[wank]

Assuming you're playing weak NT and opening all 5m422 hands in range with 1NT, what should you do on your rebid with 5431s with 3 card support?

playing strong NT it's normal to raise on 3 if minimum, showing roughly the same strength as a weak NT.

playing weak NT the rebid raise, e.g. 1c-1H-2H is normally an unbalanced minimum or a lower end strong NT.

it seems to me that a 3 card minimum is too weak in playing strength compared to the others to make a sensible range. should the method of bidding these be inverted then from strong NT methods such that you take the indirect raising route on these hands, e.g. 1c-1h-1s-2c-2h? you would just raise immediately on the stronger hands with this shape, which are roughly equal imo to a strong NT in playing strength, i.e. a 15 count with a singleton and 3 trumps is roughly equal to a 15 count with 4 trumps and no singletons.

i never heard this before, despite playing in the land of the weak NT. here everyone still plays the indirect raise as showing extras.

[MickyB]

1C:1H, 1S:2N and 1C:1H, 1S:3C give you some awkward guesses on 4315 min. Not that it's clearly worse than overbidding on the previous round, but you can solve some of them by bidding 1C:1H, 2H:3C, P if that's your method.

If playing this style what would you rebid on 1345 after 1C:1H? My scheme of transfer responses to 1C solve all of these problems, I now play 1C:1D, 2C as 5+C,3=H 11-15 and 1C:1H, 2D as 5+C, 3=S 11+.

[Cyberyeti]

wank, on 2013-March-06, 09:53, said:

playing weak NT the rebid raise, e.g. 1c-1H-2H is normally an unbalanced minimum or a lower end strong NT.

No, playing old style Acol, with the lower end strong no trump, with 4♣/4♥ you opened 1♥, with 3♥ you rebid 1N, so the strong no trump is out of the picture other than 1♥-1♠-2♠.

[jallerton]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-March-06, 11:55, said:

No, playing old style Acol, with the lower end strong no trump, with 4♣/4♥ you opened 1♥, with 3♥ you rebid 1N, so the strong no trump is out of the picture other than 1♥-1♠-2♠.

No, original Acol was based on "bid what you like" as long as you have prepared your rebid. With two four card suits opening either suit was possible. More recently, partnerships have agreed which suit to open when they hold two four card suits. The "major before minor" style on strong balanced hands has some supporters, but is theoretically worse than opening the minor suit on such hands, in my opinion.

[jallerton]

wank, on 2013-March-06, 09:53, said:

Assuming you're playing weak NT and opening all 5m422 hands in range with 1NT, what should you do on your rebid with 5431s with 3 card support?

playing strong NT it's normal to raise on 3 if minimum, showing roughly the same strength as a weak NT.

playing weak NT the rebid raise, e.g. 1c-1H-2H is normally an unbalanced minimum or a lower end strong NT.

it seems to me that a 3 card minimum is too weak in playing strength compared to the others to make a sensible range. should the method of bidding these be inverted then from strong NT methods such that you take the indirect raising route on these hands, e.g. 1c-1h-1s-2c-2h? you would just raise immediately on the stronger hands with this shape, which are roughly equal imo to a strong NT in playing strength, i.e. a 15 count with a singleton and 3 trumps is roughly equal to a 15 count with 4 trumps and no singletons.

i never heard this before, despite playing in the land of the weak NT. here everyone still plays the indirect raise as showing extras.

An interesting idea. I agree that 1X-1Y-2Y can be an uncomfortably wide range playing weak NT. Theoretically, borderline 5m431 hands should not be opened 1 of a suit playing weak NT for this reason. Other players solve the problem (but create another) by raising to 3Y on fairly minimum strong NT hands.

I have discussed some of these sequences with one weak NT partner. We agreed that 1m-1♥-2♥ would only be bid with 43(51) if we had enough to move over a natural and invitational 2NT/3m rebid from Responder; with a complete minimum 43(51) we would rebid 1♠ and pass Responder's rebid of 1NT/2NT/2m, for better or for worse. 1m-1♥-1♠-1NT/2m-2♥ still shows a hand too strong to raise to 2♥ directly, but the minimum for this is somewhat stronger than the same sequence playing strong NT.

[Cyberyeti]

jallerton, on 2013-March-06, 16:05, said:

No, original Acol was based on "bid what you like" as long as you have prepared your rebid. With two four card suits opening either suit was possible. More recently, partnerships have agreed which suit to open when they hold two four card suits. The "major before minor" style on strong balanced hands has some supporters, but is theoretically worse than opening the minor suit on such hands, in my opinion.

I agree with you, in my main partnership I open the minor, with an older player who plays much older style Acol, I have to open the major.

[Vampyr]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-March-06, 17:39, said:

I agree with you, in my main partnership I open the minor, with an older player who plays much older style Acol, I have to open the major.

Everyone I play Acol with makes me open the major in all cases

[helene_t]

I like Wank's idea. Not so applicaple for me since I rarely play weak NT and when I do it is usually 4-card majors, but playing 5-card majors or Scotish Acol I think it is a good idea.

[PhilKing]

When you start worrying about auctions like this, it is time to give up Acol.

FWIW, I agree with the Cyberyeti approach of opening the major with 15-(bad)16 to avoid this problem. That keeps strong no trumps out of your 1m-1M-2M sequences. Then you can stick with the "standard" treatment of 4315s and keep 1m-1M-3M up to scratch, showing the equivalent of a 2434 17 count plus or minus one.

[jallerton]

PhilKing, on 2013-March-07, 06:40, said:

When you start worrying about auctions like this, it is time to give up Acol.

Do you mean time to give up weak NT? The same issues apply if playing 5-card majors and a weak NT.

[PhilKing]

jallerton, on 2013-March-07, 13:31, said:

Do you mean time to give up weak NT? The same issues apply if playing 5-card majors and a weak NT.

T-Walshe solves it (at least played my way), since you can engineer three different ways of raising to 2M without much difficulty.

[rhm]

wank, on 2013-March-06, 09:53, said:

i never heard this before, despite playing in the land of the weak NT. here everyone still plays the indirect raise as showing extras.

Maybe I can help:

There is a book by Jeremy Flint from 1991 called "Bridge with the professional Touch" which contains a selection of articles from his weekly column in the Times.

One is called Tips for Tops, in which he wrote in one of them:

Quote

Again you are playing a weak notrump and the bidding begins 1♣ Pass 1♠ Pass 2♠.
There are four types of hands on which this sequence is commonly used and four is one too many. The four types are

A. Minimum with four-card spade support, e.g. ♠AK72,♥64,♦75,♣AJ964
B. Minimum in high cards but shapely, with three card support e,g, ♠AJ5,♥3,♦K973,♣KQ765
C. Balanced in the 15-16 point range, e.g. ♠AJ5,♥72,♦AJ84,♣AJT6
D. Minimum three-card support, e.g. ♠Q62,♥T5,♦AQ4,♣KQ632

Noting wrong with A,B and C, but with D I prefer to avoid this sequence. Either open 1NT or follow the sequence 1♣-1♠-1NT.
Thus the sequence 1♣-1♠-2♠ is never minimum.

End-quote

Rainer Herrmann

[Zelandakh]

rhm, on 2013-March-08, 11:47, said:

Again you are playing a weak notrump and the bidding begins 1♣ Pass 1♠ Pass 2♠.
There are four types of hands on which this sequence is commonly used and four is one too many. The four types are

A. Minimum with four-card spade support, e.g. ♠AK72,♥64,♦75,♣AJ964
B. Minimum in high cards but shapely, with three card support e,g, ♠AJ5,♥3,♦K973,♣KQ765
C. Balanced in the 15-16 point range, e.g. ♠AJ5,♥72,♦AJ84,♣AJT6
D. Minimum three-card support, e.g. ♠Q62,♥T5,♦AQ4,♣KQ632

In my experience, most Acol players would open category D with 1NT and would rebid 1NT on some hands in category C. It may be that Crowhurst was in vogue in 1991.

[wodahs]

MickyB, on 2013-March-06, 11:34, said:

If playing this style what would you rebid on 1345 after 1C:1H? My scheme of transfer responses to 1C solve all of these problems, I now play 1C:1D, 2C as 5+C,3=H 11-15 and 1C:1H, 2D as 5+C, 3=S 11+.

mickyb, what would you rebid holding clubs with no fit? Do you accept the transfer at the one-level with <3?

[MickyB]

wodahs, on 2013-March-11, 22:28, said:

mickyb, what would you rebid holding clubs with no fit? Do you accept the transfer at the one-level with <3?

1♥. I don't think of it as "completing the transfer", it's just another bid for me, artificial and forcing.