[Walddk]

One of my assistants at the bridge centre, Danish international Søren Christiansen, is a subscriber to the "serious" 3NT concept, but it can be improved without any cost. Here is what he says:

After hearts are agreed (like in BPO-007A), you should reverse the meaning of 3♠ and 3NT:

3♠: Serious, with or without a spade cue bid.
3N: Non-serious with a spade cue bid.
4mi: Non-serious (no change).

Over 3♠ serious, partner bids 3NT with a spade cue bid, 4♣ without a spade cue, and so on. If the 3♠ bidder keeps cue bidding after partner has denied a spade control (no 3NT), his 3♠ included a spade cue bid.

Interesting idea which even Meckwell would approve of I think.

Roland

[Free]

Sounds interesting, we now have inversions up till 5♠

1-level: Kaplan
2-level: after weak with ♥
3-level: serious
4-level: Kickback
(5-level: specific K ask after kickback)

Have I forgotten one?

[Chamaco]

Walddk, on Feb 1 2006, 02:01 PM, said:

One of my assistants at the bridge centre, Danish international Søren Christiansen, is a subscriber to the "serious" 3NT concept, but it can be improved without any cost. Here is what he says:

After hearts are agreed (like in BPO-007A), you should reverse the meaning of 3♠ and 3NT:

3♠: Serious, with or without a spade cue bid.
3N: Non-serious with a spade cue bid.
4mi: Non-serious (no change).

..........

Interesting idea which even Meckwell would approve of I think.

Roland

Yes the idea sounds good, I remember someone mentioned here on the forum he was playing the same way about 1.5 years ago.

I am sure Kaplan and Rubens would also approve this agreement

[Gerben42]

Could have been me, I've been playing this for years. When ♥ are trumps almost all our ♠ bids are artificial.

(and NT bids show ♠)

[Winstonm]

I have an offshoot of this I call "Serious Self Raise". When the auction begins:

1m-1M
2M

Everyone seems to have some kind of game try available but no one has a slam try available - and responder will bid differently depending on the target you are suggesting.....so.....I suggest this is a better usage:

1m-1M
2M-3M=Serious Slam Try.

There's not much value in using this as a balanced general-strength try so it is available to distinguish between game-interest and slam-interest hands.

Winston

[han]

I like Roland's gadget, I think it has been around for quite a bit but not many people play it.

I'm not a fan of Winston's idea, to use 3M as a slam try takes up a lot of room without exchanging much useful information. It seems better to use the cheapest step as an enquiry, and show slam intentions later.

[pclayton]

This is a good idea.

I sent an email to Fred in 2001 about this idea, but I doubt that I was the first to come up with the concept.

By the way, we have switched to the "non-serious" variety.

[MickyB]

Winstonm, on Feb 1 2006, 03:56 PM, said:

1m-1M
2M-3M=Serious Slam Try.

There's not much value in using this as a balanced general-strength try

I disagree - some hands have nothing they want partner to particularly focus on, some are better off just inviting rather than making a scientific bid that will help the defence.

[Free]

I can understand the advantages when playing serious 3♠, but what are the advantages of non-serious 3♠?? What's the reasoning about that one?

[Chamaco]

Free, on Feb 1 2006, 05:42 PM, said:

I can understand the advantages when playing serious 3♠, but what are the advantages of non-serious 3♠??    What's the reasoning about that one?

One slightly favourable point to using 3NT (when spades agreed) and 3S (when hearts agreed) as NON-serious, is that, when you are not interested in slam you want to give opps the least information possible.

If you were using "serious" 3S/3NT, when you held a non-slam hand, you would bypass it and make a cue, giving opps additional info for the lead/defense.

In that respect, the non-serious 3S/3NT avoids a potentially useless (useless for us, but useful for defenders) cuebid with many hands that will end up in game and not slam.