[dude_30504]

My partner and I are teaching ourselves two over one, we are beginner/intermediates. The bidding went like this (opponents are passing):
1 ♦ by me.
2 ♣ by him.
and we ultimately ended up in 3NT.

He had 4-4-4-1 (one club). He just wanted me to know we had game somewhere, and we did. (Please disregard the fact that he could have bid differently).

Is his a legal bid? He alerted it as "2/1 and could be short (on BBO)". Would that bidding sequence be allowed in a tournament? Thanks.

[blackshoe]

You alert agreements, not departures from agreements. Departures from agreements (misbids or psychs) are, generally speaking, legal, although you want to avoid doing the same thing often enough that partner begins to expect it. When that happens, you have an implicit partnership agreement, which might be illegal and might not. Either way, you have to disclose it. Bottom line in your case, the bid is legal, and would be allowed in a tournament, but if he does it too often, it becomes an agreement and (on line or with screens) both of you have to disclose it, and in the same way.

[Stephen Tu]

It's a "legal" bid in the sense that it's his turn and a sufficient call. In bridge you are generally allowed to bid whatever you want. However, his bid would be considered a "psychic bid" aka "psyche", a gross deviation from what is normally expected from the call. Those are only allowed if partner is also in the dark about the deviation. You should be aware that there are some opps who will get totally bent out of shape over psyches, never having been taught that they are part of the game, and that there are some tournaments on BBO that prohibit psyches.

If you have a *partnership agreement* that his bid is totally artificial and GF, that's OK too, but then the opps need to be informed that it doesn't show clubs necessarily. (and you wouldn't be playing 2/1 as people understand it).

Also, it's not the "right" bid in 2/1 or pretty much any other normal system on the planet. Your partner should just bid the normal 1♥. This way he immediately finds out if he has a fit in either major, he can always GF on the second round of the bidding, using 4th suit forcing or a club splinter. The idea behind 2/1 GF isn't "2/1 to create a GF no matter what you have". It's "bid naturally, but keep 2/1 requirements higher than std sticking lesser hands somewhere else, usu in 1ntf over a major, so that one has more cheap forcing continuations on the second round after your natural 2/1". He could have gotten your side into quite a bit of trouble if you had a hand with a good club fit. If you had some holding like KQx of clubs, you'd think these are fantastic cards for a slam, where in fact opposite his stiff they are wasted values. Whereas if you had xxx in clubs, you could very well have slam in a major or diamonds, but after starting with 2♣, he can't ever show club shortness, and you should be discouraged holding xxx when in reality this is a great holding. OTOH if 1d-1h-1s or 1d-1h-2h, he can bid 4♣ and show the club shortness.

You & your partner may want to get Mike Lawrence's 2/1 CD.

[dude_30504]

Thank you for your responses. As I said, we are teaching ourselves 2/1 at this time. We are studying Larry Cohen's free series of 12 lessons. But soon, our club director will be teaching classes on 2/1. Looking forward to those. Your comments were about what I expected, thank you again.