What is 4D?

[Phil]

1♥ - 1♠

3♥ - 4♦?

 

I'm trying to get as unbiased of a poll as possible, so please just vote and hold off on comments for a few days. Thanks.

 

I'll explain the reasons for this later.

 

SORRY - didn't mean to dump this into the Laws section. Mod, please switch to 2/1 or something.

[whereagles]

I have this defined as natural, 55. I don't have a way to show a heart raise here, so those hands just bid 4NT and hope for the best.

[Free]

Cue for me

[Ant590]

I usually find this is defined to be the opposite of whatever hand I want to bid it on at the time ;)

[Cascade]

I usually find this is defined to be the opposite of whatever hand I want to bid it on at the time :(

You must have it defined as natural then since a cue for partner's good suit is much more common than a misfitting five-five.

[jdonn]

Cue is standard.

 

That being said I find natural comes up at least as often, and in any case I'm not sure there is a ton of utility in having two cues. At least 4♣ can be an artificial slam try and 4♦ natural. Also after 1♥ 1NT 3♥ you can play 3♠ is any slam try and after 1♠ 1NT 3♠ same for 4♥, letting the minor suit bids be natural.

 

Anyway I don't assume we are on a misfit until I know we are on a misfit. When the auction starts this way and I am 5-5 we still have 3 possible fits.

[billw55]

I usually find this is defined to be the opposite of whatever hand I want to bid it on at the time :(

You must have it defined as natural then since a cue for partner's good suit is much more common than a misfitting five-five.

Maybe you mean the cuebid is more useful :)

 

Personally I find the misfit fairly common :(

[mikeh]

I voted cue, and I agree with Josh that this seems to be the standard treatment. I also agree with Josh that natural seems to have a lot going for it, but since the sequence occurs infrequently, no matter which way you play it, I don't have any gut sense (accumulated through many iterations) as to which is better.

 

As for the idea of an artificial 4♣ cue, I don't like it at all. Now, if our major was spades, then an artificial 4♣ call makes more sense to me, since we have two steps available below game. But even then, we are getting into murky waters since we won't be clarifying which minor we control until the 5-level. That might be doable, since we presumably have slam interest...but we might need stronger slam interest to try this way than we would playing standard, because we are more likely to end up in 5♥ this way than in standard.