[badderzboy]

You hold a 17/18/19 count with 44 or better in the minors and no 4 card major.

You open a Club (natural 4+) and partner bids 1 Diamond (4+cards 6+HCP).

ie 1♣-p-1♦-p-3♥/3♠

What is the best use for 3 Major in this auction?

Potential uses are :-

Stop ask.
Stop show.
Cue.
Splinter.

I've had two hands show up in the last few days like this and both would lead to slams bid correctly, we missed the 1st due to a misunderstanding but found the 2nd after agreeing a stop show/cuebid type bid

What do u play as continuations after partners response?

Steve

[ArcLight]

You need to consider something else.
Are you playing Walsh responses? Bypassing ♦ to bid a major?
If so, responder is denying a 4 card major, or else he has a strong hand that will bid again (a reverse into the 4 card major on the next bid)

I vote for Splinter in support of pards suit.

[mikeh]

system matters. We had a recent thread on opening 1♣ or 1♦ with 4=4, and I take it that you are in the 1♣ camp.

Even there, most play that 1♦ shows only 3+... a hand too weak to bid 1N, which many play as 8-10, or some other constructive range. So any jump to 3Major seems like a bad move.

As for splinter, then by definition you must hold 5+clubs and that suit has to be longer than your diamonds, else you'd have either a 4 card major or be really screwing up your methods.

I'd use it as splinter: using it as stopper ask seems to me to be far too valuable to the opps..and flat out weird anyway. xxx opposite xxx is usually ok for 3N if we have 9 side winners, and if we don't have a lot of side winners, then why tell the opps what to lead? And, of course, with our balanced 18, I'd rather play 2N opposite a weak hand than 4 minor opposite a non-stopper response.. and is 4♦ over a stopper-ask 3♠ forcing? Just how the heck are we having a meaningful sequence after that start, anyway?

And a cue, agreeing diamonds, seems equally inutile. Most play that the rasie to 2♦ shows extras, a bid of 2N on balanced hands of appropriate shape seems reasonable, without regard to stoppers, and so on.

Space-consuming bids should lead to simple auctions, (because we have destroyed the room we need for complex hands) and so should be one-dimensional... and a splinter is that.. the description affords partner a lot of specific information of use immediately. The other uses, less so.

[awm]

Splinter seems like a reasonable interpretation, on the general rule that if a new suit bid at some level would be forcing (2♥ clearly forcing) then a higher jump is a splinter.

I think the more interesting question is whether this should be a splinter agreeing diamonds or a splinter showing a big single-suited hand with clubs. This probably depends on your style with regard to 1♦ responses -- in Elianna and my style the 1♦ bid is always 4+♦ and fairly frequently 5+♦ (since we will occasionally bid 1NT or 1M with a four-card diamond suit but virtually never with a five-card diamond suit); we also don't play 2♦ by opener as extras since we would always open 1♣ with x-x-4-5 shapes and normally raise diamonds on this sequence, so for us it's clear that this splinter is a diamond raise. If you frequently respond 1♦ on three cards (and bypass 1♦ with five of them to bid a four-card major or 1NT) then it makes more sense for 3M to show a powerful one-suited hand (too strong for a 3♣ rebid) with shortage in the bid major, asking partner to decide which game or slam is most practical.

[neilkaz]

Splinter for me, playing anything "SAYCish" or 2/1 Walsh(gag) or not.

Note that opener needs a darn good hand to splinter in the sequence and force to game, but that can lead to nice slams when responder has more than a min and nothing wasted in the splinter suit. It would take quite an unbalanced 17-19 count to qualify.

.. neilkaz ..