Monday, August 14, 2006 12:21 AM

Hand Evaluation - Systemic ( Breaking Relays )

PITBULLS:

One of the powers of playing relays are the inferences gained from “breaking the relay”. Do not woodenly accept the relay. When you have a hand in which you want to describe to partner rather than vice versa , break the relay ! This action is taken to describe a good hand. Breaking the relay could also be used when you have a difficult but strong two suiter to describe yourself.

The age old problem of how to show limit raise hands after a forcing NT & a strong jump shift is done via breaking the relay. Here is an example hand from a Gandolfo/Crosby auction. I held ♠xxx ♥xx ♦KQxx ♣AQxx , Tom opened one spade & I bid a forcing NT. Tom bid 3♣ so I break the relay by bidding 3♠. This shows the limit raise hand so Tom now bids 3NT. Bidding 3NT to play after a strong jump shift & a limit raise is impossible , so this is the serious 3NT. I bid 4♣ & Tom has ♠AKxxx ♥AQ10xx ♦Axx ♣void so he does not like the club duplication of value , we sign off in 4♠.

Relays are used after 2♣ openers. If the 2♣ opener rebids a major after 2♦ , a relay to the next level ( suit ) is forced. Tom Gandolfo broke a 2♣ relay because he wanted to show his hand ( two suiter ) rather than me describing my hand to him. This worked perfectly. Tom held ♠xx ♥x ♦KQ10xx ♣A109xx , I opened 2♣. Tom replied 2♦ & I bid 2♠. This bid is normally a relay to 2NT in order to describe all two suiters with spades as the anchor suit. Tom broke the relay by bidding 3♦. I held ♠AKQJ10x ♥AKQx ♦xxx ♣ void so I had no trouble bidding 6♠ when his diamond bid filled in my weakness.

We like to discourage positive responses after 2♣ openers playing relays , so positives are a rare animal. Bid 2♦ & then break the relay to show your positive suit & response. Breaking the relay defines a positive response & recovers the positive response. . Here is a hand that shows the concept beautifully . ♠AKJ10xx ♥Axx ♦Ax ♣Ax , you open 2♣. Partner bids 2♦ , you bid 2♠ which is a relay to 2NT in case you have a two suiter with spades as the anchor suit. Partner has ♠Qxx ♥KQ109x ♦Jxx ♣xx so knows that spades will be trump. Responder has a positive response in hearts with two of the top 3 honours. Break the relay to 3♥ to show the positive response & guaranteeing two of the top 3 honours ! Partner now with KCB can count 13 tricks and you get to 7NT.

The forcing NT is always a pain to bid with two suiters. Good time to break the relay. Partner opens 1♠ , you have ♠void ♥QJ10xx ♦AJ10xx ♣xxx . You respond 1NT &d partner bids 3♣. She probably has a huge spade hand but we about to bury the heart suit. You break the relay by bidding 3♥ & partner has ♠AKxxxx ♥AKx ♦K ♣K109 . You get to the magical 4♥ spot rather than the horrible 4♠ contract !!

Kiz Fung taught me a better structure over 2♣ openers. Bidding 3♣ or 3♦ after a 2♣ opener as a positive response is not needed with the improvements in KCB. The harder hands to bid after a 2♣ opener are bad long minors. 2♣-P-3♥/3♠ are already long suits with no controls. Kiz suggests that 3♣ & 3♦ should also be these hand types. This makes a lot of sense as these are the more frequent hands . The strong minor hands can be handled by bidding 2♦ followed by breaking the relay if need be.

Kiz opened 2♣ , I held ♠xxx ♥x ♦xx ♣Q10987xx . In accordance with her method, I bid 3♣ so 3NT ends the auction. I described my long nothingness is one bid so the auctions ends. 4NT by Kiz would be the standard how long is your suit ? I like it.