If it comes to it I'd rather fake 2C than 1H, for a couple reasons:

1) If partner takes my fake suit seriously, I can always correct back to diamonds -- whereas if partner decides that hearts are serious, we may end up in an unpleasant number of hearts.

2) Maybe the opponents will believe me and not lead a club when we don't want them to.


It really shouldn't come to that, though.

Dbl is the only bid in the first round. If partner responds 1H I think 2NT is perfect. A 1NT rebid would show like 18/19, so 2NT shows a bit more, which is exactly what you have.
If lho bids 2H and partner passes you need to really tread with care, because partner hardly can have anything decent in his hand. You are too strong to pass, so I'd double again. You have 4/3 in the unbid suits.

Play inverted minors. It is a really good convention. Otherwise you have to invent stuff like 1H and hope partner does not support you. Do not get carried away with this hand, because the shape bothers me. If partner has some minimum balanced hand, even 5D could be too much (Jxx, Jxx, Kxxx, AKx, for example). Playing inverted minors I would bid 2D and if partner responds 2NT (minimum balanced hand), I just put him in 3NT. It is not forbidden to sometimes lay down a good dummy

Gabe, outdrawed corrected the auction to a 1H bid and a 2H raise by opener. My guess is you'd still choose double at your second call, but it's slightly different. (And good point that partner really can't have much of anything — it's so easy, particularly when you're a new player, to see your own great hand rather than the big picture.)

aha I did not see that sorry. That actually makes a double a lot better since opponents have a fit.

Partner not peeping a black suit after 1D-dbl-1H means our prospects are bleak though

BTW I had the agreement that if someone is forced to bid because partner doubles 2M in just about any auction where you have remained silent, Lebensohl is in order.

2H-dbl-pass-?? is the most simple example, but this spot is also one. You can show the difference between 1HCP and 5HCP, which in this hand could mean the difference between playing a partscore and playing game.

That's nice in this auction, where partner can't have a natural 2NT bid. (He'd have advanced with 1NT at his last call.)

But on something like (1S) X – (2S), would it be on? Fourth hand can easily have a natural notrump advance here.

Ok, inverted minors it is

Is that common enough that anyone I play with will likely do it or do I need to sync with them on it?


Also, is there no king asking convention before 5nt?

It seems nice to be able to ask for kings instead of aces when u have 3-4 aces but maybe that doesn't happen often enough for people to worry about?

Everyone will know it, but it's probably best to ask first, because it's ambiguous enough that you won't know for sure that they know that you know that they know.

In that spot I do not play Lebensohl, because the bid is voluntary, not forced. You can pass and partner can reopen. If he does so with dbl, you are in a Lebensohl situation again.

Two over one players usually do it.

Standard Americans usually don't.

I'd say it would be assumed by any advanced 2/1 player; with all others, make sure.

Gotcha. Good treatment imo.

Another nice gadget with regards to minor suit slams is to use minorwood instead of blackwood. Instead of 4NT being the Ace ask, 4 of the agreed minor is now the ask. This allows you extra space to look for keycards and kings, and you still have room to "bail out" at 4NT or 5m.

It's good but it needs to come with a label that says

WARNING: May cause drowsiness, constipation, partnership misunderstandings, migraines, and the inability to use 4m as a natural bid.

A better treatment, albeit admittedly not common, is to have your keycard in any suit (minor or major) be the bid immediately above four of the agreed suit. Now you have the four level available as a natural raise, which you'll often want; 4NT functions as a replacement for the now-missing four level side suit bid.

So we have 1D – 2D; 4D as a natural bid (slam invite, inviting control bidding), while the asking bid for diamonds is 4H. (Sometimes you'll want to bid 4H to play, but it's very easy to eliminate those cases: the asking bid is never a first-bid suit by either player. So, e.g., in 1H – 2D; 3D – 4H, the heart bid is natural [showing delayed support]; the asking bid in diamonds would be 4S.)

This sounds complicated but isn't, and it doesn't give up anything important; standard minorwood does.

I find the loss of 4m as a natural raise fairly irrelevant. However, my partner and I use 1m-2m as a GF raise, and criss-cross (jump shift in other minor) as invitational (you do lose the weak jump shift here, but not a huge loss imo...). Therefore, we have no reason to jump to 4m in our system other than minorwood. If we want to control bid in that sequence we will bid our lowest control, or 2NT to show both majors controlled. If either side ever pulls 3NT to 4 of an agreed minor it's always minorwood.

In general, I detest jumping with a slammish hand in a forcing sequence. Why take away the valuable bidding space? While kickback (the keycard you describe) does have it's advantages over normal RKCB, I think minorwood takes the useful space principal one level further and gives you another extra step. It's why people developed 2/1 GF, precision, and even the more extreme (and illegal in most jurisdictions) of using a forcing opening pass.

Alright guys, gonna throw in inverted minors. Thanks a ton for the help. I'm sure I'll have a few more hands for you guys later tonight.

Had an interesting decision the other day.

Sitting north, Vul vs not, matchpoints. Partner opens 3H in 2nd seat. Agreements are sound vul. preempts, new suits forcing 1 round.

You hold:

AKx
x
AQJx
AK98x

dc-o, it's not just a jump that becomes unavailable with minorwood. It's also auctions in which one member of the partnership bids 3NT and the other pulls to four of the agreed minor. Now, you may think that's not forcing or you may think it is, but I'm pretty sure it's a more valuable bid than four of a suit on which you haven't agreed in the same spot.

There's also 1M – 2m; 3m – 4m, which if you play 2/1 absolutely game forcing shows a shapely minimum with a very good suit but no outside control card, and if you play 2/1 forcing to game or four of a minor, shows what it sounds like. Either way, valuable.

And the fact that you find it a "fairly irrelevant" loss doesn't mean that it is one. The bid has uses, which apparently you don't employ very often but they're there. The alternative, 4m+1 (when that suit is not a first-bid suit), has much less utility.

Furthermore, the same method can be used with hearts agreed (and therefore 4S as the ask) to avoid another problem (unavailability of an ask when two with is not enough for slam, meaning the asker needs two key cards to use it). So we have a very simple system that can be used in all suits to solve two different problems.

4C. If partner returns the favor with 4D or 5C, we can go slamming.

If he doesn't, then I guess it depends on what you mean by "sound". Is he basically guaranteed to have KQJ9xx or better of hearts and an outside card? If so, I can bid 6H without help. But if his range includes xxx KQ9xxx xxx x, then I will make just that one try.

2nd seat vul/not his minimum would be KQxxxxx. He'll always have seven and two of top 3 here.

Two of top three, empty, wouldn't often be considered "sound" second seat red/white. But OK, with that in mind...

Unless he has a black queen or the diamond king, and also the heart jack, a heart slam will be poor. Hearts may well be better but he'll often lack the side card, so I like my plan to bid 4C and see what he says; if it's 4H, I'm done.

I really want to bid 5H here asking for good trumps, but I suppose that's just a big ole preempt. I guess I'll go along with 4C as a cue, but if partner bids 4H I'm bidding five. That has to be pretty much the same thing.

Doesn't everyone play 4C here is modified KC?

But if partner has the minimum trumps that dc says he can have, 5H is probably around not too much more than 50%. (trump ace, third-round trump, and opps will usually have time to develop a side-suit trick or require us to take the diamond hook).

I don't hate it, but if king-queen empty truly is a hand he can have, I would hate to go minus here, with much of the field stopping in four.

fwiw I play very light preempts and even I don't love doing it second seat unfavorable with that bad a suit. I'll do it, often, but I know the dangers — and this is one of them.

No?

3H. Got it. Reading is hard. Or remembering what I read. Or something...