[awm]

For those who play 1♠-Pass-3♥ as natural and invitational, does anyone have specialized methods to look for slam?

Recently partner and I had this start and I held:

♠KJT9xx ♥Axx ♦Ax ♣Ax

Obviously slam can be cold opposite the right hand (even a grand opposite six good hearts and the spade ace)... but if I bid RKC and partner has the fairly likely "one with the queen" we could be cold for six or going down in five!

At the table I chose to sign off in game (and was lucky when partner had ♠- ♥KQJxxx ♦QTxx ♣Qxx); any suggestions?

[ahydra]

Are 4C/4D cue for hearts? Then 4C-4H-p.

ahydra

[FrancesHinden]

We play

3S natural and forcing
3NT contract suggestion
4m cue for hearts

with a big 2-suiter you start with 3S then bid your minor next (if partner bids 3NT); partner's 4m over 3S is a cue for spades

So in this hand, yes, 1S - 3H - 4C - 4H - P

[PhilKing]

Best is:

3♠ = forcing (consistent with any distributional non-fitting hand - even a 6-6)
4♣/♦ = cues for hearts

A few other schemes have been suggested, but they were mostly Heath-Robinson gadgets aimed at dealing (badly) with a one-off situation.

[Zelandakh]

This is fast becoming a regular topic here. See here and here. The 2 obvious approaches are for 4m rebids to be cues for hearts or to use transfers rebids, with 4♦ then being a generic slam try with hearts agreed.

[awm]

The following seems like a slight improvement to me:

3♠ = forcing one round, not fitting hearts, not necessarily more than five spades
.... usually responder bids 3NT, after which opener can pass (usually) or bid 4m natural and forcing (true two-suiter) or bid 4♠ (slammish)
3N = choice of games with 6♠ and less than two hearts
4m = cue for hearts
4♥ = to play
4♠ = to play

My concern is that if opener has a hand like ♠AKxxx ♥x ♦AKQxx ♣xx, both 3NT (clubs wide open) and 4♥ seem undesirable. But if 3♠ normally promises six, partner will raise me to 4♠ on a small doubleton and we will often still be in the wrong contract. Having a 3♠ bid that doesn't promise six seems to solve this problem, leaving only the issue of a choice of games hand like ♠KQTxxx ♥x ♦Axx ♣KQx.