Four Aces

[Siegmund]

At the table at MPs a quiet 3NT with an overtrick or two is very tempting. Those of us who don't play 2H artificial (and whose partners are likely to still have 3 spades) may lean toward 3C as the safer lie to tell, trying to extract information about spade support from partner or get NT played from his side if he has Qxx(x) in hearts.

 

The thread does raise a good point that many hands where opener would raise 2H are hands that will play well in a diamond slam. The 2H bid has more merit than I thought it did when I first opened the thread. Not quite enough to make me a believer yet, but almost.

 

Challenging hand to evaluate, even with the bidding so low.

[whereagles]

2♥ is as good a stall as I can think of, altho we are going to be awkwardly placed over some of his possible continuations....what do we bid over 3♥, for instance?

 

I would say if pard now bids 3♥ he should have some extras within his min. With hearts and less than that, he'd settle for 2NT.

 

Why? Because responder with a game forcing 5-4 would probably have bid 3♥ instead of 2♥. Since he didn't, he either has 5-4 and invitational or doesn't have hearts at all.

 

This requires some discussion, though. And it's not that it leaves you in a good position if pard does bid 3♥.

[JLOGIC]

Our hand is extremely powerful opposite a 6 card diamond suit. After 2H, bidding 3D if possible is obvious. We show our diamond fit and allow for a reasonable auction. Bidding 4N over a 2N bid seems horrible, aside from eating up a lot of room we never tell partner we have the wonderful AT of diamonds. 4N is the type of bid we'd make with 5413 and 18 (and/or 19 depending on your opening bid style).

 

If partner bids 3H I don't really see that as a problem, I'd bid 4D, but I guess if you can bid 2D on 1453 as fluffy (or 2452..lol?) then you have a problem.