Bart

(Courtesy of Bob Crosby)

　　　　

The forcing NT bid is bid on multiple hand types and many times can lead to confusing auctions. One bad side effect of the forcing NT is losing the heart suit after the auction 1 - P - 1NT - P. You lose accuracy on you 5-3 heart fits from the 1NT side with the various types of forcing 1NT hands after a spade opener. It is very important to get to your 4 games after a spade opener and also have a way of showing strong support for partner's minor. With a heart opener and a forcing NT you have 2 as a very useful artificial bid after a rebid of a minor. After a spade opener and a forcing 1NT with a minor rebid, we have no such luxury.

After a spade opener, the forcing 1NT and 3 jump was designed to get to your 4 heart games. I think this a bad way of doing this as the 3 bid quite often just lands you in the wrong partial and a minus. Jumping to the 3 level with a 5 card suit is not very descriptive and can often lead to a disaster. With a spade opener and a club rebid, BART is a convention that solves both the heart problem and the minor fit problem. The only thing you lose is the ability to play 2 after a club rebid. Think of "Black Bart" to assist your memory. BART is applicable after a black suit opener (spades), a 1NT response and a black suit rebid (clubs).

BART signals to the opener that the 1NT responder has a invitational heart hand or a strong club fit with a 2 bid.

With a normal weak heart hand, the 1NT bidder just simply bids 2 and not the BART convention.

With a pre-emptive club raise, 3 is bid by the forcing 1NT to hinder the balancers.

With an invitational heart hand or a strong club raise the forcing 1NT bids a forcing artificial 2. Opener assumes the heart invitational hand first and bids:

• 2 with 3 hearts or 2 good hearts.
• 2 is the death response for hearts showing a singleton or void in hearts or a bad hand with 2 small hearts.
• 2NT after the BART 2 is artificial and denies hearts showing 5-5 in the blacks and
• 3 shows 6-5 in the blacks.

This bidding allows you to get to 4 with a heart fit of 3 or 2 good hearts in the opener's hand or invite by bidding 3. It also describes your club hands. A civilized way of getting to your heart game or club contract.

When playing BART, give responder the maximum opportunity to use the bid. This means that opener can rebid 2 on a doubleton with difficult hand types. This now means that a 2 rebid means at least a 4 card diamond suit. Bid 2 with a 6 card major that has poor suit quality with up to a hand in the Goren jump rebid range. Responder is not allowed to pass 2 with two of your major, so must give preference. A 2 rebid is in order with the difficult Flannery hands after a forcing 1NT. Remember to alert partners 2 rebid as possibly being 2 cards in length.

In the GNT finals in Calgary, Gordon and Judy got to 4 for +620 when our partners got to the wrong spot.

Opener: Q109xx Kxx KJx KQ

Responder: x AQxxx Axxx xxx

With only 3 diamonds It's a good idea to bid 2 with as little as two clubs playing BART. This allows the partnership to always promise 4 diamonds with a 2 rebid which is very handy.

Anyway their auction went:

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
2	Pass	2*	Pass
2	Pass	3	Pass
4

Tom Gandolfo got off to the best lead of a trump for our side but +620 is still there.

Somehow our partners lost the heart suit altogether at the other table and our side lost 12 IMPS as they played 5 in their Moysean. They rebid 2 on their 3 card suit as per forcing 1NT theory so what do you do with the other hand? If you jump to 3 with your 5 card suit and partner passes with no hearts but a diamond hand you could be cold for 6 going down in 3 (say partner held a hand like Qxxxx x KQxxx AK). Our partners I assume chose to raise diamonds and the heart suit game was now impossible to reach. We lost 12 IMPS because Gordon and Judy had a superior system (BART) to find their heart fit then our partners did. This also happened to be the number of IMPS we lost the GNT team finals to them.

The beauty of the BART bid is that it also shows the strong club raises. After a BART 2 and a further forced heart or spade rebid by opener, 3 now shows a strong club raise and 2NT a club raise with 4. This sequence solves the age old problem of how the forcing NT differentiates between the various strength of club raises. If the BART bidder now bids diamonds its OOPS partner we should have been in 2. If opener had bid hearts over the BART 2 with his two or 3 cards in that suit, a 2 bid now is the hard to bid 9-10 HCP hands with 2 spades. Tom Gandolfo suggests the bid also show a doubleton spade honour. BART is used like a relay to show two different spade raises!

The direct 3 bid after 2 is now a splinter in clubs since BART handles the invitational heart hands. Excellent!

Here is a recent BART auction:

Tom: J109xx AKx void AQ987

Me: Ax 10x AQxxx J10xx

Tom Gandolfo opens 1 and I responded 1NT. Tom rebid 2 so it is time for the BART convention to show your strong club support. You bid 2 and partner bids 2NT conventional showing 5-5 in the blacks (3 would show 6-5) in the blacks. You bid 3 to set the suit and partner bids 3 which brings 3 from you. Partner bids 4 and you try 6 which makes due to the club King being on side. 6 points wasted in diamonds and +1370 is still there!

After a spade opener, forcing 1NT bid and a diamond rebid we do not have the luxury of BART. However in my mind a jump to 3 is still a bad bid. Think about it. Opener can have 5 spades and 5 diamonds and you have just jammed the auction. Jumping to the 3 level with 5 card heart suits is lame bidding. Partner can have no hearts or a singleton heart and you are too high. I think it is best to just bid 2 and if partner has a good hand in support of hearts she will make the heart raise. The pre-emptive 3 raise has to be sacrificed in favour of a strong diamond raise and not getting by 3NT.

You now have all the bases covered to show strong minor raises after a forcing 1NT. Use 2 after a heart opener. BART after a spade opener and a club rebid. A 3 raise after a spade opener and a diamond rebid. Voila!

1 and a forcing 1NT is a pathetic way of showing a 6 card heart suit with invitational values. The 1NT forcing is also bad as the 5 card heart suit with invitational values is also shut out. Tom and I made an exception to 2/1 with a 6 card heart suit and played a bid and rebid of hearts was not forcing to game. That worked, but then we invented a 3 bid over a major as any splinter. This freed the 1 - P - 3 - P bid to show those types of hands just like the 1 - P - 3 bid does to show an invitational club hand. Both bids describe the 6 card invitational hand in one fell swoop. Forcing 1NT is quite often a kludge to allow you to have 2/1 as forcing to game. You quite often need treatments like BART to get around the problems that a forcing 1NT bid generates.

BART can be used with a heart opener also and complement the artificial 2 bid showing a strong club raise with 5 or more clubs. The 8-10 HCP hands with a doubleton heart is also hard to describe. The intermediate club raises can be shown by bidding BART first and raising clubs. Other sequences can be invented

2 - forcing 1 round

BART was invented to help partnerships get to good 4 games and stay out of bad ones after a 1 - 1NT forcing auction and a 2 rebid. Since my partners and I avoid bidding 1NT with a good heart suit and are allowed a non forcing to game 1 - P - 2 sequence, we have modified the BART 2 relay. We prefer just to call it 2 forcing one round.

We use 2 as a tool with one primary purpose to show a strong club raise or if diamonds rebid at the 3 level, a weak hand with diamonds. If NT is bid at the two level by responder, she can have a good hand with diamonds or 5 hearts. A side effect is to find our 5-3 heart fit. We then had to redefine the responses after the 2 relay.

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
2	Pass	2	Pass
?

A 2NT bid is defined as a bid used for the most part just to sign off by passing if partner bids 3. Partner can also pass this bid. A 2NT bid is impossible anyway given that you choose to bid 2 rather then 2NT in the first place. A 2NT bid denies 3 so you find your 5-3 heart fits. However, there are meanings to bids taken after we have chosen to go this route. More about that later.

All bids other then making a 2NT or 2 bid, show better hands considering the 2 rebid in the first place. A 3 bid shows a maximum and 5-5 in the blacks (minimum bid 2NT first and pull 2NT to 3). A 3 bid shows a 3 card diamond suit fragment with a singleton heart and partner can pass if the 1NT bid was based on weak diamonds. A 2 bid shows a 3 card heart suit fragment and normally maps out a singleton diamond. A 2 bid shows a very good 5 card suit or a 6-4. A hand that you would accept game in spades, if partner has an invite with 2 spades to an honour.

Showing fragments and mapping out singletons will assist in getting to the best game or possibly slam. Most of these bids are described by the two level with the assistance of the forcing for one round 2!

O.K. you accepted the 2 relay to 2NT with your average hand and partner bids 3. 90% of the time this will end the auction. A 3NT bid is an exception showing a 5-2-2-4 hand and enough points for a shot at 3NT. A 3 bid now shows a 6-5 in the blacks and is forcing.

My partners and I play quite a number of relay sequences to help us with difficult to bid hands. The premises is always the same though, If we take the relay route we are weak, If we ignore the relay and bid directly we are maximum for the bid. We follow Lebensohl principles so we do not forget in the heat of battle. The forcing for one round 2 is just another relay in effect.

　　　　

BART Sequences

One little tweak to your system pays big dividends to your forcing NT structure. If you play both 1 - P - 2 - P and 1 - P - 3 - P as weak jump shifts, you take the weak heart hands with 6 card suits out of the forcing NT structure. Also if you play a 2/1 in hearts over a spade non forcing to game when the suit is rebid, these invitational 6 card heart hand types also do not exist when you bid a forcing 1NT. You can take advantage of this and eliminate BART and really improve your forcing 1NT!

BART was invented as an either/or bid to show the tough to describe heart invitational hands or strong minor suit hands with the forcing 1NT after a spade opener. With the above heart hand types removed, you do not need the BART convention anymore with your forcing 1NT bids. Better still, you have solved the spade/diamond problem and have a "BART like" structure for those spade opening bids and forcing NT response! These treatments were introduced to me by Bryan Maksymetz, as they are an understanding in the Maksysmetz/Jacobs system.

Since 2 cannot exist as a weak heart hand after a forcing NT to a spade opener, give this bid the dual meaning of either an invitational hand with 5 hearts or a strong raise in partner's bid minor. In the case of diamonds rebid, it is also a relay to 2. OK lets start with diamonds rebid.

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
2	Pass	2*	Pass
2	Pass	?**

* This is a relay to 2
**2NT shows the invitational heart hand and 3 shows the strong diamond raise. BART using the heart suit!

With clubs rebid after a spade opener, we do not need the heart relay as we can use the 2 bid a la BART.

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
2	Pass	2*

* simply an invitational heart hand with a 5 card suit.

We do not need the dual meaning. If we have a strong club raise or a spade raise with a doubleton, we bid the multi purpose 2. Since hearts are taken out of the equation, we can bid 2 as showing the strong club raise or a strong spade raise with a doubleton spade. Partner will "pattern out' and bid 2 with 3 of them and 2 with a singleton heart. Partner can clarify her 2 bid after those bids. A direct jump to 3 by the forcing 1NT after a 2 rebid shows a weak hand in diamonds.

With heart openers and a forcing NT we have the luxury of a two spade bid to show the strong minor raises. With clubs rebid after a heart opener, 2 is still used as a forcing "noise" with 8-12 HCP. Partner can support hearts or bid diamonds to show a weak diamond suit and good HCP's.

Let's try an auction:

Opener: Axxxx Axx AKxx x

Responder: x Kx QJxxxx Axxx

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
2	Pass	2*	Pass
2	Pass	3	Pass
3	Pass	4*	Pass
4	Pass	5	Pass
7

Let's show the 10 HCP hands with a doubleton spade honour:

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
2	Pass	2	Pass
2	Pass	3

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
2	Pass	2	Pass
2	Pass	3