[antonylee]

(The problem is inspired from a hand posted on Bridgewinners.)
I posted the wrong auction :-)
Here is the correct one

---

What should 4♥ and higher calls by opener show now?

(For reference, here is the "wrong" auction so that the first posts (up to dake50's) make sense)

---

[the hog]

Well, as 3S agreed H, 4H now denies the Aces of C and D, (of course), and says nothing more to say. Did South really pass 4D? Unbelievable!

[bluecalm]

Quote

Well, as 3S agreed H

This is unclear imo. Jxx Ax AQxx Qxxx for example has no better bid than 3S. Maybe some hands in 15+hcp with 5clubs range also should bid 3S.

Next question is what pass after 4♦ mean. Most people play it as hand with doubts (and double as penalty) but implementing pass/double inversion here is better as responder has more interesting hands to show and opener is usually balanced (so if pass asks for double and direct double is encouraging then opener has more space to show various things).
Also if you play pass/double inversion here it will be clear what 4H from opener shows.
After standard forcing pass opener will bid 4H on some hands with Hx hearts, like the one I gave for example or some 2-2-4-5. After pass asking for double opener only bids with big reason and that reason must be ♥ support so 4♥ shows real support and by logic of the situation at least 15hcp with clubs (as 12-14 hand with support would bid 4H round before) and all other bids are slammish with hearts support.
What is left to agree on in such context is what pass and pull to 4♥ by responder means. There are 2 possibilities: slam try in hearts or 2nd place to play (x AKJxx xx KQxxx for example). You may choose only one

Back to your original question in original context: 4H is just some weakish hand with Hx of hearts. Other bids are cuebids with H support and strong.

[straube]

I think 3S is needed as a stuck bid. If responder rebids 3N, then 4H could/will show a big hand with hearts, but if responder rebids 4m then opener won't easily be able to fix hearts and show a good hand. Wouldn't it be better in Polish Club to reserve either or both 4C and 4D as good support for hearts? Bluecalm's post is very good, but the opponents won't always be so helpful as to bid 4D introducing a PDI possibility. 4D in particular seems less necessary to show a big hand with diamonds (I'm thinking that would be 19+ whereas a rebid of 4C might be agreed to show 16+ with clubs, with lesser hands one would bid 3N or 3S depending). 3S and then pulling 3N to 4D would show the big diamond hand (at least when responder is able to rebid 3N).

[dake50]

If this is a problem auction, what is the rest of your system?
No other cater to bottom 1C opener? I think 3S should guarantee
S-control in case 3H is slammy without S-control.
Or what structure does show a S-control?
But then what bid(s) does opener have that are non-cooperative?
Now 4D shows a 2-suiter and my D-control needs be shown.
Seems you need to untangle too many cases.
Many of those untanglings need to be in some other bid.

[antonylee]

I posted the wrong auction, forgot a pass Anyway, bluecalm and straube are correct, 3♠ isn't necessarily strong, you need it e.g. for a weak 3244 as well. So the challenge here is to be able to agree ♥ OR ♦ weakly and strongly.

[straube]

If I remember right...

1C P 1M P 2D

is an inquiry about the major showing a strong hand.

So if that's the priority for the 2-level (vs showing diamonds), perhaps that should be the priority at the 4-level.

[the hog]

antonylee, on 2012-January-22, 11:56, said:

I posted the wrong auction, forgot a pass Anyway, bluecalm and straube are correct, 3♠ isn't necessarily strong, you need it e.g. for a weak 3244 as well. So the challenge here is to be able to agree ♥ OR ♦ weakly and strongly.

In your view.

[benlessard]

I think transfer lebensohl is almost a must have with PC. Here it work like a charm responder bid 3D (H transfer comp or GF) and opener bid 3H with any bal 12-14, any other bid show the big hand. While with an inv hand responder bid 2Nt followed by 3H.

[bluecalm]

Quote

I think transfer lebensohl is almost a must have with PC

You mean just transfer ?
That's one way to play it. The other is Bergen switch (3C = hearts, 3D = diamonds, 3H = clubs). I have long thought it must be the best approach, especially the switch because it doesn't have disadvantage of bidding NT from the wrong hand (ie the one behind of overcaller).
Surprisingly almost nobody in Poland plays those and people are doing ok.

[antonylee]

Actually we do play "transfer Lebensohl" (aka Rubensohl) but only at the 2-level, up to a 2♣ overcall (because we wanted to be able to show either major at the 2-level, NF, over 1♣-(2♦)) -- and this works very well. But perhaps there is a case for turning it on at the 3-level as well for overcalls from 2♦ to 3♣...

[benlessard]

I would play whatever you are used to play over 1Nt--(2S), if you have pts after the preemptor, opener % of being 12-14 is super high. The transfers lebensohl I like to play transfers are to play or GF. With inv values I bid 2nt first. I wrongside more often 3nt but I rightside more contracts in the end. This is assuming your unbalanced hands with clubs that are into 1C have some extras. They are often a pain but lebensohl or not its mostly the same problem.

[the hog]

antonylee, on 2012-January-23, 03:29, said:

Actually we do play "transfer Lebensohl" (aka Rubensohl) but only at the 2-level, up to a 2♣ overcall (because we wanted to be able to show either major at the 2-level, NF, over 1♣-(2♦)) -- and this works very well. But perhaps there is a case for turning it on at the 3-level as well for overcalls from 2♦ to 3♣...

Well there you are. You play methods no one in Poland plays, you bid 4D knowing full well that opener cannot have a D suit, and then you ask questions about Polish Club, (which you clearly don't play), and disregard the answers.

[antonylee]

Is that free trolling? FYI I do play WJ -- but that doesn't mean I can't tweak it.

[mgoetze]

bluecalm, on 2012-January-22, 04:34, said:

This is unclear imo. Jxx Ax AQxx Qxxx for example has no better bid than 3S. Maybe some hands in 15+hcp with 5clubs range also should bid 3S.

Hum... I would have thought the hand you give is "3NT, WTP?" and 3♠ does indeed show a good hand with hearts. But I'm not Polish.

[antonylee]

I don't know, in his booklet on WJ05 Jassem says that (as mentioned in the "dutch doubleton" thread) you bid 2N even without stopper in a sequence such as 1♣-(2♠)-X-(P) whenever you don't have 4 hearts, as you can check for a stopper before reaching 3NT. But here it seems a bit a stretch to bid 3NT over 3♥. At least that's my understanding.

[the hog]

antonylee, on 2012-January-23, 20:03, said:

Is that free trolling? FYI I do play WJ -- but that doesn't mean I can't tweak it.

Hardly, I am curious. Why did you bid 4D knowing full well that opener cannot have a D suit? Sure you can tweak things, but when you tweak them out of all recognition, it no longer resembles the system

[bluecalm]

Quote

the hand you give is "3NT, WTP?"

Polish or not, are you ok with playing 3NT without a stopper ?
I mean, if it went:
1NT - 2S - 3H - p
?

3S would be stopper ask here, right ? It's the same in pc as weak nt is vast majority of opener range.

Quote

You play methods no one in Poland plays, you bid 4D knowing full well that opener cannot have a D suit

Opener might have 4 diamonds, wtf Hog ? Every balanced hand with 4 diamonds opens 1C in pc.

[mgoetze]

bluecalm, on 2012-January-24, 03:45, said:

Polish or not, are you ok with playing 3NT without a stopper ?

Sure, it happens sometimes. In this particular case I have 3+ spades (balanced = at most one doubleton, and if that's not hearts I'm bidding 4♥) and we have a combined 25+ HCP (if partner's GF was not based on points he should be correcting back to 4♥). That makes it quite likely we have a combined stopper (here as you can see responder only needs Qx). And sometimes we don't have one, and that's just bad luck. Unless the opponents double us in case we can still run...

If you don't like it, play transfers as suggested by benlessard, but I think a nebulous 3♠ is a pretty bad idea.

Quote

I mean, if it went:
1NT - 2S - 3H - p
?

Oh come on, that's a ridiculous comparison. After a 1NT opener there is no need whatsoever to clarify our hand type. After a 1♣ opener we could have many more hand types.

[bluecalm]

Quote

Sure, it happens sometimes. In this particular case I have 3+ spades (balanced = at most one doubleton, and if that's not hearts I'm bidding 4♥) and we have a combined 25+ HCP (if partner's GF was not based on points he should be correcting back to 4♥). That makes it quite likely we have a combined stopper (here as you can see responder only needs Qx). And sometimes we don't have one, and that's just bad luck. Unless the opponents double us in case we can still run...

So your intuition is that showing very rare hand type which is strong variant of 1C is more important than investigating a stopper.
It might be correct I don't have definite proof but I would be very surprised if that's the case. I polled several friends and for them it's as obvious as it is to me that 3S is stopper ask or cuebid but responder treats it as stopper ask unless proven otherwise later (ie opener bidding something after 3NT).

Quote

. After a 1NT opener there is no need whatsoever to clarify our hand type. After a 1♣ opener we could have many more hand types.

Yes but:
a)85% of our range is 12-14NT
b)2nd most frequent hand which is 15+ points with clubs also need stopper ask more than bid setting hearts as trumps; opener might be 2-2-3-6 or w/e with 15hcp.
c)the hand when you really want 3S as setting hearts are hands with 18+hcp and those constitute about 6% of our range in the spot.

So the comparison is not ridiculous at all. I offer you nice tip how to treat those situation in a system I play my whole life and people around me play all the time. Don't call ridiculous when you are not correct