Monday, August 15, 2005 3:46 AM

Forcing NT - Doubleton Trump

PITBULLS:

Playing forcing 1NT after a major there is one hand type that comes up time & time again and is impossible to describe without assistance. This is the 8-10 HCP hand with a doubleton in partners major and a flaw that prevents a 2NT bid. I held this hand playing with Bryan Maksymetz Jx xxxx A109 KQxx . Bryan opened a spade and I bid 1NT and Bryan bid 2♦ what is your bid ? The unethical players can hesitate forever and then bid 2♠ and that will show this hand rather than the weakest forcing NT sequence in the structure. How do you describe these hands ?

If you play 1♠-P-3♥ as a weak heart suit and 1♠-P-2♥ and a rebid of hearts as not forcing to game you take many heart hands out of the forcing NT structure. You can now use 2♥ as a relay in these auctions after a 2♦ rebid. With most hands , partner will take the relay to two spades after you bid 2♥. If extra , partner will describe her pattern after 2♥. Either by bidding 3♥ or showing a 5-5 . A return to spades by the forcing NT bidder always shows the hand above.

With a spade opener and a club rebid you have a 2♦ bid you can use for this purpose. Partner will pattern out with a good hand otherwise bid 2♠ after the 2♦ bid. The 2♦ bid is not a relay and the doubleton spade hand is the default for this auction. xx Axxx xxxx KQx is a typical hand. A two heart bid can be reserved for natural hearts invitational with a 5 card heart suit.

Some adventurous pairs play this treatment after a 1♥ opener also. 1♥-P-1NT-P 2♦-P-2♠-P can be an either or bid. If you had 3 card support you would have jumped to 3♥ with a limit raise with 3 trump. Going this route should show the 2 card heart preference with 10 HCP’s. xxx Ax xxx KQ10xx or the like. With a 2♣ rebid you can use the handy 2♦ “catch all” bid to show these hand types. Again partner will bid 2♥ after 2♦ with most hands and you simply pass. If partner “patterns out” she is showing extra and you can react accordingly.

BART is not needed playing this style of 2♦ and 2♥ bids by the forcing 1NT bidder. . This treatment improves the forcing NT structure immensely and as discussed in previous articles , this allows strong minor raises to be shown also. This understanding means a simple raise of partners minor is pre-emptive.