[lamford]

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What do you bid? And is 3H forcing?

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

3H

3H should be forcing, it should be 15/16-18, and the neg. X usually showes more than 6/7,
i.e. you are in the 25+ zone.

Absent special agreements like 2NT Lebensohl style, which may make the 3H inv., although
in a classical Lebensohl seq. 3H would also be the strongest bid to bid a 1-suited hand.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Cyberyeti]

P_Marlowe, on 2024-October-24, 03:56, said:

Hi,

3H

3H should be forcing, it should be 15/16-18, and the neg. X usually showes more than 6/7,
i.e. you are in the 25+ zone.

Absent special agreements like 2NT Lebensohl style, which may make the 3H inv., although
in a classical Lebensohl seq. 3H would also be the strongest bid to bid a 1-suited hand.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Surely 3♣ then hearts is the strongest way to bid them

[mw64ahw]

You should end up in at least 4♥ with a potential slam on the cards if the X is of reasonable strength. I'll bid 3♣ as I know it won't be passed.

[mw64ahw]

Cyberyeti, on 2024-October-24, 06:06, said:

Surely 3♣ then hearts is the strongest way to bid them

Just beat me to it

[P_Marlowe]

Cyberyeti, on 2024-October-24, 06:06, said:

Surely 3♣ then hearts is the strongest way to bid them

Going via a cue is always messy, and there is not a lot of room
between 3C and 3H.
The cue asks for stopper, and after a 3NT bid bid by partner, if I
bid 4H I have lost a complete level.
I would reserve the cue seq. for cog seq., I know, that we want to play
hearts, I set hearts and see, what evolves.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mike777]

Agree 3C consumes too much space

3 ❤️ here

[jillybean]

mw64ahw, on 2024-October-24, 06:08, said:

Just beat me to it

Had my coffee now, I agree��

3H is encouraging, not forcing. Hopefully, partner has a pulse.

[mw64ahw]

I think 3♥ can be either forcing or not depending on agreement. I prefer the latter as this would represent an invitational hand. i.e 13-16 hcp ish so opposite a minimum 8hcp X, 3N may not be viable.
In this case we have a self-sustaining suit so you want to force to game regardless of a fit or not so I go via 3♣

[mike777]

Fwiw
If partner cannot bid over my jump to 3 ❤️ we are high enough

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

if I fear 3H is NF, which is a possible agreement, I will bid 4H.

Now, I usually (maybe make this always) bid IMP oriented,
and playing pairs 3H is probaly ok / may even be best,
if partner passes with 6/7 than I will be hard pressed to find a
hiding place for my 5 looser. But than I may already be down in 3H.

Did I already mention, that my MP results are lousy, to put
it mildly.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[lamford]

Thanks all. My partner and I differed in opinion on whether 3H was forcing, and when he bid 4H we missed a slam. 3C followed by 4H might have worked.

[mike777]

Since 3h set the trump suit
If pard had extras they could cue

[mikeh]

There’s a reason expert partnerships spend countless hours discussing sequences that rarely arise…to avoid guessing.

Here, 3H could plausibly be played as F or NF….so if one hasn’t discussed this…don’t bid it!

This hand isn’t stopping short of game so one bids either 4H (my choice) or 3C.

To me, 3C sounds like not just tricks but also hcp….which I don’t have. Meanwhile, 4H sounds like tricks but not a huge number of hcp. So for me, it’s trivial.

Actually, in my main partnership, 3H is forcing since we open 2H with a good 9 to a mediocre 13 and 6 hearts, so my jump rebid is forcing opposite a hand that committed us to the 2level opposite a minimum opening (we open virtually all 11 counts and some 10s) but that’s idiosyncratic so doesn’t play a role in my decision in a partnership in which we’ve no agreement.

[awm]

mikeh, on 2024-October-31, 13:16, said:

There’s a reason expert partnerships spend countless hours discussing sequences that rarely arise…to avoid guessing.

Here, 3H could plausibly be played as F or NF….so if one hasn’t discussed this…don’t bid it!

This hand isn’t stopping short of game so one bids either 4H (my choice) or 3C.

To me, 3C sounds like not just tricks but also hcp….which I don’t have. Meanwhile, 4H sounds like tricks but not a huge number of hcp. So for me, it’s trivial.

Actually, in my main partnership, 3H is forcing since we open 2H with a good 9 to a mediocre 13 and 6 hearts, so my jump rebid is forcing opposite a hand that committed us to the 2level opposite a minimum opening (we open virtually all 11 counts and some 10s) but that’s idiosyncratic so doesn’t play a role in my decision in a partnership in which we’ve no agreement.

A question for you, since we play 2M in much the same way you do.

AFAIK it’s common practice in some auctions like 1♠-(2♥)-Dbl for opener to rebid 2♠ on some 5(332) hands where no other call suits. However, given that the hand with 6♠ now has 14+ (weaker hands opening 2♠) there is a huge difference in playing strength between the 5332 minimum and the weakest six spade hand, such that bidding 2♠ on both is pretty bad. Do you have a solution to this problem (I can think of a few but none seemed particularly great to me)?

[mikeh]

Good question. I erred in my earlier post….certainly the jump rebid, after a negative double, wouldn’t be forcing, despite what I said. It’s actually maybe a little more nuanced for us than for most, because of our 1N structure. NV it’s 10-13 and 5 card majors are common….we won’t have a ‘good’ 13 and a major, but a soft 13 or any 10-12 is possible. Thus a 2M rebid, nv, will be a good 13+ But could be 5 or 6…if six, not a good hand.

We do have a flaw here but I think that common to all weak notrump methods that permit a 5 card major….what to do with the strong 1N hand?

One solution, which has its own flaws, is to require a good 8 or so hcp for the double, or equivalent playing strength (such as doubling after 1S (2m) with long enough hearts that one can play 3H after a 2N rebid by opener.

As it is, we do have to rebid 2S on uncomfortable hands. And, vul, it’s different…with 14-16 (not a prime 16) and 5332 we open 1N so our 2S rebid was won’t usually contain 14-16 with 5332. don’t ask what we do with AKJxx Kx Kx xxxx after 1S (2C) x, lol.

So we jump to 3S with a great 14 and 6 spades. And rebid 2S with 5332 out of notrump range as well as a 6 card suit judged too strong for 2S opening and not strong enough to jump to 3S.

Bridge is a game of compromises. Sometimes all one can do is to hope to guess well.