Power Relays

Convention of the Week - 28th June, 2006

Power Relays

Despite its rather imposing name, this gadget solves a fairly common problem, one that occurred in today's game.

Board 10, 28th June, 2006

North

♠ Q

♥ 764

♦ KJ54

♣ KT942

South opens 1♠, North bids a Forcing NT, and South rebids 3♥. South obviously has a strong hand, but is she 5-5 in the majors, or is she 5-4? North has no way of knowing, Partner could have one of these two hands, for example:

Hand A Hand B

♠ AT963 ♠ AK863

♥ AKJ5 ♥ AK532

♦ 8 ♦ A9

♣ AQ8 ♣ 3

3NT is the place to be with Hand A, but even with North's weak Hearts and beefy minors, you'd probably prefer to be in 4♥ with Hand B. Knowing whether Opener has a 4-card or 5-card suit is crucial in this situation, and that's what the Power Relay does for us. It's a new addition to the System Library, and is repeated here for convenience ...

Power Relay

Here’s a situation you may have faced before:

You hold: ♠ 6

♥T54

♦ K875

♣ QJ976

The bidding: Partner You

1♠ 1NT

3♥ ??

Do you bid 3NT or 4♥? It’s something of a guess, isn’t it? Partner could have either of the following:

Hand A Hand B

♠ AK654 ♠ AK654

♥ AK832 ♥ AJ32

♦ 8 ♦ A9

♣ AT ♣ KT

Of course, with Hand A, we’d want to be in 4♥, and with Hand B we’d prefer 3NT. The problem is we have no idea whether Partner is 5-5 or 5-4 in the majors. Fortunately there’s a little gadget to solve this problem … we are not sure if it has an official name, we’ve heard it called “that 2NT thing”, and also “Power Relay”, we’ll go with the latter, sounds more scientific.

How It Works

1♥ 1NT After a major suit opening and a Forcing No Trump, a jump

3♣ shift to the 3-level shows a 5-card suit

1♠ 1NT

2NT This is the Relay, Partner is expected to bid 3♣ next.

1♠ 1NT

2NT 3♣ Responder bids 3♣ as requested, now we show our second

3♥ suit, but, as we went through the Relay, it shows a 4-card suit.

1♠ 1NT

2NT 3♣ Again we go through the Relay, and now 3NT says “I am 5-4

3NT in Spades and Clubs” … this device gets around the fact that

3♣ is not available to show Clubs.

In a nutshell, that’s it, a simple method for distinguishing between strong 5-4 hands and strong 5-5 hands.

Breaking the Relay

After 2NT, Responder is expected to relay to 3♣, but is allowed to bypass the relay with something worth saying. Here are our suggestions:

1♠ 1NT

2NT ??

Hand A Hand B Hand C Hand D

♠ K87 ♠ 87 ♠ 87 ♠ 87

♥ 7543 ♥ QJT654 ♥ 86 ♥ K76

♦ A765 ♦ K65 ♦ K65 ♦ QT97

♣ KJ7 ♣ 86 ♣ QJT654 ♣ QJ82

With Hand A we suggest 3♠, showing a 3-card limit raise in Spades. With a weaker hand with 3-card Spade support, we’d just accept the transfer and then support Spades.

On Hand B, with a good suit of our own, we would bypass the Relay and show the suit … you can decide for yourself what constitutes a good suit in this situation, our own suggestion is for that QJTxxx suit to be the weakest possible … if the suit were any weaker, we would not think it worth bypassing the Relay.

On Hand C, we can bid 3NT to show a decent Club suit. To be honest, we’re not sure how useful this is, so perhaps 3NT here should be a natural bid, showing something like Hand D … less than 3 Spades, less than 4 Hearts (don’t want to miss a potential 4-4 Heart fit), not much of a hand, but stops in all suits other than Spades.

What Does it Give Up?

If you adopt the Power Relay, you’ll have to find another way to cope with hands with which you would previously have bid a natural 2NT over 1♥ 1NT or 1♠ 1NT.

If you currently play that 2NT shows 15-17, then consider opening 1NT with that hand, notwithstanding the 5-card major. See Link on this subject. And, if you currently play that 2NT shows 18-19, then just bid 3NT instead.