[mike777]

This is a new one for me.

Auction goes 1H-2NT
2NT is gf in hearts, asks do you have minimum or nonmininum values?

Would you require opener, baring some extreme shape, to have at least two Keycards out of the five to show a nonmininum?

[jillybean]

15+ is what I consider as extras
Not KJxxx AJx QJx QJ

[mikeh]

We don’t have those sorts of rules in any partnership,in which we’ve discussed J2N. However, as a thought experiment, it’s difficult to construct many hands in which opener would want to show extras and not have two keycards…whereas it’s trivial to construct minimums with as many as three. Difficult but hardly impossible.

AQJxx KQxx Kx xx is a good hand opposite a 2N bid and having some rule that said I had to deny extras is absurd. And of course I could have even more hcp and still lack a second keycard. AQJxx KQJ KQ KQ to give an absurd illustration..yes, that might not be a 1S bid, but I hope you get my point.

I do appreciate that people come up with simple sounding rules. Indeed, some leading expert/teachers promote such rules. I don’t know any expert who, in discussing difficult hands, ever…and I mean ever…refers to any such rules. Reduce bidding to simple rules and you have created a ceiling for how good you can become…at least until you realize that bridge is way too complex and subtle for such restrictions.

FWIW, I’ve discussed bridge hands with world champions and multiple national title winners. Nobody ever refers to the Rule of 20, or losing trick count, modified or otherwise. They discuss concepts such as ‘hard values’ or ‘soft values’, ‘working cards’, whether in the context of the auction they liked or didn’t like their hand. Sometimes one ends up liking a hand with only 1 hcp. Other times one ends up disliking a hand with 16 or more hcp. What none of the ‘rules’ most players use lack is any way of catering to context…iow, the auction. What good players do is listen to the auction…really LISTEN to it….and constantly re-evaluate in that context. /rant.

Most hands that want to show extras will have 2+ keycards but please don’t turn that into a soul destroying rule. Bridge, as played by the majority of players, has too many such rules.