[MickyB]

1S:2C, 2N:3S. Is 3N now natural or serious/friv? If natural, what does opener need to do to show 17-19 rather than 11-13?

[paulg]

3S should set the suit so 3NT is not natural and (our rule) is serious/non-serious because both hands are unlimited.

[lalldonn]

We play 3NT is natural any time we have already made a natural notrump bid.

[MickyB]

lalldonn, on 2012-September-01, 08:45, said:

We play 3NT is natural any time we have already made a natural notrump bid.

Ok, so does opener have to go past 4S to show the 17-19 NT?

[lalldonn]

Cuebidding seems to me like it just shows the higher range, and you bid 4♠ with the lower range. It's not perfect but it's practical. Maybe it would be a nifty agreement to play 4♥ is the lower range with a good hand for slam since opener is unlikely to want to skip two cuebids, but I'm just pulling that from thin air I have never played anything like it. I think a natural 3NT is important. You can both be balanced easily so with bad spades or the other factors that normally make you consider notrump then 3NT can so easily be your best game.

In fact, just the fact opener bids 4♠ instead of 3NT implies usefulness for slam since that coincides with most of the qualities that would make him useful for play in a suit, good spades and good controls. So you still got some information.

[FrancesHinden]

How often does opener have 17-19 opposite a game forcing 2/1 with support for his suit? I think all auctions assume opener has the weak hand and, yes, with 17-19 he has to go past 4S. Even if you play 3NT as serious/nonserious or whatever (rather than natural) I think that should be in the context of adding definition to the weak hand.

p.s. this is a dreadful use of 1S-2C-2NT anyway. Play something simple like 1S-2C-2D = diamonds or a weak NT, 2NT = 17-19 balanced. or something more complicated.

[paulg]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-September-01, 09:21, said:

.... or something more complicated.

We are talking about Micky "KISS" B as the poster?

[kenrexford]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-September-01, 09:21, said:

p.s. this is a dreadful use of 1S-2C-2NT anyway. Play something simple like 1S-2C-2D = diamonds or a weak NT, 2NT = 17-19 balanced. or something more complicated.

My recommendation, too. The problem was earlier, and the solution works as well when spades are not raised.

[benlessard]

You were planning to go to bypass 4S anyway so i dont see what is the problem to be forced to at least 4nt or even 5S.

1M--2C
2Nt--3NT
4 something to show the big bal.

I dont remeber last time I had problems with the split range NT. While I certainly can see some problems if the auction goes 1S-2C-2D-3D = and i hold a weak NT without a H stopper.

[lalldonn]

Making any 17 count go past 4 is really terrible. Don't you GF with 12 at the low end, so you are just stuck on the 5 level in a suit contract with two balanced hands totalling 29 or 30? 17-19 is obviously less common than 11-13, but 17-19 is much more likely to be a slam hand opposite a game force than 11-13 is. I don't even think anything is horribly with the methods considering they are simple. Natural 3NT = 11-13 bad for slam, 4♠ = 11-13 good for slam, cuebid = 17-19 not willing to bid keycard (yet).

[MickyB]

Well, you could bid 1S:2C, 2N:4S with no interest opposite 17-19, or 1S:2C, 2N:3N with a no-trumpy "no interest" - although I guess you'll still land up in 4N there.

[lalldonn]

Landing in 4NT is a whole lot different than landing in 5M, but in fact with the balanced 17 and 12 you will land in 6M because opener will bid keycard if he is going beyond game anyway. Unless you want to say 4NT over 3M there is quantitative and to bid keycard you just cuebid once first, which is actually not unreasonable but I think you would be hard pressed to find someone who actually plays that.

[gnasher]

With a 17-19 that plans to bid Keycard, it will nearly always make sense to cue-bid first, to facilitate grand-slam investigations, so it's not much of a loss to play 1♠-2♣;2NT-3♠;4NT as natural.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

1M - 2m!
2M = Ken Rexford has said ( in a different post ) that Larry Cohen and Eric Rodwell says it promises 6.... whereas 2NT shows 5 .

But I also seem to remember that I saw in some post that you can interchange 2M and 2NT after a 2/1 GF :
..... 2NT! = 6 cards
..... 2M = 5 cards

Am I remembering correctly ?
Would it be of any benefit here ?

[benlessard]

Quote

Don't you GF with 12 at the low end, so you are just stuck on the 5 level in a suit contract with two balanced hands totalling 29 or 30?

When it goes 1S-2C-2NT-3S there should be only 2 type of hands 1- slammish hands 2- hands that your looking between 3Nt and 4S but that still has some extras. With a borderline GF balanced minimum I prefer to make a bergen limit raise and push to 3NT or to simply bid 4S bypassing 3S/3NT. I think bidding 3S without extras and not playing Friv-seri 3NT is asking for trouble. Also note that in the french system usually its 2nt = 12-14 or 18-19 and 3NT is 15-17 wich IMO is slightly better than 12-14/17-18 & 15-16. Because when it goes 1S--2C--2Nt--4S opener has to go on or has a tough guess with big bal anyway. For me and in the french style opener cannot pass 4S with 18-19 bal. (edited ok ive noticed that its 11-13/14-16 and 17-19 for you.)

Anyway I dont remember last time Ive hold the big bal and lost imps in 4Nt rather than being in 3NT. This doesnt say that we shouldnt aim to be in 3Nt rather than 4Nt but just say that i didnt see many opponents being able to stop at 3Nt with a 17-19 bal vs a GF & a Maj fit. Note that if opener isnt ready to play 5S he has to bid 4Nt since a cue followed by 4Nt will of course be RKC.

Add to this that its very unclear that 3S aiming for 3Nt is a good thing, you lose 3nt friv-ser wich mean that you are a leaking information on minimum vs minimum hands & it also cramp your cuebidding in a major way EX
1S-2C
2Nt-3S
4C-??

if responder cue here does it suggest that hes slammish vs 12-14 or hes cuebidding just in case opener is 17-19 ?

[kenrexford]

Just give in and rebid 2D on the weak balanced hands and end the pain.