Sunday, July 25, 2004 3:27 AM

2C - Kaplan/Sheiwold

PITBULLS:

There is a huge gaping hole in standard bidding. Standard bidding has no bid for a major hand that is too strong to make a jump rebid. The jump rebid is defined as 16-18 counting distribution. If you have a 6 or 7 card suit solid , semi-solid or broken with points above 16 -18 you are stuck for a rebid. A jump to four of a major does not show a hand too strong to rebid three of a major. You bypass 3NT and jam the bidding making slam exploration very difficult. A jump to four of a major (since it takes up so much bidding room) should show a four of a major pre-empt but with outside cards.

With “holes” in standard bidding , we attempt to fill the major rebid problem by making phony jump shifts or reverses. This often confuses the issue and is another recipe for disaster. A more elegant solution is to always have your 3♣ strong jump shift as a relay to 3♦ and then bidding three of a major shows a hand too strong to directly rebid three of a major. However , this is still artificial and puts partner in a straight jacket until opener describes his real hand.

The Bartons play a jump rebid as game forcing to get around this problem. However this solution put too much strain on their simple major rebid to show invitational hands. They open a very strong weak two to get around the problem that this structure created.

Kaplan & Sheinwold were no dummies . They realized that this problem existed in standard bidding. They said the solution was to play a strong club system or modify your definition of a 2♣ opener. That’s what they decided to do to fix this problem . They decided to open 2♣ with these hands and have all 2♣ openers not forcing to game but forcing to 3 of a major only. This understanding clarifies major suit openers at lower levels.

You hold AKQxxxx xx xxx x so you open with a pre-empt of 4♠ . You have an outside card so you are too strong to open 4♠ AKQxxxx xx Axx x . With that hand you open 1♠ and jump to 4♠ as your rebid. You have AKxxxx Axx Ax xx and counting distribution you have 17 points so this is a 3♠ rebid. Ok add a king to that hand and it becomes unbiddable . There is no standard rebid to show AKxxxx AKx Ax xx . The Kaplan/Sheinwold solution is to open 2♣ with that hand and allow the partnership an escape hatch at 3 of a major.

I like this treatment for a number of reasons . I have seen many of these hands make game when partner does not have a response. 1♠ passed out making 5 gets you +200 but +650 is much better. Opening light 2♣ openers prevents that ignominy when partner realizes that distribution will make game anyway . Take the hand above for example. xxx QJxx xx xxxx you can not respond after a spade opener but you make +650 with a spade break. Most partners play a negative over 2♣ so stopping in 3 of a major will only occur in those sequences. If you do not stop in three of a major , you can always fall back on your squeeze technique J

Anyway you have 3 solutions mentioned above to this particular standard bidding problem . I think the Kaplan/Sheinwold solution is probably the best .