aces after minor fit

[fromageGB]

I've never played minorwood, but I see no technical advantage in it.  There is a simplicity advantage in that the partnership playing kickback must be certain of its agreements as to what is ace asking and what is not, whereas minorwood needs no discussion.

 

Kickback has the great advantage that it applies to all suits, so that, for example, whatever the response you can find out about the trump queen and stop at the 5 level.

 

Kickback also has the advantage that sometimes you don't find the fit until you are at the 4 level, and then minorwood is too late.

[CSGibson]

I play minorwood, I think it gives up very little and gains a bunch. Mind you, using minorwood does not prohibit you from playing cue-bid style minor suit auctions like Mikeh has found success with, but I've found that since I've added minorwood to my bidding repetoire I'm getting to many more good mior suit slams than I have before, simply because I have a way to check on suit quality in the minor suit. Having a quantitative 4N over a natural minor suit bid is also useful.

 

As far as kick-back vs minorwood, I think that having the extra step below 5 of your minor is useful in a RKC auction, and that using a bid other than 4 of the minor as key card inhibits your cue-bidding auctions (when key card is not available).

 

I don't claim that the methods are best for everyone, but I've found minorwood to be very valuable.

[mike777]

thanks all for the replys.

What are the (dis)advantages of kickback vs minorwood?

1) I am biased towards kickback and I think the only disadvantage is that is can be confusing in fact, it is a very complicated convention, per my previous post. You must discuss and practice it. You must discuss what 4nt means, and when you bid naturally two touching suits what is rkc.

2) Too many times I want to bid 4 of my minor as natural and slam invite, waiting, not as rkc.

3) The only advantage perhaps minorwood may have it that it is less confusing?

4) bias alert, per other posts I am one of those in the camp that uses rkc very often, much more than MikeH or Frances I bet.

[han]

If you play that 4C is always gerber you never have a disagreement, with or without screens.

[kenrexford]

Whereas it seems rather obvious that you do not "need" Ace-asking to pursue slams, I doubt that few would characterize RKCB as a useless convention.

 

The specific question for the focal sequence is not whether you want to cue or want to use RKCB but rather precisely what you gain in exchange for what you forfeit for each option and which maximizes yield.

 

If 4♥ is a cue, the partnership has four available cues (and four available non-cues) between 4♦ and 5♦, namely 4♥, 4♠, 4NT, and 5♣. If 4♥ is RKCB, then the partnership has three available cues between 4♦ and 5♦. This part, I'll assume, if rather obvious.

 

If 4♥ is RKCB, then 4NT is a cue for hearts. That part is probably not so obvious.

 

So, let's compare cuebidding the two ways with various starts.

 

If 4♥=RKCB, the first possible cue is 4♠. If A cues 4♠, B can cue 4NT to show hearts or 5♣ to deny hearts, each time with interest. If the latter, the implicit message is "interest without a heart control." If the former, partner can bid 5♣, LTTC (or whatever you want to call it) suggesting a need for a club control.

 

If 4♥=CUE, then 4♥ is the cheapest cue. If A cues 4♥, partner can cue 4♠ to show a spade control or could bypass 4♠ to deny a spade control, in the latter even either showing or denying a club control as well (4NT or 5♣). If A cues 4♥ and B cues 4♠, A can either cue 4NT without a club control or 5♣ with a club control.

 

Thus, the difference so far, after a lowest-possible-cue-start, is that if 4♥=RKCB, the partnership loses the ability to have B show slam interest with no additional controls (unlikely to be of any value) and loses the ability to have the person initiating cues show slam interest with a heart and club control but not enough additional information to commit (could reasonably be expected to have value).

 

How about after the first cue is skipped?

 

If 4♥=RKCB, 4NT shows a heart control but denies a spade control. 5♣ would carry the spade control but imply the need for a club control.

 

If 4♥=CUE, 4♠ shows a spade control but denies a heart control. If A cues 4♠, both 4NT and 5♣ would show a heart control, 4NT denying the club control.

 

Thus, using 4♥=RKCB, the partnership also loses the ability to show the missing spade control and the club control but insufficient information to commit.

 

How about if the first two cues are skipped?

 

If 4♥=RKCB, 5♣ shows a club control but denies any major control

 

If 4♥=cue, 4NT shows no controls but slam interest (inconceivable -- probably better to have a specific tool tossed in here -- a convention of some type) and 5♣ shows the same thing as for the other method.

 

By this analysis, then, which is much more complicated if some 4M call could be an offer to play, it appears that using 4♥=RKCB allows the partnership to use RKCB at the cost of some space for possible conventional treatments and for some quantitative hedging. Both handle avoidance of 6♦ off because of a quick A-K cashed on the outside.

 

My gut tells me that if 4NT could be a viable contract, or if some 4M call could be an offer to play, then 4♥=RKCB may also suffer from an occasional (rare?) loss of ability to avoid A-K cashing in the internal major alternative suit. If 4NT and some 4M could be an offer to play, then 4♥=RKCB really suffers in possible A-K cashing scenarios and becomes very LTTC-oriented.

[Impact]

late to this but:-

 

1) the biggest advantage of any A -asking method (including Kickback) is to check that you are not missing too many A/KC - it is a last check having established that you have the values for slam already...subject to possibly missing 2 off the top (and indubitably useful for the equivalent reasons in bidding grandslams)

 

2) Accordingly even the most refined such methods are blunt instruments and serve little to identify the quantification process for slam

 

3) retaining the option of "checking" is useful but not crucial

 

4) my rule in any longer partnership is that once we have commenced cue-bidding we continue to cue-bid and hence any so-called "checkbid" has a different meaning, be it cue-bid, turbo, DI or in American "LTTC" but we do not designate a bid as LTTC rather typically 4NT is extra unexpressed values on the way (assuming no suit has been left shown uncontrolled).

 

5) using the same idea (and say particularly after a pre-empt and natural minor bid) we can use non-jumps to 4NT to say "my hand either holds lots of first round controls or VERY strong trumps - I am looking for the other...)

 

I agree with mikeh & Frances that although I have Keycard asks available in most auctions, if I was to be deprived of ever having such "checks" it might give me less ability to bid grandslams with certainty but I would not feel any great loss in my ability to bid small slams.

 

Further, I have long held the opinion that if such bids were removed altogether (or at least for a few years) more players would learn to bid better instead of relying on a deficient crutch which does not encourage judgement - adn (per first point) is aimed as a checkback only..

 

regards,

[benlessard]

Im more a believer into keycards and spiral scan then into controls. So whenever a raise is natural and GF forcing its keycards (unless 3Nt is still in the picture).

 

1S----2H gf

3H (keycard).

 

Any minor raise at 4D,4C are keycards unless they are competitive raise. Its a bit akward method that take some judgement to master. The key is that when you are scanning for cards information travel both ways so that even if the wrong hand seems to be relaying its mostly an illusion and the hand that know the more will be placed to take a decision.