[jdeegan]

I wanna lay down the predicate for an investigative auction. Six or seven clubs looks possible given the bidding so far.

As far as the actual hand goes, we don't have it to judge. If pard has his bids (given my style of 3♦ cue bid being a general game force), then 4♠ should be an OK contract. If we miss six, so be it.

Some may play that the 3♦ cue bid confirms spades as trumps. So, I would never have bid 3♦ playing with that understanding.

[ehhh]

If you had a way of asking partner to bid NT if s/he has a ♥ stopper then further decision making would be a lot easier would it not?

[Winstonm]

mikeh, on Oct 21 2005, 04:56 PM, said:

Jlall, on Oct 21 2005, 02:22 PM, said:

All that being said, I'll take my chances with 3N. I think the REAL problem on this hand is that neither 2N nor 3C is forcing which overloads both the cuebid and the 3N bid. But I'm not really happy with this choice.

I play that 2♠ promises a rebid: I had thought (mistakenly?) that this was common practice by an unpassed hand. Thus I do NOT see a problem with the balanced hands which so concern Justin: partner cannot pass 2N nor 3♣ Playing any other way puts far too much load on opener who has heard only one, unlimited, bid from partner.

For me, 3N does not involve 4 of a major unless partner has a very unusual hand.

This is probably the key and most interesting issue in this thread - what do these 2/1s in competition mean and how high do they force?

I agree with MikeH on this one that 2S should be forcing to at least 3S simply because if opener does not fit and cannot bid NT the partnership is forced to the 9-trick level; notice how this does not apply over 1S-2D-2H.

Playing this way makes negative doubles a little messier but adds clarity to the free bid.

A simple rule of thumb might help: if partner can cue bid or rebid his suit at the 2 level then the free bid is a 1-round force only; however, if the free bid forces the partnership to the 3 level with no guarantee of a fit, then responder must be able to bid again.

Winston

[Kalvan14]

3N, without any doubt. It's a classic bid, based on running clubs (and the lack of ♥ stopper does not worry me too much).
If you want to mess atound (remembering that for me 2♠ is not forcing), you need to introduce a 2N Lebensohl style (see the other thread with the same bidding). Now a direct 3♣ would be forcing (but I think I would still prefer 3N on this hand, to make clear to partner I am not interested in playing ♠; 3♣ would indicate at least a spade tolerance)