Oct 13 2010

Reverse Flannery & 4-Way Minor Raises

podrey @ 6:25 pm

A common problem encountered by any experienced partnership starts with the following auction.  1♣-1♠-2♣.  If you have five spades and four hearts, what do you bid?  What about five spades and five hearts?  Without discussion a 2♥ bid would be forcing with 10+ points, showing your shape.  But what if you have something in the 5-9 point range?  Should you pass and possibly miss out on a 4-4 or 5-4 heart fit when partner was not good enough to reverse?  Should you try a signoff in 2♠?  Or maybe you should overbid instead?

One way my partnerships have handled this in the past was to treat a 2♥ rebid as nonforcing.  A 2♦ (or 3♣) rebid was then alerted as possibly artificial and “checkback” for four hearts or three spades.  That works, but it can be awkward.  It doesn’t distinguish between 5-4 and 5-5 hands.  Plus, if the opponents interfere, everything is garbled and you may have missed a fit.  Or, if you are an overbidder and try to show your shape anyway, you may get way too high.

This summer, i learned a new treatment that vastly improves bidding these types of hands and also allows a lot of constructive minor raises.  Here are the first-level responses:

1♣ 2♣ Game forcing club raise
2♦ Limit raise for clubs
2♥ 5 spades, 4-5 hearts, 5-9 pts
2♠ Mixed raise for clubs, single raise values
2NT invitational to game, 10-12 pts
3♣ Weak preemptive raise for clubs
1♦ 2♦ Game forcing raise for diamonds
2♥ 5 spades, 4-5 hearts, 5-9 pts
2♠ Limit raise for diamonds
2NT Invitational to game 10-12 pts
3♣ Mixed raise for diamonds, single raise values
3♦ Weak preemptive raise for diamonds

Notes:

  • 2NT is always a balanced invitational raise, presumably with no 4-card major
  • 2♥ is always Reverse Flannery, showing 5-9 pts with five spades and four hearts
  • There are four minor suit raises for each minor, and they are always inversely proportional to strength.  I find it easier to remember them this way.
    • Raising to 2m is always game-forcing.
    • The next-highest minor raise (1♣-2♦ or 1♦-2♠) is the limit raise.
    • The bid “below” the preemptive raise (1♣-2♠ or 1♦-3♣) is the mixed raise.
    • Raising to 3m is always weak.  The 2nd-most preemptive bid is the mixed raise

This has been immensely useful so far. And what, may i ask, were you using your 2♥ and 2♠ bids for anyway?  Weak jumps?  I don’t think those are particularly useful, personally, since against me that never stopped the opponents from getting to the other major when they had it.  I used those bids for strong jump-shifts; again, not particularly useful as they are rarely necessary and are certainly not frequent.

There are some followups to the Reverse Flannery 2♥ bid as well.  If partner has some extras, he can inquire with 2NT to find out about your shape and values.

2NT 3♣ 5-4 shape, minimum
3♦ 5-4 shape, maximum
3♥ 5-5 shape, minimum
3♠ 5-5 shape, maximum