[mgoetze]

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Partner's 2♦ promised 5 diamonds and was game-forcing.

(1) What has partner shown? Can he still be minimum?

(2) If he can be minimum, what's your bid now?

[SteveMoe]

Usually play 2N shows 12-14 or 18+ Balanced. Partner rebids 3N with 15-17. No fast arrival in NT.
Here I trust partner and rebid 3N - confident that they must take one more bid if 18+.

[wank]

no fast arrival in no-trumps. but 2nt doesn't deny 15-17 - can't go jumping to 3nt without good stops in clubs. 4nt now lest partner be endplayed with 16 or 17.

[mikeh]

That diamond Queen is far too valuable to risk 3N, so 4N is has to be

[rmnka447]

Partner can still have anything from a minimum game forcing hand to a moose. The only things you know for sure at this point are that partner probably doesn't have 3 ♠s or 4 ♥s, else a raise would have been made.

3 NT by opener here would be basically a signoff with a minimum hand.

You do have 17 HCP and that lovely ♦ Q. So to show the extras, you need to find some other call. 4 NT seems to stand out. Opposite a minimum 12-14 GF you should have somewhere between 29-31 HCP total.

If partner has good ♦, say AK10xx, then the ♦ Q is a golden card. If partner doesn't have good ♦ cards, then partner almost assuredly has good ♣ cards. With something like ♠ Qx ♥ Qxx ♦ KJ10xx ♣ KJx, partner ought to make a forcing 1 NT call and bid 2 NT on the next round.

[nige1]

mgoetze, on 2015-July-26, 10:54, said:

Partner's 2♦ promised 5 diamonds and was game-forcing.
(1) What has partner shown? Can he still be minimum?
(2) If he can be minimum, what's your bid now?

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IMO partner's 2N rebid doesn't limit his hand. I rank

• 3♦ = NAT. In case partner has ♠ x x ♥ x x ♦ A K J x x x ♣ A x x or better. A ♦ slam may play better than a notrump slam.
• 4N = INV.
• 3N = NAT.

[helene_t]

wank, on 2015-July-26, 15:56, said:

no fast arrival in no-trumps. but 2nt doesn't deny 15-17 - can't go jumping to 3nt without good stops in clubs.

Maybe it is a better agreement to make a false preference bid of 2♠ with a 15-17 balanced hand that for some reason won't jump to 3nt. I think playing the 2nt rebid as 12-25 is problematic. You will need some artificial follow ups but if you want opener to be able to pattern out naturally after the 2nt bid there are not any bids left for showing strength artificially.

So I agree with Steve although I don't know what is standard.

[kuhchung]

I always rebid 3D here and lie about my shape when my honor structure looks like this. I don't know if that's crazy. It hasn't burned me yet, but I'm not sure it's helped yet either

[Mbodell]

kuhchung, on 2015-July-27, 18:30, said:

I always rebid 3D here and lie about my shape when my honor structure looks like this. I don't know if that's crazy. It hasn't burned me yet, but I'm not sure it's helped yet either

It seems practical, but some partner may play you for 5=4=3=1 or 5=4=4=0 and force to a diamond slam assuming that their Axxx of clubs is no losers opposite your stiff or void. But still, game before slam and avoiding losing the first 5 club tricks in 3nt might be worth while.

[kuhchung]

Mbodell, on 2015-July-28, 03:02, said:

It seems practical, but some partner may play you for 5=4=3=1 or 5=4=4=0 and force to a diamond slam assuming that their Axxx of clubs is no losers opposite your stiff or void. But still, game before slam and avoiding losing the first 5 club tricks in 3nt might be worth while.

I'm more afraid of partner driving slam with xxx in clubs. If he really has Axxx then I think we just have enough tricks*

*drawing from my VAST database of playing about 8 boards a week.

[mike777]

mgoetze, on 2015-July-26, 10:54, said:

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Partner's 2♦ promised 5 diamonds and was game-forcing.

(1) What has partner shown? Can he still be minimum?

(2) If he can be minimum, what's your bid now?

1) yes
2) I will try 3d now, responder will still play opener for far less than this.
3) will try 4nt over a 3nt rebid