Sunday, April 01, 2007 1:24 AM

4th suit Forcing II

PITBULLS:

Every Bridge player knows that 4^th suit forcing is a kludge that adds artificiality to a natural bidding system. 4^th suit forcing prevents you from patterning out naturally as who knows what partner is doing. Bidding suits in which you do not have length or even values is a terrible way to treat a natural bidding system. 4^th suit forcing paints opener or responder into a corner more often than not & makes them misdescribe their hand & distribution. 4^th suit forcing was invented so that jumps and jump preferences could be invitational.

XYZ was invented so that the ugly 4^th suit forcing is not needed at the one level. It is a structure for all auctions opened with a minor that remain at the one level for 3 bids. 4^th suit forcing does not exist with these auctions. The sequences are triggered by 3 bids at the one level.

When opener rebids at the two level, playing 2NT as a new suit forcing one round is a great help. The bid eliminates many hands that you previously had to use 4^th suit forcing or leap to 3NT thus pre-empting partner. However, this new suit 2NT bid helps 4^th suit forcing with a very valuable negative inference. When you do make a 4^th suit forcing bid , all balanced hands with a stopper in the 4^th suit are eliminated !! Think about it ! You can almost alert a 4^th suit bid as natural or lacking values in that suit for NT purposes. The 4^th suit bid is like a western Q bid to ask for a stopper if you do have a balanced hand.

This negative inference is very helpful as you should right side the NT immediately if you have the stopper in the 4^th suit.

1♦-P-1♠-P

2♣-P-2♥-P with the new inference of 2NT being a one round force , 2♥ is either natural or showing a strong minor raise without a flat hand with a stopper in hearts. If you have the heart stopper , it is a good idea to bid the NT . Not playing 2NT as a new suit , who knows what 2♥ may be ? Maybe a flat NT opener with two heart stoppers !! Maybe strong minor raises with a heart stopper . 4^th suit forcing needs repair work. At least 2NT as a new suit is a very good start to fix the problem.