[Flame]

Hi everyone,

One of the advantages of playing transfers over partner's overcall is the ability to show a new suit and later support partner's suit, however delaying support in competitive is many time a bad idea.
Lets say the bidding is
1C-1S-P-?

You have a diamond suit and spade support, bidding 2C might help partner on a lead and maybe some bidding decision, but on the other hand it will make it much easier for opener to reenter the bidding.

So when should you delay support and when should you just support partner ?

[Flameous]

I think it depends mainly on how high you are willing to go and guessing how high opponents are before you get to bid again. So transfer if I expect to be able to show my support, don't if not.

So here if I'm basically always bidding to 3S I transfer. Sometimes it comes back to me at 4C or 4H but such is life.

And of course never transfer w/ 4 card support, but that's obvious.

[1eyedjack]

I use an immediate jump shift to show a second suit plus support. But I guess that may be a bit too high for some hands, in which case I would sniff the air but in practice I would probably show support.

[P_Marlowe]

We play transfer advances and fit-jumps, so if we can make a fit jump we will
make the fit jump.
=> Our transfers will quite often occur only on the 3 level, showing constr.
values.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mgoetze]

I recommend "Partnership Bidding at Bridge" by Andrew Robson and Oliver Segal. The first two chapters answer your question very thoroughly. Oh, and you can download it for free (and legally) off the internet...

[Free]

I only transfer if I have an invitational or stronger hand. Otherwise just support to 2-level since there's no need to introduce your own suit. Basically you need to be prepared to play at least 3♠.

Fit jumps are only possible with 4 card support, so transfering followed by support typically shows exactly a 3 card support.

[Zelandakh]

mgoetze, on Oct 4 2010, 01:23 PM, said:

I recommend "Partnership Bidding at Bridge" by Andrew Robson and Oliver Segal. The first two chapters answer your question very thoroughly. Oh, and you can download it for free (and legally) off the internet...

I second this. You might not agree with everything they write but it is a very useful read and will almost certainly improve your game if you take in the core concepts.

[Flame]

Zelandakh, on Oct 4 2010, 08:21 PM, said:

mgoetze, on Oct 4 2010, 01:23 PM, said:

I recommend "Partnership Bidding at Bridge" by Andrew Robson and Oliver Segal. The first two chapters answer your question very thoroughly. Oh, and you can download it for free (and legally) off the internet...

I second this. You might not agree with everything they write but it is a very useful read and will almost certainly improve your game if you take in the core concepts.

I read this book a while ago, and it is be part of the reason I asked this question, this is because maybe the biggest point in this book is support with support as soon as possible, which stand in contrast to the way many people use the transfers to show a side suit before they support.

[whereagles]

Flame, on Oct 4 2010, 11:18 AM, said:

So when should you delay support and when should you just support partner ?

Normally you shouldn't have this problem.

Why? Because if you play gadgetry like transfer advances, you'll also have bids in your arsenal to show support + side suit (i.e. fit bids).

The only case you might be in doubt as to what to bid is when you have bad fit (Hx or xxx) + good side suit (KJT+). In that case you normally bid the side suit because you're not too anxious to drive to the 3 level.

[Flame]

whereagles, on Oct 5 2010, 01:37 PM, said:

Flame, on Oct 4 2010, 11:18 AM, said:

So when should you delay support and when should you just support partner ?

Normally you shouldn't have this problem.

Why? Because if you play gadgetry like transfer advances, you'll also have bids in your arsenal to show support + side suit (i.e. fit bids).

The only case you might be in doubt as to what to bid is when you have bad fit (Hx or xxx) + good side suit (KJT+). In that case you normally bid the side suit because you're not too anxious to drive to the 3 level.

Your conclusion seems to be exactly the opposite of what others suggested.
Fit jumps needs specific hand type, 4 card fit and a good side suit.
with fit jump you get to the 3 level.
So we as you said are talking about hands with 3 card support which doesn't want to be on the 3 level unless partner wish to be there(sometimes based on knowing you have this side suit).
Now to the conclusion, I would think as other suggested that if you don't want to be at the 3 level, you got to show the fit immediately rather then show the side suit.

[Zelandakh]

Marc Smith's write-up http://www.bridgeguy...ferAdvances.pdf is probably a good place to start. There used to be another file online but the link is broken now and I do not know where it was moved to.

[fromageGB]

I will always transfer to the 2 level (bid 2♥) if I have 3 card support and say balanced 9-12 hand. A direct bid of 2♠ is weaker. I would not bid another suit on the way.

When I am supporting to higher levels I would show a good 5 card suit on the way if I had one.

[whereagles]

Flame, on Oct 6 2010, 08:30 AM, said:

Your conclusion seems to be exactly the opposite of what others suggested. Fit jumps needs specific hand type, 4 card fit and a good side suit.

(...)

I would think as other suggested that if you don't want to be at the 3 level, you got to show the fit immediately rather then show the side suit.

People always say "you need 4 card fit and a good side suit" but then in practice they all bid it with 3 card fit and a less than perfect side suit. What in theory should be

(1♣) 1♠ (dbl) 3♦

Qxxx
xx
AKxxx
xx

in practice often is

Kxx
x
KJTxx
xxxx

With the latter hand I definitely don't mind to bid 3♠ if I have to, so I might as well do it right away. However, if I had instead

xxx
xxx
KQTxx
Kx

I would prefer to show the side suit and bury the spade fit for good if opps bid 3♥. Reason: bad shape, misplaced ♣K, direct support is a bad lead indication.

In any case my conclusion isn't totally to "bid side suit if 2 level is your tops". Do it yes, but only if it's a good lead director. I.e. with

Kxx
xxx
KJxxx
xx

I would prefer to bid 2♠ rather than a diamond transfer.

[awm]

My preference is not to transfer into a side suit when holding a fit for partner. There are three main reasons for this:

(1) If opener is going to bid again, then it can become awkward to show the support. Support is usually the most important feature of the hand in a competitive sequence.

(2) Partner has a lot of space over the constructive raise. If he has the hand to simply blast a game, it gives the opponents less information with which to make their opening lead. In any case, partner can always make a "game try" over the constructive raise if he has a hand where your side suit is really critical to game prospects.

(3) It's fairly common to have a hand with good values and only a doubleton in partner's suit. You don't want to transfer and pass with such a hand (that sequence could be much weaker and usually shows a longer suit with less tolerance for partner's suit). Sometimes you can bid notrump, but two of partner's suit will very frequently be a better partial than notrump on these hands. I prefer my transfer and then correct at the two-level sequence to show this sort of hand (i.e. a five card side suit, doubleton support, values for at least a mild game invitation) which is otherwise almost impossible to show, rather than using the sequence as yet another way to indicate a real fit for partner.

[Flame]

awm, on Oct 6 2010, 06:02 PM, said:

My preference is not to transfer into a side suit when holding a fit for partner. There are three main reasons for this:

(1) If opener is going to bid again, then it can become awkward to show the support. Support is usually the most important feature of the hand in a competitive sequence.

(2) Partner has a lot of space over the constructive raise. If he has the hand to simply blast a game, it gives the opponents less information with which to make their opening lead. In any case, partner can always make a "game try" over the constructive raise if he has a hand where your side suit is really critical to game prospects.

(3) It's fairly common to have a hand with good values and only a doubleton in partner's suit. You don't want to transfer and pass with such a hand (that sequence could be much weaker and usually shows a longer suit with less tolerance for partner's suit). Sometimes you can bid notrump, but two of partner's suit will very frequently be a better partial than notrump on these hands. I prefer my transfer and then correct at the two-level sequence to show this sort of hand (i.e. a five card side suit, doubleton support, values for at least a mild game invitation) which is otherwise almost impossible to show, rather than using the sequence as yet another way to indicate a real fit for partner.

Thanks,

Liked this very much, hope my partner will like it too