[jillybean]

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your bid? "Standard methods" , the only forcing bid here is 2♠,3♣

[mike777]

I guess my options are:
2nt
3d
3nt

I will try 3nt but....

[mgoetze]

If your partner opens all 11s NV, like I do, then 2NT could work out quite well here - we don't necessarily have a game and partner could still offer 3 hearts en passant.

[jillybean]

Partner opens only good 11 ccounts.

[TylerE]

3unt

[1eyedjack]

You bid 3C, right? Not unreasonable, I think. If partner has nothing in Spades then a 5-2 H fit may yet be right.

[the hog]

2S to stop 3NT being wrongsided and also to see if pd does happen to have 3H.

[mcphee]

I do not see the problem, I force to game we will play in 3N 4H or 5D.

[MrAce]

jillybean, on 2014-October-15, 23:59, said:

Partner opens only good 11 ccounts.

Even if he opens all 10 counts you have to go for game with this. Even if you count this hand 13 hcp, which would be a huge evaluation disability, you should still go for game. And yes this is for MP, at IMPs even thinking of just inviting is as bad as actually doing it imho.

[trevahound]

3♣, right? Is there a trick? I promise I open worse than your partner does and I'm still shooting it out with somewhere.

Put another way; you have to choose right now (magically): safe level? or right strain? If it's "safe level", then we play different games.

[akwoo]

3♣ should be artificial in this sequence and considered as part of extended new minor forcing.

So 3♣ it is.

[helene_t]

Imo 2s should be the artificial force. It is cheaper, and we are less likely to have a spade fit

[MrAce]

How about both of them being the artificial forcing suit and we use them flexible and conveniently depending on our hand, sometimes to right side the 3 NT and sometimes to keep the auction economic if our intention is to go beyond 3 NT or for whatever reason we choose one over the other?

[PhilKing]

If you want an even simpler solution, you can play that in any sequence where opener has promised a six card or longer suit, 2NT is forcing.

If partscore is the limit, it is very unlikely that 2NT is your best spot.

JB needs more gadgets imo.

[whereagles]

This is a situation where standard methods have moderate difficulties.

The usual way to sort it out is make a forcing bid in fake a suit (which we know pard will never support). Both 2♠ and 3♣ serve the purpose. Spades keeps bidding lower, clubs is a lesser distortion. I think I would go with clubs.

HOWEVER... if you decide the hand is not worth a game force (I personally think it is), then it becomes easy: just bid 3♦. If pard accepts the invite, he'll bid 3♥ with 3 cards there and you recapture the heart game.

[ahydra]

2S is good here if you agree it may not be 4 cards. Otherwise 3C. If partner doesn't show us heart support we go for 3NT.

ahydra

[kgr]

2♠
Allows partner to show 3c♥ and maybe opps will not lead killing ♠ if we play 3NT (I will force to game, what 2♠ already did in fact).

[gszes]

I am unclear what we are trying to accomplish with this question.
If the question is game or no game I choose game (or slam) with the
only problems being what strain and how high. There are probably a
(relative) thimble full of hands where stopping short of game is right
so let us ignore those and try to figure out where to play this hand.

Of all the possible hands p might have our best chance at making slam
is if p is short in clubs because that requires the least overall in the
way of assets. xxx Axx AKxxxx x. I say this because if we were to choose
3c as our next bid it would go a long way to making sure we avoid slam.
It might also lead us astray into 3n when 5 or 6d might be right instead.

2S

On the other hand not only keeps the bidding lower (not by much) but leaves
open the chances of slam depending on how the bidding proceeds. The one big
major benefit of 2s over 3c may easily be the ability to show doubt about
NT. Over 2s if p bids 2n it is easy for us to now bid 3d to show some doubt
about spade "stuff" by bidding 3d. This in turn might find p making bids such
as 3h or finding our way to 6d if p happens to be short in spades with some
extra values.

[jillybean]

---

I'm North here and I'm thinking slam, not game. After I heard 3N, I pushed to slam, UNfortunately the wrong slam which was entirely my fault.

Partner and I had a good discussion about this hand afterwards, I thought the 3N bid makes it very difficult for me and if he is going to
game, why not temporize with 3♣ and hear what more I have to say.

[helene_t]

I would have passed 3NT. Your hand is quit tightly defined by the 2♦ bid so partner must know what he is doing.

Partner's 3NT bid is premature, though. He can always bid a black suit, fishing for heart support. It will still be difficult to bid this slam, though. Maybe you would bid 4♦ after South's 2♠ or 3♣ bid. I think South would just bid 5♦ then.