for Bridgewinners by Joe Grue May 18, 2012
OK, this week I’m back with a new convention. This convention occurs when our side opens a weak 2-bid in spades.
When responding to 2, I like to switch the meanings of a 3
and 3
response. This uses the same philosophy behind Kokish relay auctions. For those of you who don’t know the Kokish relay, 2
-2
-2
shows either a big balanced 24+ HCP hand or hearts. Then responder relays to 2
, and now the strong 2
opener either bids 2NT showing the big balanced hand or bids at the 3-level to show a hand with primary hearts.
Now, standard Kokish treats the 3-level new suit rebids as natural with primary hearts. However, the common expert trend in Kokish is to “switch” the meanings of 3 and 3
, so that 3
shows a single-suited hearts hand and 3
shows 5+
and 4+
. In my opinion, there are many auctions in both 2/1 and Precision where this “switch” principle provides a huge advantage, saving space by using the 3
bid to show hearts and the 3
bid to show clubs. The reason is that partner can now support you at the 3-level with a 3
bid. Meanwhile, you don’t lose much when you show clubs with 3
instead of 3
. When partner has support, they would already have to bid 4
anyway. I will go into the many other auctions and an even better Kokish relay system at a later time if people are all that interested, but for now I will try to stay on topic!
Anyway now that I’ve clarified the 3/3
switch principle, one of the auctions where this applies is when partner opens a weak 2
. Use a 3
call to show a game-forcing hand in clubs. Some would say that if you go past 3NT, then 4
is a playable contract even though it isn’t game, but that’s up to you and your partner. The big gain comes when you have 6 bad hearts or 5 good hearts that’s close to a game force, but really needs a fit to do so. I will now describe how Jlall and Curtis and I handle these auctions.
So first, if we bid 3 over 2
it shows game-invitational+ values and 5+ hearts. Opener bids over this as follows:
![aaxx](http://csbnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/aaxx71.png)
- 3
– tolerance (2 or more) for hearts. If partner bids 3
over that it’s non-forcing but we can kick it into game if we like. We can also bid 3
, which would show a spade suit suitable for play opposite a singleton or even a void. (likely 1.5 losers opposite a void). 3
not only shows an excellent spade suit, but a maximum as well. (With excellent spades but a minimum or no heart tolerance, bid 3
immediately).
- 3
– 0-1 hearts, nothing else of interest. We make this bid on almost every hand with 0-1 hearts.
- 3
– excellent spade suit, either minimum or 0-1 hearts (with a max and 2 hearts we would have rebid 3
followed by 3
).
- 3NT – super-max hand with stiff heart.
Now that leaves us with what to do with most of our hands that fit hearts well. First, we can simply jump to 4 over 3
, on a hand like
AQ10865
xxx
x
Qxx. If we bid 4
or 4
over the 3
call that would be a splinter in support of hearts, promising high honor-third of hearts or better. For example:
AJ10xxx
xxx
x
Kx (4
) or
AKxxxx
Kxx
xxx
x (4
).
I could show you many examples of good hands, and most of you would laugh at how good the hands are, saying you would never open those hands with a weak 2. But I like to play sound weak twos, I feel like Brad Moss and I are the last two people on earth that have this style, and maybe we are crazy! (Well, I guess it’s a well-known fact that we are!)
Here’s a hand showing the switch principle and our followups in action:
![aaxx](http://csbnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/aaxx72.png)
So I opened 2 and Curtis had a hand that might PASS in standard bidding. He has a good hand but not a game-force, and the hand could play really badly if the deal is a misfit or if I’m minimum. However, we were playing switched 3
/3
, so Curtis could now bid 3
. I showed my heart tolerance and Curtis was able to invite with 3
, which I accepted. We won a vulnerable game swing when the other table passed it out in 2
.