seems like you shouldnt make 4H if 1NT makes

Much appreciated, thanks guys.

1N makes with 1 diamond, 1 spade and 5 clubs
and it could theoretically make more with aq of spades offside or a bad guess by hand with KJ tight

4H loses 1 dime, 1 heart, and 1 spade

I played with my partner that (1NT)-2NT principally showed minors, but would occasionally show a freak M+m. Not sure if this hand qualifies though.

Partner and I were recently discussing the best type of game tries to use after x-1S-2S auctions. Our primary concern was dealing with the 3-card raises.

Soon after I read a system that I think handles it very well (from Boye Brogeland)

1H - 1S
2S - 2N

3C - 3 spades, 5 hearts, 1 diamond 4 clubs
3D - 3 spades, 5 hearts, 4 diamonds, 1 club
3H - 3532 or 3523, minimum
3S - 4522 minimum
3N - 3532 or 3523 maximum
4C - 4531 (club shortness)
4D - 4513 (diamond shortness)
4S - 4522 maximum



While I am interested in adopting it, my primary concern is that no notes were provided for 1m-1H-2H auctions (presumably a lot of the game tries would continue with 2s)

Does anyone know any good resources on the subject?

I played something very similar, except that we would never bid 1H-1S-2S with a 4m (imo better to bid your second suit and later support spades, conveying your entire distribution) and the first two bids would not show a singleton, but a useless doubleton

In other auctions, you can have singletons, e.g. 1C-1S-2S

I'd suggest that it's probably "better" to still raise spades in the first auction with, say, a 3514 12 count; traditionally, bidding the minor then supporting spades (say after 1H-1S; 2C-2H; 2S) would show extras. Though I suppose you can say you'd just pass 2H with no extras. So, meh.

1m 1M 2M is a different beast than 1H 1S 2S because 1H already promised 5. You should have a different system for 1m 1M 2M than you have for 1H 1S 2S.

yea i realized that, i wanted to work on the 1m-1h-2h-.. game tries first because that seemed the most complicated

i'm sure i can hash something out over the minors without too much trouble

Sometimes when you bid 1H-1S-2m you will end up in the 5-2 fit when you have a 5-3 fit. But sometimes you will end up in the 5-2 when spades is 4-3 fit. usually a 5-2 fit plays better than 4-3.

When you are going to play game or have potential slam values, providing accurate information about your shape can be paramount.

A very simple thing that a lot of people play is 1st step asks then the steps are 3/min 3/max 4/min 4/max.

If you want to add in the higher bids then a new suit over 3M is a splinter, 4 of your minor is some big 5422 concentrated max and 3N is 4333 max.

What's the standard meaning of in the auction 1-(3)-5?

I think standard here is "bid slam with a spade control"

another common usage is bid the slam with good trump quality (responder is showing a big hand but lacks top trump honors)

In this spot: this is the correct answer imo

I think in some spots a jump to 5H asks for trumps while in another spot it can show exactly that: good trumps.

For example:

2H (weak two)-5H

This clearly asks for good trumps (doesn't seem like a good bid, but OK)

2H (Semiforcing)-3H
3S-5H
This shows a hand without controls but good trumps.

Asks for spade control.

I agree with what everyone has said, for the most part (I'd take standard there as "asks for a spade control also", but:

On the specific auction 2H-5H that Gabe gave, I would assume that bid to mean "well, my LHO is about to bid something with his 22 count, and I'm going to want to bid 5H over that, so I may as well stick it up his ass now instead". And, given that we have stuff like RKC and a billion cuebids available, I'm pretty sure that's the "right" meaning as well.

In fact, given that we have RKC and such available, I wonder how many of these "do you have good trumps?" bids are necessary any more. (My partner and I have the weird, somewhat inferior, but easy to remember agreement that once we've started cuebidding we don't have RKC available any more, so it's still useful for us in that sense.)

the 'do you have good trumps' as a grand slam force type bid denies ops space and cues bids to double to find good leads and sacrifices

i also think 2H - 5H is preemptive.

I didn't understand the second half of gabe's post. Semiforcing meaning what? Are the opps silent in this auction?

OK, that 2H-5H was a bad example. I agree it is non constructive.

2H semiforcing is the 2H opening with 8 tricks, advocated by the old ACOL

Well I don't know what bids mean after an ACOL 2 bid, but surely either 3NT or some sort of last train bid would be better than 5H

I guess the point to take away is "don't jump to 5 of our suit"

^^

You have

AKxx
QJx
xx
xxxx

And it goes:
1S-2NT (limit in spades)
4C (splinter) - Now what?

If you don't have many agreements with this partner (like last train or showing voids after 4NT), you are stuck here, except that 5S describes your hand pretty accurately. I have no controls, but I do have AKs.

For a free five in a major to be a trump ask, either the opponents can't have bid a suit (else it'd be an ask in that suit, as with myrm's original question) or, maybe, they have to have bid two suits. Also, in the modern game preempts take precedence when jumping in our suit, so that has to be impossible, or almost impossible, in context. So, for example, something like 1S (2NT) – 5S might show a hand with terrible spades and control of everything else — maybe xxxx AKQxxx Axx —? Again, seems like a bad bid (as it gives up on the grand; maybe change it to Qxxx AKQxxx Kxx —, and now it's riskier but makes some sense). There has to be some reason we can't just ask for key cards, and a void plus the likelihood of competition can add up to that.

The problem here is that partner, with whom you have few agreements, may not know whether you're showing him the spade AK, or asking him for it. His hand may answer that question, but it may not. (Granted, it usually will.) And tbh I'm not sure which I like more on this one, though I suppose my preference is "one or the other, and partner probably can work it out".

With a limit hand bidding 5S asking for good trumps is impossible in this spot. With such a hand you have cuebids and 4NT as possibilities. The fact that you make such an uneconomical bid means you have a strong message to convey - a very narrow range of hands.

Also it is 100% sure he can see in his hand what 5S means. For his slam interest he must have the side suits controlled and only be worried about trumps, where does that splinter come from, if not.