[portia2]

hi, playing 2/1 (and Bergen) how should you bid this hand? W is dealer. all n/v. thanks

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[Cyberyeti]

Not sure where I want to be seeing both hands, (I think 3N but that's really difficult to find). I'm no 2/1 expert, but looks to me like 1♠-1N-3♦ but I'm not sure what is included in the 1N to know what E bids now.

I play Acol normally and the auction would be completely different (1♠-2♣ start)

[gordontd]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-October-15, 03:41, said:

Not sure where I want to be seeing both hands, (I think 3N but that's really difficult to find). I'm no 2/1 expert, but looks to me like 1♠-1N-3♦ but I'm not sure what is included in the 1N to know what E bids now.

I think continuing 3S - 3NT is plausible.

[mikeh]

Hi Portia

Posting both hands makes it impossible to be objective, since we ‘know’ that we ‘should’ get to 3N.

Getting to 3N is fairly easy if one bids 1S 1N 3D 3S 3N.

But is this a sound auction?

Make west the same but change east to be, say, xx xx Qxx KQJxxx

Now, surely the auction would be exactly the same, and how good a contract do we think 3N is? We have very little hope. They lead hearts and, unless the lead is low away from KQxx(x), we have zero hope. Even if it is, we need the diamond Queen to be an entry.

To me, and I think to many experts, the west hand is a true nightmare after the 1N response. Personally, I do not think it is worth a jumpshift, which is forcing to game.

One good principle of hand evaluation is known as ‘in and out valuation’. High card points should be upgraded when in long suits, and especially when clustered together and/or supported by good spot cards. Conversely, high cards should be downgraded when in short suits, where they are not as effective in turning small cards into late round winners. Remember, the reason we value high card points is in part that they allow us to later win tricks with low cards, which can take tricks without being accorded much respect in terms of how we value hands.

Here, west has more than half his hcp in his very short rounded suits (spades and diamonds are pointed suits, hearts and clubs are rounded suits)

This means one should downgrade the hand. Add to that that, after the 1N response, 5D is a long way away and will rarely be correct, and the poor texture of the spade suit should make us leery of playing 4S opposite a doubleton, and I think that west’s ‘correct’ bid is 2D

If partner passes, we are almost surely not missing any game.

As it happens, east now has a problem, because in 2/1, 3C by east can be KQ10xxxx and nothing at all on the side. 2S is probably the best call, but it, too, is a bit of an underbid.


Now west has a chance. He isn’t passing 2S, but it’s not clear what his best rebid is (pretending we have not seen east)s hand)

We could bid 3D, showing roughly the high card strength of the hand, while also showing 5-5.

But: it’s easy to see that 3D will often leave east with no good choices. I may be being influenced by knowing I want to reach 3N, but I think west can plausibly choose 2N.

2N implies 5=2=4=2 with rounded suit values and about 16-18 hcp. That’s pretty close to this hand. East now has the world’s easiest 3N raise.

In my opinion, a lot of players fall in love with good but not great hands, and jumpshift on inadequate values. Make west AQJxx x AQxxx Ax and I’d see 3D as more credible, tho I would personally choose 2D anyway.

The problem is a good one, and I hope these comments have helped.

[Cyberyeti]

I think it's an interesting call whether you force to game over 1N and what you rebid over 1♠-1N-2♦-2♠.

I tend to take the aggressive route here, there are pitfalls with all the approaches, particularly in that NT may be wrongsided (give E ♥10xx/Qx)

[HardVector]

I'd like to add one comment to what Mikeh stated, and that is that Bergen gets rid of a very useful bid for 2/1 players. That is the invitational jump shift at the 3 level. I personally have been doing that for about 15 years now, and I'm not going back to Bergen. So here, I would make an immediate 3c bid with responder's hand and now getting to the right spot is easier. Without that, you have the bad choices that were already illustrated.

[Zelandakh]

As I understand it, the "normal" 2/1 auction would be 1♠ - 3♣; 3NT or perhaps 1♠ - 3♣; 3♦ - 3♠; 3NT. If you are playing Bergen then you have presumably discussed how you bid the hands that it has taken away. If you have not made allowance for how to bid an invitational one-suiter then that is a system issue. I would prefer to discuss system solutions rather than try to bid a hand that the system has explicitly created a hole for. For me, East shows an invitational hand, West accepts the invite and shows 5♠-5♦, East asks about hearts and West bids 3NT. There are plenty of other possible solutions though, just choose one.

[nige1]

portia2 'hi, playing 2/1 (and Bergen) how should you bid this hand? W is dealer. all n/v.'
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Even using Gazilli, I can't produce a convincing auction.

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