Thursday, July 15, 2004 4:49 PM

Up the Line Bidding

PITBULLS:

2 Way NMF is more then a convention it’s a philosophy. It is a tool that allows you to describe all balanced hands in Bridge by the NT bid. This makes a lot of Bridge sense as we all know that balanced hands have less trick taking potential then their counterparts . Classifying all of them with the NT label certainly is descriptive. Also a NT bid has a great deal of concealment value so you do not make it easy for defenders to find correct opening leads or correct discards. Also a new inference emerges in that if you do rebid a major you have 5 or more of the minor instead of guessing if there are 3 or 4 cards in the minor.

Partner opens 1♣ and respond a heart with xx AKxx xx Axxxx and partner rebids a spade. Is in not nice to know that you have found a 5-5 fit by the one level ? Partner has AKxx Qxx x Kxxxx and now you might have a chance of reaching your 23 HCP +1370 slam. If partner has AKxx Qxx xxx Kxx ( same 12 points ) & game does not even make !!

Up the line bidding was designed for Bridge beginners so they can always find their 4-4 major suit fit. As you gain experience “up the line bidding” gets thrown by the way side. It is more important to describe balanced hands by 1NT or 2NT rebids and bid naturally with a major suit rebid. In order to play this style, you need a toy ( NMF ) and an adjustment with responding diamonds after a club opener. Since we do bypass majors to bid NT , if your response is only worth one bid , bid a major rather then the diamond suit. This allows you to find your major suit fit early if partner had intended to rebid 1NT with her major(s)..

The NMF toy is based on a relay and using both minors effectively. The club suit signals all invitational hands and the diamond suit all game forcing hands. The club bid has the dual use as a relay to 2♦ and as you know , relays open up a number of idle bids. The direct 2NT invitational is no longer needed as you can describe an invitational hand via the 2♣ route. O.K. lets define a new meaning for the direct 2NT . A 2NT bid is another relay . Partner wants you to bid 3♣ which he will pass with a long weak club hand or if he bids another suit it’s a forcing to game 4-4-4-1 . 3NT is the stiff club , 3♦,3♥ & 3♠ stiffs in that suit or you can have it show a stiff with 4 of partners minor.

All types of major hands can be shown by the power of NMF . Tom and I play “recovering the strong jump shift” by responder so if you respond and jump in the same suit , it is a strong jump shift with a good suit. If you bid 2♦ NMF then bid spades it is a 5 card suit or a broken 6 card suit as we did not jump in the suit directly. Since you have the 2♣ bid at your disposal , a two level direct bid should always be passed. 1♦-P-1♠-P 1NT-P-2♥-P .

You have so many options available with NMF it is a good idea to identify 5-5 hands immediately. Why use artificial bids when it is not necessary ? Use the natural jump in a new suit to show the two suiters in the forcing to game range. Say you have an invitational 5-4 AJ10xx KQ10x xxx x Partner opens a diamond and you respond a spade with partner rebidding 1NT. You bid 2♣ which is a relay to 2♦ and you bid 2♥ . You have described a 5-4 with invitational vales. Give yourself game forcing values with a 5-4 or a 5-5 . The 2♦ bid has an added feature in that partner should help you out by bidding hearts if he has them .Therefore , if you bid hearts its likely that you have 5 of them as he denied a 4 card heart suit.

Strong 5-5’s with or without 5 of partners suit is shown by the Charles Goren methods. You hold AKJxxx x x AQ10xx and partner opens 1♦ with you responding a spade. After the 1NT rebid you force to game with a 3♣ jump shift by responder exactly as Goren would have done. What could be simpler ? Since we have all invitational bids covered by 2♣ , jumps can go back to the Goren meaning and describe forcing to game two suiters. With invitational 5-5’s use the jumping method also but predicate it with a 2♣ bid to show the invitational range. AJxxx AJ10xx xx x with partner opening 1♦. You respond a spade and partner bids 1NT. You bid 2♣ and partner relays to 2♦ so now you bid 3♥ invitational. Again very simple bidding.

Susan had a huge hand in support of diamonds a while back where 6♦ was an excellent contract . By not playing 2 way NMF , their sequence was tortuous and a +1370 was missed. She held KQJx xx AQ10x AQx and Maurice opened 1♦ . In order to get to 6♦ you need partner to hold the right hand. You respond a spade and Maurice rebids 1NT. You bid a quiet 2♦ and that brings 2NT and now you show your diamond support. You are only at the 3 level and already have forced to game and given a suit preference which can be a slam try. Partner now bids 3♥ and a jump to 4NT or 4♦ KCB is now unambiguous. Flashing a game forcing signal early keeps the bidding low and allows easy slam investigation.