[Caitlynne]

1N-2C
2H-3S

(and 1N-2C, 2S-3H)

has/have a standard meaning for sure. According to Goren, these bids confirm a fit for opener's major and indicate strong slam interest and ask opener to begin cue bidding.

1N-2C
2H-2S

does not hava a standard meaning of which I am aware unless you don't play transfers; in the early days before transfers, the standard meaning was a hand with 5 spades and invitational values.

Today, some players who use 4 way transfers (such that you must bid 2C to invite in NT), use this to show 4 spades while 2NT is invitational without 4 spades.

[dave_beer]

Don't think anything is standard.

First sequence is most commonly played as invitational with ♠. Depending on the rest of your structure it can be:

• any shape or only unbalanced (balanced hand transfers and rebids 2NT)
  
• 5+♠ but can be 4-card suit if direct raise to 2NT is not natural

The second sequence varies widely by rest of structure. I think most common these days (at least in US) is that Stayman followed by 3 of other major shows slam try in opener's major with an unspecified shortness. Opener can relay to find it if interested. This is frequently combined with 4♣ as key-card ask and 4♦ as balanced slam try agreeing opener's major.

[mgoetze]

Caitlynne, on 2016-March-21, 11:48, said:

1N-2C
2H-2S

does not hava a standard meaning of which I am aware unless you don't play transfers; in the early days before transfers, the standard meaning was a hand with 5 spades and invitational values.

You mean in the early days, before second-round transfers, some people thought they had another way to show 5 spades and invitational values.

[SteveMoe]

If you favor Bergen "5-5" jumps to 3 level responses to 1NT you will play 2!s as invitational with 4 cards. Otherwise there are several options as noted by others.

The 3 OM rebid has become an all purpose slam try in M. I like to hide splinter raises in this bid.

[Phil]

1. Definitely prefer 5c suit and an invite. Pairs well with stayman promising a major.

2. Slam try. Promising shortness somewhere is the norm here.

[nige1]

IMO, without discussion, you might expect

• 1N-2♣-2♥-3♠: Cue/splinter with ♥ fit (or perhaps just an invite with 5♠).
• 1N-2♣-2♠-3♥: Similar but even less clear. Slam try in ♠ or invite with 5♥.
• 1N-2♣-2♥-2♠; Game try with 4♠ (or a sign-off in ♠ - with say ♠ Q J x x ♥ x ♦ x x x x x x ♣ x x)

[helene_t]

1N-2c
2S-3H
is invitational if you play 2-way stayman, but if you play transfers it has to be a slamish spade raise.

[mike777]

helene_t, on 2016-March-22, 06:45, said:

1N-2c
2S-3H
is invitational if you play 2-way stayman, but if you play transfers it has to be a slamish spade raise.

strongly agree , a very rare auction but 3h=agree spades and cuebid, slam try, asks that you cuebid.

[Winstonm]

helene_t, on 2016-March-22, 06:45, said:

1N-2c
2S-3H
is invitational if you play 2-way stayman, but if you play transfers it has to be a slamish spade raise.

Agree with the caveat that the strong spade raise is an artificial bid - says nothing about hearts, only that the fit is spades and the hand is interested in investigating slam. 1N-2C-2H-3S gives a similar slam try meaning, agreeing hearts.

[Vampyr]

gszes, on 2016-March-19, 09:42, said:

1n 2c 2h 2s and 1n 2c 2s 3h
they are indeed different but what the hey does everyone think they mean???

So, invitational with 4 spades (if 2NT not available for that) and slam try with 4 spades. Nearly universal on the forum and in real life. Am surprised you found so much disagreement.

[gszes]

1900+ hits due to an interesting title (Donald Trump would be proud) I will try to be more explicit in the future. TY all for your time and replies. I am going to do some extra research on that 9 cards in the majors and invitational approach (for both sequences) since it seems to give opener a vastly superior method of bidding/avoiding game. The benefits of the other proposed methods are far less clear and seem ro require a lot more coordination to be considered "standard".

[Stephen Tu]

gszes, on 2016-March-27, 08:30, said:

I am going to do some extra research on that 9 cards in the majors and invitational approach (for both sequences) since it seems to give opener a vastly superior method of bidding/avoiding game.

The question you should ask yourself is how often is this coming up, and how much are you gaining when it does? The range of hands that is worth an invite only, after finding a fit, over a narrow range 1nt opener, is tiny compared to the range of the hands that should just bash game and try to make it. So you really shouldn't be inviting that often to begin with. Also, how much are you really gaining in being a bit more accurate on your invites than the people who just raise 2M to 3M and don't have a way to show they had both majors? You let opener evaluate his honor placement a bit more accurately, but how often does that gain, and how much do you lose by giving the opps more info on which to base their opening lead?

The agree trumps, slam inv+ hand is also pretty rare, but it's useful when it comes up and there aren't a whole lot of available bids to work with.

For 1nt-2c-2h-2s, spades unbalanced invitational with spades and either minor is going to come up more often than inv with 9+ major cards specifically.

[Zelandakh]

I think in the most common traditional methods both are GF raises of Opener's major. In the more modern 4-way transfer structures 2♠ changes to become invitational with spades. As it happens I also play 3♥ this way in my chosen methods too but I have always played 2♠ as a range ask as that matches with the rest of the structure. Another reasonable alternative I did not see mentioned is for 2♠ to show 5+ clubs if you do not bid that hand via a direct transfer. As usual quite a bit depends on the rest of the NT structure, particularly the precise nature of 2♣ and whether there is a direct invitational raise.

[P_Marlowe]

gszes, on 2016-March-19, 09:42, said:

Over the past month I have seen at least 4 different treatments for the following auctions and I was curious if there is a "standard" treatment. Obviously my idea of standard is not as standard as I thought.

No interference 15-17 Nt scoring should not be a factor.

1n 2c 2h 2s and 1n 2c 2s 3h
they are indeed different but what the hey does everyone think they mean???

I would guess, standard for stayman is, that it promises a 4 card major.
In this case, you first / second seq. are strong major suit raises for the
major the NT opnener has bid.

With kind regards
Marlowe