[benlessard]

When you have a very weak hand with minor support and RHO pass its no surprise that partner is often going to be 18-19 bal. So if you use 3m as a preempt how low can you go ? Is partner expected to pass many 18-19 bal ? Does vulnerability completly affect if you pass 3m or not ?

[aguahombre]

Your partner will have to answer this one. We choose 1m-3m as mixed, a response but less than an invite..regardless of colors or form of scoring ---also if an overcall comes in between. Opener gets to bid 3NT if she likes her chances opposite that.

Described to the opponents as weak but not broke ---or responding hand less than a limit raise.

[CSGibson]

This is pretty obviously a matter of partnership agreement, and not answerable in any other way. I have the agreement in most of my 2/1 based partnerships that 3m is purely preemptive, to the point that an 18-19 NT should not bid on. This necessitates another constructive call for mixed minor suit raises, which I usually assign to a 2S jump shift. Alternatively, if my partner cannot stand that treatment, then 3m becomes the mixed raise, and I don't have a bid for pure weak preemptive hands.

[gnasher]

I think it's best to play the jump raise as showing enough for game opposite 18-19 balanced - something 5-7 in high cards. If you don't bid 3m on these hands, you have to respond 1NT and then you've wrongsided 3NT and buried your support if the opponents compete. Getting those hands right is more important than being able to preempt on a 4-count. As Ben says, when you do have a weak hand it's likely that opener is 18-19 balanced, so jumping to the three-level on very weak hands isn't necessarily a good thing to do.

In some partnerships I use 1m-2NT as a very weak raise.

[JLOGIC]

I specifically define my weak raise as "partner should bid with 18-19 bal" or partner should not. FWIW I think on top of limit+ and weak, you should have mixed (defined as partner should bid with 18-19 bal) in your arsenal.

[Zelandakh]

JLOGIC, on 2012-August-10, 03:28, said:

FWIW I think on top of limit+ and weak, you should have mixed (defined as partner should bid with 18-19 bal) in your arsenal.

Does this also mean that you think having a mixed raise is a bad idea if partner's opening cannot contain a balanced 18-19 hand, such as 1♦ in unbalanced diamond or Polish Club?

[Cyberyeti]

We play 1m-3m 0-4 5 card support, 1m-2N 5-8 5 card support, 1m-2m 9+ with 5/10+ with 4 and respond 1N with 5-9 whether we have 4 card support or not. Our 1m openers do show 4 however.

[FrancesHinden]

Cyberyeti, on 2012-August-10, 04:00, said:

We play 1m-3m 0-4 5 card support, 1m-2N 5-8 5 card support, 1m-2m 9+ with 5/10+ with 4 and respond 1N with 5-9 whether we have 4 card support or not. Our 1m openers do show 4 however.

That's the wrong way round. With 5-8 you are much more likely to have 3NT on, and you will want partner to play it.

We used to play 1m-2NT as 0-4 with 4/5 card support (diamonds) or 6 card support (clubs as our club is 2+) and 1m-3m as mixed. Now we have given up on 1C P 2NT because it almost never comes up and when it does partner is 18-19 balanced anyway and doesn't know what to do and we play 1C-2NT as FG balanced with clubs.

Back to the original question: as already said, you have to agree what 1m-3m means, there isn't a right or wrong answer.

[Cyberyeti]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-August-10, 04:45, said:

That's the wrong way round. With 5-8 you are much more likely to have 3NT on, and you will want partner to play it.

Agreed theoretically, although memory issues have proved it better to play it this way round practically (for much the same reason as we won't play 1N-2N and 2N-3N as artificial even though they're theoretically better).

We also have less 18-19s than most people as we play our 2N as good 19-21

[benlessard]

I forgot to tell you that we play criss-cross or something similar and 1m-2m is a single raise (I really hate inverted minors and over 1C especially over 1C, why not using 2D instead ?)

Playing with an experienced partner in a non-partnership I would assume that 1m-3m non-vul can be quite weak and partner will pass most 18-19 bal. Vul however I would have assume that 3m is more of a mixed raise with a stiff while 2m is a chicken single raise only 4clubs for example). I had no clue if this POV was mainstream or not.

But ive asked some players and to my surprise most of them told me that even vul they play 3m as pure crap (their single/mixed raise is elsewhere) wich is the way I prefer in my reg partnership (even if the preempt raise is rare). xxx-x-xxxx-Kxxxx these are the hand with I just cant stand passing with even if -500 is likely.


Ps im not fond of 1m--2nt as a garbage raise since its much easier to double 2nt than to double 3m.

also
(1D)--P--(2Nt)--X
(3D)--3M become a free bid and can show some values wich might help the doubler bid game with a borderline great hand.

[Cyberyeti]

benlessard, on 2012-August-10, 07:09, said:

Ps im not fond of 1m--2nt as a garbage raise since its much easier to double 2nt than to double 3m.

also
(1D)--P--(2Nt)--X
(3D)--3M become a free bid and can show some values wich might help the doubler bid game with a borderline great hand.

It's less common if your 1m can't be a weak no trump because you're playing a weak no trump. It's less good when it's more likely to be a strong no trump. Also I suppose it's one thing in favour of playing 2N > 3♣.

[aguahombre]

benlessard, on 2012-August-10, 07:09, said:

I forgot to tell you that we play criss-cross or something similar and 1m-2m is a single raise (I really hate inverted minors and over 1C especially over 1C, why not using 2D instead ?)

We are not going off-topic for two reasons:

1) It is your thread.
2) Inter-related agreements are relevant.

Using 1C-2D in this way wastes better ways of using that response, IMO. Some like WJR's, rev. Flannery, or Strong/natural (even if other JS are not strong) and feel one of those choices is more useful in their overall scheme.

[Phil]

Might look at this: Grant's Hack

[JLOGIC]

Zelandakh, on 2012-August-10, 03:39, said:

Does this also mean that you think having a mixed raise is a bad idea if partner's opening cannot contain a balanced 18-19 hand, such as 1♦ in unbalanced diamond or Polish Club?

If opener is limited I think it's fine to play it as just a really wide range when NV. You lose some accuracy in partners saving capabilities I guess, but you put more pressure on them. But personally I think having a complete trash raise (ie, too weak to make game opposite 18-19 bal) is the one you should lose playing limited opening bids. Playing precision for instance I play 3D as wide range NV, and mixed vul. I cannot comment on polish club as I have no experience with it.

[dave_w]

Zelandakh, on 2012-August-10, 03:39, said:

Does this also mean that you think having a mixed raise is a bad idea if partner's opening cannot contain a balanced 18-19 hand, such as 1♦ in unbalanced diamond or Polish Club?

It can be that you use 1♣ - 2♦ as the mixed raise but that over 1♦ you wish for 3♣ to be a natural invite (so that 2♣ can be GF). This means that you have more room in your 1♣ auctions where you _need_ to differentiate mixed and preemptive due to partner possibly being 18-19 balanced. If you can fit it in your system obviously having more raises is better. The problem (as always) is that you lose the possibility of using the bid for something else.

[Zelandakh]

The reason I asked is partly because I play a 1♦ opening as up to 17 with 4+ diamonds and unbalanced. In the original response scheme a 3♦ response was a weak raise and 2NT a GF raise. But I found that there were practically no GF hands that wanted to raise directly, instead preferring to relay. So the 2NT response got changed to a mixed raise with 3♦ purely preemptive. Justin's post got me wondering whether 3♦ as wide-ranging was actually better here. Losing the 2NT response for something else is not a huge concern from my point of view since it is difficult to find a really pressing use for the bid within the given (relay-based) response structure.

[Flem72]

CSGibson, on 2012-August-10, 00:44, said:

This is pretty obviously a matter of partnership agreement, and not answerable in any other way. I have the agreement in most of my 2/1 based partnerships that 3m is purely preemptive, to the point that an 18-19 NT should not bid on. This necessitates another constructive call for mixed minor suit raises....

What he said.