Monday, August 14, 2006 12:21 AM

Breaking Relays II

PITBULLS:

One of the powers of playing relays are the inferences gained from “breaking the relay”. Do not woodenly accept the relay. When you have a hand in which you want to describe to partner rather than vice versa , break the relay ! This action is taken to describe a good hand. Breaking the relay should also be used when you have a difficult two suiter to describe yourself.

Relays are giving orders to partner to take a mechanical action & bid the next higher ranking suit. What if partner “breaks” the relay and not do what she is told ? A common occurrence of breaking relays is after doubling a weak 2 bid. Partner bids 2NT as a relay to 3♣ but you break the relay by bidding something else. You have told partner you are too strong too accept the relay. This is the most common reason for not following orders.

The age old problem of how to show limit raise hands after a forcing NT & a strong jump shift is done via breaking the relay. Here is an example hand from a Gandolfo/Crosby auction. I held ♠xxx ♥xx ♦KQxx ♣AQxx and Tom opened one spade and I bid a forcing NT. Tom bid 3♣ so I break the relay by bidding 3♠. This shows the limit raise hand so Tom now bids 3NT. Bidding 3NT to play after a strong jump shift and a limit raise is impossible , so this is the serious 3NT. I bid 4♣ and Tom has ♠AKxxx ♥AQ10xx ♦Axx ♣void so he does not like the club duplication of value , so we sign off in 4♠.

Relays are used after 2♣ openers. If the 2♣ opener rebids a major after 2♦ , a relay to the next level ( suit ) is forced. Tom Gandolfo broke a 2♣ relay because he wanted to show his hand ( two suiter ) rather than me describing my hand to him. This worked perfectly. Tom held ♠xx ♥x ♦KQ10xx ♣A109xx and I opened 2♣. Tom replied 2♦ and I bid 2♠. This bid is normally a relay to 2NT in order to describe all two suiters with spades as the anchor suit. Tom broke the relay by bidding 3♦. I held ♠AKQJ10x ♥AKQx ♦xxx ♣ void and had no trouble bidding 6♠ when his diamond bid filled in my weakness.

We like to discourage positive responses after 2♣ openers playing relays , so positives are a rare animal. Bid 2♦ & then break the relay to show your positive suit and response. Breaking the relay defines a positive response & recovers the positive response. . Here is a hand that shows the concept beautifully . ♠AKJ10xx ♥Axx ♦Ax ♣Ax and you open 2♣. Partner bids 2♦ and you bid 2♠ which is a relay to 2NT in case you have a two suiter with spades as the anchor suit. Partner has ♠Qxx ♥KQ109x ♦Jxx ♣xx and knows that spades will be trump. Responder has a positive response in hearts with two of the top 3 honours. Break the relay to 3♥ to show the positive response & guaranteeing two of the top 3 honours ! Partner now with KCB can count 13 tricks and you get to 7NT.

The forcing NT is always a pain to bid with two suiters. Good time to break the relay. Partner opens 1♠ and you have ♠void ♥QJ10xx ♦AJxxx ♣xxx . You respond 1NT and partner bids 3♣. She probably has a huge spade hand but we about to bury the heart suit. You break the relay by bidding 3♥ and partner has ♠AKxxxx ♥AKx ♦K ♣K109 . You get to the magical 4♥ spot rather than the horrible 4♠ contract !!

Breaking relays make some slams very easy to bid. Nancy Cook simplified this auction greatly by the good action of not accepting the relay. I held ♠AKx ♥J ♦AKQJxx ♣J109 and opened 1♦ and Nancy bid 1♠. I bid 3♣ which Nancy alerted & then bid 3♠. Why did Nancy not take the relay ? She must have a slam try hand or better so I bid 4NT KCB. Nancy showed 2 with trump queen so I bid 7NT . Nancy held ♠Q1098xx ♥Ax ♦10x ♣Axx so I had 14 top tricks.

Kiz Fung taught me a better structure over 2♣ openers. Bidding 3♣ or 3♦ after a 2♣ opener as a positive response is not needed with the improvements in KCB . Not accepting the relay when requested can show a good hand with a nice suit . The harder hands to bid after a 2♣ opener are bad long minors. 2♣-P-3♥/3♠ are already long suits with no controls. Kiz suggests that 3♣ & 3♦ should also be these hand types. This makes a lot of sense as these are the more frequent hands . The strong minor hands can be handled by bidding 2♦ and breaking the relay if need be.

Kiz opened 2♣ and I held ♠xxx ♥x ♦xx ♣Q10987xx . In accordance with her method, I bid 3♣ and 3NT ends the auction. I described my long nothingness is one bid so the auctions ends. 4NT/4♦ by Kiz would be the standard how long is your suit ? I like it.