5-cards or 4-cards? Yes

I had an idea last weekend that is a bit weird. I have a feeling it's either terrifically good or terrifically stupid, and after several days of chewing it over, I can't make up my mind which.

The thing is, basically I like bidding 4-card majors. With a weak no-trump, simple bidding becomes very natural, and if you want to add gadgets to cover specific weaknesses, you can see where you gain and where you lose. Except, opening 1S isn't so clever. The only response you have at the one level is 1NT, so that, perforce, becomes what you say any time you aren't strong enough to answer at the two level. Sensible auctions when Responder is weakish are unlikely to happen. By contrast, if you play 5-card majors with 1NT forcing (and Bart, maybe), you can have a relatively well-defined sequence to a somewhat sensible part-score at the two level, or maybe three level. On the downside, your minor suit bidding becomes quite compromised, with 1C often being 3 cards, and even 1D not immune.

But then I thought, why not play 1S as 5 cards, with 1NT forcing, but keep 1H as 4 cards, with 1NT not forcing? 1C does get compromised a little, but it will only be 3 cards when you are specifically 4=3=3=3 with 15+hcp. That's a lot better than Standard American.

So I looked at the ACBL convention card, and there's no way to express this arrangement. But I don't see how they can object to it, either: it's all known components that are legal, just put together in an unusual way.

Which doesn't answer my original question. Is this idea nifty or nuts?

Mexican 2D

I have been wrestling with the question of which toys to play at the two level with Agent 99. I know these are less fundamental choices than some of the other decisions I'm putting off, but at least this seems to be an area I can address relatively sensibly. It's not a completely clear choice, however, because there are lots of possibilities. I've settled on the Mexican 2D, Dutch 2H/2S, and having 2NT as weak with both minors. That sounds a little eclectic, and I suppose it is for American club bridge. But these are all well-known devices that are used by many, many pairs around the world. The biggest concern is then whether they are all legal via the ACBL's General Convention Chart, and wouldn't you know it, there's a problem.

For some reason, Dutch 2H and 2S are Mid-Chart conventions. Why? The typical defence against them is the same as what you would use against a Standard weak two-bid, so you can hardly argue that the poor innocent club player wouldn't know how to play against them. Once again, I can't fathom the “logic” the ACBL uses to decide these things. The likeliest explanation really does appear to be “not invented here”.

So 2H and 2S are still up in the air. But I'm settled on the other two.

The Mexican 2D bid shows a big balanced hand. We're going to use it to replace the Standard 2NT opening. How is it better? Well, there are a couple of extra responses available, and more than one scheme to make use of them. What I decided, after much cogitation, was that the best plan was to implement a version of four-suit transfers. In essence, we use the responses we've taken up for 1NT, so the learning curve should be very short.

2D – 20-22 hcp balanced, what we would currently open 2NT.

2D – pass; very weak with 5+ diamonds

2D – 2H; a relay. Opener rebids 2NT, and we carry on more or less as if he had opened 2NT in Standard or Acol: 2D – 2H; 2NT - ?
3C Stayman
3D transfer to hearts
3H transfer to spades
3S Minor Suit Stayman or Baron (depending on your historical perspective), generally 12+hcp balanced. Opener bids 3NT holding a minimum (20hcp), or bids a 4-card minor or a 5-card major, or 4NT when lacking any of the above. Played this way, this bid can replace the 4NT and 5NT quantitative raises.
3NT to play
4C Gerber
4D transfer to hearts
4H transfer to spades
6NT and higher bids to play

The payoff comes with the extra sequences:

2D – 2S; transfer to clubs (6+cards) with acceptance, may be a bust
2D – 2NT; transfer to diamonds (6+cards) with acceptance
2D – 3C; Responder is 5-4-3-1 or 5-5-3-0 with both minors (GF)
2D – 3D; Responder is 5-5-2-1 or 6-5-2-0 or 6-5-1-1 with both minors (GF)
2D – 3H/3S Responder is 4-4-4-1 or 5-4-4-0 and bidding the shortage, with exactly 4 cards in the other major (GF)

These responses are the same as Elwood and I defined for our 1NT opening, except in this context they will mostly be game-forcing.

I think this responding scheme should generally be effective. If you look at it, you get a wealth of specialized bids for minor suit slam hands. Responder can close out the auction at 2D or 2NT or the three-level in any suit if very weak, or develop a good single- or two-suited hand fairly naturally even when the long suit is a minor. One big weakness is that the relay will wrong-side a heart contract. But a huge plus is that the given responding sequences should nearly all be somewhat familiar. In the context of my partnership with Agent 99, memory strain is a big concern.