[jeffford76]

I was surprised by what a good player told me about this auction, so I'm curious to hear other opinions. Thanks.

System is 2/1 without much other discussion.

[P_Marlowe]

3H NF, 3S F

Assuming the standard American way to play 2S as F.

IF 2S is forcing, opener needs to find a bid, and sometimes you have
only a min. opener with 6 hearts and 2 spades, so what is left? 3H

Having heard, that opener has no add. values, and no real interest in
spades, if I repeat my spades, well ... I am not going to stop in 3S, if
I could stop in 3H.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[helene_t]

I voted neither but Uwe is right.

[aguahombre]

This is not a "2/1" question, really. It is a style question separate from 2/1.

the answers depend on what you agree to do over competition ---neg freebids? GF freebids? freebids forcing for one round only? Standard is probably the last one.

The answers to the questions are whatever you choose them to be (beforehand). I prefer GF freebids, but will not be anywhere near in the majority on that.

This post has been edited by aguahombre: 2010-August-22, 09:46

[gwnn]

Really sounds like NF NF to me.

[rogerclee]

It is not going to be horrible if you have a weak hand with lots of spades to either just bid 4S or pass 3H.

It's going to be pretty horrible to guess to bid 3N, 4H, or 4S if you have a strong hand with 6+ spades. Not to mention there are a lot more of these hands than the first kind of hands.

[Little Kid]

3♥ NF and 3♠ F seems clear to me.

[raist]

i agree absolutely with the above post
but here's some explanation

removing the 2C overcall, if the bidding goes

1H-1S;
3H-3S

is 3H forcing? is 3S forcing?

the answer is no and yes, respectively
the situation you described is similar


after partner rebids a 3 level non-forcing bid, it is definitely more sound to play that any bid over that is GF.
otherwise you pass and let partner swim in his own rebid

[aguahombre]

No, Raist, I don't think they are the same at all.

In the non-comp auction you gave, the 3H bid showed extra values opposite an unlimited response (1S). Responder does not remove this bid out of fright and 3S is forcing.

In the posted sequence: if 2S is not forcing the first time, 3H is a correction of strain and 3S says "I think 3S will work out better" still within the strength originally shown. Two "no's" don't make a "yes".

[raist]

aguahombre, on Aug 22 2010, 03:14 PM, said:

No, Raist, I don't think they are the same at all.

In the non-comp auction you gave, the 3H bid showed extra values opposite an unlimited response (1S). Responder does not remove this bid out of fright and 3S is forcing.

In the posted sequence: if 2S is not forcing the first time, 3H is a correction of strain and 3S says "I think 3S will work out better" still within the strength originally shown. Two "no's" don't make a "yes".

yes i agree with you they are not totally similar
however, the following considerations still apply:

1. partner could have bid another suit at the 3 level, rebidding 3H implies strong preference to be in Hs over other strains

2. if 3S is not forcing, you have difficulty investigating best strain. should you be in 3N? 4H? 4S?

3. not only do you have difficulty investigating best strain, you also have difficulty finding out the true level you should be in. how else do you force to game now and express slam interest? you miss an entire level of cuebidding if you jump 4S

4. of course, playing 3S as GF means that you give up the times when 3S is superior to 3H. but that is a very small category of cases, and the gains, as listed above, more than outweigh this small gain methinks

[gszeszycki]

1H (2C) 2S (P); 3H (P) 3S
3H is forcing, but not 3S [ 3 ] [10.34%]
3S is forcing, but not 3H [ 10 ] [34.48%]
Both 3H and 3S are forcing [ 3 ] [10.34%]
Neither 3H nor 3S is forcing [ 13 ] [44.83%]

system is 2/1 w/o any special agreements (ie no negative free bids)

w/o special agreement 2s is completely forcing to 3n or above and once that has
occurred then 3h and 3s are both forcing because both are below 3n. If the 2S bidder wants to limit their hand then they have to begin with a neg x then rebid their spades at the lowest level possible. The 1H opener is just bidding their hand as best they can under the assumption that 2s created a game force.

forgive me for being very surprised at the 90% that feel 3h and/or 3s are non forcing. If this is a matter of semantics neither 3h nor 3s promise extra values
but both are still forcing in the sense they fully expect p to bid again.

[aguahombre]

gszeszycki, on Aug 22 2010, 07:57 PM, said:

w/o special agreement 2s is completely forcing to 3n or above and once that has
occurred then 3h and 3s are both forcing because both are below 3n.

Although this is our agreement, I would not presume it to be Standard or universal without discussion.

People confuse two separate issues:

2/1 GF is a system where, by definition, 2/1 is game forcing.
But this applies to unimpeded auctions, and the players must decide what their bids mean in competition.

Also, a bid showing a decent suit and invitational values is not a NFFB. Non forcing freebids are not forward-going at all and could easily have been stretches for the level bid.

Simple case:

1H-2C=game force.

But:
1H (1S) 2C can be NFFB crap, invitational + , or GF ---but you must talk about it.

[peachy]

This auction has nothing to do with 2/1 system.

In North America, I think this is what people play and understand:
2S was forcing and promises another bid from this bidder
3H was the best description opener had available, neither promises nor denies extras.
3S was the "another bid" that 2S bidder committed himself to, but it is not forcing.

It is possible to agree that 3S is forcing, but I would not make such an agreement.

[P_Marlowe]

peachy, on Aug 23 2010, 01:46 AM, said:

This auction has nothing to do with 2/1 system.

In North America, I think this is what people play and understand:
2S was forcing and promises another bid from this bidder
<snip>

In the end, that is the core question:

Is 2S only forcing for one round, is it promising another
bid or is it gameforcing.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[bluecalm]

Quote

3♥ NF and 3♠ F seems clear to me.

+1.

Let's first think about 3♥.
This is easy. You will often have 6+ hearts and weakish hand on this auction and you really have to bid something.
2♠ wasn't game forcing in standard so the weakest possible action of ours can't be either.

3♠ is not that simple because it's probable reasonable to play it as NF when having strong jump available before.
I think though that even then it's more beneficial to have two ways to show strong hand with spades. Here 3♠ could be some kind of operational bid with weak 6 spades or even 5 if we don't have ♣ stopped.
Meanwhile gains from correcting partner's long suit to ours can't be too big (cause hands which want to do that but don't want to play in 4♠ are very rare and the difference between 3M partscores are usually small).

Quote

In North America, I think this is what people play and understand:
2S was forcing and promises another bid from this bidder

Such agreement is bad because then 2♠ is basically game forcing as you won't be able to stop below 3NT anyway. So you will be fixed with all hands with spades below GF strength. It's already bad that you can't bid spades with hand in 6-9hcp range, not being able to bring the suit in even with 10-11 is disastrous.
My understanding is that "standard" is forcing one round and don't promise any more actions.
Personally I prefer NFB's and I hope all my opponents will play forcing, game forcing, promising 1 more bid or what not there. It's always nice when opponents refuse to bid the boss suit

Quote

Standard is probably the last one.

I think you are confusing auctions when 2/1 is below our suit:

1♥ - 1♠ - 2♣/♦

It's reasonable to play that this one promises one more bid because you can still stop in partscore if partner doesn't show extras while you gain flexible 2♥ bid so you don't need to jump around without good shape/suits.
If the bid suit is above opener suit it's just plain bad to play that way.