[dickiegera]

holding a 5-5-2-1 hand or any hand with 2 5 card suits and 18+ pts

what is the difference in opening the lower suit and reversing in the higher suit


and


opening in the higher suit and jumping in lower suit?

[johnu]

dickiegera, on 2020-September-02, 18:05, said:

holding a 5-5-2-1 hand or any hand with 2 5 card suits and 18+ pts

what is the difference in opening the lower suit and reversing in the higher suit


and


opening in the higher suit and jumping in lower suit?

As Nancy Reagan famously said, "Just say no" to opening the lower ranking suit and reversing.

[sfi]

Reversing shows the first suit is longer. Some people make exceptions (and there are some strange well known cases where a reverse is indicated without the normal length), but you won't go wrong if you stick with that general guideline.

The jump shift shows the first suit is at least as long as the second one. So with a game-going 5-5, you should always open the higher suit and plan to bid the other suit at the three-level.

One thing to note is that a jump shift forces to game, while a reverse will typically allow you to still play in a part score. The reverse takes up less room, so you should have a way to show a weak hand over one. Therefore you can have some 5-5 hands which would be reverse strength but not worth a jump shift. The way to deal with those is simply rebid the suit at the two-level and take another action if partner does something weak, like give preference back to the first suit. If partner passes, you're probably fine.

[AL78]

sfi, on 2020-September-02, 18:13, said:

Reversing shows the first suit is longer. Some people make exceptions (and there are some strange well known cases where a reverse is indicated without the normal length), but you won't go wrong if you stick with that general guideline.

The jump shift shows the first suit is at least as long as the second one. So with a game-going 5-5, you should always open the higher suit and plan to bid the other suit at the three-level.

One thing to note is that a jump shift forces to game, while a reverse will typically allow you to still play in a part score. The reverse takes up less room, so you should have a way to show a weak hand over one. Therefore you can have some 5-5 hands which would be reverse strength but not worth a jump shift. The way to deal with those is simply rebid the suit at the two-level and take another action if partner does something weak, like give preference back to the first suit. If partner passes, you're probably fine.

Seems to be a slight flaw in the system that with a strong 5-5 shape you take the least efficient route to show your shape and strength. By jump shifting you are at the three level on your second round and haven't fully shown the shape yet. If you are able to reverse on a 5-5 and bid the second suit again you are again at the three level but have now shown the 5-5 or 6-5 shape.

[sfi]

AL78, on 2020-September-16, 17:53, said:

Seems to be a slight flaw in the system that with a strong 5-5 shape you take the least efficient route to show your shape and strength. By jump shifting you are at the three level on your second round and haven't fully shown the shape yet. If you are able to reverse on a 5-5 and bid the second suit again you are again at the three level but have now shown the 5-5 or 6-5 shape.

The "standard" way to deal with that is not by adding more hands to reverses, but by trying to define the jump shift as a 5-5 hand so they actually are well-defined. Other game forcing hands (6-3, 5-4) are often bid by using an artificial game-forcing option such as 1M - 1NT; 2NT. But yes, systems like Standard American don't handle these particular hands well.

Other types of systems (strong club, Polish Club, etc.) tend to be much better at dealing with strong hands that are only worth a game force after partner responds.