[jillybean]

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Does anyone play this where 2nt shows either a balanced minimum or 18-19?
If so, please could you explain your follow ups with strong hands. Thx.

[Gerardo]

Usually 2NT : 3NT : 4NT
But any bid over 3NT would do.

Over a different bid, usually jump to 4NT (quant).
If a fit is discovered, start control bids instead.

[P_Marlowe]

The 2/1 bidder will assume a min opener, but opener will act with the max. opener
over a possible sign of by the 2/1 bidder.

[jillybean]

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[P_Marlowe]

Pass.

This is a quantitative auction.
You have 13, p has 18-19, this makes 31-32 combined, you target 6NT with a combined 33HCP.
Is it possible, that you miss a making slam, sure, that is live.

[pescetom]

I'm less pessimistic than P_Marlowe here, I would have gone for it at IMPS.
The known 5-2 honoured fit improves the odds.
I would expect a good partner to have bid 4♣ rather than 4NT with ♣Axx, so am less concerned about diamonds.

[pescetom]

 jillybean, on 2026-September-30, 09:46, said:

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Is 5♣ Gerber here?

[mw64ahw]

pescetom, on 2026-September-30, 11:17, said:

Is 5♣ Gerber here?

I've seen responses to 4N Quantitative as per Blackwood

[apollo1201]

 jillybean, on 2026-September-30, 06:55, said:

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Does anyone play this where 2nt shows either a balanced minimum or 18-19?
If so, please could you explain your follow ups with strong hands. Thx.

Played an almost similar in a non-2/1 context so it was 15-17 (you risked a sentence to prison opening 1NT with a 5-cd M) or 18-19. Starting a GF as responder has 11 at least.
Over the 3NT you bid 4NT with a doubleton C, 4C with 4 (5422 hand, rare) and start a cue bid with 3.
If partner does not rebid 3NT you can layer make further noise.
It happened only once at that time! For a tie in 6NT lol

[mikeh]

pescetom, on 2026-September-30, 11:04, said:

I'm less pessimistic than P_Marlowe here, I would have gone for it at IMPS.
The known 5-2 honoured fit improves the odds.
I would expect a good partner to have bid 4♣ rather than 4NT with ♣Axx, so am less concerned about diamonds.

The imp odds for slam bidding are precisely the same as at mps. In both cases, you want to bid slams that have a greater than 50% chance of making, avoid slams that are at all less than 50% and don’t care one way or the other if the slam is exactly 50%.

So it makes little sense, to me, to assert that you’d bid on at imps and pass at mps.

On the actual hand, we just don’t know enough to assess probabilities. In our partnership style, do we think we have any extras for our 2/1 gf? If yes, move. If no, pass.

I love my club Jack and the spade queen is a great card but partner did not open 2N, as he might with a great 5332 19 count and the rest of my hand is minimum.

So I’d pass, but I wouldn’t criticize bidding. It’s close but I think I need just a tad more.

Oh, and I’d never respond as if to keycard here. I don’t want to give LHO a chance to double for the lead nor not to double, allowing RHO to draw an inference. Neither is likely to be costly but, even so, I’m not giving them a chance. Looking at my hand, it’s highly likely that opener has at least 3 aces.plus, if I’m bidding, it’s because of cards that a keycard response doesn’t reflect. But I’m passing. It helps that in my partnerships we open all 11 counts (and some 10s) so I’m truly minimum for a gf response.