[sceptic]

Scoring: IMP

---

West North East South

 -     Pass  Pass  1♦
 Pass  1♠    Pass  1NT
 Pass  2NT   Pass  3NT
 Pass  Pass  Pass  


my 1nt shows 12-14 balanced, does the 2NT invite have to be accepted with a max hand

i.e. Judgement or good practice?

[the hog]

Plus - 14 points and 2 tens
Minus - the 4333 distribution.

Yes Wayne, I would accept every day of the week playing both MPs and Imps. I would accept with a slightly weaker hand at imps as well. Incidentally, your partner's invite is a tad light imo, despite the 5 card suit.

[badderzboy]

Yes I would always accept - imagine you refuse and 3 makes - you have an unhappy partner alternatively you bid it and go off - they asked you had a max...

Did you think of bidding 3♠ and the way showing 3 of them - you still only make 9 I think with a loser in each suit?

Steve

[coyot]

With any 14, accept... If it goes down, blame partner for a lousy invite, because you might as well accept with a good 13 .

(His invite is borderline - if you have 2 spades, it usually does not make.)

[sceptic]

Quote

Did you think of bidding 3♠ and the way showing 3 of them

I did but then I thought YUK no way LOL

[the hog]

Good decision with a 4333 shape.

[joker_gib]

sceptic, on Sep 2 2005, 10:38 AM, said:

Quote

Did you think of bidding 3♠ and the way showing 3 of them

I did but then I thought YUK no way LOL

Normally, partner does not have 5 spades when he bids 2NT.

He would have used some kind of checkback, Roudi or nmf with 5 if interested in your number of ♠.

You are max so you have to accept.

Alain

[mikeh]

My rule for accepting invites is that I accept unless I have a reason not to.

It is useful to have a partnership agreement as to who stretches: the player inviting game or the player accepting the invitation. If you both stretch, you will reach too many bad contracts. If both need full values, you will miss too many games, especially at imps.

In terms of the number of games bid or missed, it makes no difference as to who stretches. One style misses games the other reaches, and vice versa.

However, the 'full-value' invitational school wins on some part-score hands. We get to play a level lower on hands where both partners are minimum. We pass out 1N or 2Major, while the light-invite gang make a move, and may fail in their 2N or 3Major contract on poor lies of the cards.

With the given hand, I am not sure if I would invite as North. I surely would not in matchpoints or nv at imps, and I suspect I would pass red as well: the ♣ 10 is the tempting card for me, but unless we were in Heat One, I think I'd pass.

South accepts no matter what style he plays: this is a super-maximum. It is very difficult to think of any South hand that could be stronger and not be upgraded to a 15-17 1N opening bid. I would accept any non-horrible 13 or better.

In my two current expert partnerships, one plays 11-14 1N, and we'd miss game for sure, and the other plays 11-13 nv (hence we would show 14-16 on a rebid) and 14-16 red, so we'd reach game for sure. Both partnerships would be correct within their methods and yet 2-levels apart in their result

[Double !]

I think that P bid incorrectly: some form of checkback followed by 2NT, if the hand is worthy of an invitation might have been more helpful. Otherwise, it has all already been said.
Partner asked you a simple question. Are you minimum, in-between, or maximum for your 1NT rebid. Answer the question that was asked. P knows more about your hand than you do about his hand. This is another example of "the Captaincy Principle". By bidding 2NT, P has taken captaincy of the hand. (It's usually the responder who takes more of the captaincy role when opener rebids some number of NT) The given hand looks like a maximum to me. Anything more and the hand might have needed to be upgraded to start with.

[han]

I like this question.

I think 4333 hands are worse than 4432 hands, but the difference is not worth a full point. In my opinion the two 10s make up for this weakness, and you end up with a normal 14-count, so obvious acceptance.

As for the aggressive invite, I would have passed 1NT. Doesn't look like a very exciting 10-count to me, so we are talking about a 22-24 point game. Take away a king and give it to partner. Partner would now open 1NT, and would you invite with what's left? I don't think so!

I prefer to make aggressive invites only when it tells partner more about how to evaluate his hand. For example, 1S-2S-3C (help suit or whatever you like) may be light, but 1NT-2NT never is (not that I play this as an invite, but you get the point I hope).

I've been playing with Ben (inquiry) a bit lately, and I find it very interesting that we evaluate hands differently. I think that he downgrades 4333 hands more than I do, which has made me think about this subject again. Playing and talking about bridge with new people can be very stimulating.