Five Uncommon Conventions You Should Play April 5, 2009
Posted by justinlall in Articles.Tags: Convention, Intermediate
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Generally I think most players, especially intermediates, play too many conventions. Most of the time they come up too infrequently or have very small gains that aren’t worth the trouble. However, there are a few conventions that are both frequent and useful that most people aren’t yet playing. Here they are in no particular order.
A jump cue as a transfer to 3N in the auction 1m-(1M)-3M. If you think about it, with almost every holding you have in overcaller’s major you want partner to declare the hand. Axx, AQx, Kxx, AKx are the most obvious examples. You give up a splinter to play this, but a splinter in support of a minor is very rare compared to an antipositional 3N bid.
Transfers after 1M-(X)-? starting with 1N. This is becoming more popular, and for good reason. Losing your natural 1N bid frees up two ways to raise the major. The direct raise is weak, and a transfer raise is constructive. This is very good, because with 3 trumps you always want to preempt the opponents, but you can’t jump to 3 the same way you can when you have 4 trumps. Being able to bid 2 and not have partner game try or jump to game is like having your cake and eating it too. Losing the natural 1N is not a big loss, with 10 you can XX and with 7 you should pass anyways, so you are only losing with 8 or 9 balanced without 3 trumps. In return you get not just 2 ways to raise, but also the ability to immediately show your suit regardless of whether you are weak or strong because you are guaranteed to get another chance to bid. You would hate to have to XX with a strong 1 suiter and be susceptible to preemption by LHO. You would also hate to have to pass with a good 6 card suit and nothing else. Another example of getting to have your cake and eating it too.
Jump cue as a mixed raise after an overcall. This is a convention I see misused all the time. The biggest question is, what the hell is a mixed raise? The best definition I can come up with is a hand too good for a preemptive raise, and a hand not good enough for a limit raise, with at least 4 trumps and offensive values. With nobody vulnerable if the auction goes (1
) 1
p ?
KJxx 
x 
xxxx xxxx bids 3
KJxx x Axxx Qxxx bids 2
KJxx x Kxxx xxxx bids 3
The third hand is a common hand type that is very difficult to show. I see people bid 3 with hands strong enough for a limit raise, and hands that are more balanced and defensive (which should just bid 2) so often that it takes away from the value of having a mixed raise to begin with. You can get to a lot of light games by using these correctly.
Suit Preference in the trump suit. Ok, this is a carding agreement, but it’s a very important one that all top pairs and few intermediates use. The idea is simple, you show whether you like the high or low suit (sometimes the middle is in play) by the way you play your trumps. With 2 just play up the line with no preference. That way only a high low is a strong signal. With 3 play the middle for no preference. This extra signal can make all the difference for the defense.
Invitational jumps at the 3 level after partner opens. These apply when partner opens 1x, and you bid 3y where y is lower than x. This is also only for 2/1 players. The problem is an auction like 1 p 1N p 2 p 3. This could just be a weak hand with long clubs and isn’t invitational, so with 9 to 11 points and a good suit you need another way to bid. I propose bidding 1 p 3 with that hand type. It also protects you from preemption and sometimes has a preemptive effect of its own. Ideally you would have a good 6 card suit and not Hx in support of partners major, but you aren’t always dealt an ideal hand. Just remember partner will pass with a stiff and a minimum, because if he bids anything else it’s forcing.
I think if everyone reading this adds these methods my email will be flooded with thank you notes.
You’re welcome!
Cool! However, how do the transfers after 1M-(X) – work if both hands are completely unlimited? Do you use them only with weak and GF hands? I mean, what do you do with everything else in between (invitational, etc)
Hello Justin, thanks for the blog, I read everything and its great.
about Invitational jumps at the 3 level after partner opens.
Do you believe this is better then the more popular bergen raises ?
How ways do you have for supporting ?
Thanks
Sharon
Suppose it goes 1S (Dbl) 2C (Xfer to diamonds). What are the bids by opener and what are tthe followups?
Great to see you blogging again, I was a huge fan of doublesqueeze!
I was wondering if you could explain a little more why “with almost every holding you have in overcaller’s major you want partner to declare the hand. Axx, AQx, Kxx, AKx are the most obvious examples.” It seems like we would want the lead coming up to holdings like AQx or Kxx?
1) You can transfer after 1major X with any strength hand. If you have a strong hand you bid again, either a new suit, cuebid, or jump.
2) I believe strongly that the invitational jumps are better than bergen. Preemptive raises are less necessary when the opponents haven’t bid, and are less likely to occur. The constructive 4 card raise often just pushes your side to 3 needlessly when you could have played 2. I just don’t believe bergen is very useful, and as I outlined I think invitational jumps gain a lot.
3) Opener bids as if partner had made a NF 2D bid. 2D shows a hand that would pass that, other bids are natural assuming that (2H and 2S NF and natural, 2N strong, 3D a raise of diamonds, 3C extras etc).
4) Usually with AQx and Kxx you want to play from that side. However, when you know they have length/strength on your right, it’s better for partner to play it. Consider partner having Jx when you have AQx, you don’t want a lead through the jack, you want partner to play it and get a lead from the king. Or if partner has Tx maybe a lead from KJ. When you have Kxx it is even more important to play it from partner’s side if they have Qx, or even if they have Jx.
I like your suggestions on transfers over 1M-(X). I would go one step farther and say play XX as a transfer to NT and pass (trap) with the classic business XX hand. This not only lets opener pass the XX sometimes, but allows you to show various 2-suiters or 3 card limit raises below 2M by first bidding XX->1NT and then bidding again.
I wrote up some more complicated notes on this stuff on my webpage under the title “1M-X transfers.doc” which you might find interesting.
Justin,
I like in additional to all of this (which I play with Larry) 2NT being like a 3rd suit forcing over 1m-1M-2M.
The 1M – X transfers I’ve used for years and I enjoy them immensely.
In the case of the 1m (1M) 3M as a transfer to 3N, are you giving up the stopper ask or is it someplace else?
Thanks
Collins
If you have a stopper ask hand you can either start with a normal cuebid, or bid your long suit. Usually this auction is played as a splinter, not stopper ask, since a stopper ask would be redundant.
Can partner refuse the trnf to 3NT with a stiff? How about 2 small?
What about playing 1M-3x as constructive? (not “weak”, not “inv” either) This way you have the option to bid 3M or 4M after 1M-1N-2M instead of bidding your own suit if you also have a doubleton in partner’s major. Seems like you’re less likely to miss a making 4M this way?
Csaba,
Partner bids like they would bid over a 3N bid. They can bid with a slam try or lots of shape if they want, but usually they just bid 3N. It isn’t a stopper ask.
Noble,
Then you still have problems with invitational or weak hands. Like what is 1H p 1N p 2H p 3D? If it’s an invite then you have no bid for weak hands, so I don’t really like it. You shouldn’t miss many 4 major games because partner will usually bid over 3m with those hands.
I like the 1m (1M) 3M transfer to 3NT a lot.
It reminds me of a joke convention I came up with (never bothered to check if it was legal).
You can’t have one partner play a convention that the other partner doesn’t play, eg. one plays transfers the other doesn’t. But what if you just have conventions you never use? Let’s say you agreed to play that after 1m openings, 3S is a transfer to 3NT, but that 3NT itself is also to play. Sure you can come up with some convoluted use for the transfer, but can’t a pro “right-side” the 3NT contract with this convention? By agreement the partnership uses the convention, but it just so happens the client always bids 3S and the pro always bids 3NT.
Also, playing with a very old-school national champion, he made it very specific to me that he plays a mixed raise as showing 4 trumps, an ace and a king. So that’s one definition for ya.
oops, 4 trumps, an ace, a king, and shortness
A jump cue as a transfer to 3N in the auction 1m-(1M)-3M. I’m not happy about this suggestion to play this as asking partner to bid 3NT – surley with good cards in M you can bid 3NT yourself. This then leaves the 3M bid to ask partner to bid 3NT if he has a stop (or half stop by agreement).
After 1m (1M) Dbl (P) any (P) 2M [or 3M if needed], wouldn’t opener generally bid NT with a stopper? About the only time this doesn’t work is when opener is hugely distributional, in which case maybe you don’t want to be in NT anyhow.
So how do you use the immediate 3n bid instead of x fering to pd and what do you use the meaning of your bids after pd bids 3n and you bid again.
An immediate 3N just means you want to play it from your side. Perhaps a holding like AQT where there can never be any benefit from playing it from partners side.
Transferring to 3N then bidding again – good question. I leave it undefined, but obviously you could do something there.
Thx makes sense.
You could not be more on the money..