[jvdk]

Partner and myself decided to use the following system :
1 of a Major opening – no bid by opp’s - 3rd hand holds 3 trumps
(holding 4 trumps we decided to play Bergen Raises)

In third hand we always bid another colour. Later we bid 3 or 4 in the major.

Recently I held ♠ AKT9xx ♥ xx ♦ Jxx ♣ Ax (= 12 HCP)
This was the bidding:
1♠ - 2♣
2♠ - 3♠
I was thinking about 3♠
A. a doubleton with 10-11 points ?
B. a tripleton with inviting values ?

vs A I pass
vs B I try 4♠

How to judge the bid of 3♠ ? Or .... our bidding system isn’t correct ?

Regards
Jean

[barmar]

First, I'm not sure I understand your system. You ALWAYS bid a new suit first, even if you have only 6-9 HCP? Or is your system only used with invitational values?

I'm not sure I understand your problem. You have a minimum opener, the only extra feature is your 6th trump; the ♦Jxx could be totally worthless. Even if partner has 3 trumps, I wouldn't accept the invitation.

Does your 2♠ bid promise 6 spades? One way to solve your problem of whether partner has 2 or 3-card support is to play that it doesn't, it just shows a hand that can't bid 2NT because it doesn't have the other suits stopped. In that case, partner usually won't raise to 3 with only 2 cards, he'll usually bid 2NT himself. Then you can bid 3♠ to confirm that it was a 6-card suit and a minimum, and he can decide whether to go to game.

[sasioc]

I think this is a problem with your system - as you say, your partner has to bid this way with either hand type under your current agreements and you can't really tell which he has. I'm not sure if this is going to be a huge problem on that many hands but if you feel it is I'd look for a different way to show a 3 card invite.

Some people play 1M:3M as a 3 card invite, although I prefer this to be pre emptive. 2/1 players frequently put their 3 card invites through a forcing 1NT, although I see you don't play 2/1. My own preference is to play 1M:3C as 7-10 points with 4 card support and 1M:3D as 10-12 and 3 card support, with better 4 card raises good enough to bid J2N or make whatever raise you normally do with a gf hand with 4 cards. Worse hands with 4 cards can bid 3M pre emptive. I prefer this to Bergen because I feel that Bergen uses two bids to show relatively rare hand types, where it is not really necessary to do so, where here you can still show these hands but have an easy 3 card raise too. Not sure what everyone else plays/thinks though.

Alternatively it's not absurd to start with 1NT on 2 card support with 10-11 points.

[MrAce]

jvdk, on 2011-October-28, 15:59, said:

Partner and myself decided to use the following system :
1 of a Major opening – no bid by opp’s - 3rd hand holds 3 trumps
(holding 4 trumps we decided to play Bergen Raises)

In third hand we always bid another colour. Later we bid 3 or 4 in the major...................

How to judge the bid of 3♠ ? Or .... our bidding system isn’t correct ?

Regards
Jean

I will not get into whether it is correct or wrong way to play it but to answer your question; it doesn't matter as much as u think it does imo. I mean it doesn't matter whether he has 3 cards or Hx fit. Most of the time he will have 3 card fit, if he supported you with Hx only it is probably because other alternatives (such as 2NT, rebidding his minor, new suit etc...) were not available, which makes your 5-2 fit reasonable.

The hand u gave for example, AKTxxx xx Jxx Ax. Now suppose pd has Qx ♠ instead of Qxx ♠ or xxx ♠ , does it really make a huge difference ? Probably the outcome will depend on what he has in red suits. In fact the chances of you making a game is probably higher if he has xxx ♠ rather than QJx when he has only a limit hand.