Saturday, March 03, 2007 2:15
AM
Hand Evaluation - Recovering the
Heart Suit
PITBULLS:
When
2/1 forcing to game was introduced , the most obvious failure of
the forcing 1NT structure was burying the heart suit & missing heart partials ,
games & slams after a 1♠ opener. The forcing NT is not a place for a 6 card heart suit with
close to invitational values or at
invitational values. You wrong
side the NT & miss tight games or slams..
Partner & the opponents can pre-empt you out of
showing your hearts with a variety of spade & NT jumps & pre-empts. Why
bury possibly the entire feature
of your hand ( a good 6 card heart suit or any suit
for that matter) with a 1NT bid ?? You use up valuable & useful bidding
space. A simple 2♠ rebid could bury
your 6-3 heart fit & end the auction for disasterous
consequences. The spade suit pre-empts
partner !! Bridge is a game of suits so rescue suits
from the forcing 1NT structure.
Finding
fits early , simplify auctions . You
have useful space to Q bid , splinter or otherwise describe your hand. The forcing
NT becomes a stalling mechanism
where partner announces her heart suit finally
but by jumping to
the 3 level. This means that the partnership is up the 4 level before
they have had a chance to investigate how the
hands fit ,
duplication of value & controls. The Goren 2/1 non forcing with hearts
over spades is far superior in bidding theory.
We
all know that ,
so how do we get our heart
suit back ? Heart splinters
must be bid a different way &
2/1 in hearts is non forcing to game if the suit is rebid.
This understanding gets us off to the best start possible to get to our heart
games & slams. My partners play a 3♦ splinter to show a
stiff in the other major
so we can recover the heart suit naturally.
My
partners play fast arrival philosophy
with hearts over spades , so a direct jump to 3♥ shows a pre-emptive
heart hand. Tom Gandolfo plays this sequence as intermediate. No matter what your methods ,
hearts are natural & kept
out of the forcing NT structure. This allows 3♥ to be used in forcing NT sequences as a fit showing jump.
Contrast
these two auctions with ♠x ♥AKJ10xx ♦xxxx ♣xx , partner opens 1♠
. In one system you bid 1NT & in the other 2♥. Now look what happens . ♠Axxxx ♥Qxxx ♦x ♣AKx , partner rebids 2♥ . The forcing NT
bidder bids 4♥ for +680 . In the other
sequence the heart fit is found immediately so opener splinters to 4♦. The 2♥ bidder now
investigates for a grand slam & missing an Ace settles on +1430. “Tight” 4♥ games are easily bid
by beginning with a 2/1 . The opponents cannot
pre-empt you as they possibly could when you bury
your heart suit with a 1NT bid. If 3NT is the correct contract
, at least it is right sided . Partner , by bidding
a forcing NT just to hide her heart suit
quite often wrong sides the NT contract.
Bridge
is a game of suits.
Getting the heart suit “out in the open” initially gets you to
nice major suit games. 2/1 forcing to game has some nice advantages however
hearts over spades was one of the 2/1
theory’s casualties. You should recover your heart suit & keep it out of
the clutches of the forcing NT.