[awm]

655321, on 2011-March-02, 15:43, said:

Agree with gnasher and very much disagree with awm. Far from being pretty common, in my experience it is extremely rare to have a hand where you want to invite in notrump.

You have to compare to the other possibility. The balanced invite is a hand with 3-4♣, 10-11 points, less than three spades. Perhaps not that common. But the hands you're gaining on are (for example) hands with exactly three spades and 10-11 points (i.e. by distinguishing three and four card limit raises). These are not that common either!

The other point is that what I've lost is the ability to make extremely fine distinctions in raises. I can bid 3♣ as "limit+" but can't distinguish between three and four card limit. I can bid 2♠ as "less than limit" but can't distinguish between a weak three and four-card raise. Sure, I lose a little bit. But if you play everything as a raise and you have the balanced invite, you are either blasting a 3NT that probably won't make, or passing and hoping partner will balance (he may not, even on hands where 3NT makes), or doubling and hoping partner doesn't hang you in hearts. All of these seem potentially pretty bad... much worse than my possible consequences because partner can't tell between my three and four card raises.

[655321]

I wasn't commenting on the merits or otherwise of using 2NT as a raise, I was commenting on your claim that invitational notrump hands are 'pretty common'. My experience suggests that this is false, and gnasher's post explains why - a 2NT invite has to fit a bunch of different criteria, a raise doesn't need a lot more than '3 trumps, inv plus' or '4 trumps, inv plus', whatever your exact agreements are.

Changing the subject, my personal preference is to use 2NT as a raise because I feel a lot more comfortable knowing whether partner has 3 or 4 card support. I don't claim this is empirically better. It is certainly possible that my feeling more comfortable doesn't translate into winning more IMPs.

[han]

awm, on 2011-March-02, 22:55, said:

You have to compare to the other possibility. The balanced invite is a hand with 3-4♣, 10-11 points, less than three spades and as gnasher wrote, also fewer than 4 hearts, fewer than 5 diamonds, and clubs not good enough to want to defend 2CX. Perhaps not that common. But the hands you're gaining on are (for example) hands with exactly three spades and 10-11 points (i.e. by distinguishing three and four card limit raises). These are not that common either!

The other point is that what I've lost is the ability to make extremely fine distinctions in raises. I can bid 3♣ as "limit+" but can't distinguish between three and four card limit. I can bid 2♠ as "less than limit" but can't distinguish between a weak three and four-card raise. Sure, I lose a little bit. But if you play everything as a raise and you have the balanced invite, you are either blasting a 3NT that probably won't make, or passing and hoping partner will balance (he may not, even on hands where 3NT makes), or doubling and hoping partner doesn't hang you in hearts. All of these seem potentially pretty bad... much worse than my possible consequences because partner can't tell between my three and four card raises.

Fixed your post.