[mycroft]

rduran: QT9532 K8 KJ3 K2? And that's taking away the (admittedly useless) HJ. Giving back that point, we get KT9532 K8 KJ3 K2, which is an excellent slam. The problem is a) that the hands are essentially mirrored, and b) that there's no club control. In standard a) you can't do much about, but the danger of b) should be screamingly obvious after 1S-2NT; 4S, and a better tool then Ole Black should be used to stay out of this bad slam. Staying off the 5 level is an argument for better tools, but I said what I was going to above.

[dake50]

North or South needs a believable 4C =Zia Q or C-void showing. Or sanely 4S quit.

[whereagles]

Jacoby 2NT in itself is just fine. It's the classic follow-ups that suck beyond belief.

A decent set of follow-ups is that of Martel-Stansby. See e.g. http://www.bridgeguy...on/Chapter4.pdf

I have my own home-grown tools, but I confess it would be hard to stay out of slam.

[OleBerg]

whereagles, on 2010-December-22, 07:50, said:

Jacoby 2NT in itself is just fine. It's the classic follow-ups that suck beyond belief.

A decent set of follow-ups is that of Martel-Stansby. See e.g. http://www.bridgeguy...on/Chapter4.pdf

I have my own home-grown tools, but I confess it would be hard to stay out of slam.

Sorry, nothing personal, but:

If you:

- Have the bidding to yourself.
- Establish a nine-card major fit on responders first bid.
- Gets to slams with an unstopped suit.

Then you do not have decent follow up's.

Merry and Happy to all.

[whereagles]

OleBerg, on 2010-December-23, 06:00, said:

Sorry, nothing personal, but:

If you:

- Have the bidding to yourself.
- Establish a nine-card major fit on responders first bid.
- Gets to slams with an unstopped suit.

Then you do not have decent follow up's.

Agree, but there's a very good reason for it. The tools I devised focus on giving capitaincy to OPENER (because his hand is more undefined than responder's), whereas here we would like responder to be in charge. Obviously this philosophy doesn't work out well here, but is adequate for many other situations.

Most J2NT schemes leave responder in charge and I firmly believe that's very wrong. It's opener who must be in charge.

In any case it's way easier if you skip J2NT altogether for a simple 2/1:

1♠ 2♣
2NT 3♠
4♠ pass

4♠ = bad hand in context, with poor minor suit controls.

[OleBerg]

whereagles, on 2010-December-23, 07:42, said:

Agree, but there's a very good reason for it.

Again, nothing personal, but:

No.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

JLOGIC, on 2010-December-18, 23:55, said:

1S 2N
3C 3D
3H 3N
p

3C=min
3D=ask
3H=balanced

I'm still intrigued by Justin's ( J-LOGIC's ) method.

It is similar to the Swedish-2NT! in that it allows Opener to show 1 ) "extras" or 2 ) minimum -- with or w/o shortness in either case.... so at least Responder knows the overall strength situation.

But Justin's seems preferable ( superior ) in that the "balanced" hand for a "minimum" Opener is announced EARLY ( at the 3-level, 3H! ) whereas in Swedish, it is announced ABOVE 3NT ( as a courtesy 4-level cuebid) -- a little better than the 4M Jacoby minimum, but not much better . And then ....

... using Swedish you LOSE the Jacoby 4-level, "2nd 5 card suit" replies for Opener.... ( which I dislike losing ).

Sooo, this is my guess for Justin's complete structure ( but it is a bit taxing on the memory cells ):

1) Extras for Opener are shown with direct bids ABOVE 3C! :
1M - 2NT!
??
3D! = balanced

3H! = Cl shortness
3S! = Diam shortness
3NT! = other-Major shortness

4C! = 2nd 5 card suit ( Cl )
4D! = 2nd 5 card suit ( Diam )
[ 4H! = 2nd 5 card suit ( Hts ) when Sp are trump ]

2) Minimum for Opener :
1M - 2NT!
3C! ( any minimum ) - 3D! ( asks ):
??
3H! = balanced
3S! = Cl shortness
3NT! = Diam shortness
4C! = other Major shortness

4D! = 2nd 5 card suit ( Cl )
4H! = 2nd 5 card suit ( Diam )
[ 4S! = 2nd 5 card suit ( Hts ) when Sp are trump ]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If this is NOT your structure, Justin, you can use it anyway -- free of charge .

Also, my apologies to Bill Higgins, who has spent a great deal of time refining the Swedish-2NT method.

[gszeszycki]

this is not hard hand you have all the information you need to pass 4s as the % way to go.

You have 18 true but fair amount of quacks and spade J is almost surely useless

so your partnership has a combined total of around 31 max and no shortness and
a fair amount of quacks (and thats just your hand). These are all warning signs that slam is unlikely and depending on how light you p might open 31 might be optimistic.

Pass 4s should be easy to do. Do not blame a system when it works properly.

[han]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2010-December-18, 11:11, said:

"4S bid ( in plain Jacoby ) is a slam killer".

It's nice to have good methods but it is far more important to have good judgement. As Matmat, Franceshinden, Siegmund, Oleberg and many others have pointed out, playing only simple Jacoby is no excuse on this hand for reaching this slam. You can continue to talk about how bad the method is, but these pairs would be better off learning how to use the methods they already know than to learn new gadgets that are probably too complicated for them anyway.

[fromageGB]

whereagles, on 2010-December-23, 07:42, said:

Agree, but there's a very good reason for it. The tools I devised focus on giving capitaincy to OPENER (because his hand is more undefined than responder's), whereas here we would like responder to be in charge. Obviously this philosophy doesn't work out well here, but is adequate for many other situations.

Most J2NT schemes leave responder in charge and I firmly believe that's very wrong. It's opener who must be in charge.

This is where I think you are wrong. After 1♠ 2NT, both hands are known to be "opening values", one hand has 5+ spades and one hand has 4+ spades. Unless you want to quibble about one vacant space, both hands are undefined. That is why neither hand should have captaincy, and both hands should be able to show a shortage (or long good side suit if that is your preference).

[Trinidad]

fromageGB, on 2010-December-24, 05:54, said:

This is where I think you are wrong. After 1♠ 2NT, both hands are known to be "opening values", one hand has 5+ spades and one hand has 4+ spades. Unless you want to quibble about one vacant space, both hands are undefined. That is why neither hand should have captaincy, and both hands should be able to show a shortage (or long good side suit if that is your preference).

I pretty much agree with this reasoning why opener should not be captain, but I would state it stronger. Responder should (generally speaking*) be captain, since opener has the first shot at describing his hand. After responder's first bid both side know about the same; after opener's rebid responder knows a lot more than opener.

* The Bergen structure is geared to this: All opener's rebids are describing with the exception of 3♦, which is asking responder for shortness. I myself find that I don't need this exception in practice.

Rik

[hansen50]

This is an easy one

1♠-2NT
3NT-4♦
4♠-Pas

3NT = 11-15hp and no shortness
4♦ = Cuebid
4♠= no stop in ♣

[tolvyrj]

We play a bit different kind of gadget called Stenberg and in our sys it would have go like this;
1S - 2Nt ( actually limit or better but it dosent matter)
3C - 3D ( 3C showed minimum and 3D asks shortness and is FG)
3S - 4D ( 3S denies short suits and 4D showed lowest cue and is invitation to slam)
4S - pass (4S denies control in clubs and pass is very angry one:))