Ah — I thought this was predominantly a question about what to teach people. Certainly, teach 10HCP to people who haven't got other ways to evaluate a hand.
However, there is also the principle of slow approach. If, say, you bid 1H and I bid 2D, I'd take 3NT as a fairly firm "oh, well, if you're not supporting hearts but have diamonds, I reckon we've got game in NT even though I don't have a balanced hand", but 2NT as "I have 15-19 HCP and a balanced hand — your move". Every hand that opens one of a suit inherently must have a subsequent available, whether that be a second suit, rebid of the original suit or no-trumps; if you open, I respond and you don't like my bid, I would expect you to make that bid.
So yes, in general, my 2-level response shows 10HCP. But, 1NT with a long suit appeals even less and we're not playing weak jump shifts, so … (-8
It's possible to have a lot of more nuanced and explicit bids available. I'm perfectly happy to have a conversation about what Matt's got me playing now, even if we did go down in 3NT when 4M would have been cold last night. Whoops.
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Date: 2013-07-04 01:38 pm (UTC)However, there is also the principle of slow approach. If, say, you bid 1H and I bid 2D, I'd take 3NT as a fairly firm "oh, well, if you're not supporting hearts but have diamonds, I reckon we've got game in NT even though I don't have a balanced hand", but 2NT as "I have 15-19 HCP and a balanced hand — your move". Every hand that opens one of a suit inherently must have a subsequent available, whether that be a second suit, rebid of the original suit or no-trumps; if you open, I respond and you don't like my bid, I would expect you to make that bid.
So yes, in general, my 2-level response shows 10HCP. But, 1NT with a long suit appeals even less and we're not playing weak jump shifts, so … (-8
It's possible to have a lot of more nuanced and explicit bids available. I'm perfectly happy to have a conversation about what Matt's got me playing now, even if we did go down in 3NT when 4M would have been cold last night. Whoops.