[straube]

We play a relay system over our strong club, but we can't show 8-cd suits and we can't show the jack of a seven-card suit until we are very high. If I pick up something like AQJxxxxx x Kx xx and hear partner open a strong club, I can't show my hand properly. I just want to set spades and RKC.

We already have use for 4-level responses to 1C, but they've never come up. otoh, self-sufficient suits happen occasionally. How about...

4C-specific ace ask (for self-sufficient suit with void)
4D-RKC clubs
4H-RKC diamonds
4S-RKC hearts
4N-RKC spades

This also prepares us better for competition as partner knows we have a good suit and slam interest.

Do others do this already? I think Moscito used 1C-3C as AKQxxxx unspecified suit.

[PrecisionL]

straube, on 2012-March-17, 08:19, said:

We play a relay system over our strong club, but we can't show 8-cd suits and we can't show the jack of a seven-card suit until we are very high. If I pick up something like AQJxxxxx x Kx xx and hear partner open a strong club, I can't show my hand properly. I just want to set spades and RKC.

We already have use for 4-level responses to 1C, but they've never come up. otoh, self-sufficient suits happen occasionally. How about...

4C-specific ace ask (for self-sufficient suit with void)
4D-RKC clubs
4H-RKC diamonds
4S-RKC hearts
4N-RKC spades

This also prepares us better for competition as partner knows we have a good suit and slam interest.

Do others do this already? I think Moscito used 1C-3C as AKQxxxx unspecified suit.

We use 4-level responses to a Strong Club as an 8-card suit with one honor. I have been thinking about changing this.

In another system I use the 3-level as a transfer to a suit such as HHxxx or better. Maybe the 3-level could be used in your system for a 1-loser self-sufficient suit and asks for cue bidding by opener? [Edit: AQJxxxx+ / KQJxxxx+]

However, 4-level bids need to be narrowly defined and the weak hand does not want to ask for Keycards, maybe Controls (A + K) will work when you have xx in a suit.

[straube]

I'm thinking more of a stop-gap for hands that don't fit relays. For instance, we can relay our 1M opening bids, but we can't show 8-cd suit. We handle these openings with Namyats.

In my example hand...AKJxxxxx x Kx xx our bidding might go...

1C-1D (16+, GF)
1H-2D (relay, 6+ spades)
2H-2N (relay, higher short)
3C-3H (relay, 7123 or 7132)
3N

now responder can't remove 3N unless he has 9 relay points but he only has 7 (A=3, K=2, Q=1) and any bid beyond 3N shows a certain number of queen points starting at 9.

4C=9
4D=10
4H=11

etc.

Now opener might well have

x AQxxx Ax AKxxx

or

Q AQxxx Axx KQxx

This is the problem I'm hoping to solve.

[PrecisionL]

Interesting, we also use 2♦ to show 6♠ or better, then 2♥ asks for 2nd suit and 2♠ shows no 2nd suit, then 2NT asks for shortage and bid the shortage up the line, 3♠ = 6-cds & no shortage (6322), 3NT = 7222. If opener has 2-card support he can bid 3♠ if available as a Beta, otherwise 4♣ is the Beta.

Our system ignores good 8-card suits and does not show exact distribution for 7-card suits as these are very low frequency.

Thus, I am thinking and testing a 3-level bid for 1-loser suits and eliminate the 3-level 4441 and 44(50) hands.

[Flameous]

One thing to consider is having two ways to remove 3NT, other for too strong hands and other for extra distribution. I tried it but wasn't too convinced, not that it ever came up.

[wclass___]

Relaying 7321 this way simply isn't worth it.

I experimented with criteria and got the feeling that (given approximately this much of bidding space) 5521 and 6421 are borderline hands and any other hand containing at least 10 cards in two longest suits should go other route.

Having a bid that says ''i have a shapely hand with at least 10 cards in longest suits'' will give opener a good idea of what he wants to know from partner in context of his own hand. I suspect that exact shape won't be priority number one all that often.

[awm]

This is one of the reasons Sam and I switched to our current methods; we reverse-relay these hands. Of course, there is also a possible problem when opener has such a freak in our methods, but this seems less frequent (and we open low-hcp hands with a lot of tricks 3NT and not 1♣).

It does seem like you could probably devote sequences where you show a one-suiter and then bid past 3NT to these hands. You lose a zoom on 7330 I guess, but a step on those hands is probably worth it.

[dake50]

Do you mean another relay-for-pattern fails when an
asking-bid structure finds these answers matter-of-course?
S-ask? then A-ask?, eg.

[straube]

dake50, on 2012-March-18, 07:28, said:

Do you mean another relay-for-pattern fails when an
asking-bid structure finds these answers matter-of-course?
S-ask? then A-ask?, eg.

I'm very happy with relay, but relay doesn't handle 8-cd suits very well and it's hard to pick up the jack and sometimes the jack is important. I've played asking bids before and sometimes they do very well, but I think that they're inefficient and inconsistent compared to relay.

[DinDIP]

straube, on 2012-March-17, 08:19, said:

We play a relay system over our strong club, but we can't show 8-cd suits and we can't show the jack of a seven-card suit until we are very high. If I pick up something like AQJxxxxx x Kx xx and hear partner open a strong club, I can't show my hand properly. I just want to set spades and RKC.

<snip>

Do others do this already? I think Moscito used 1C-3C as AKQxxxx unspecified suit.

Freaks are infrequent but often a problem when they do arise. I've played a symmetric system where it was possible to show every shape, with the shapes ordered on the basis of frequency (so 3D = 5431, 3H = 6421, 3S = 6430, 3N = 7420, 4C = 7510, 4D = 8410 etc). I've also played where there are no ways to show freaks and the 4C+ bids either were not used to show anything or were used to show strong versions of shapes already shown, typically the shape shown by the bid of 3N so the 3N bid was limited and passable. Another alternative is to follow the original symmetric idea which was to make the bid that showed the most frequent shape with an analogous pattern and then make an impossible bid. So, 7510 is analogous to 5431 and 8311 to 6322. Of course, that still doesn't provide a clear answer about how to differentiate between a 5431 that is too strong to pass 3N and a 7510 that is too shapely to pass 3N, although it is easy to make special rules (such as 4C or 4D is always the freak).

I've not found any of these satisfactory so looked further and decided that the ones that were most frequent and caused the greatest problems were those with 8+card suits. As a result, my partner and I now play that we can show 8+card single-suited hands, and we can bid some freaks, when the hand is limited, by showing the closest shape and then making an impossible bid. Our rules:

Freaks
We can show some freaks:
• 4♣ when showing a one-suiter shows an 8+card suit (doesn't matter whether teller is limited or unlimited)
• A limited two-suiter can make a NAT, descriptive bid if it is otherwise anti-systemic.
– An unlimited hand can't do this because such bids are zooms with the shape shown by 3N (see below).

For one-suiters
3N 7-3-3-0, 5-8SP
4♣ 8-card suit (4♦ = relay [4♥ = singleton, 4♠+ = void], 4N = RKC)
4♦ 7-3-3-0, 9SP
4♥ 7-3-3-0, 10SP
etc
where SP are slam points (3, 2, 1, kingleton = 1, stiff Q = 0)

[Zelandakh]

My rules for positive 1-suiters opposite a strong club are that solid suits respond 2NT. Other 1-suiters are shown with (example for spades):-
2♠ = 3 hearts, 6-7 spades
2NT = 3 clubs, 0-2 hearts, 6-7 spades
3♣ = 3 diamonds, 0-2 hearts, 0-2 clubs, 6-7 spades
3♦ = high (hearts) shortage, 8+ spades
3♥ = middle (diamonds) shortage, 8+ spades
3♠ = 7222
3NT = low (clubs) shortage, 8+ spades, min
4♣ = low (clubs) shortage, 8+ spades, extras, singleton
4♦ = low (clubs) shortage, 8+ spades, extras, void + controls in steps

Of course it would be nice to tell the difference between 8320 and 9220 but you have to draw the line somewhere. Most likely Adam's suggestion of reverse-relaying is optimal if it fits into your system. It would not work in mine though so I handle as many as I can and have rules for how anything more extreme gets shown.

[PrecisionL]

Interesting, I have been looking for a new use of 1♣ - 2NT.

Currently, we use 1♣ - 3M to show a solid suit, similar to Power Precision. But 2NT allows distributional asks.

Maybe, using 2NT as a one-loser suit AQJxxxx / KQJxxx might be better and more frequent.