[jillybean]

A while ago Richard introduced me to Uns vs. Uns and if I remember rightly, we played;

1M (2nt) 3♣ gf ♥, 1M (2nt) 3♦ gf ♠ raise, some slam interest.

Surprise, surprise my other partners play it differently so I’d like to know how the experts play over opps 2nt interference


I know Admam has touched on this in another thread

awm said:

(11) Unusual vs. Unusual. It's important to have some defense when opponents bust out one of these bids that shows a two-suiter (like Michaels cuebid or unusual 2NT). We play that if their bid shows two known suits, our cheaper "cuebid" shows a good hand with the lower of the suits they don't hold, our more expensive "cuebid" shows a good hand with the higher of the suits they don't hold, and bidding a suit opponents didn't promise is non-forcing. Double shows interest in penalizing one or both of their suits. Over bids that show only one known suit (1♠-2♠), double is desire to penalize and the "cuebid" is a strong raise.

How do you make a distinction between competitive, invitational, game, slam interest in these auctions?

tyia

[han]

I prefer that 3C shows hearts and 3D shows spades, both being at least invitational.

[jillybean]

han, on Aug 31 2008, 10:16 AM, said:

I prefer that 3C shows hearts and 3D shows spades, both being at least invitational.

(edited) Partner will co-operate and cue below game with some slam interest and 3M/4M are both signoff?

[han]

If the auction starts 1H-(2NT)-3C then partner can bid 3H with a minimum, 4H with some extras but no slam interest and cuebid with slam interest (I wouldn't call this cooperating). I would play that 3D in this auction is still a try for game, showing some sign of life.

Not sure if that answers your question.

[Cascade]

I think with this sort of thing it is wrong to assume a standard.

It is something that you need to agree with your partner. The first level of agreement is easy to achieve 3♣ = hearts and 3♦ = spades or whatever.

This is the tied major approach which might be easy for memory purposes. It is quite common here to play the same sort of tied major-minor approach in other situations e.g. 2M (2-suiter) 2NT (enquiry); 3m minor or 3M maximum with tied minor or 1NT 2NT (single-suited minor); 3♣ 3M slam try with tied minor. It is possible to invent other applications of the same principle.

Mike Lawrence had an idea that 3♣ (lower) should always show the other major. This allowed that major to be a four-card suit. Then partner could bid 3♦ to show three-card support and raise the other major with with four-card support. 3♦ (higher) in this scheme always agreed partner's major.

With my partner we play the opposite of that the lower cue-bid always agrees partner's major and the higher cue bid is a forcing bid in the unbid suit. Having a forcing bid in the unbid suit fits in well with our general desire to be able to make negative free bids.

The bottom line is that you need to agree with any serious partner what you are playing. But as I said above this isn't a big deal. The problems occur when you have not agreed and someone makes a bid and assumes their own pet treatment which is different from partner's pet treatment.