Monday, November 04, 2002 6:23 PM

Forcing 1NT

PITBULLS:

The forcing 1NT bid is the “garbage bucket” of Bridge . It is a catch all bid that describes any hand under a 2/1 game force. Coming with the territory is the ambiguity of a 2NT rebid by the forcing NT bidder. It can not be a nice disciplined balanced hand with 10-12 HCP and stoppers in every suit and tolerance for partners suit . That does not follow from the nature of the 1NT bid in the first place . O.K. you know that , so what I am I getting at . The point I would like to make is that it is more important for opener to describe her hand to the forcing NT and not make gambling leaps to game . Let the 1NT bidder in the picture before making any single handed decisions .

For instance , all the 6-4 hands and the 5-5 hands . In the days before forcing NT you could differentiate between weak and intermediate 6-4 and 5-5 hands by leaping to game . For example

AJxxxx AQxx Ax x You open 1♠ and partner bids 1NT . You rebid 2♥

and partner bids 2NT .

You have enough for game but where ? You can not bid 3♠ as that is not forcing and we are just trying to escape from 2NT and suggest a better partial. KQJxxx AJxx xx x .

So you leap to 4♠ . Congratulations you have found the only game that does not make !!

Partner has x KJx KQxx Q1098x or x Kx KQJxx J1098x or any number of concocted 2NT bids that 3NT or 4♥ is a better contract.

O.K. you hold AKxxx AJ10xx Kx x or any number of 5-5 major hands under a strong jump shift . You open a spade partner bids 1NT and you bid 2♥ . Partner bids 2NT so you can not bid 3♥ as partner might pass expecting you to hold KQxxx AQ10xx xx x or the like . So you leap to 4♥ and ask partner to give you preference at the 4 level.

Congratulations you just got passed your makeable 3NT game to an impossible major game.

Partner is xx xx AQJ10x QJ10x or tons of similar hands that if you described your 5-5 to her then she would have put the contract in 3NT . Partner could even have held a good 6 card minor and 4 of a major is the last place she had in mind . 3♦ instead of 2NT usually just shows a distributional hand with diamonds and 2NT is the stronger hand.

O.K. in order to make all natural bids over an invitational 2NT bid non forcing you need a gadget . Fred Gittleman plays the cheapest idle bid as a relay . Then all his bids after the relay show the weaker 6-4’s , the weaker 5-5’s and all other hands that you would have not accepted the invite (5-4-3-1) . These leaves all the natural bids as forcing over 2NT and Susan can improve the partial which can win IMPS also .

Peter Jones and I had the understanding that if you bid your suit 3 times then it is not forcing otherwise all pull of 2NT invitational bids were forcing .

Ex 1♦ 1♠ 1♠ 1NT

2♦ 2NT 2♠ 2NT

3♦ pass 3♠ pass

The only other way out of this hole in standard bidding is to make strong jump shifts highly invitational or shade then so that your two level bids are not quite so strong . This is not the lesser of two evils . Shaded strong jump shifts also can lead to a heap of trouble …