Five-card majors for offensive purposes. However, if the trump cards break 4-1 or 1-4, then drawing trump will result in no trumps left for offensive purposes. The value of five-card majors can be understood then on two levels: But five-card majors have several drawbacks: Both partners must agree to follow the five-card major bidding treatment on their opening bid. Opener must have at least five cards in hearts or spades to start the bidding with that suit. Responder is expected to show support with three-card support, indicating an eight-card fit. With only four cards in a major suit, the opening bidder is
Jump bidding strategy is to jump if-and-only-if the signal is at least 36. So if Xenia's value is e.g. 33 and Yakov's value is 39, then Xenia will pass and Yakov will jump, so Yakov will win and pay only 24. In contrast, in a simple Japanese auction, Xenia will stay up to her value of 33, so Yakov will win and pay 33. This outcome seems counter-intuitive from two reasons: Jump-bidding is a very crude form of communication: it does not communicate my actual value, it only signals that my value is above a certain threshold. The careful selection of the