[peachy]

First = to play. Second = without agreements I think minors. But what what would 4H mean?

[cherdano]

gnasher, on Dec 2 2008, 09:49 AM, said:

I think 4NT is best played as natural. With both minors you can bid 4♥ followed by 4NT. The alternative, of playing 4NT as the minors and 4♥ followed by 4NT as natural, works badly when partner doesn't bid 4♠ over your 4♥.

The alternative is not to have a natural NT slam invite. The hands where we want to invite to 6NT and partner will accept are probably rare (assuming partner needs and extra king to accept, as Mike is suggesting), and usually we can live with playing 3♥ X instead of 4N.

Anyone who wouldn't take 4♥ in the first auction as natural in a pickup partnership should have his driving license revoked immediately.

[gnasher]

cherdano, on Dec 2 2008, 09:05 PM, said:

The alternative is not to have a natural NT slam invite. The hands where we want to invite to 6NT and partner will accept are probably rare (assuming partner needs and extra king to accept, as Mike is suggesting), and usually we can live with playing 3♥ X instead of 4N.

True, but equally hands where we want to bid RKCB and partner will not have enough keycards are also rare, so we can usually live with bidding slam. Also, a "natural" 4NT bid might include a 5- or 6-card minor, since there isn't any way to invite slam in a minor. Passing 3♥x with these hands is less attractive.

If we could rely on partner to bid 4♠ over 4♥, we could cope with all three hand-types:

4NT = natural (or ace-asking)
4♥-4♠-4NT = ace-asking (or natural)
4♥-4♠-5♣ = minors, choice of games
4♥-4♠-6♣ = minors, choice of slams

[MFA]

I play (3♥) - X - (pass) - 4♥ as a good 4♠-bid. So 4♥ followed by 4NT is RKC for spades.

RE the two auctions:
1. Clearly natural with long hearts and medium strength.
2. 2-suiter, minors until we tell partner otherwise. Thought this was more standard than it apparently is.

[whereagles]

1m (2♠) 4♥ = natural. Remember Fred's rule: "If it can be natural, then it is!!!"

(3♥) dbl (pass) 4NT = this is more complicated

If you're playing standard dbls, where you guarantee 3 cards in every unbid suit, then you COULD use this as quantitative. That's because with a 55 or 54 in the minors you just bid a 5 card suit and opener will have support.

If you're using stuff like ELC, then there's a case for putting shape before strength and using 4NT for the minors. That avoids situations like

(3♥) dbl (pass) 5♣

in which an ELC doubler has no clue whether he's supposed to pull to 5♦ with a 4351 or to just leave it at 5♣. If 4NT were for the minors, this would be to LEAVE it, since advancer would bid 4NT with minors.