[MrAce]

Among suggestions on the system i like what Frances, Chris and Rainer and Zel wrote so far.

If you do not want to make huge changes, imho there is a merit to play

1♥--1♠
2♦--3 any M

as forcing.

You may feel like you are sacrificing your 3 card ♥ fit and invitation hands, but most top players that i know has already added them somewhere else in their system, and if not you can always start with 1NT and then 3 ♥. Price will be to give up on 4-4 spade fits when you have a 4 spade and 3 heart inv values.

. What Zel said about playing 1♠ as forcing NT, if i recall correctly this was called Brazilian forcing NT or something like that, which i played for long time, and was created actually to handle the Flannery hands w/o having to use the F convention. Using this, you would not even lose your 4-4 spade fits. 1♠ as forcing NT has its own minor issues, but nothing more than any artificial bid which replaced a natural bid.

In another recent topic, just like Kenrexford i suggested to start 2 ♣ over 1♥ when we held a 4 card spade and a very strong hand and i was lol ed. And the hand in debate was much more suitable for 2♣ than this one. Because i could have used it there w/o having any relay or artificial agreements for continuation. On this type of hands here, as she said, if you are gonna use 2♣ you will need some serious changes on your continuations and i am not really a big fan of making huge changes each time we miss a slam.

As a side note about strong jump shift, i would rather miss every slam out there and not play it. Don't get me wrong, i am not saying it is bad thing to play SJS, it is just not in my blood i guess. Same goes for F convention, it is not as bad as people make fun of it, neither as good as some others love it, but definitely not in my blood either.

EDIT: sorry i missed the part below

the_dude, on 2014-January-06, 09:54, said:

What do you think? Outside of changing our system (ie secondary jumps forcing or an obscure convention) is there any other way to handle this hand using expert-standard-ish 2/1?

[kenrexford]

aguahombre, on 2014-January-11, 12:19, said:

Conversely, my years of playing and tweaking 2/1 haven't helped my understanding of K-S, Acol, or Canape systems. There are inferences/nuances from the opening bid onward which eliminate or create entirely different loopholes. But Precision is a different story, since the same stuff can pretty-much be applied to Precision 2/1 auctions after 1M is opened.

Yeah, doesn't work that way. I encourage at least reading some books on other systems, as that helps expand ideas as well. I read up on as much as possible, and new things occur each time. I especially liked finding new thoughts from the old systems like the Official System, Culbertson, and others from the 30's and 40's.