[awm]

Suppose you are playing 2/1 and your auction starts:

1♠ - 2♣ - 2♥

When responder has 3+♠, he can bid 2♠ next and you're in a very good position to look for slam. Opener can pattern out and you're still low enough to have space for control bidding and serious/non-serious before you get to 4♠. In fact this is so good that it might be worth bidding this way even on hands where you'd normally bid Jacoby 2NT or the like (since you get more/better information by starting the auction lower).

However, things are not nearly so good when responder has 4♥ (and fewer than three spades). If you proceed with the normal/natural 3♥ call, you've consumed a whole level compared to the auction where the fit is in spades. You still have a bit of space, but you're not going to be able to get both opener's shape and control bidding in before you get to 4♥.

In fact, it seems like you might do better to bid 2NT with a heart fit, expecting that most of the time opener will pattern out with 3m (or 3♥) and you can set the suit then and/or start control bidding. But this will occasionally get you in trouble, either because opener rebids 3♠/3NT (taking up a lot of space and muddying the waters as to the trump suit) or because opener decides that you cannot really have four hearts on this auction and are instead scrambling for a game.

Does anyone have good methods to suggest here, when our side's fit is in opener's second suit (or for that matter, responder's suit)?

[jillybean]

Did I misunderstand or do you mean we would do better using 2nt to show 4♥ gf?