Blue book 7C2 - 2NT opening
Hi all,
I am getting confused by the wording of this one which was changed on 1st August last year (quoted below). Would anyone be able to advise which of these 2NT openings are legal in an EBU level 4 event
Weak both minors 55+
Weak hearts and a minor 55+
Weak pre-empt in either minor
Weak majors or minors 55+
Weak pre-empt in any suit
7 C 2 2NT Opening
General – Permitted
• Any number of strong meanings
• Two non-strong meanings if both specify the same 5+ card suit; else a single non-strong
meaning
• A combination of the above
Non-Strong Permitted Meanings
These are the same as artificial 2 suit openings (excluding references to “suit opened”).
Refer to 7C1(b)(c)(d).
The definition of meaning from the Blue Book glossary
"Unbalanced meanings must specify the number of suits and contain
at most one unspecified suit"
Comments
When there are no strong options, the rule is similar to "there must be at least one specified suit" but slightly more restrictive (in that if you are combining multiple different hand types that all specify the same suit, the suit must be 5+ and you can't have more than two different options – but that requirement is unlikely to come up in practice and is primarily there to exclude things like "4 hearts and a minor").
So out of the examples you give above, "hearts and a minor 55+" is fine (this is a combination of "hearts and clubs" and "hearts and diamonds", with both options guaranteeing 5+ hearts), and the other four are all illegal due to not having an anchor suit. "Hearts and unspecified suit" would also be valid if the hearts were 5+, because this is considered a single hand type rather than three.
Many thanks.
Could it be argued that 2NT weak either minor qualifies as one meaning or is it treated as weak with clubs or weak with diamonds?
Also would both minors weak be allowed as there are two anchor suits?
Yes, I think both minors is ok because there's two specified suits.
But either minor not because the two meanings specify different suits. I think this is two meanings, single suited clubs or single suited diamonds. If we do treat this as one meaning than actually any single suiter would also be one meaning. The wording makes less sense with that interpretation I think.