Saturday, March 03, 2007 2:15 AM
Hand Evaluation - 2/1 ( 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 nice 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 by opener 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 when
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 weak heart suit hands naturally.
When you still want 3♠ to be a splinter , weak 6
card heart suits remain in the forcing NT structure. Most experts can live with
that.
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. When 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.