[mikeh]

JLOGIC, on Jul 15 2010, 05:35 PM, said:

junyi_zhu, on Jul 15 2010, 05:23 PM, said:

hanp, on Jul 15 2010, 12:31 PM, said:

Assuming pairs, bidding with JLOGIC.

AKQxx
KJxx
Qxxx
-

1D - 1S
2C - 2H
3C - 3D
3S - ??

2H was forcing to game, no canape openings. Your call?

A typical failure of 4th suit forcing. After so many rounds of bidding, the opener's range is from 10 to 18 HCP.

Luckily partner will bid again once you've bid 3D if you now bid 3N with the top of that range (certainly 16-18, many 15s).

Also 10-18 seems misleading, who opens with many 10 counts holding both minors?

But yeah it can suck when he could have 11-14.

This is precisely why I think 3N is better than 4♦ (or 4♠).

4♦ will make us guess over the virtually inevitable 5♣ or 5♦ from partner, and we still know relatively little...4♦ is such a strong slam move that he will cuebid with many unsuitable hands, and it conveys so little information that he will not cuebid with many weak but well-fitting hands.

3N doesn't solve all issues, but he will pull with all good hands and we now have the entire 4 level to figure out whether the hands fit well enough.

We will miss slams opposite good fitting minimums, but all roads carry that risk. We will be less likely to reach bad slams with lots of hcp, which 4D makes problematic.

I'll gladly suffer a slight increase in missed good slams to avoid elimination of reaching bad slams...including a lot of slams off the heart Ace and a trump keycard.

[gnasher]

JLOGIC, on Jul 15 2010, 11:35 PM, said:

who opens with many 10 counts holding both minors?

I do. Naturally I'd prefer to be 5-5 in the majors, but you have to make do with what you were given.

I agree with junyi_zhu about the problems of unlimited auctions like this. I don't know of a good solution to the problem though - if you start trying to add strength information to opener's actions, you just lose loads of space that you'll often need for finding the best game.

[JLOGIC]

Mike, I agree with you that it is more likely partner will move over 3N than 4S and get us to a good slam, and that is an advantage of bidding 3N over 4S. It's just my intuition that 4S will often be a trick better than 3N but I don't know.

I remember that whatever my hand was, it wasn't clear to me what the right spot was lol. Obv a ton depends on the heart honors and whether RHO has an entry and who has the spade jack etc etc.

[hanp]

Fourth suit forcing seems pretty perfect in this auction. Of course with our hand we still don't know what to do, but how often do we know partner is exactly 2155, and have we shown spades and a diamond fit in the meantime?

Anyway, I bid 3NT, Justin had something close to gnasher's hand and I thought 3NT was probably the best matchpoint spot but I'll leave that up to Ben.

I would definitely not open a 10-count with 5-5 in the minors in a bidding contest. You just know you will end up in 3NT while the top spot is 2 of a minor!