Inverted minors and minorwood

[Gerben42]

[hv=d=w&v=b&w=sajt9hak8dkqjt7ca&e=sq65hq4da843ckq62]266|100|Scoring: MP[/hv]

 

I will force the start of 1♦ - 2♦ (invite or better with ♦) on you. After this start, 4♦ from either player would be RKC.

 

Just to spare you the details, at some point West asked for Key Cards with 4♦, partner responded and now the question was if 4NT is to play or not. Do you have any rules about this. Is 4NT always to play after "minorwood"? If not, when?

 

Anyway, 1370 wasn't worth much.

[EricK]

[hv=d=w&v=b&w=sajt9hak8dkqjt7ca&e=sq65hq4da843ckq62]266|100|Scoring: MP[/hv]

 

I will force the start of 1♦ - 2♦ (invite or better with ♦) on you. After this start, 4♦ from either player would be RKC.

 

Just to spare you the details, at some point West asked for Key Cards with 4♦, partner responded and now the question was if 4NT is to play or not. Do you have any rules about this. Is 4NT always to play after "minorwood"? If not, when?

 

Anyway, 1370 wasn't worth much.

4NT is always to play after minorwood if playing MP pairs.

[kenrexford]

The base question of whether 4NT is asking after 4♦ is RKCB seems strange to even ask. How can you have the agreement to use 1-2-4 as RKCB without discussion of what happens after an answer? I usually play that game+1 is the K-ask, myself.

 

As for the sequence, I'm real curious about what happened between 2♦ and 4♦. There's a whole lot of space there, and neither partner should want to bid RKCB except as a last resort.

 

As an aside, I like my sequence with a 2♦ opening (strong with 4+ spades):

O: 2♦ (strong, 4+ spades)

R: 2♥ (artificial, no spade fit, no positive suit)

O: 3♦ (4♠/5+♦)

R: 3♠ (diamond fit)

O: 3NT (I already showed a huge hand)

R: 4♣ (club control, slammish)

O: 4♦ (two top diamonds)

R: 4♠ (one of top three spades, no heart control)

 

At this point, Opener can already count four diamonds, two hearts, two clubs, and three spades, for 11 tricks, with double control everywhere, and that's opposite no diamond Ace, the club King, and just the spade Queen. Since he is willing to commit to slam, might as well seek the grand...

 

O: 5♣ (club control)

R: 5♥ (enough, plus third-round heart control)

O: 6♣ (not two top spades, first-round club control)

R: 6NT (not one of the top two spades)

 

That works.

[mike777]

<!-- EASTWEST begin --><table border='1'> <tr> <td> <table> <tr> <td>Dealer:</td> <td> West </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Vul:</td> <td> Both </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Scoring:</td> <td> MP </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td> <table> <tr> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> AJT9 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> AK8 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> KQJT7 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> A </td> </tr> </table> </th> <th> <table> <tr> <th class='spades'>♠</th> <td> Q65 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='hearts'>♥</th> <td> Q4 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='diamonds'>♦</th> <td> A843 </td> </tr> <tr> <th class='clubs'>♣</th> <td> KQ62 </td> </tr> </table> </th> </tr> </table> </td> <td>  </td> </tr> </table><!-- EASTWEST end -->

 

I will force the start of 1♦ - 2♦ (invite or better with ♦) on you. After this start, 4♦ from either player would be RKC.

 

Just to spare you the details, at some point West asked for Key Cards with 4♦, partner responded and now the question was if 4NT is to play or not. Do you have any rules about this. Is 4NT always to play after "minorwood"? If not, when?

 

Anyway, 1370 wasn't worth much.

I assume over a 4s response 4nt is queen ask.

I assume over a 4s response 5c is KofC and grand try.

 

I play kickback not minorwood but 4nt/5nt is never never natural to play after a rkc auction.

 

btw in minorwood how do you ask for kings?

 

1d=2d

4d=4s or 4nt or 5c response

now how do you ask for kings ?

[fromageGB]

I can't answer this as I play a sort of kickback and there is no spare bid - 4NT over 4S asks for the ♦Q - but if you are ace/king asking you can always at the last moment bid a slam in NT rather than the agreed suit.

 

The reason I am writing is that I can see this hand is not an ace asking hand as those queens of E are important. It needs better cue bidding methods than I employ. Where do I look to find more about Ken's methods?

[y66]

In Minorwood, 4N is always to play, never asks for information.  Otherwise, the cheapest bid is a queen ask (if it is unknown.)  Also, Kickback (5-level suit above keycard suit) is used to start a specific king asking sequence.

per Robert Todd (young Florida bridge pro).

[awm]

I'm not sure I really get why this hand is hard. After the inverted minor raise, west can count something like 22+10=32 hcp at minimum. And he has first or second round control in every suit. At MP scoring it seems strange to ever play 6♦ here, and the question will be whether we have 7♦ or should subside in 6NT.

 

Maybe something like:

 

1♦ - 2♦(1)

2♥(2) - 3♣(3)

3♥(4) - 3NT(5)

4♣(6) - 5♣(7)

5♥(8) - 6♦(9)

6NT(10)

 

(1) Inverted

(2) Values in ♥

(3) Values in ♣, not a solid ♠ control (would bid 2NT/3NT)

(4) Enough to force game opposite 10 hcp, 1st or 2nd round control in ♥

(5) No ♠A/K, not enthusiastic about slam, but some help in spades

(6) 1st or 2nd round control in ♣, slam interest

(7) 1st or 2nd round control in ♣, no 1st or 2nd round control in ♠ or ♥

(8) 1st and 2nd round control in ♥; implicitly 1st round ♠ control for grand try here

(9) No substantial source of tricks for grand.

(10) Correcting because we have 32+ hcp and it's MP. Partner is known to hold ♠Q for the 3NT bid but not ♠K. Partner will not have a great club holding like KQJx(x) for discards to bid 6♦ only over 5♥, but is known to have ♣K. We can more or less count twelve tricks because partner basically needs ♦A to have ten points on this auction, and ♠Q/♦A/♣K is enough to make three spades, two hearts, five diamonds, two clubs. We don't want to bid seven because it will be on the spade finesse (but might consider 7♦ if needing a swing, surely we can get an extra trick by ruffing the fourth spade in dummy if the spade finesse wins).

[jdonn]

I'm not sure I really get why this hand is hard.

Because opener could be 3451 instead on your auction?

[Gerben42]

As an aside, I like my sequence with a 2♦ opening (strong with 4+ spades):

 

Good for you, but that doesn't fit into my system. There is a reason this is in the SAYC and 2/1 section.

[Free]

1♦ - 2♦

2♠ - 2NT (strong seminat ; nat and rightsiding, showing more than bare min)

3♥ - 3NT (seminat suggesting 4351/4441/4450 ; nat with lost ♣ values)

4♦ - 4♥ (blacky as told ; 1/4)

5♣ - 6♣ (kings? ; ♣K but no other Kings)

6NT

 

(Opener could also bid 4♣ immediately, but responder shouldn't be captain on this hand imo)

[ArtK78]

In a Minorwood sequence, my partner and I have the following agreements:

 

4NT is always to play.

5♣ is a signoff in whatever minor is the agreed suit (pass or correct).

5♦ is the next ask.

[awm]

I'm not sure I really get why this hand is hard.

Because opener could be 3451 instead on your auction?

I probably didn't state this very clearly. What I meant to say is that I can't imagine how one would ever end up in 6♦ on this hand. After 1♦-2♦, opener knows that 6NT should be a fine spot and the only question is whether 7♦ (or 7NT) is an even better spot.

 

It may be difficult to determine whether to bid a grand on this hand or not. Certainly if you move some cards around it may depend on whether responder holds a particular queen or not, or which major suit doubleton responder has. On this particular hand you can probably avoid the grand, since opener should quickly discover that responder does not have the spade king or singleton, and while a perfect responder hand might make a grand anyway (imagine adding the jack of clubs to this one), usually you can't find that out exactly and want to avoid dubious grand slams.

 

Of course, it is matchpoint scoring and the grand is basically 50% anyway (in fact 7NT is exactly 50%) and a good field will be in at least 6NT on these cards, so I don't see a huge problem if you do bid seven in any case.

[mike777]

In a Minorwood sequence, my partner and I have the following agreements:

 

4NT is always to play.

5♣ is a signoff in whatever minor is the agreed suit (pass or correct).

5♦ is the next ask.

so you might not have a queen ask?

 

1d=2d

4d=4s

no queen ask below game now.........cannot show club K as grand slam try at low level etc.....

 

In any event I do not use minorwood or kickback on this one. :)

 

 

1d=2nt(12-13)

6nt=p

[kenrexford]

As an aside, I like my sequence with a 2♦ opening (strong with 4+ spades):

 

Good for you, but that doesn't fit into my system. There is a reason this is in the SAYC and 2/1 section.

That's why I italicized that part of my response.

 

I think the first part suggested the real problem here, namely that the sparing us the details of the auction up to the ace-asking bid is dubious. There is a lot to gain from a detailed auction up to this point.