[655321]

ceeb, on Mar 9 2008, 12:57 AM, said:

1. Natural -- "return to 4 of a major is always a place to play". Without this rule there is no sanity.

Another way of wording this silly rule is "You may never make a cue bid of a major suit if partner has bid the suit naturally."

[rogerclee]

ceeb, on Mar 9 2008, 10:43 AM, said:

Quote

It is easy to generate a lot of auctions where returning to 4M is very obviously not natural.

Please show me a few. I don't recall ever being discomfited by this old Acol rule, and have seen many times where it helped. I can well imagine that, if the partnership puts no price on a proliferation of detailed agreements, this rule like any simple rule will be slightly non-optimum on occasion. But you said "very obviously."

2/1:

1♠ - 2♥
2♠ - 3♠
4♦ - 4♥ <--Natural, suggesting to play?

Here is a nice auction generator.

1) Open a suit. Bid a major.
2) Agree on the suit unambiguously. Even cue in the suit.
3) Return to 4M.

[ceeb]

rogerclee, on Mar 9 2008, 05:13 PM, said:

ceeb, on Mar 9 2008, 10:43 AM, said:

1. Natural -- "return to 4 of a major is always a place to play". Without this rule there is no sanity.

Quote

It is easy to generate a lot of auctions where returning to 4M is very obviously not natural.

Please show me a few. I don't recall ever being discomfited by this old Acol rule, and have seen many times where it helped. I can well imagine that, if the partnership puts no price on a proliferation of detailed agreements, this rule like any simple rule will be slightly non-optimum on occasion. But you said "very obviously."

2/1:
1♠ - 2♥
2♠ - 3♠
4♦ - 4♥ <--Natural, suggesting to play?

I agree 4♥ sounds forcing, and certainly there is no awkwardness in it being forcing with 4♠ obviously reasonable.

Quote

Here is a nice auction generator.
1) Open a suit. Bid a major.
2) Agree on the suit unambiguously. Even cue in the suit.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. How do you agree a suit unambiguously and cue in the suit?

Quote

3) Return to 4M.

The rule I meant to quote probably should say "return to *partner's* major". I'm surprised others haven't heard of it. The main point is that 4M can't be a small singleton or void. Would you still disagree?

[rogerclee]

ceeb, on Mar 9 2008, 04:01 PM, said:

The rule I meant to quote probably should say "return to *partner's* major". I'm surprised others haven't heard of it. The main point is that 4M can't be a small singleton or void. Would you still disagree?

Here's another auction in 2/1:

1♠ - 2♥
3♠ - 4♣
4♥ <-- Natural?

The issue here is that responder has, in no way, promised a good heart suit. It makes sense to agree here that 4♥ is not a shortness cue, but it does not make sense to offer 4♥ as a contract, since opener did not raise to 3♥. I agree that you can construct a few 6-3 hands that want to bid this way, but the default (and I believe, superior) agreement is to play 4♥ a cuebid.

[Cascade]

jdonn, on Mar 9 2008, 06:44 AM, said:

Yes what is this lol. Sorry that we seem to confuse everyone with our completely natural auctions where every bid shows that suit and bidding it twice shows more cards in it.

The we rebid clubs (4♣) just in case partner didn't notice we showed six

[Cascade]

Jlall, on Mar 9 2008, 06:25 AM, said:

I dont understand how the sequence clubs-spades-spades can not have shown 5-6. How do you Brits ever show 5-6? Is it possible?

I guess I should have asked "what do you think you have shown" but I thought it was so obvious that your bidding is 5-6 that there couldn't be any other interpretation.

I'm not a Brit but we play the fourth suit is artificial and a jump in the fourth suit below game is natural and forcing showing exactly this sort of hand. This agreement seems to have worked well for us.

[Aberlour10]

off topic, @jlall, how does your team do in match vs team Nickell? GL!

Robert

edited: I have found the tread in "Offline Bridge"

[benlessard]

I dont see why you can put partner with 3C.

xx
AKxx
KJxxx
Qx

I much prefer to bid 3C then to rebid 3D. Its probably more a matter of style but for me Qx is an adequate holding for giving a preference when ive already made 2 natural bid.

1D---2C
2H----2S
3C = maybe Qx

[jdonn]

Cascade, on Mar 11 2008, 04:28 PM, said:

jdonn, on Mar 9 2008, 06:44 AM, said:

Yes what is this lol. Sorry that we seem to confuse everyone with our completely natural auctions where every bid shows that suit and bidding it twice shows more cards in it.

The we rebid clubs (4♣) just in case partner didn't notice we showed six

Yes how crazy of us to return to our known fit of nine cards

[ceeb]

rogerclee, on Mar 9 2008, 09:09 PM, said:

ceeb, on Mar 9 2008, 04:01 PM, said:

The rule I meant to quote probably should say "return to *partner's* major". I'm surprised others haven't heard of it. The main point is that 4M can't be a small singleton or void. Would you still disagree?

Here's another auction in 2/1:

1♠ - 2♥
3♠ - 4♣
4♥ <-- Natural?

The issue here is that responder has, in no way, promised a good heart suit. It makes sense to agree here that 4♥ is not a shortness cue, but it does not make sense to offer 4♥ as a contract, since opener did not raise to 3♥. I agree that you can construct a few 6-3 hands that want to bid this way, but the default (and I believe, superior) agreement is to play 4♥ a cuebid.

I also would not assume that 4♥ shows a tripleton; it's just heart agreement/tolerance in context. The context here is, to me, an obvious case of taking a preference.

Perhaps in the 2/1 world 3♠ guarantees that ♠ will be trump. If that's the case then of course the "return to major" rule directly contradicts a rule you already have, which is a special problem.

Both of your examples involve a "return" from ♠ to ♥. How do you feel about returning from a minor to partner's major?

[Cascade]

jdonn, on Mar 12 2008, 11:34 AM, said:

Cascade, on Mar 11 2008, 04:28 PM, said:

jdonn, on Mar 9 2008, 06:44 AM, said:

Yes what is this lol. Sorry that we seem to confuse everyone with our completely natural auctions where every bid shows that suit and bidding it twice shows more cards in it.

The we rebid clubs (4♣) just in case partner didn't notice we showed six

Yes how crazy of us to return to our known fit of nine cards

Whoops I misread the auction.

[FrancesHinden]

Coming back to this thread I realise I misread the auction, I missed the 4C bid and thought we had pulled 3NT to 4S.

Given all of that, I guess that
2S was 4th suit forcing
3S showed real spades

(You all seem to think this is 'blatantly obvious' but it's not the way I play... forget this slightly strained auction because 1D - 2C auctions are different, but after say 1H - 2C - 2D - 2S I play that ...2NT - 3S is natural (6-5) but ....3C - 3S is re-fourth-suit; after all opener has at most Qx of spades and usually a singleton having shown 5 hearts, 4 diamonds, at least club tolerance and no spade stop; so it's wildly unlikely I want to play in spades and much more likely I want to locate half a spade stop. If I wanted to show a 6-5 and suggest playing in 4S I'd have to jump to 4S over 3C)

Anyway with all of that in mind I think we've agreed clubs and 4S is a cue bid, but it has to be the ace not shortage as we don't cue shortages in partner's suit. Partner having no red suit ace to cue is consistent with his 3NT bid. How about

Ax
QJ10x
KJ10x
Qxx

?