[Flame]

We started playing walsh, but im not sure about the invitational hands with 5+om 4+M.
1. Do i skip the 1D even with much longer diamonds, say 6D4M or 7D4M ?(invite)
2. What do i bid with the 5/6 om and 4M invite, after 1m-1M-1nt ?
I used to have 3om to show 5+om,4M but after few boards with 54 i find out i dont like it much cause we played at 3 level with 7 card fit instead of better 2nt contract (system is design for mp), on the other hand with 6om and 4M its definetly make sense to bid 3om.
So what do you think, should we use 3om to show 4M and 6 (sometime good 5) om, and with most 5/4 invite with a nat 2nt ?

[Flame]

To tell you the true walash doesnt make much sense to me since we skip bids with our most common hands, especially the skip to 1NT with balance, but decided to play it anyway cause it works well with 2 why chkback. we took the sytem out of fred moss cc.

[mike777]

Ok here is Walsh...you must bid one of major with that hand.
1D response and then major=game force..keep it simple.

See XYZ, 2 way checkback to help but not solve this issue 100%.

You must choose to live with the issue of 4 card major ..longer minor invite.

btw in real life:
1) with active opp they will overcall and you can just bid your hand normal old fashion.
2) you bid 2nt many times with invite hand. You must decide is your hand invite 2nt or 3 of minor weak with partner passing often?

Based on my limited experience this is a Bridge World Bidding Challenge more than a real world problem. If your mileage varies let me know.

[kfgauss]

I think invitational hands do a bit better bidding 1D if you can handle it over 1NT (which partner will bid even with 4 in a major, of course), but certainly either way is reasonable. Bidding 1D helps in slam exploration and also in finding the right partscore (and helps a bit in evaluating your hand for game) and in competitive bidding when your fit is actually in diamonds. Not bidding 1D helps prevent the auction from going 1C P 1D 2S; P 3S ?, but perhaps partner can double 2S at least a fair amount of the time when he'd accept an invite, or perhaps you can double 3S now. In any case, make sure you play 1C P 1D 1S; X = 4 hearts (any hand).

Here's a 2-way checkback structure over 1C 1D 1N structure I've played that's designed to deal with the invitational hands as well as the GF hands: (taken from my system notes with the side comments and all)

2C forces 2D (signoff or inv), 2D forces 2H (GF)

2C 2D = signoff
3C = signoff

2M = inv 4M 5+D no 3C (to parallel the direct 2NT)
2C 2D 2M = inv 4M 5+D 3C ("slow shows doubt of strain")
2D 2H 2S/2N = GF 5+D 4H/4S respectively (try to rightside 4M?)

2NT = inv balanced, no 4C no 4M
2C 2D 2NT = inv 5+D 4+C no 4M, more NT oriented
2C 2D 3C = inv 5+D 4+C no 4M, more suit oriented
2D 2H 3C = GF 5+D 4+C

2C 2D 3D = inv 6+D no 4M
3D or 2D 2H 3D = both GF strong suit, direct = less doubt

3M = GF at least 5M 6D
2D 2H 3M = splinter for clubs

Andy

PS It seems I didn't define 2C 2D 3M, which I guess is an autosplinter, or the 2 extra ways to bid 3NT. Presumably 2C 2D 3NT and 2D 2H 3NT are a bit slammish -- probably the former has 5 diamonds and the latter doesn't. Also I guess we never bid 1D with 4M-4D GF -- minor tweaks could rectify this if you want to bid 1D with such.

[mike777]

kfgauss, on Sep 21 2005, 01:39 AM, said:

I think invitational hands do a bit better bidding 1D if you can handle it over 1NT (which partner will bid even with 4 in a major, of course), but certainly either way is reasonable. Bidding 1D helps in slam exploration and also in finding the right partscore (and helps a bit in evaluating your hand for game) and in competitive bidding when your fit is actually in diamonds. Not bidding 1D helps prevent the auction from going 1C P 1D 2S; P 3S ?, but perhaps partner can double 2S at least a fair amount of the time when he'd accept an invite, or perhaps you can double 3S now. In any case, make sure you play 1C P 1D 1S; X = 4 hearts (any hand).

Look!

If you want to bid 1D with invite and 4 card major fine..just do not play Walsh.

Many very good forum posters do not play Walsh!
Many World Class players do not play Walsh and have strong negative comments about it!

If you are going to play Walsh, and I do, then live with it.
Bid 4 card major before longer minor invite and practice it. If you hate it do not play it.

If you solve the big issue publish and get rich..so far no one has . Get used to it and just win.

[kfgauss]

mike777, on Sep 21 2005, 06:53 AM, said:

Look!

If you want to bid 1D with invite and 4 card major fine..just do not play Walsh.

Many very good forum posters do not play Walsh!
Many World Class players do not play Walsh and have strong negative comments about it!

If you are going to play Walsh, and I do, then live with it.
Bid 4 card major before longer minor invite and practice it. If you hate it do not play it.

If you solve the big issue publish and get rich..so far no one has . Get used to it and just win.

Flame asked for suggestions about inv 4M 5+D hands and I gave what I think are some useful structures over 1C-1D;1N to help opener continue to bypass 1M and bid 1N when balanced. Clearly either way is fine. Perhaps to you "Walsh" means always bypassing unless GF and maybe that's the original/"official" structure, but clearly Flame had some doubts about the invitational hands and wasn't asking a textbook question about Walsh. An essential point of Walsh -- being able to rebid 1N after 1C-1D when balanced -- is preserved in my suggestion.

Sorry if you seem to disagree with my ideas (ie about Drury too). I really mean no harm and am just getting ideas out there.

Andy

[Chamaco]

I don't know if it makes sense or not, but here is the way I cope with the hands Flame is referring to (invitational, 5+D & 4M).

Using Walsh, after
1C-1M-1NT-?
I use one of the many versions of xyz.

So now responder bids 2C, puppet to 2D, and after the forced puppet, I rebid 3D. That is usually 64 or a very good 5 card diamond suit.

With 5431 and a modest suit and/or Notrump oriented values, I rebid 2NT invitational.
There might be, admittedly, cases where the hand will play better in a minor, but if pard has a weak NT hand and we have a featureless invitational hand, it seems to me this should occurr not so often.
The alternative potential game contract (a Moysian in major) should be ruled out by the fact that opener denied a 3 card raise.

[Fluffy]

to invite with 6♦+4M after 1♣-1M-1NT

XYZ:

2♣ transfer to 2♦, tehn 3♦

roudi:

2NT trtansfer to 3♣ then 3♦

NMF:

I have no clue

[MickyB]

With 4M5m - if you are happy to pass after 1C:1M, 1N then bid like that; If you feel you would be worth a raise to 2N on that sequence then bid 1C:1D, 1N:2C, 2D:2M, as it leaves open the possibility of playing in a Moysian 2M or 3D instead of 2NT.

[Fluffy]

In walsh there is a variant that starts limit hands with 1♦, then tries 2♣ stayman after 1NT and rebids 2NT or 3M.

[awm]

This is another situation where it helps to play frequent 3-card raises. If the auction starts 1♣-1♥ and opener rebids 1NT, there are only two possible distributions that don't contain 3♦:

4324
4225

Presumably opener would rebid 1♠ with the second pattern, and raise to 2♥ (or bid 1♠) with the first. So inviting in diamonds via 2♣ followed by 3♦ is perfectly safe even on five.

After 1♣-1♠ things are slightly worse, in that 2425 is a possibility, but this is relatively unlikely. For Elianna and me (playing frequent 3-card raises) the possibilities for 1NT rebid would be:

3433
3334
2344
2335
2425
2245
1345
1435

Note that only one pattern contains doubleton diamond, and this pattern is substantially less likely than the first three patterns on the list. Of course, we don't actually play Walsh responses either.

[luke warm]

with the hands shown, i think the 7m4M one is about the only one where diamonds should be bid first (with a weakish hand)... this has been debated for decades, but in general i agree that if your hand is worth only one bid, show the major

invitational hands 5m4M are easy imo (2 way or xyz, etc), so are the strong hands

[kenrexford]

I am not sure of the merits of this technique, but it is what I play. After 1C-P-1M-P-1NT, my regulars partners and I use canape 3m calls, showing a longer minor and invitational values. (Our 1C is somewhat nebulous.) 1NT-P-2NT shows a weaker hand (more shape), lebensohl-esque, with, again, canape holdings.

From experience, this seems to work well.

[Chamaco]

luke warm, on Sep 21 2005, 11:24 PM, said:

with the hands shown, i think the 7m4M one is about the only one where diamonds should be bid first (with a weakish hand)... this has been debated for decades, but in general i agree that if your hand is worth only one bid, show the major

invitational hands 5m4M are easy imo (2 way or xyz, etc), so are the strong hands

Quite frankly, I think that such thing as an "invitational" 7D-4M is quite a rare bird

In theory, perhaps, but in practice, I think I'll always force to game:
so, treating it as GF, it makes sense to start off with 1D response.

For 64 shapes things are a bit less clear, but the main point IMO, is deciding right away whether we are going to treat the hand as a "bad" GF, starting with 1D response, or as a "good" invitational hand, starting with a 1M response.