[gwnn]

I don't understand why people invent artificial 2S 2NT and 3C bids and not adopt one of the many good variations of artificial 2C rebids. Surely that is the most natural way of going around things, putting many hands in lower bids and making higher bids as clear as possible.

[ArtK78]

gwnn, on Jun 4 2010, 01:03 PM, said:

I don't understand why people invent artificial 2S 2NT and 3C bids and not adopt one of the many good variations of artificial 2C rebids. Surely that is the most natural way of going around things, putting many hands in lower bids and making higher bids as clear as possible.

Perhaps it is because it may be necessary to use the 2♣ bid for weaker hands to allow yourself to get out at a lower level, but with stronger hands you can afford to use higher artificial forcing calls.

[junyi_zhu]

Jlall, on Jun 4 2010, 05:21 PM, said:

You cannot jumpshift on the north hand. What do you do with a 6-5 18 count? How do you differentiate the 2? It is not possible in standard bidding.

Yes obv if you play a special system (ie strong club) where jump shifting shows 5-5 NF with good playing strength you can do it, but in standard bidding this hand type will always be a problem.

This hand is just a symptom of the real problem, having a 2H bid that is such a wide range of hands (11-18, could be 5-4, 5-5, 6-5 (with a lower HCP max)). That range is too wide, and no matter what you do to try and work around it something will go wrong.

If you jumpshift with this you will get too high on misfits, and you will not have any way to show a stronger hand when you actually have it (unless you drive to the 5 level which obviously has problems). If you raise with a 5 count you will find some games but find yourself in numerous bad games since partner won't know you have 5 as you have to invite with 9. If you just jump to game with 9 you will get too high sometimes. Etc etc. The point is the range is too wide, and that will cause problems.

Of course when you post 2 hands we can easily tell you how to get to game (jumpshift or raise), but you have to think about the net affect of these actions on your entire system and your entire range of hands, not just on one hand.

This problem can be solved by transfers over 1M 1N.
So 1S 1N 2D shows hearts. responder can bid 2H to show 3 or more( and no extra), then opener can bid 3H to invite and responder can probably bid 4H to accept the invitation. Of course, there are other problems playing transfers, the major problem is how to show clubs, 2S can show clubs with some extra. Then S+C without extra is a headache. Still, the transfer structure is nice in many areas.

[ggwhiz]

Best quote from a bidding contest in the CBF magazine from Allan Graves, similar to the 2♥ re-bid in this auction.

"I don't mind a poor result to maintain overall system integrity."