[1eyedjack]

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This is not the best example to illustrate my point; only the most recent.

There are occasions when your cue bid of the opponent's suit below 3NT is quite obviously a NT-probe for which the most important feature in response is a guard (or lack) in the opponent's suit. GIB will routinely suppress the guard in favour of 4-minor.

[Bbradley62]

Are you using the term "guard" as the equivalent of "stopper" or of "partial stopper"? If 3♥ asks North to bid 3N with a heart stopper, it's not unreasonable for him to deny having one.

[1eyedjack]

Bbradley62, on 2014-December-30, 07:54, said:

Are you using the term "guard" as the equivalent of "stopper" or of "partial stopper"? If 3♥ asks North to bid 3N with a heart stopper, it's not unreasonable for him to deny having one.

I don't have a strong opinion on the question that you pose. I think that with a double-stopper he should bid 2N (or 3N) in preference to showing a Club fit over the 2H cue. So I am not expecting something huge from p in Hearts. I am not sure whether GIB feels the same way (over the 2H cue). My suspicion is that it would prefer to show the Club fit, but possibly I am being unfair (or God forbid my own preference may be flawed).

That said and done, I feel quite strongly that if a "full" stopper is required, then Qxxx sufficeth. That 4th card in the suit makes quite a difference. Swap South's H:J with either opponent's H:x and the Qxxx still prevents the run of the suit.

I did acknowledge, with the initial post, that this hand was not the best example, and my thoughts behind that were precisely because of doubts over the adequacy of Qxxx. After all, 3N did require a successful Diamond finesse (but as against that, 5C had no chance). My experience in previous hands is that North's Hearts might have been quite a bit stronger and it would still have bid 4C. There have been earlier threads on this, but I agree that this example is far from perfect.

I would certainly have forgiven it for pulling to 4m with only H:Qxx (but am open to convincing that even that objection is unjustified). Maybe it depends somewhat on whether there are other factors in the hand.

[iandayre]

I would say if N is not willing to show a stopper with Qxxx because the hand is so weak, it should not have opened in the first place. I would not have.