Gandolfo Jump shifts

(Courtesy of Bob Crosby)

Garozzo says “Bridge is a game of suits” for a reason. You can not over estimate the importance of good long suits in the game of Bridge. Therefore, I have always disliked the ambiguity built into the Standard American jump rebids. Standard American is hung up on HCPs saying the jump bid shows 16-18 HCP but saying nothing about the quality of the suit. Even more ridiculous in Standard American bidding, is a jump to game show 18-20 HCP sometimes with a bad suit.

There have been a number of attempts to fix this obvious hole in Standard bidding. Since a 2/1 or a 4th suit forcing is forcing to game, a jump shows a good suit rather lots of HCP’s. This is good. In the old days, a jump shift by responder showed your slam intentions and good suit immediately. Sadly this bid is extinct, as it took up too much bidding space in a natural system. Experts have looked for places in their system to recover the good suit aspect of this strong jump shift. Most experts play a jump rebid by responder as equivalent to the old fashioned strong jump shift. A good suit with slam intentions.

1	Pass	1	Pass
2	Pass	3	Pass

Experts play the 3 strong jump shift as a multi purpose strong jump shift. The immediate nice side effect of having such an understanding as if frees jump to games and jump rebids as showing good suits or else you would have used this tool.

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
4

This a 4 opener with an outside card(s). The huge spade hand in HCP’s is shown initially by a 3 bid. Jump rebids now are also suit orientated or else we would have stretched with a 3 bid or even bid a 3 card minor at the two level. Duplication of value is a huge hand evaluation skill.

Q10xxxxx AKQ AK x

void J109xxx Jxxx Axx

Partner opens 1 so you bid 1NT. Partner rebids 4 so you pass and are –100.

Our auction

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
3	Pass	3	Pass
3	Pass	4
4NT	Pass	5	Pass
6*

* +1470

By partner “showing where he lives “ with jump bids, you can evaluate duplication of value better. Points, Schmoints!!

In overcall or competitive situations, we take advantage of the fact that we have a cue bid or a double available and define jumps just to show a suit or distribution (2 long suits). This understanding takes the ambiguity out of the jump bid. We do not have a lot of HCP’s. Jumps are equated to good suits. XYZ allows us the luxury of having jumps defined as slam tries with good suits. This works because we have 2 showing all invitational hands and 2 showing all the HCP orientated hands forcing to game. Jump preferences, shifts and rebids by responder all show slam intentions with good suits. Perfect!

Tom Gandolfo came up with the idea of intermediate jump shifts as responder. This was due to the fact that a jump rebid by responder was now “recovering the strong jump shift” so inviting with single suited hands became an issue. Tom said why not get the inviting over with one bid directly. XYZ came up with the same idea of handling invitational hands and keep the bidding low with their 2 bid. Tom has now modified his intermediate jump shift to be invitational with a good suit and no outside controls. This version is a mini version of the strong jump shift of yesteryear. A jump bid showing a good suit but invitational values only. Excellent.

Examples

1 - P - 2// with AKJ10xx

1 - P - 2/ with AQJ10xx

1 - P - 2 with KQJ109x

1 - P - 3 with AKQxxx

1 - P - 3 with AQ1098xx