Serious 3NT Serious 3NT Serious 3NT is a contract bridge bidding convention. It is used in game-forcing auctions where a major suit has been agreed upon. 1–2 if using 2/1 Game Forcing or 2–3 (Agreeing spades) The next bid indicates suitability for slam: Since Spades are the agreed trump suit, Three No Trump is not usually the best contract. Using Serious Three No Trump, a bid of Three No Trump says "I am Serious about slam", i.e. "I have a good hand". Bypassing bidding Three No Trump says "I am not Serious about Slam". Examples shown in the above auction. If one
Auction theory than any other bidder (or equivalently a special bidding fee of $X – Δ). This bidder will still win the lot, but will pay more than would otherwise be the case. The winner's curse is a phenomenon which can occur in "common value" settings—when the actual values to the different bidders are unknown but correlated, and the bidders make bidding decisions based on estimated values. In such cases, the winner will tend to be the bidder with the highest estimate, but the results of the auction will show that the remaining bidders' estimates of the item's value are less than