[deftist]

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When North bids 1NT after my 1h, I thought the following might be true about him:

- His HCP is about 12-15
- He doesn't have 4+ spades or hearts, otherwise he would have bid 1s+ or 2h+
- He has 5 diamonds at most

With my 13 HCP and two stoppers, (I think) I would like to reach game. Question is, how?

a) Do I just bid 3NT with very weak spades?
b) Do I bid hearts again? Problem is I have too many HCP to bid 2h, and one too few heart to bid 3h.
c) Any other options? I can't bid a new suit, can I?

My hearts are mediocre and there is no guarantee that North will be able to support it, so I felt like bidding 3NT. But then again, he might have 3 hearts and I can find that out by bidding 2h or 3h (not sure).

Any comments and inputs are much appreciated! I won't be very surprised if I am missing something really simple here.

[manudude03]

Without agreements I think you just need to bid 3NT.

If this is a regular partnership, then you should consider talking about playing some kind of checkback or new minor forcing. Playing either of those, in this auction you could bid 2C to ask partner if they have 3 card support, or 4 spades (some will bypass spades to rebid 1NT). A common method here on the forums is XYZ (or two-way checkback) in which case your bid is 2D to ask about the majors.

[ggwhiz]

Without agreements a new suit by an unlimited responder is forcing for 1 round. To engineer a choice between 4♥ (partner can still have 3 of them) you can bid 2♣ and if partner bids anything but 2♥, 3nt it is. There are some confusing exceptions to the first sentence above but it's a decent starting point.

Knowing that partner has only a couple of hearts in a balanced hand before choosing 3nt makes it attractive with whatever partners spade holding is protected from the opening lead and if they should show a 5-card diamond suit over 2♣ you can often count on lots of (9?) winners as long as they can't take the first 5. They don't always do it even when they can, ie. they once in a while lead 4trh best from AKxxx in spades to partners Qx and if partner has Qxx it can be cold on the positional advantage.

[wank]

it should be 12-14 (if p has 15 balanced he'd open 1NT. if he's unbalanced he'd rebid a side suit, not NT. some very old books might say 1nt opener is 16-18. maybe you have one of those). as to whether partner denied 4 spades or not, that's a matter of style (a lot of people play that 1S by him would show an unbalanced hand). i'm not saying that you're wrong. it's just helpful to realise that there are other ways of bidding than whatever you read in your particular book, lest you get blinkered.

yes you would like to know if partner has 3 hearts or not. conventions have been created to help in this situation. in their absence, you can either jump to 3NT and ignore the 5th heart, or you can jump in a new suit (clubs here)to create a force and see if partner bids 3H. the danger of jumping in a manufactured suit is that partner might raise it and then you'll be in trouble. fwiw, an auction such as 1d-1h-1nt-3c-4c-4h should tell partner that you don't want to play in clubs even if he has only 2 hearts and 4 clubs. he should never jump to 5c over 3c, though a poor player will sometimes do so. though it's not obvious it's the answer here, it's useful to remember the option of jumping or reversing into a manufactured suit to create a force when you have a strong hand.

you're right that 3H would show 6, however it would be invitational. your hand is too good for an invitation. (13 opposite a minimum of 12 = 25+. you want to bid games with 25+).

[deftist]

Thanks for your replies, all.

I have a question about bidding clubs. What's the difference between rebidding 2♣ and 3♣ here? Do I understand it that I am forcing when I jump to 3♣ but not when rebidding just 2♣? Or is he not allowed to pass 2♣ either?

And if I am indeed interested in clubs (which I am not in this hand), what should I rebid over his 1NT?

[Stephen Tu]

 ggwhiz, on 2015-December-20, 16:52, said:

Without agreements a new suit by an unlimited responder is forcing for 1 round.

This is incorrect. Simple non-jump new suit by an unlimited responder is forcing without agreement in most situations, *but not after 1nt rebid*.
1♦-1♠-1nt-2♥ is almost universally played as non-forcing in natural systems, except a few players playing a transfer checkback scheme.

1♦-1♠-1nt-2♣ is also non-forcing, without agreements. This is why "new minor forcing" is the name of the convention. It's because "new minor non-forcing" is the standard agreement without the convention. Otherwise if "new minor forcing" were the standard without agreement, it would just be "standard", and not considered a convention with a box to tick off!

The thing is though something like 99.9% of intermediate+ duplicate players are going to play an artificial 2♣ there, so it's just super rare not to have an agreement.

[mgoetze]

 deftist, on 2015-December-20, 20:40, said:

Thanks for your replies, all.

I have a question about bidding clubs. What's the difference between rebidding 2♣ and 3♣ here? Do I understand it that I am forcing when I jump to 3♣ but not when rebidding just 2♣? Or is he not allowed to pass 2♣ either?

And if I am indeed interested in clubs (which I am not in this hand), what should I rebid over his 1NT?

I applaud the effort of the other forum members to answer your question without overwhelming you by detailing their favorite conventional treatment, but I do feel it is necessary to be honest by mentioning that practically noone who has played the game for longer than half a year plays 2♣ as a completely natural bid in this situation. As such, it is practically impossible to describe the standard nonconventional meanings of these bids, because there is no such standard.

[Stephen Tu]

 deftist, on 2015-December-20, 20:40, said:

Thanks for your replies, all.

I have a question about bidding clubs. What's the difference between rebidding 2♣ and 3♣ here? Do I understand it that I am forcing when I jump to 3♣ but not when rebidding just 2♣? Or is he not allowed to pass 2♣ either?

And if I am indeed interested in clubs (which I am not in this hand), what should I rebid over his 1NT?

1. Don't rebid 2♣ without an agreement with partner to be playing checkback stayman or new minor forcing or something else artificial and forcing. This is non-standard, it is not part of "SAYC" by default, for example. But nearly all decent players will do something artificial here, often both 2♣ and 2♦ are used as artificial. But it needs discussion.

2. With zero agreements, 2♣ is natural, weak, non-forcing. 3♣ is then presumably natural and forcing. But hardly anyone beyond beginner stage plays this anymore.

3. Meaning of a direct 3♣ depends on the entire structure, what 2♣ means, what 2♦ means, other stuff. Common possible meanings of 3clubs include:
- forcing, 5-5+ hearts/clubs
- non-forcing, invitational, 5-5+ hearts/clubs
- non-forcing, weak, to play, 4 hearts, 6+ clubs

Normally one makes an agreement and makes the direct 3♣ bid mean one of these, and bidding 2♣ followed by 3♣ mean something else, one way being forcing and the other way being non-forcing. Players playing "XYZ" or something similar even have a third method to get to clubs, bidding 1♦-1♥-1nt-2nt!, the 2nt being an artificial puppet to 3♣. If you play 2♦ as GF as in 2-way checkback or XYZ, you have yet another way to bid clubs, 2♦ followed by 3♣, which can pick up yet another meaning.

[wank]

 deftist, on 2015-December-20, 20:40, said:

Thanks for your replies, all.

I have a question about bidding clubs. What's the difference between rebidding 2♣ and 3♣ here? Do I understand it that I am forcing when I jump to 3♣ but not when rebidding just 2♣? Or is he not allowed to pass 2♣ either?

And if I am indeed interested in clubs (which I am not in this hand), what should I rebid over his 1NT?

traditionally, i.e. a very long time ago, 2c was natural and weak, normally with only 4 hearts. tournament players will though, as mgoetze says, play 2C as being forcing. for some such tournament players it will be totally artificial (a convention called checkback, of which serveral variants exist), and for others it will be semi-natural (new minor forcing). in both cases, it's normally geared towards finding out about opener's majors (4 cards in the unbid major if that's your style or 3 cards in responder's bid major).

traditional methods are still played in specific situations - often in individual tournaments and at rubber [money bridge with a cut for partners].

assuming 2c is forcing. 3C is normally played as game forcing, normally interested in slam, with 5+ of the major and 4+ of the minor. it may be something more specific depending which hands you put into the forcing 2 club bid.

[deftist]

 Stephen Tu, on 2015-December-20, 21:07, said:

2. With zero agreements, 2♣ is natural, weak, non-forcing. 3♣ is then presumably natural and forcing. But hardly anyone beyond beginner stage plays this anymore.

Why is 3♣ being hardly played? Is it due to the risk that partner raises our ♣ incorrectly? Or just because we can agree to use 2-level bids for the same purpose and keep the bidding low when we are not forcing to game?

[wank]

 deftist, on 2015-December-20, 23:18, said:

Why is 3♣ being hardly played? Is it due to the risk that partner raises our ♣ incorrectly? Or just because we can agree to use 2-level bids for the same purpose and keep the bidding low when we are not forcing to game?

yes, so 3 clubs is normally reserved for something more specific. exactly what that is depends which version of a forcing 2 club bid you're playing. for example, i play that it shows 5-5 and strong.

as you play more in a natural base, you'll come to many situations like this where you think 'i wish there was an artifical method to show this hand type'. of course normally there is one available, but you lose something by employing it. by employing 2c as artificial, you lose the ability to bid 2C to play on weak hands, e.g. xx qxxx xx kjt9x. in reality, it's pretty much universally accepted that this is a trade worth making. other such conventions are not universally accepted as being worth the loss of whatever natural meaning, plus they have less tangible effects, such as increasing your memory load (when 1 member of a partnership forgets a convention the results can be spectacularly bad).

if partner had opened 1 club, there would be more variation in how people play. in america, 2 diamonds would be a popular choice (new minor forcing), leaving 2C as natural, to play, as it's opener's suit. in europe i never saw anyone playing that way. it's normal here to keep 2C as the enquiring bid (or to use both 2c and 2d as enquiries. anyway, there are lots of variations with different levels of complexity).

i don't play with robots, but i think they employ some version of the enquiry to check for the major fit.

[deftist]

That makes a lot of sense wank, thanks for your explanation.

[billw55]

 mgoetze, on 2015-December-20, 21:02, said:

I do feel it is necessary to be honest by mentioning that practically noone who has played the game for longer than half a year plays should play 2♣ as a completely natural bid in this situation.

fixed

[gwnn]

I hope the "this is the NB forum!!" brigade will not kill me, but 2-way checkback has a neat way of describing this kind of hand:

1♦-1♥
1NT-2♣*
2♦*-3NT

Where 2♣ forces 2♦, either as a signoff in 2♦ or (usually) an invitational hand. However, when responder jumps to 3NT after 2♣, they show a 5332 hand with playability in 3NT or 4H both.

I don't really know whether 2-way checkback is more difficult to play than 1-way. It's a big mess anyway, since:

1♣-1M
1NT-2♣
is played by some people as "checkback stayman" even though 2♣ is not a new minor. So if you play with a random partner without any discussion, you can be pretty confident that they will take

1♦-1M
1NT-2♣
as checkback, will have an educated guess they will take
1♦-1M
1NT-2♦
as a signoff, but you will have no good way of knowing what they mean by:
1♣-1M
1NT-2♣ or 2♦.

Well, this is just my general experience. Best is to have someone to play with semi-regularly and have an agreement! But if you do have an agreement, you might as well go for the 2-way solution rather than the 1-way. The advantage of 2-way is that you can set up a game force very early (using 2♦) and can limit your strength to strictly invitational (using 2♣) so you don't need to worry about partner passing you in a partscore when you have a combined 30 count. For example, what is

1♦-1M
1NT-2♣
2M-3M?

In "standard" new minor forcing, 3M is forcing and looks for slam (say, 17-18 points or compensating distribution), but I would never dare to bid this way because it really looks like an invite! It's much easier to understand that 2♣ then partscore bid is always an invite, 2♦ is always a game force.

Well ok, now I probably do deserve to be castigated for complicated posts in the NB forum.

[lycier]

Here is novice and beginner forum,as a beginner,you would better learn the knowledge about "New Minor Forcing".
It should say that "New Minor Forcing" is a great milestone in the bridge history, I can say No NMF(new minor forcing for short),No modern bridge !
If you don't study NMF,you will be impossible to understand modern bidding system.
NMF is the most important basic content of the modern bridge.

[ggwhiz]

 deftist, on 2015-December-20, 20:40, said:

I have a question about bidding clubs. What's the difference between rebidding 2♣ and 3♣ here?

Stephen Tu was correct about 2♣ being natural and weak. I'm too far removed to remember starting out.

The important principle you are touching on is the difference between bids that tell and those that ask. After a 1nt opener, a 2♣ response asks opener if they have a 4-card major (stayman) and it was so effective that many or most expanded it in your example auction to ask for either 4-cards in an unbid major or 3 in the one I already responded in.

New minor forcing is a twist in which an auction of 1♣ - 1♥ - 1nt - 2♦ would ask this question rather than 2♣, sort of where my brain cramp came from about 2♣ being forcing in your auction.

The late great Edgar Kaplan once wrote: Nobody can bid clubs to show clubs anymore. We lost the club suit in the 50's and diamonds are sinking fast.

These asking bids are by prior agreement and there are quite a handful. If you mouse over a BBO username you will usually see a number of the more common ones in shorthand such as NMF (new minor forcing), fsf (fourth suit forcing) etc. Don't be in a hurry to overdose on them.

A jump to 3♣ would fit into the general category of a telling bid, a real suit in a good hand.