[peachy]

Auction uncontested:
1D-1H
1S- 4NT
What is 4NT?

Thanks for opinions. If you care to explain your vote, I'd be interested.

EDIT, after seeing a couple responses:
I should have specified the "RKC" is for spades. It didn't even cross my mind that it could be for hearts even if it might be RKC. But still interested in whatever y'all might say.

[Phil]

Pretty sure the standard interpretation is RKC for spades, but not playing SJS I think it should be RKC for hearts.

Good auction to discuss.

[aguahombre]

Phil has a good point about HTs....but will stick with the last bid suit thing. To set hearts as trump I must torture pard with 4th suit.

[jjbrr]

for ♥ lol? why?

[gwnn]

quantitative. ez

aguahombre makes a good point but doesn't follow through.

aguahombre post fixed said:

To set hearts any suit as trump I must torture pard with 4th suit.

[jdonn]

jjbrr, on Aug 22 2010, 12:48 AM, said:

for ♥ lol? why?

4th suit forcing then spades agrees spades allowing an easy keycard bid. 4th suit forcing then hearts doesn't agree hearts, it just shows extra length, and you may never get to agree hearts as trumps and then bid keycard (2♦ 3♣ 3♥ 4♣, or 2♦ 3NT, or 2♦ 3♦ 3♥ 3NT, etc...)

It should definitely be keycard for hearts not spades, but of course almost all players will take it as for spades simply because it's the last bid suit so you have to be careful.

[Codo]

Any suit can be bid and/or raised by 4sf. But if you want to invite quant. for 6 NT, this is impossible after say
1♦ 1 ♥
1 ♠ 2 ♣
2 ♥

So I would take it as invitational to 6 NT.

[OleBerg]

jjbrr, on Aug 22 2010, 07:48 AM, said:

for ♥ lol? why?

My guess:

Even though it is highly unlikely that you will have hand that needs only to check aces, it is still much more likely to have it, when you have long hearts, than when you have uncovered a 4-4 fit in spades.

Of course if you play strong-jump-shifts, it's for spades.

Edit: But I would prefer Quant.

[OleBerg]

I am not an international player, but in Denmark it is farly standard, that if you play weak jump shifts, then:

1♦ - 1♥
1♠ - 3♥ is forcing.

Thus 4NT should be free to use as quant. (I would strongly expect the bidder to be 3-4-2-4.)

[andy_h]

Not sure but I don't think it's quantitative. What's the rush when we can bid fourth suit forcing first? If partner bids NT I can invite and if partner doesn't then I can always invite with 4NT later. So jdonn gives a plausible explanation.

[gwnn]

andy_h, on Aug 22 2010, 03:58 PM, said:

Not sure but I don't think it's quantitative. What's the rush when we can bid fourth suit forcing first? If partner bids NT I can invite and if partner doesn't then I can always invite with 4NT later. So jdonn gives a plausible explanation.

to right-side.

not to ask a question if the answer I am not interested in.

[aguahombre]

gwnn, on Aug 22 2010, 10:03 AM, said:

andy_h, on Aug 22 2010, 03:58 PM, said:

Not sure but I don't think it's quantitative. What's the rush when we can bid fourth suit forcing first? If partner bids NT I can invite and if partner doesn't then I can always invite with 4NT later. So jdonn gives a plausible explanation.

to right-side.

not to ask a question if the answer I am not interested in.

If responder has a quantitative notrumpish hand:

1) It would be hard to imagine the answer to 4SF would wrong-side, if the answer is descriptive.
2) Since the auction (1D-1H-1S) still leaves opener with a whole lot of different hand patterns and strengths, it would be hard to imagine responder "not being interested" in further clarification before deciding to make a quant bid for NT only.

[gwnn]

I have a 3-4-2-4 17 count, that's (more or less) what 4NT shows.

There are positional and non-positional stops. If I have a positional and partner a positional stop, I'd like to bid NT first.

[aguahombre]

Over the years we have gained considerably when evaluating for NT level, by knowing that 17+14 =less than 33 --and defending against those who don't.

Responder really needs 4SF to find out if he should quant with 17 or 18.

Further edit: (hidden)

Spoiler

Didn't think it necessary to express these obvious points about the jump to 4NT, but apparently it is.

1)If opener is weak NT size and shape, slam is out.
2)If opener is any strength, from 11 to ..... and unbalanced, then 4NT wasted 3 levels which could have been used for strain exploration.
3)If opener has 15-17 balanced, she would not have opened 1D.
4)If opener has 18-19 balanced in a style which allows a 1S rebid, slam will be reached without the 4NT quant.

This post has been edited by aguahombre: 2010-August-22, 12:53

[kayin801]

gwnn, on Aug 22 2010, 09:39 AM, said:

I have a 3-4-2-4 17 count, that's (more or less) what 4NT shows.

There are positional and non-positional stops. If I have a positional and partner a positional stop, I'd like to bid NT first.

It has to be something like this, pretty much down to the exact shape, since partner hasn't said anything about their hand yet. We don't know if they have a 4243 11 count or a 5071 18 count.

I actually would never bid it for this reason, since it's a crime to waste 3 levels of bidding when we know pretty much nothing about partner's hand, but if I did I guess this is what it would mean.

Edit: I guess RKC for ♥ is useful when we have 8 solid hearts, but I'm not really sure when else it's useful, and I feel like the balanced 17 count comes up more often than the huge hand with hearts.

[gwnn]

aguahombre, on Aug 22 2010, 05:07 PM, said:

Over the years we have gained considerably when evaluating for NT level, by knowing that 17+14 =less than 33 --and defending against those who don't.

partner can have more than 14 hcp. I just tell him that I have 17ish hcp with 3-4-2-4 or 3-4-3-3 or so, and he can decide. my partner is one of the wise ones; he knows that 14 balanced will not usually suffice. thank you for your nice and slightly passive-aggressive reply.

[Siegmund]

With a solid unknown I'd assume RKC for spades.

But I am sorely tempted to say the best answer to "what is it?" is "the wrong bid." Wasting 3 levels of bidding space, oh my.

[P_Marlowe]

RKCB.

But if you have explicitly agreed to play it as quatititve, that would be
fine as well.

In the end it does not really matter, if you make this bid undiscussed, that
is your fault.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: Just read the previous reply, I agree - the answer is - "the wrong bid".

[jkdood]

I agree, 4NT is:

a space-consuming bid to avoid with no sure agreement.

[lmilne]

RKC for spades, and sometimes you don't need all that space... No need to crime responder just yet for asking for keycards!