inv" because you can bid 3♣ forcing over 2♣.

[neilkaz]

skaeran, on Nov 24 2007, 05:27 PM, said:

Always GF for me. Only exception would be 1♠ if playing standard or Walsh.

We agree and this makes it simple to play in the average advanced/expert pickup games in MBC where I play.

For a permanent partnership I think there are a couple sequences with 4th suit at the 2 level that might be a bit better if just invitational but I don't worry about them with pcikups/casual (ie weekly or so) PD's.

.. neilkaz ..

[1eyedjack]

The obvious question to those who play fourth suit GF is, what do you do with an invitational hand that does not know what strain to play in? 2N without a guard in 4th suit? No doubt this is given in the Beg/Int section and I am just too lazy to find it.

[P_Marlowe]

1eyedjack, on Nov 25 2007, 11:11 AM, said:

The obvious question to those who play fourth suit GF is, what do you do with an invitational hand that does not know what strain to play in? 2N without a guard in 4th suit? No doubt this is given in the Beg/Int section and I am just too lazy to find it.

The answer is simple: Pretend you hold a game force.
Although I know the answer, I cant bring myself to play
that way.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[awm]

1eyedjack, on Nov 25 2007, 11:11 AM, said:

The obvious question to those who play fourth suit GF is, what do you do with an invitational hand that does not know what strain to play in? 2N without a guard in 4th suit? No doubt this is given in the Beg/Int section and I am just too lazy to find it.

Usually one of:

(1) Bid 4th suit anyway, and hope that game makes.
(2) Downgrade and correct to one of opener's suits.
(3) Rebid a strong five-card suit, treating it as six.
(4) Treat a holding like Jxx as a stopper, since partner may well have a half stopper too.
(5) Raise opener's five-card suit on Hx.
(6) Raise opener's four-card suit on Hxx or HHx.

Basically, it depends on honor-location and how close the hand is to a game force. Generally "underbidding" seems to work well in many circumstances, since you rarely have more than a single stopper in the 4th suit, making a close 3NT likely to fail.