[gnasher]

bluecalm, on Aug 30 2010, 02:20 AM, said:

As to 3♥ showing 3 hearts.
That would probably be playable if opener is guaranteed to have 5+-5+ (still not the best for sure though). However if he can be 5-4+ or even 6-3/7-2 then you have 2 things to worry about:

1)opener having 3card spade support
2)opener having club fragment with a stopper

Because of 1) you don't want to bid anything higher than 3♥ with 5♠-2♥ because you might miss 5-3♠ fit.
Because of 2) youd don't want to bid 4♦ even with 4 of them if you have little something in clubs because it will look kinda silly if opener had say: x AKJxx AKxx KJx and you belong to 3NT.

Are you the same Bluecalm as the one who said (about the possibility of bidding 3♥ with 4243):

Quote

Why wouldn't he bid 4♦ as his 2nd bid with that hand though ? (or 3NT if clubs are heavy).
Even playing artificial 3♦ (like OP) which doesn't really show diamonds it's quite safe because if opener doesn't have diamonds (as the original hand) he has 6+ hearts.
Giving false preference with 4 card support to what is normally 5+ card suit is bizarre idea to me.

[gnasher]

bluecalm, on Aug 30 2010, 02:20 AM, said:

Quote

I'm sure there are some auctions where being able to cuebid would be useful but I can't say I remember missing having that ability. I think quantitative bidding is underrated on hands where we don't have a slam force, and I think cuebidding vs keycard is overrated

This is interesting and opposite to what people think where I play.
I don't have strong opinion but I think system without keycard would be playable but system without cuebids would be rather bad.

I agree with this in general, but if there were any situation where you were willing to do without cue-bidding it would probably be this one: a very strong balanced hand opposite a one-suiter. Also, five-level cue-bidding isn't anything like as useful as cue-bidding below game, so what you're giving up isn't much.

Having said that, giving up Exclusion isn't much of a loss either, because it's so low frequency.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2010-August-30, 02:16

[JLOGIC]

gnasher, on Aug 30 2010, 03:14 AM, said:

bluecalm, on Aug 30 2010, 02:20 AM, said:

Quote

I'm sure there are some auctions where being able to cuebid would be useful but I can't say I remember missing having that ability. I think quantitative bidding is underrated on hands where we don't have a slam force, and I think cuebidding vs keycard is overrated

This is interesting and opposite to what people think where I play.
I don't have strong opinion but I think system without keycard would be playable but system without cuebids would be rather bad.

I agree with this in general, but if there were any situation where you were willing to do without cue-bidding it would probably be this one: a very strong balanced hand opposite a one-suiter. Also, five-level cue-bidding isn't anything like as useful as cue-bidding below game, so what you're giving up isn't much.

Having said that, giving up Exclusion isn't much of a loss either, because it's so low frequency.

oO, I'd rather die than play a system without keycard opposite a 2N opener! Those type of auctions seem to work better on paper than in real life imo.

[bluecalm]

Quote

re you the same Bluecalm as the one who said (about the possibility of bidding 3♥ with 4243):

I don't like it at all but as I am done with criticizing jumps with 3 cards I may as well learn to think how people who play such way bid...

[hanp]

For the record, I don't play exclusion after a 2NT opening.

[mgoetze]

hanp, on Aug 30 2010, 11:02 AM, said:

For the record, I don't play exclusion after a 2NT opening.

What's 2NT-3♦-3♥-5♠?

[hanp]

We have no agreement about that auction.

2NT - 3D - 3H - 4S/5C/5D would all be splinters.

[sathyab]

May be Mike Bodell already asked this question, but the answer wasn't clear to me, so asking again. Someone mentioned that the sequence 2nt-4♥-4♠-5nt would be considered GSF "traditionally". Is this a tradition that predates RKC or one that makes sense post-RKC ? In general when 4nt is available as RKC, does it not negate 5nt as GSF ?

[JLOGIC]

sathyab, on Aug 31 2010, 02:01 AM, said:

May be Mike Bodell already asked this question, but the answer wasn't clear to me, so asking again. Someone mentioned that the sequence 2nt-4♥-4♠-5nt would be considered GSF "traditionally". Is this a tradition that predates RKC or one that makes sense post-RKC ? In general when 4nt is available as RKC, does it not negate 5nt as GSF ?

No, because GSF is used with hands with voids.

If all exclusion bids are available at low enough levels with room to ask for the queen of trumps later and stop in 6 without it, then yes GSF loses it's use (unless you have 2 voids!)

So in this auction since all exclusion bids are available then yeah it might not be optimal to play GSF. As I said earlier the main gain other than 2 voids is that you don't expose which void you have as you would have to with exclusion. This might help.

If you have some great meaning for 4H then 5N that's great, it's probably better than GSF, but most likely it won't matter at all and there's not a great meaning that's worth it enough to have to remember. In a lot of sequences we just have too many bids because of jacoby + texas.

For instance, what is 3D followed by 6C compared to 4D by 6C? What is 3D followed by 6H compared to 4D followed by 6H? Who knows, who cares! Every bid doesn't have to have an optimal meaning, especially when 2 transfers to the same suit are available. It seems massochistic to try to come up with a meaning for all of those bids.

[gnasher]

Other benefits of GSF:

- You can cue-bid past your Keycard bid, and still be able to check the trump position (although I prefer to use 5NT as RKCB in that situation).

- You can find grand slams where you have the trump ace and king but not the queen, and you each have one extra trump. That's more common in a 4-card major system, but may also be useful in a sequence starting, for example
  1♠ (2♥) 3♥
where opener has 5+ spades and responder has 3+.