promising four diamonds, and most
likely having five diamonds.
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shows 6 +
clubs and 6-10. When does invert apply? The five-card major world lives in fear that opener has only
three cards in the minor. Robinson, Hardy and I think there are
cases where you must raise with fewer than five, and in the big
club system, there are hands where you can raise with three.
This is a consequence of 1 promising four diamonds, and most
likely having five diamonds.
Responder has a 3=2=5=3 pattern.
? x x
x x
where each question mark represents honor in those suits What
is a pass? What is a 3 bid. A 2 bid? Or do you bid notrump
with some of the possible counts?
Some hand patterns are awkward when partner opens 1 . Consider a
3=1=3=6 pattern:
What is a pass? What is a 2 bid? What do you do otherwise?
What is your plan? If you play big club, how does this change
your plan?
In the four-card major days of yore, one would raise to 2 with
the 6-10 hands. This hand pattern is also a problem when partner
opens 1 . You bid 1NT forcing and partner bids 2 . What do
you do?
You have a 3=1=4=5 pattern and partner opens 1 . Again give your
bid and your plan?
Continuations after an invert: Walsh (Hardy) does a stopper drill, and Robinson bids a major to suggest a 4-3 major game as an alternative to 3NT and 5-minor.
When I started to play inverted minors, I thought the plan was to clarify strength as you went past 2NT. You could bid whatever you thought best over the invert at the two-level, and there were no promises of strength. Then as you get to 2NT, both partners bid 2NT or 3-minor to show a minimum, and something else with enough for game. We thought that it was responder's duty to stop the unbid minor. In big club
not forcing. Unfortunately, this
is a curve ball to partner, and is no longer in the system. Robinson: This is natural and intuitive. Though Robinson calls the system Washington D.C. Standard, he has thought out most sequences, and believes in the system.
Walsh (Hardy). I have an old Hardy book which thinks 1NT is 16-18. I assume later editions use 15-17.
BWS — Bridge World Standard. A committee system. Kokish presents it and hardly agrees. Committee systems suffer from not necessarily being totally consistent.
Before I played inverted minors, a minor raise showed 7-10 notrump count and about the same suit count. There is a semantics problem. People describe the jump raise as preemptive. This can be interpreted as enough values to allow partner to bid 3NT with the 18-19 notrump pattern. Since partner usually has the 12-14 notrump hand, it means the opponents should usually bid exactly three of their best major. A second interpretation is 0 to 6 notrump count, and partner should not bid 3NT. Partner is looking a the vulnerability and the opponents to decide whether to pass or preemptively raise. Now the opponents should usually bid to game in their best major. Another variation is the bid covers the entire range, and it may be right to bid 3NT, and more usually the opponents must decide between three and four.
When responder jumps, he usually has five-plus cards in the minor. This means opener is much more likely to have a 4-3-3-3, 4-4-3-2, or 4-4-4-1 pattern. With the first two patterns, opener has either a weak notrump, or too much for a strong notrump. The last pattern can have any count. Longer suits are possible, and opener may want to investigate a minor suit game.
Grant Baze has a toy to decide whether 3NT is acceptable. I got it second hand from Joe Kivel, who, of course, wants to add a Kivel twist. I think opener bids the cheapest suit, and responder rebids at the three-level if 3NT is okay. The suggestion seems to be they think some opener hands are possible, where opener wants to insist on 3NT. Otherwise, opener would simply bid 3NT, and responder would pass or pull. An implication is that if opener bids over a junk jump response, the four-level will be okay opposite a balanced 18-pointer. It seems to me that there is a threat that bidding on with a good hand is converting a plus to a minus.
Without a toy and without discussion, a new suit is a help-suit game try. Responder does what he wants, and that might possibly included bidding 3NT.
I have always thought the 7-10 notrump count in Big Club, and that is the way I have played it. In other words, I have enough strength to make 3-minor the hand limit opposite partner, and if he has extra values, he might compete when they bid, and if somehow he has a distributional hand, he might want to voluntarily bid toward game. Now that I think about, 0-10 is probably acceptable in Big Club. I am not going to change, unless partner tells me to.
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