Quote
I'm not disagreeing with the 3♥/3♠ convention, I play it myself. But what's the win to using it on this hand?
-partner often has 4 card minor fit
-if he doesn't you can still play in 5-3 minor if you have intelligent follow ups (3M is forcing to game so you can't play in 4m)
-sometimes you get to play in spades 4-3 which may be decent contract; partner is welcome to bid 3
♠ after 3
♥ as natural.
Quote
How do you show these hands if you play 3 of a majors shows shortness?
There are many ways. Two of them are:
1)Use smolen, so:
2
♣ - 2
♦
3
♥/3
♠ shows 5-4 hands in majors gf
2
♣ - 2
♦
2
♥ shows weak hand with both majors
2
♣ - 2
♥
2
♠ - 3
♥ shows gf hand with 5-5 majors (this is important because you want to be able to stop in 3NT opposite 2-2-(4-5)
Now there is invite missing. You have an option to not play invites with 5-4 majors or:
2
♣ - 2
♦
2
♠ = invite with 5spades/4hearts
2
♦ - 2
♥
2
♠= invite with 5hearts/4spades
This is close because there are other useful things you can do with two last sequences and invites with 5-4 are rare. Your choice.
2)use ask about 3card majors, then:
1NT - 2
♣
2
♦ - 3
♦ = ask about 3 card major
You can show 3's naturally, bid 3NT with 2-2-(4-5) or 2-2-(3-6). With 3-3 majors you can either show hearts first or agree that bids above 3NT shows 3-3 majors and good/average/bad hand (4
♣/4
♦/4
♥).
This has the advantage because you can use:
1NT - 2
♣
2
♦ - 3
♥/3
♠ as showing shortness ( (4-1)-3-5)/(4-1)-4-4) hands which is agani very useful.
If you play that way you need to play:
1NT - 2
♣
2
♦ - 3
♣
as artificial ask, like in this thread:
http://forums.bridge...showtopic=41385 (see Mohitz's scheme)
I may also add as we are at it that after suit response to stayman:
1NT - 2
♣
2
♥/2
♠
It's useful to play that other major (2
♠/3
♥) sets opener's major as trumps so you can explore slams/best game.
If you play this or you play like Gwnn's wrote (that stayman can be bid without 4M) then it's useful to play more responses to stayman:
1NT - 2
♣
2NT/3
♣ = 4-4 majors, min/max (then you use 3
♦/3
♥ as transfers and bid slam tries/games).
The reason for this is that you free other sequences which normally are used to show hands with other major (like 1NT - 2
♣ - 2
♥ - 2
♠).
This is all quite complicated as gor B/I's so I think OP should settle for his own system for now. Just add the most important followups an 3M bids as showing shortness because those are really useful and quite frequent.