[epeeist]

Thanks for all the feedback.

Though I would tend to agree with steve's rule referred to by inquiry in respect of always (except when over NT bid by partner) treating 4NT as blackwood, all absolute rules admit of exception (or should that be, almost all absolute rules admit of exception? ).

In this case I thought -- rightly or wrongly -- that given 3NT had been a signoff bid (that's what I thought, anyway), we were unlikely to have slam (based on my own hand). And if as some suggest here my 4♦ bid had suggested slam interest to partner, then I had made a mistake from which the best recovery was to pass 4NT.

[pclayton]

I'm not sure that 4D should be slammish. Are you required to pass 3N on a hand like: Ax, KQxxx, Qxxxxx, void?

Notwithstanding that, 4N is still a signoff.Pard is advertising some sort of AKx, xx, Kxx, KTxxx although the universe of these hands is small, since pard can't find a penalty pass of 2C, a diamond raise, or a delayed heart preference. Still I'd rather not change the sensible meaning of 4N in these auctions.

[flytoox]

pclayton, on Jul 9 2005, 08:45 PM, said:

I'm not sure that 4D should be slammish. Are you required to pass 3N on a hand like: Ax, KQxxx, Qxxxxx, void?

Notwithstanding that, 4N is still a signoff.Pard is advertising some sort of AKx, xx, Kxx, KTxxx although the universe of these hands is small, since pard can't find a penalty pass of 2C, a diamond raise, or a delayed heart preference. Still I'd rather not change the sensible meaning of 4N in these auctions.

I think 4D has to show slam interest. Pd says he wants to play 3N. Without very clear reason you really should not bid over 3N.

[Free]

I'm with Ben. In an individual, any 4NT bid is blackwood since many players don't even know other meanings of the bid!

There are 2 ways to signoff imo:
- 4NT = signoff and 4♠ is cue
- 4NT = blackwood and 4♠ is signoff (can't be natural anyway)

But in indi's, don't make it too difficult, just interpret 4NT as blackwood since 95% of the time it's meant that way. It's a generally known convention which gets abused even more in individual tourneys, just accept this fact...