[mgoetze]

The bidding starts 2♣-2♦; 3♣ or 2♣-2♦-3♦. Please humor me by assuming that 2♦ is 0-7 any and 3♣/3♦ is GF with 5+ of the suit, unbalanced¹.

So, what should the followups be? I assume the most important thing now is to look for a major suit fit and therefore am currently thinking

2♣-2♦; 3♣ - ...
... - 3♦: at least one 4 card major, asks opener to bid his 4 card majors up-the-line
... - 3♥: 5+ spades
... - 3♠: 5+ hearts
... - 3NT: no majors, not slam-suitable (could have long diamonds)
... - 4♣: no majors, suitable for club slam

2♣-2♦; 3♦ - ...
... - 3♥: 4+ hearts, may have 4 spades
... - 3♠: 4+ spades
... - 3NT: no majors, not slam-suitable (could have long clubs)
... - 4♣: 6+ clubs, extras
... - 4♦: no majors, suitable for diamond slam

What do you think? Does anyone have a better scheme?

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¹) If you want to tell me that 2♦=0-7 any sucks, that's fine, but please note that what I really care about right now is 1♣(11-13/17+)-1♦(0-7)-3m

[Zelandakh]

First of all I would like to ask you what 1♣ - 1♦ - 3M means in your system. It would be very helpful if these were available to show a GF hand with 4 of the major and 5+ diamonds. This takes the pressure off the 3♦ rebid allowing 1♣ - 1♦; 3♦ - 3M to show 5+ cards in the suit. In the absence of that I will look specifically at the 3♣ rebid. Here I think you can gain something by using transfers over the Puppet-style set-up.

1♣ - 1♦; 3♣
===========
3♦ = 4+ hearts
... - 3♥ = 0-2 hearts
... - 3♠ = 3 hearts, 4 spades
... - 3NT = 3 hearts, 0-3 spades
... - 4♣ = 4 hearts, slam try
... - 4♥ = 4 hearts, no extras
3♥ = 4+ spades
... - 3♠ = 0-2 spades
... - 3NT = 3 spades
... - 4♣ = 4 spades, slam try
... - 4♠ = 4 spades, no extras
3♠ = diamonds
3NT = to play
4♣ = raise

As with the transfer scheme over the Precision-style 2♣ opening you could easily rearrange the transfer responses here to suit your own taste. If you can use the same scheme for both situations you can save memory effort and make both sequences less likely to be forgotten. If you have decided to stick with the 2♦ relay approach over 2♣ then I would stay with something like it here too. I think a consistent approach across a variety of auction types is worth more than the small gains you can get optimising every sequence.

[mgoetze]

LOL Zel, you have managed to predict almost our entire discussion. Gwnn did suggest 1♣-1♦-3M as 5+♦4M but I believe the current meaning of "sets trump, demands cue" is more important. One thing we may look into is offloading the 5+♦4♥ hands into our 2♦ opening (currently w2 in major or 22-23 bal). As for the 2♣ opening, we couldn't agree on what a transfer completion should mean and made a lousy compromise of playing 2♦ relay stolen from Balicki-Zmudzinski. I don't think that translates very well, however. For instance 2♣-2♦-2♥-3♣ would be "invite if you have spades" but if you put it a level higher we've bypassed 3NT which is what we usually want to play on a declined invite.

[Zelandakh]

I am not a big fan of loading extra hands into a multi 2♦ but if I needed to choose one of these then I would certainly put the solid suit major hands into it and not the 5+♦4M hands. The reason is that partner is much less likely to preempt us when holding this. You obviously need some good agreements for competition though.

Transferring rules and principles from one part of a system to another sometimes takes a little effort. After 1♣ - 1♦ - 3♣ we are already in a GF auction so inviting to game makes no sense. On the other hand inviting to slam does make sense. If we are making a slam move then it is ok to bypass 3NT. If you go through your 2♣ method rearranging in this way and find that what you end up with works then great! If not then you might have to either make a couple of adjustments; or decide the 2 situations are not similar after all and have different methods.

Given what you are playing over 2♣ though, I would suggest that the start you have in the OP is good. I do not think 2♦ necessarily needs to guarantee a 4 card major but could perhaps also be used with some other slam-going hands, especially a good hand with diamonds. Pull that together and you probably have enough system not to be at a big disadvantage against the 2♣ers. If you can get the relay system to adapt then you might even be at an advantage some of the time.

[blackshoe]

There's lots of way to deal with this. Romex (which is essentially 2/1 with some extra strong openings) does so by removing gf hands with primary diamonds from the 2♣ opening, opening those hands 2♦. Sequences like 2♣-2♦-3♦ or 2♦-2♥-3♦ show a minor oriented single suited hand (clubs in the first case, diamonds in the second) while 2♣-2♦-3♣ or 2♦-2♥-3♣ show a two suiter with the minor and another suit, at least 5-4, possibly 6-4 or 6-5. There's more to it of course, but those are the basics.