Tonight we talked about a very useful adjunct to 2/1: 4th Suit Forcing.  This bid basically fills in the gaps for your Game Forcing hands when a 2/1 bid was not appropriate at your first call.  It's also relatively easy to recognize and remember (especially with the aid of bidding boxes) as it will show up as the fourth color on the table.

Basically, 4SF comes into play when Opener bids a suit, Responder bids a new suit, and Opener bids yet a thrid suit.  Responder's bid of the 4th suit is now ARTIFICIAL and GAME FORCING (and therefore ALERTABLE.)  It doesn't promise anything about the length of Responder's first suit, it just promises GF values.

EX:  1D - 1S - 2C - 2H*  (says nothing about Hearts, just GF)

Opener should continue to bid his hand naturally, including showing Responder if he has 3-card support.  Responder can bid that 4th suit again on his next bid if he did actually have it.

{Note:  It is possible to play 4th Suit Forcing for only one round, but that's not nearly as useful along with 2/1.}

There does occur a special case when the auction proceeds:  1C - 1D - 1H - 1S*.  I'm going to suggest that becuase Responder with a hand that isn't worth a second bid would have told Opener about his spades rather than his diamonds, this bid is also artificial and GF.  The auction 1C - 1D - 1H - 2S shows 5(+) Diamonds and 4 Spades and Invitational values.

:)

Wow it's been a while since I got to teach you guys - I've missed you all!

So tonight we discussed NEW MINOR FORCING, a very useful tool for finding Major suit fits.  NMF, for short, most basically applies when Opener bids 1 of a minor, Responder shows 1 of a Major, and Opener rebids 1NT.  Now 2 of the OTHER (NEW) MINOR from the Responder does a few things:

1.  Promises 10+ points.

2.  Promises 5 cards in your Major.

3.  Asks Opener to tell you more about his holdings in the Majors.

Notice I didn't say anything about the minor you just bid - this is an artificial bid.  Now, there are versions of NMF that don't promise 10+ points or a 5-card suit, but this is the basic version. 

Opener's priorities for answering your NMF question are:

1.  Show 3-card support for your Major.

2.  Show 4 cards in the other Major.

3.  Bid 2NT without either.  (This is why you need to have at least 10 points to bid NMF - you don't want partner to try to play 2NT with fewer than 22 points AND no fit.)

And that's it.  NMF is alertable, since it's an artificial bid, and since partner must bid again, you as Responder with a game-forcing hand will get your chance to show that on your next bid.  This is also another convention where the actual bidding cards on the table will help you out - look at what minor partner opened and bid the other one!  (Likewise, as Opener, if partner bids the minor you didn't open, little bells should go off in your head that this might mean something special.)

:)

Tonight we talked about NT bids and rebids by Opener - the same little worksheet from Monday and Wednesday, but we only got through Opener's bids.  We'll do Responder's bids either next week with Pat or when I get back in three weeks.

In the meantime, please see the discussion from MONDAY, APRIL 5 for the recap and review.

:)