Author Topic: Positive responder with 55+  (Read 5573 times)

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Offline DickHy

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Positive responder with 55+
« on: June 28, 2019, 07:45:24 PM »
Perhaps someone would help with this, please.

I held AKxxx Kxx - AKQxx and partner had xx AQxxx KQJxxx -

The bidding (not necessarily correct!) went 1C - 2D - 2S (alpha) - 2N - 3C (iota) - 3D - 3N sign-off

My partner wondered if 1H would have been a better positive response to 1C, but the diamond suit seemed too strong to ignore.  But whichever suit was first bid by responder, the second suit seemingly might be lost.  We started discussing a special scheme for a positive responder who is 55(+), then realised we had soon gone beyond our grasp.

Admittedly this is an unusual hand.  Is there a scheme in OCP after 1C to handle a 55/65 positive responder?

best wishes

Dick     

Offline Jimmy

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Re: Positive responder with 55+
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2019, 10:03:06 PM »
Perhaps someone would help with this, please.

I held AKxxx Kxx - AKQxx and partner had xx AQxxx KQJxxx -

The bidding (not necessarily correct!) went 1C - 2D - 2S (alpha) - 2N - 3C (iota) - 3D - 3N sign-off

My partner wondered if 1H would have been a better positive response to 1C, but the diamond suit seemed too strong to ignore.  But whichever suit was first bid by responder, the second suit seemingly might be lost.  We started discussing a special scheme for a positive responder who is 55(+), then realised we had soon gone beyond our grasp.

Admittedly this is an unusual hand.  Is there a scheme in OCP after 1C to handle a 55/65 positive responder?

best wishes

Dick     

Hi Dick,  I am a novice OCP player,  but do play a modified precision system using some of the OCP sequences.  It is my general understanding that it is best to bid the 5 card major over the 6 card minor (with a few exceptions). 

But,  on the other side of the coin is this,  what if Opener had this hand:


 !S  AKxxx
 !H 
 !D  Axx
 !C AKQxx

Opener has one HCP more.   ;D

I am sure experienced OCP er's will comment.  JMO

Jim
« Last Edit: June 28, 2019, 10:17:08 PM by Jimmy »

Offline lute57

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Re: Positive responder with 55+
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2019, 10:43:54 PM »
Hi Dick,

Good to see you playing OCP and discussing tweaks with partner.

IMO, you perfectly bid the sequence according to OCP doctrine. In regards to partner showing  !D first, I think everyone would do the same. With 8+ HCP and 5-card  !H & 6-card  !D, the only time I would show the 5-card Major first is when the Minor is significantly weaker. I believe that is Oliver's doctrine, too.

Anyway, Brian created a nice gadget for showing two-suited Responder hands with 8+ HCP. 1 !C-2 !H [alert] showing 8+HCP and promising two-suits. Of course, to incorporate this in your system, you need to modify your 4441 8-11 HCP Responder responses. I believe Brian suggested making 1 !C-2 !S showing 4441 8-11 HCP and showing a singleton in one of the Major-suits. Similar to 1 !C-2NT [generic singleton in the Minors]. You would also have to adjust your subsequent Eta responses to allow the additional first step "oops! you Eta Asked in my singleton suit."

Brian can elaborate better (and correct me as needed). I think Oliver has no problem with OCP partnerships playing in this matter; but I seriously doubt if it will ever become part of OCP standard. Although it is a tweak I use, and I believe Brian continues to endorse it, adding it as standard OCP just adds another level of complexity to a standard system that is already quite complex [and we are talking the Simple System  :D].

John

Offline lute57

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Re: Positive responder with 55+
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2019, 10:46:11 PM »
Dick,

Jimmy plays a hybrid system that he developed, I thought he had a similar idea to Brian's, too. Maybe he can elaborate.

John

Offline Jimmy

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Re: Positive responder with 55+
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2019, 02:29:38 AM »
Dick,

Jimmy plays a hybrid system that he developed, I thought he had a similar idea to Brian's, too. Maybe he can elaborate.

John

Hi John,  Yes we play a hybrid system which is somewhat natural and allows either opener or responder to begin inquires/cues once trump is established.   In this sequence we would show the  !H suit first for two reasons,  first (and primarily),  it takes up less bidding space (while forcing to game) and allows opener to better define their hand at a low level,  second,  it shows the 8+ points with 5+  !H's, the longer  !D's can be shown with repeats or a jump. 

Offline brian_m

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Re: Positive responder with 55+
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2019, 05:50:05 AM »
Hi Dick,

Good to see you playing OCP and discussing tweaks with partner.

IMO, you perfectly bid the sequence according to OCP doctrine. In regards to partner showing  !D first, I think everyone would do the same. With 8+ HCP and 5-card  !H & 6-card  !D, the only time I would show the 5-card Major first is when the Minor is significantly weaker. I believe that is Oliver's doctrine, too.

Anyway, Brian created a nice gadget for showing two-suited Responder hands with 8+ HCP. 1 !C-2 !H [alert] showing 8+HCP and promising two-suits. Of course, to incorporate this in your system, you need to modify your 4441 8-11 HCP Responder responses. I believe Brian suggested making 1 !C-2 !S showing 4441 8-11 HCP and showing a singleton in one of the Major-suits. Similar to 1 !C-2NT [generic singleton in the Minors]. You would also have to adjust your subsequent Eta responses to allow the additional first step "oops! you Eta Asked in my singleton suit."

Brian can elaborate better (and correct me as needed). I think Oliver has no problem with OCP partnerships playing in this matter; but I seriously doubt if it will ever become part of OCP standard. Although it is a tweak I use, and I believe Brian continues to endorse it, adding it as standard OCP just adds another level of complexity to a standard system that is already quite complex [and we are talking the Simple System  :D].

John

Maybe the information in the alternative treatments forum is not up to date. I'll go take a look...

One quick check later...

The information in the alternative treatments forum is correct, provided you notice the amendment in red to my original posting, and read down to the bottom of the thread to see what we ended up with.

The two and three suited positives which Georgi and I devised, and Michael and I now play, are as follows

1 !C - 2 !H = 8+ HCP with any 5+/5+ two-suited hand except for both minors. In other words, the 2 !H bid must promise at least one 5+ card major.

1 !C - 2 !S = ANY 4441 shape with either 8-11 or (rarely, obviously!) 16+ HCP.

1 !C - 2NT = 8+ HCP with 5+/5+ in the minors. We found that we had to take this out of the 2 !H bid to get the responses to work properly.

1 !C - 3 of a suit = the standard suit below the singleton 4441 of OCP, but these bids are limited to 12-15 HCP. It's obviously very rare for responder to have 16+ 4441 shape opposite a 1 !C opener, but we found we could handle that very easily within the 2 !S response, so we moved those hands into that. After 1 !C-2 !S Opener just assumes that Responder has the 8-11 hand initially, as will be the case on the overwhelming majority of occasions. For those very rare occasions when responder does have 16+, they just continue on after opener (presumably!) signs off in game.

If anyone wants the Adobe PDF of this scheme, with all the continuation bids, send me an e-mail (or PM me your e-mail address on here) and I'll send it to you.


« Last Edit: June 29, 2019, 06:09:49 AM by brian_m »
Please note that the responses I give are based on my current understanding of the system, and I've checked the website if in any doubt. I didn't attend Oliver's classes until 2021-22, so if Oliver has said anything different in his lessons in earlier years, I don't know about it!

Offline DickHy

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Re: Positive responder with 55+
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2019, 05:58:45 PM »
Hi, Jim and John, many thanks for replying

... and also to Brian for the alternative treatment regime.  I will pass that on to my partner and we can chat about it.

One thing that occurred to us after I posted was that over 3N responder could make a slam try ... as one might in a 2/1 or SAYC system when thinking about a minor suit slam.

The positive 55 responder would initial reply to the 1C opening with the higher ranking 5c suit, so over the 3N sign-off by opener, responder could bid the lower suit.  In the normal fashion, opener could reject the suit(s) by signing-off in 4N, or could accept the lower suit by cue bidding an ace in the two suits responder does not have.  If opener preferred responder's first suit, he would bid that at the 4-level.  After acceptance/choice presumably bidding would have to be cues/RKCB.

This sort of scheme might work well for 65 hands when the 6c suit is lower ranked - as it was in the example in the post - because when responder bids his 5c suit over 3N it will be of higher rank than the first suit he bid.  Thus, the first suit must be a 6-carder.  Opener could proceed as above: cues to accept, 4N to sign-off, 5x to choose the 5c suit.

Of course the scheme won't work with 65 hands when the 6c suit is higher ranked, because opener will not know from the 4y  bid over 3N that responder is 55 and not 65.  Maybe then, responder should rebid his 6c suit over 3N.

All that seems much more tortuous than the alternative treatment.

My partner and I also use a hybrid system with a simplified version of Asking bids after 1C - positive, but we use alpha, theta and iota, gamma, eta and epsilons. 

Anyway, thanks for responding guys,

all the best

Dick