mikeh Posted July 16, 2008 Report Share Posted July 16, 2008 Mike, I don't think anyone suggested to play 3♥ as promising no or one heart stopper.Take a look at the posts by Ulven/Impact/Skaeran... the first two expressly include both Axx and xxx as acceptable heart holdings for 3♥ and Harald appears to endorse this idea. I'm used to going even further - in many partnerships I play 3♥ here as xx/xxx.That is better, I think, than having it as either a positional stopper or no stopper...it eliminates one of the major (no pun intended) problems with the either/or approach, making responder guess whether we have a stopper. So it is actually an entirely different approach than that described by Ulven and Impact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtfanclub Posted July 16, 2008 Report Share Posted July 16, 2008 Just a re-note. If 2♥ is GF, then having... 2NT with 1354 but trash hearts if you have trash hearts, don't you want partner declaring 3NT when he's got AQx or the like? I sure do. 3♥ showing trash hearts and 2NT showing real hearts (length or stopper) seems far superior to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ulven Posted July 16, 2008 Report Share Posted July 16, 2008 2H is GF for me but I still think it's useful to be able to show extra values by raising 4th suit. As for finding the 4th suit as trumps, yes that may be a problem but based on frequency I believe we have a winner... That said, I don't end up in this situation in my regular partnership as we employ relays for GF hands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenrexford Posted July 16, 2008 Report Share Posted July 16, 2008 Just a re-note. If 2♥ is GF, then having... 2NT with 1354 but trash hearts if you have trash hearts, don't you want partner declaring 3NT when he's got AQx or the like? I sure do. 3♥ showing trash hearts and 2NT showing real hearts (length or stopper) seems far superior to me. I agree, and that makes a lot of sense, even if not intuitive from one point of view. The concern I would have is in structuring this layout. If 3♥ shows this hand, then some of the 4-card heart holdings need to get lumped in with 2NT, as others have suggested. If 3♠ is a shortness bid promising a four-card suit, and if 3NT shows a strong 1354, as I proposed in one variant, then the only glumped 2NT holding is the 3-card with good hearts and the minimal 4-card heart hands. The unwind might be a bit more complicated, it seems. It seems to be that 3♥ as the "no stop" option has some merits, if discussed obviously, especially in two ways -- right-siding 3NT contracts and as a slam predicate when that is Responder's thought (may immediately rule that out, for example). The cost of an extra agreement is rarely a concern of mine, so no objection there. I am curious about the unwind over 2NT. For those who do this, what is the unwind over 2NT like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluffy Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 For the problem hand, I think the best move is to set up diamonds as trumps. Partner will next show a heart void, or a spade king if he's got it. After that we can bid 5♣ as slam invitation in diamonds, partner will not know if lack of keycard blackwood is because an aswer leaves us too high (5♥), or because we have a void, but when we finally rectify his decision to spades he might realice we have a void, hopefully not too late. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benlessard Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 I think 2S should be used as a catch-all bid. and that 2Nt show a positionnal stopper or half a stopper or 1.5 stoppers. Bidding 2Nt without a stopper or with Axx is plain bad IMO. Rightsiding 3Nt is very important when the weakest suit is exposed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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