Thursday, August 03, 2006 4:19 AM

Hand Evaluation - Fast Arrival ( Minors )

PITBULLS:

As every Bridge player knows , Goren had it all wrong with his more HCP’s you have , you jump to game concept. This it totally wrong . By jumping to game , you pre-empt partner for further investigation - simple as that. The “principle of fast arrival” replaced the Goren notion by actually reversing the concept. When you jump to game ( fast arrival ) you are most likely weak & distributional. A jump to game in the modern era is usually a “picture bid” which has a meaning defined by the partnership.

Established partnerships have gone a step further. If you open a major with partner responding a forcing 1NT , 2NT is no longer invitational . It replaced the leap to 3NT & shows 18-19 balanced. You can now use relays or transfers to investigate the best slam or game at the 3 level instead of the 4 level. A jump to 3NT is a shot probably based on a solid major suit.

There is absolutely no reason why this same thinking should not apply to the minors. Partner opens 1♦ , you bid 1NT with ♠xxx ♥xxx ♦10 ♣AQxxxx . Partner holds ♠Kxx ♥AKxx ♦AKxx ♣Jx so this is a 2NT bid showing 18-19 HCP. You do not need to bid partners hand for her by leaping to 3NT. You can not have an invitational range hand, as you would have opened 1NT ( 15 –17 ) . A 3NT bid should be a “picture” bid based on a long minor.

The advantage of this treatment is that partners minor or the other minor is not forcing. It does not mean that this the final contract, as the 2NT bidder can evaluate her hand based on the fit. In a Spingold both tables played the above hand in 3♣ making where 3NT had no play. The bid hand rebid 2NT and the smaller hand bid 3♣ and all passed. If the big hand has a club fit , they would have bid 3NT.

Quite often a 1NT response is a tactical bid where you want to keep the majors out. Partner opens 1♦ , you have ♠xxx ♥xxx ♦AQxx ♣xxx so you “pre-empt” 1NT. Partner bids 2NT with her 19 HCP so you bid 3♦ as a suggestion to play it there. Partner has a 5 card diamond suit so she nixes your suggestion and bids 3NT. This makes because you fill her 5 card suit. If partner had a 4 or 3 card diamond suit this is where you would have played the contract for minimum damage. Bidding a 3 card major with these hand types is taking a walk on the wild side.