[navit]

What does a 2 NT response to a weak 2 S,H,D bid mean? How should opener rebid? Opponents passed

[Fluffy]

It shows a strong hand and asks for something.

You can agree on a variety of things, ogust, feature asks, or just natural.

What you should do is agree with partner, ogust should normally be agreed with partner if you agreed nothing then the standard meaning is feature ask I thnk

Answers:

2♦/♥/♠-2NT
3X

if X is the suit opened it shows a minimum hand that wills not to go any higher.

if it is a new suit it shows the ace or the ing of that suit.

[rogerclee]

The two most common responses are feature and ogust. I personally find it hard to say that one is better than the other. If you play ogust, it may be a good idea to give your good/bad responses relative to seat and colors.

[jdonn]

It mostly depends on your style of weak two bids. If you are relatively sound, always have a good six card suit, etc, then feature makes the most sense. If you are more, shall I say, freewheeling, with bad suits and light hands, I think ogust makes more sense.

[Roupoil]

That's surely why here in France where most people are very conservative for their weak 2 bids, feature ask seems to be bay far the most frequent approach .

[lexlogan]

2NT in response to a weak two normally indicates a hand of invitational or better strength; around 15 hcp, somewhat less with a good fit. (Some players bluff the response with a weak hand.) A good rule for responder is to assume opener has a six card suit with two of the top three honors and possibly a trick outside. He should bid game if it will make with only the good suit; he bids 2NT if he needs a an extra trick frm opener.

The standard scheme of responses to 2NT is known as "features": opener rebids 3 of his the suit with a minimum; on a range of 6-10 hcp, any 6 or 7 point hand would be a minimum; most 8 point hands and all 9 and 10 should be treated as non-minimum.

With a non-minimum, opener shows a high card feature. Sometimes players describe this as an Ace or King, but that leaves opener rebidding his suit (implying a minimum) with AKxxxx Qx xxx xx; I think it's better to allow a feature to be any high card. A special case is the 3NT rebid, which shows AKQxxx in the suit. This will occassionally allow 3NT to make when 4 of the major would fail, but in any case allows responder to place the contract accurately.

Playing features, most of the time all partner wants to know is whether you have something extra, and intneds to bid game over anything but 3 of your suit. On occassion he'll be looking for help in a specific suit.

The most popular alternate scheme of replying to 2NT is known as Ogust. All rebids are artificial:
3C: weak hand, weak suit
3D: weak hand, good suit (KQxxxx or better)
3H: good hand, weak suit
3S: good hand, good suit
3NT: AKQxxx

It's easy to remember the first two steps are weak.

Again on a range of 6-10 hcp, 6 or 7 would be weak, 9 or 10 good, 8 can be reated as always good or, better, 8 with no stray Queens or Jacks is good. If you vary the range of your weak twos based on vulnerability, you'll need to scale these up or down accordingly.

As another poster said, if your weak twos in first and second seat almost always have a good suit, feature resposnes make sense; if you think
Qxxxxx KQx xx xxx is a weak two bid, Ogust will help partner sort things out.

[firmit]

In Norway, a lot of players shows shortness ( singleton/void ). I guess this is an alternative for the feature-showing bid where the weak 2 bid is constructive.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the difference between feature ask
and Ogust has already been explained.

One thing I would like to add, if you
regular open a weak two bid with 5
cards, it may be worth to incooprate
the length into the response schema.

A detailed discussion can be found here
http://www.wednesday...p/weaktwos2.htm

In case one does play an opening bid of
2D as a weak, it may also be worth while
to use the next step as the asking bid
instead of 2NT, and 2NT would than be used
to show a strong hand with the suit, which
could not be bid natural.
Not sure, if someone plays this, but if one
bids 2NT over 2D, there is not much space
left to sign of in 3D.
And you wont loose much, at least if you play
that a new suit after is forcing.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[miguelm]

I don't like ogust nor feature.

I like this following scheme because it tries to combine both

2NT = ask about trump quality and possible feature. After this:
- 3C = bad suit and 1 feature outside.
- 3D = bad suit and 2 features outside.
- 3H = good suit and no feature outside.
- 3S = good suit and 1 feature outside.
- 3NT = extra good suit and no feature.
- 4H/S = solid suit.

Bad suit = lacking 2 of the 3 top honours.
Good suit = holding 2 of the 3 top honours
Extra good = missing the Ace or King (e.g. AQJ10xx)
Solid = headed by AKQ

[hrothgar]

One other point that's worth mentioning:

Assume for the moment that you play a new suit advance over a weak 2 as natural and forcing. In this case, there is some value in inverting the meaning of a 2♠ and 2NT response to a weak 2♥ opening.

Consider the following: You open 2♠ and partner rebids 2NT asking for a feature with a max (or alternatively for shortness. Whatever you prefer). In this case, you conveniently have enough bidding space to rebid 3♣, 3♦, or 3♥ without bypassing 3♠.

Look what happens if you open 2♥ and use 2NT as your ask... You can show a feature in Clubs or Diamonds, but not in Spades.

If you use 2♠ as your ask, you now have enough bididng space for three responses below the level of 3♥.

[mycroft]

Please note - while 95% of the time, 2NT bidder has a GI+ hand, he doesn't have to; many players do not guarantee anything, simply ask. This is not the normal agreement, no matter what some of those claim.

If that is their - explained - agreement, then they can use it as a "guess whether I'm preempting or intending to make" 2H-2NT; 3x-4H.

Of course, if they don't make it clear that they don't show anything, then this is a concealed partnership understanding, and illegal.

I have seen several times 2NT = Feature (primarily looking for 3NT), 3C = Singleton or void ask (looking for suit game). Whether that's giving up too much, I don't know.

Of course, I have been known to play it as "natural, non-forcing, invitational, may be offshape, denies 3 card support." That one confuses *everybody*.

Michael.