[cencio]

opening 1 nt with 16 points, and having a reply by partner of 2 nt (8 points)
Are there some rules for stopping at 2 nt or going to 3?
Based on the characteristics of your hand

[harikannan]

Good intermediates, good 5 card suit, touching honours -- any of them, especially at IMPs.

[Huibertus]

cencio, on 2025-May-10, 04:52, said:

opening 1 nt with 16 points, and having a reply by partner of 2 nt (8 points)
Are there some rules for stopping at 2 nt or going to 3?
Based on the characteristics of your hand

First of all you need partnership agreement. Do you invite lightly and accept only with clear maximums, of do you pass 1NT more often and invite heavily accepting with any tiny plus you think you find in your hand. Personally I hate playing 2NT. It is only right when it makes exactly. Normally it's either too high or too low. Therefor I tend to always accept unless I had a questionable upgrade of a 14 count or a 15 count I might have downgraded but didn't.

Oh and yes, 5 cards are good, even when they don't have many honors. Aces are good (undervalued in HCP count, jacks are bad, overvalued in HCP count). Kings and queens are neutral but better when they have company. And consider how mean suits would beneficial to you if they get lead. (AQ, KJT, if you have these 3 times you're likely receiving a good lead. If you have KJ2 3 times the lead often is small to the ace of the partner of the player on lead, and small back for the J and Q and a third round clearing the suit for the opps. Or it goes small to the J and the suit is already cleared as right hand has an entry and left AQ.

Finally don't trust the outdated statement you need 24 HCP for 3NT, average declarer play has improved dramatically since this became the adagium in the early days of HCP count.

[DavidKok]

This topic has come up a few times in the past years. I don't have the links on hand but you might be able to find a lot of information if you search for this topic in older discussions.

My experience is that invites are often bad, but people use them anyway. This has a significant impact on the best style of accepting/rejecting. If my partner does something like Huibertus there's no real point inviting, just blast game and don't leak info.

[P_Marlowe]

cencio, on 2025-May-10, 04:52, said:

opening 1 nt with 16 points, and having a reply by partner of 2 nt (8 points)
Are there some rules for stopping at 2 nt or going to 3?
Based on the characteristics of your hand

#1 The invite showes 8/9
#2 The scoring matters, playing MP declining is more attractive, playing IMPs ... being green makes declining
more attractive
#3 The shape matters, 4333 is a reason to downgrade, some like to always subtract a point, if they are 4333
#4 A 5 card suit with honors is a source of tricks, an empty suit less so, lots of honors in short suit is bad,
lots of honors in long suit is good
#5 The amount of controls matters,if you have 2 Aces, 1 King or 1 Ace, 3 Kings, you have more or less the
expected value.
If you have more, the HCP undervalues your hand, if you have less the HCP undervalues your hand