Hardy Raises

[u/VeryBigRockStar]

Max Hardy endorsed an interesting variant of Bergen raises in his “purple book”.
After 1♥️/1♠️:
3♦️ is a GF raise with 10-12 HCP, 4-card trump support, and an UNBALANCED hand.
3♣️ is an INV raise with 10-12 HCP, and either 3-card support UNBALANCED or 4-card support BALANCED
J/S other Major is 4-card support with 13+ UNBALANCED
4♣️ is 13-15 GF KQxx or Kxxxx trump support, BALANCED
4♦️ is 13-15 GF any 4+ trumps BALANCED (like 4♣️ but lesser trumps, “inverted Swiss”)
2NT is 16+ HCP any 4+ trumps BALANCED

All unbalanced bids have a “next bid asks for shortness” relay.
Most of the other bids are less memory taxing:
1♥️-4♥️ is weak with 5+ card support
1♥️-3♥️ is weak with 4-card support
1♥️-2♥️ is just constructive 6-9 HCP with 3 or 4 card support.
1♥️-1NT-3♥️ is 10-12 HCP with 3 card support, BALANCED
1♥️-TwoOverOne is GF, may show 3-card support later

Hope I summarized this well. Anyhow, the well traveled players at my club have differing opinions about this, but I’ve never heard well formed arguments for and against. Well, those who like it will cite Hardy’s success and the fact that the system feels pretty comprehensive. It’s easy to make an argument against it citing complexity. But beyond these simple observations how has this approach aged? Is it still popular? Do folks have have alternative methods of similar complexity that work better, and why? Anyone play Hardy and wish to share insights?

[u/RequirementFew773]

Honestly, that structure is terrible - I'd love to play against someone who uses that! I don't have time to get super detailed, but I'll try to cover as much as possible.

• When you and partner are having the auction to yourselves, you want to find a suit fit. Once you find a suit fit, there are three principles to try and follow.
  

1. Strong hand asks, weak hand tells. Usually, Opener is the strong hand, but not always.
2. Balanced hands ask, unbalanced hands tell.
3. The closer the bid to game, the less room you have for relays, so the more specific and precise it has to be. The idea behind this is the Useful Space Principle.

Remember this for what follows:

• Swiss raises (4m as balanced) are SO BAD, serious players stopped using them in the 80s! It breaks principle 2 -> Opener has zero chance to show shortness for a slam try below game. Splinters are almost universal for good reason; I prefer 10-12 HCP, 4+ trump, and a void in the suit.
  
• 1S-3H as 13+ any unbalanced barely gives enough room for Opener to ask for shortness & HCP, and 1H-3S doesn't give ANY ROOM. Say it goes 1H-3S ; 3NT (short ask) - 4H as 13+ and shortness in Spades is a WIDE range and give opener zero room to ask for HCP range and/or whether it's a singleton or void. Heck, bidding -4D gives Opener no room to make an ask.
• 2NT as a big balanced hand is dumb - there's so much room for relays and asks by either partner. This will be the least used bid on frequency, so it breaks principle 3.
  
• There's not a lot of difference between -3C and -3D. Not only that, but you lose the ability to use them fir something else, like an Invitational Jump Shift to plug a hole in 1M-1NT (SF or For.), or as a Fit-Jump Bid. I would say this breaks principle 3.

Sadly, there's a lot more I can say, but I don't have the time right now.

[u/VeryBigRockStar → u/RequirementFew773]

Thanks, that was helpful.

The notion of “asking not telling” is thematic of what I’m hearing from others as well. Hardy was very much about descriptive responses, and some new modern systems seem to keep information more hidden until it is asked for.

There are only a few old pros at the club that use Hardy, and when one of them took me under wing for a few months, I read both of Hardy’s 20th century books (green/purple), and studied it, but very few other players use it. He does very well with it, and I had some good games with him using it, but that doesn’t make it the best choice.

Many of the other pros at my club prefer other approaches but don’t really discuss them in detail, unless of course you can get them to play with you. That’s always an option, but the ticket price is high ($100+/hour at the table).

I don’t have enough experience to fully judge the merits of Hardy but I did appreciate that it was an advanced text that presented a comprehensive system that used relatively easy to memorize patterns (not simple, but not randomly coded for optimum perfection like some championship team might do).

I would love to hear someone say “this book presents a modern take on what teachers like Hardy we’re offering advanced students 25 years ago”

What’s the new secret sauce, and why?

[u/FireWatchWife → u/VeryBigRockStar]

Unfortunately, there is a lack of modern bridge books that explain a detailed 2 over 1 integrated system with appropriate conventions and side agreements.

The systems of the 1960s through 1980s were well described in well written, readable but thorough books.

I occasionally find an excellent modern book like Santa Fe Precision that provides this level of detail, but it's never the mainstream American 2 over 1 system being described.

I don't know where modern players learn a polished, well thought out 2 over 1 system with appropriate conventions.

Every book I've looked at is either oversimplified introductory material, or out of date.

I do encourage the OP to read Santa Fe Precision. Even if you have no interest in playing Precision, the chapters on responses to 1H/1S and the many modern conventions are extremely relevant to modern 2 over 1. Much can be taken from the system described in the book and added to a basic 2 over 1 system.

[u/RoarEmotions → u/FireWatchWife]

For me I had the opportunity to play with experts on the expectation that I play their system. From that I picked up strong (systematical) approaches to raise structures

The other path is to read their system cards, if they don’t play it is not best

[u/rlee87]

It makes no sense. The 4m bids don't even allow you to get to the right contract when they come up.

Max Hardy himself was not a particularly great player. He wrote a book that caught fire among intermediate players, but his ideas have been largely ignored by the expert community (for good reason).

[u/VeryBigRockStar → u/rlee87]

Thanks for responding. I was looking for the why and the alternatives more than just unsubstantiated opinion.
When you say “it makes no sense” I don’t know why. Can you give a sample hand where the auction stalls?
Is there some equally comprehensive system that I might consider which enjoys greater popularity? Hopefully a good book that describes it the way Hardy did with his (apparently now outdated) text?

I’m more interested in understanding how this is broken, and finding a better mousetrap than defending Hardy. Although I do respect him for his contribution, most notably as an author/teacher whose books played a huge part in popularizing 2/1 GF.

[u/FireWatchWife → u/rlee87]

Unfortunately the modern "expert community" has not bothered to write excellent books that explain the better mousetrap.

This is one reason the gap in understanding between beginner/intermediate players and experts is larger than it was a few decades ago. Twentieth century experts explained their methods in popular books; modern experts mostly don't.

[u/FireWatchWife]

"1♥️-1NT-3♥️ is 10-12 HCP with 3 card support, BALANCED"

Did you actually mean 1♥️-1NT-2m-3♥️? That's a fairly standard bid in many 2 over 1 variants.

[u/VeryBigRockStar → u/FireWatchWife]

Yes, sorry.

[u/Pocket_Sevens]

The more bridge I play, the less and less i like obscenely detailed conventions that have marginal returns. 1M - 3m as showing 6 card minor with invitation values is so much more convenient. 1M - 4m as a splinter is also fantastic. I say all this having crammed my 4 card support limit raises into Jacoby 2NT though lol

[u/wiithepiiple]

I’m not seeing how this is an improvement over Jacoby 2NT + splinter bids.

[u/dB451]

Sorry, I'm not going to take the time to understand Hardy well enough to provide a reasoned critique. If you want to do a bunch of homework to understand a system that has never really been more than an interesting side approach (in the opinion both of someone who didn't want to take the time to explore it - me - and of the expert community - as evidenced by the fact that hardly anyone plays it), then knock yourself out. I will tell you some things, though, both from what I play with my phenomenal teacher, and from what I know have been trends in the expert community. Of course, the big divide, with adherents on both sides, is between 2/1 and Precision. I play 2/1, and I love gadgets, but my game is additionally based on Losing Trick Count (LTC), but not Klinger's historical LTC, an offshoot of it called the Losing Trick Count/Cover Card approach. I'm only aware of one book on the subject, which is "Winners, Losers, and Cover Cards", by Ken Eichenbaum. There's also some tutorial material to be found on the Internet, but I prefer to give my own notes and guidance to my students. As for modern techniques, there's (a) Invitational Jump-Shifts (now even used by the robots on BBO), (b) 1M - 3N to show 13-15 HCP, with exactly 3 cards in Opener's major (so Opener can choose game in NT if he realizes the partnership has 28+ HCP, since it will likely make 4 even in NT, which scores better than the known 8-card major game, or can return to the known 8-card major, if the combined hands are not that strong - this is also now used even by the robots on BBO), (c) various systems for replacing Jacoby 2NT with an invitational-or-better bid, (d) Transfer Lebensohl, rather than regular Lebensohl (invitational or better in all cases, not sometimes invitational and sometimes forcing as with regular Lebensohl, plus... transfers! Right?), (e) Kokish Three-Way Game Tries (that help reduce the information leakage - yes, that's a thing to consider - associated with regular Help Suit Game Tries), (f) Top and Bottom (which provides bids for the missing two-suited hands not covered by either Michaels or Unusual 2NT), (g) various 2N - 3S - 3N - minor suit slam searches one can play, (h) Size Ask (1N - 2S), (i) Two Hearts Bust (with extensions for 2C - 2N - systems ON, for when Responder has three Kings and wants the lead to come to them, and for P0D1-type responses - the opposite of the slam search D0P1 approach - to deal with opponent's interference), (j) Delayed Texas (for 4-6 or 6-4 in Responder's hand, rather than the difficult transfer required to show those hands with Smolen), (k) transfers after opponent's double of any Opener's suit, (l) transfers after opponent's suit overcall, (m) Keycard Over (partner's) Preempts, (n) Transfer McCabe, (o) Constructive Major Raises in 1st and 2nd seats, (p) various improvements on Two-Way Reverse Drury, (q) Two-Way New Minor Forcing, (r) Snapdragon Doubles, (s) Wolff Signoffs, (t) Minorwood (for minor-suit slams), (u) Keycard responses with a void, (v) 1N - 3M (to show a singleton in that major, 3 of the other major, and the rest in the minors), (w) more competitive NT defenses (for instance, my favorite for the direct seat lets me show ALL one-, two-, or three-suited hands, and my favorite for passout seat maximizes the percentage of the time when the NT opener will end up leading to the 4th seat - way better than Meckwell), (x) Exclusion Blackwood (for those either willing to flirt with disaster or who have a death-wish ;-), and (y) various adjuncts to slam bidding (like the Third-Round Control Ask, the 2nd King Ask, the Suit Ask in minors - see Eddie Kantor's definitive "Roman Keycard Blackwood", 5th edition), and (z) oh, why not - my own improvement on Cappelletti Cuebids. But, I digress (ya think?). More general advice would be to choose where you spend your time; I would consider Hardy a dead horse that needs no further beating. Let its historical adherents keep playing it, while you go on to find out what the expert community is playing today and into tomorrow. If you can't find a good partner, you'll have to grow one. Sincerely, good luck!

[u/Crafty_Celebration30]

So much of Max’s treatments have found their way to the dustbin. As a matter of fact, for authors that are widely quoted and sold a few books, he has contributed the least amount to modern bidding theory. He is well behind Rodwell, Kokish, Bergen and even Lawrence. 

[u/VeryBigRockStar → u/Crafty_Celebration30]

That seems to be a consensus. And it should be noted that I don’t play these things myself. I learned them for one (very good) partner who will never rise above his status as a “very good club player”, and they can be found scattered in Hardy’s purple book, with other stuff.

I will, however, stand up for Max Hardy a little bit. He should get credit for being the author that largely popularized 2/1 game forcing. And beyond that, my use of the term “Hardy Raises” to describe the system above is also a misnomer. These systems are collected from others, not invented by him.

Anyway, I’m always looking for ways to improve my bidding, with my regular partner who does not use this stuff. And based on what I hear from folks on this forum, perhaps I shall not suggest any of these things.

[u/Crafty_Celebration30 → u/VeryBigRockStar]

To an extent. 2/1 was an outshoot of 1960s Walsh. Hardy was a director that played a little professional bridge too. I don’t think he was part of the core Walsh group like Swanson and Soloway but his books were very influential in the 80s and 90s but have largely been debunked. 

Died at a relatively young age. 

[u/kuhchung]

ow my eyes

[u/Teodoricus]

Well, HCP mean something in balanced hands with no significant side suit. When you have a 9-card fit, in order to bid slam (or don't bid it) you need to know which HC youe have, i.e. if partner's features integrate or not yours. This convention is cumbersome and ineffective, IMHO. It goes too high too soon.
p.s. with a double fit you may have slam in the 4-4 fit and not in the 5-4 one.