Saturday, September 30, 2006 5:21 PM

Hand Evaluation – Godfather 2NT ( Logic )

PITBULLS:

4^th suit forcing at the two level is ugly. Every Bridge player has had bad experiences with that bid. Quoting Susan Culham among others “ I hate 4^th suit forcing”. Confusion over stoppers , wrong siding 3NT , pre-empting partner out of minor suit games , slams & Moysean by leaping to 3NT. Poorly defined quantitative auctions due to the ambiguity of 4^th suit forcing. This is the negative side of the Bridge logic of trying to improve 4^th suit forcing.

Now for the positive arguments for trying to improve 4^th suit forcing , play 2NT as a “new suit” forcing one round. The positive Bridge logic is that the NT is right sided by having stoppers in the 4^th suit. The 2NT bid allows the auction to remain under 3NT to pattern out , get to minor slams & major suit Moyseans. The 2NT as a new suit also allows you to show where you live so you can escape to a partial. The 3NT bid as a fast arrival “picture bid” emerges.

Tom & I do not play this 4^th suit understanding . Tom held ♠KJxx ♥Ax ♦Qxx ♣ Qxxx , I opened 1♦. Tom bid 1♠ & I bid 2♦ . Given the diamond fit , Tom’s hand is promoted to a 3NT with Standard methods so he bid 3NT as everybody else in the field did. 3NT pre-empts partner so ends all auctions. Leslie led a heart & 3NT goes from 4 down vul to 6 down vulnerable depending on the defense 5♥’s , 2♠ & a ♦ for sure & responder may get squeezed in spades for some more down tricks.

BJ & I have had a lot of experience playing this “new suit 2NT” treatment & we originally had a relay by the opener to escape out of 2NT. We have now changed that & only have repeating the suit & a few other 6-4 or 5-5 understandings as a way of escaping from 2NT. With this hand , I would have bid 3♣ over 2NT which is showing where I live & supposedly showing a weak 6-4 since I rebid diamonds first . ♠10xx ♥Q ♦KJ1098x ♣AKx . Tom would look at his ♥Ax of hearts & 12 HCP’s so noting that I am “scared” of a 3NT game for some reason should infer that I have a heart singleton along with my shown 10 minor suit cards. Tom corrects the contract to 3♦ & that’s where we play it. +400 ( down 4 vul ) & +130 is a lot of IMPS to win because your system is just more accurate than those in the field. Essentially , we would have got to a 11 ( stiff queen ) opposite 12 diamond partial.

Seeing the logic of a bidding treatment is a huge advantage in Bridge. You play Jacoby 2NT & inverted minors as invitational hands or better so why not 2NT as responder ? . According the Bridge World , 2NT was forcing to game by responder for the first 35 years of Bridge then changed to invitational after that. This change was made due to matchpoints & matchpoint scoring. Why not have the bid show invitational plus as so many other modern bids are defined. ? You get to a lot of Meckwell type games which are positively re-enforced in IMPs. These games make quite often. I have written many articles on this subject & BJ & I have field tested the concept for well over a year. We have no complaints & have won many IMPS since we implemented the bid. We both fail to see the down side in improving an ugly bid like 4^th suit forcing.

2NT as a “new suit” goes along away to improve 4^th suit forcing at the two level as it describes a class of NT hands which otherwise would have to be bid with an ambiguous 4^th suit or a dramatic ambiguous leap to 3NT . Leaping to game with good hands violate fast arrival principles so inaccurate bidding is the norm. XYZ is an excellent fix for 4^th suit forcing at the one level. This allows the Cabay 2 way NMF to repair 4^th suit forcing at the one level..

2NT as a contract is a silly place to play a hand !. 2NT is tougher to make than 3 of a minor & there is no game bonus for making 2NT. The decision in IMPS to pass 2NT invitational is dangerous as you have +600 riding on your decision. People get off to the wrong opening lead , finesses are on side or opponents misdefend. You are weighing all this against try to make exactly +120 ?? In modern bidding , 2NT is hardly ever defined as a place to play a contract. Lets make it complete & having 2NT to play a contract only exist in match points. In IMPS, it is too dangerous to play 2NT as they may be in 3NT making at the other table. Also in IMPs , we can escape to 3 of a minor as a contract instead of 2NT which is dangerous in matchpoints as +110 vrs +120 is a zero. I think this is the aversion that players have against playing this concept. They are still thinking matchpoints where their roots are.

We have taken 2NT from our system bid by responder as a place to play a contract. Even a direct jump to 2NT after a minor opening , is invitational plus. A direct 2NT in competition is limit raise plus. Even a forcing 1NT cannot play a 2NT contract as this is invitational plus. Opener must escape somewhere or bid game. The only time we can play 2NT is after an aborted 2NT invitation ( opening 1NT ) or by passing a 2NT opener.