Inverted minor suit raises

[rg14]

How does inverted minor suit raises work with

1. 0 to 6 points

2. 6 to 9 points

3. 10 + points

[Tramticket]

A lot is down to partnership agreement.

 

Suit length: We play four-card majors and for us a 1m-2m raise will only promise four-card support. This will be different in a five-card major system and your choice of minor suit opening when opening a short minor will have an impact on the suit length needed for an inverted raise. For us, 1m-3m also only promises four-card support, but in practice, responder will often have five.

 

Strength: For us 1m-2m is a one-round force only and shows 11+ points (maybe 10+ with some shape). There are partnerships who play that 1m-2m is forcing to game and their strength requirements will need to be correspondingly higher. For us, 1m-3m can be 0-9 HCP but will usually be in the range 5-9 HCP. We would need some extra distribution to respond on fewer values. You really need to discuss your approach with your partner - you can use the bid in a pre-emptive way, but this gives partner a problem when holding a strong opening. Or you can keep the 1m-3m sequence as a narrower range, this is more constructive and helpful to partner, but less pre-emptive for the opps. It will depend on your partnership attitude to pre-emption.

 

Majors: Most play that a 1m-2m and 1m-3m both deny a four-card major.

 

Follow-ups: After 1m-2m, a new suit should suggest values in the suit (not necessarily a four-card suit) and probing for no trumps.

[Cyberyeti]

We also play 4 card majors and a weak no trump, and play ours 9+ with 5 card support or 10+ with 4, and we CAN have a 4 card major. We use 2N and 3♦ as weaker 5 card raises (or 4 trumps and 5 of the other minor), with a 6-9 4 card raise you have to bid 1N.

 

Over 1♣-2♣ we use 2♦ as an artificial better than minimum but not GF enquiry

You can do similar in diamonds, basically invert 2♥/2N but we don't.

 

It makes a massive difference whether you open 1N weak or strong, as if you don't have to cope with a minimum balanced hand, it's much easier to accommodate more hand types, and 1♦-2♦-2N is natural and GF.

 

In a strong notrump system, I think it's really difficult to allow inverted minors to be non GF AND have a 4 card major, you can do one or the other relatively simply.