[Cyberyeti]

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We missed a laydown grand on this board.

I was S, my problem is that N could have had a small heart less and a small club more. Partner thought I could have had ♥Kxx and a diamond less so neither of us bid it, the diamond was 4+cards in a weak NT context.

[akwoo]

Maybe not a certainty, but...

1) Would N have opened 1N with one more club and one fewer heart?

2) Would S have jumped to 4N over 2S with one more heart and one fewer diamond?

[pescetom]

Think I would have made it with my normal partner (if he's still there)
1♦ 2♣ (game force)
2♠ 4♦ (fit, slam interest)
4♥ (control) 4♠ (control)
4NT (even keycards) 5♣ (control)
5♠ (control) 5NT (no Q♦)
6♣ (control and no problem) 7♦
p

[HardVector]

I'm not a big fan of 2M bid after an inverted minor showing a suit. If I bid an inverted minor, I deny a 4+ card major. It makes these kind of auctions easier.

[sfi]

Yes - this one is straightforward given current agreements.

1D - 2D
2H (11-13 HCP, maybe 2S 14-16) - 2S (enquiry)
3C (club shortage) - 4D (keycard)
5C (2+Q) - 5H (kings)
5S (SK) - 7D

[Cyberyeti]

akwoo, on 2019-August-18, 15:33, said:

Maybe not a certainty, but...

1) Would N have opened 1N with one more club and one fewer heart?

2) Would S have jumped to 4N over 2S with one more heart and one fewer diamond?

1: No
2: 4N would be Blackwood in spades

[mikeh]

1♦. 2♦
2♠. 2N
3♣. 4♥
5♦. 5♥
5♠. 7♦


1♦ shows 5+ or some 4441

2♦. Is limit+

2♠ shows an unbalanced game try, unspecified shortness

2N asks

3♣ short clubs

4 ♥. Is kickback and then 5♥ asks for specific kings. Even opposite Kxxx Axxx KQxx x, and a trump lead 13 tricks are very likely. You’d be very unlucky to go down

[cherdano]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-18, 15:12, said:

I was S, my problem is that N could have had a small heart less and a small club more. Partner thought I could have had ♥Kxx and a diamond less so neither of us bid it, the diamond was 4+cards in a weak NT context.

When did your auction become game-forcing?
If North's 3♦ bid was non-forcing, then he has a huge hand after South tries for grand. North cannot have two side kings in addition to 2+Q after he bid 3♦, and certainly not when he doesn't force to grant after 5♥; hence it is completely safe to show a little more by bidding 6♣ instead of 6♦.

[Lovera]

Why not 6♣(=II round controll) after 5NT(tell me more ..). The sequence 1♦ and 2♠ is reverse indicating usually a 5-4-(3-1). How many Kings can have the two hands ? Four is less probable.(Lovera)

[FelicityR]

HardVector, on 2019-August-18, 15:44, said:

I'm not a big fan of 2M bid after an inverted minor showing a suit. If I bid an inverted minor, I deny a 4+ card major. It makes these kind of auctions easier.

Yes. That's exactly how I play inverted minors. From Wikipedia (as I have written down in my own personal bridge notes): The single or double raise promises at least five-card support for the minor. In the original version of K-S [Kaplan-Sheinwold], and as further developed by Kaplan through the 1990s, both raises also deny a four-card major.

K-S (as I am sure you already know) is a weak NT, 5M system. However, there may be a very good reason why you have modified the responses to suit your own NT range, or that you have further developed the bidding structure to incorporate opener also holding a 4M. [I am only assuming here that you are still looking for a 4-4 major fit as opposed to a 5-4 minor one which gives you an extra discard, and it stops you ending up in 4-3 major suit fits where opener supports with 3 card trump support and responder then takes control of the bidding.]

[sfi]

Contemplating this hand a bit further, it seems like you should bid the grand any time responder can find out about the club shortage and ask for keycards.

If opener ever cues clubs, this becomes straightforward. Responder asks for kings and finds out opener doesn't have the CK, so the cue must have been shortage.

How about:

1D - 2D
2S - 3D (real interest in diamonds)
3H - 3S
4C - 4NT (maybe 4H - 4S - 4NT, if you want to have another round of cue bids)
5S - 5NT
6D (no club king) - 7D

[Cyberyeti]

Lovera, on 2019-August-18, 16:55, said:

Why not 6♣(=II round controll) after 5NT(tell me more ..). The sequence 1♦ and 2♠ is reverse indicating usually a 5-4-(3-1). How many Kings can have the two hands ? Four is less probable.(Lovera)

Because he hasn't denied a long suit control in a suit partner has bid naturally, partner could have Ax, Kxx, KQxx, AQxx where it's the K specifically he's after or something with AQJx where he can count 13 in NT if you have the ♣K but not opposite a singleton. One pair did bid 6N which didn't make, and this is the problem with showing singletons in partners' suits along with kings.

To MikeH -

Your sequence is interesting but for us 1♦-2♦-2♠-2N is nat NF

To Cherdano -

It became GF at 3♣

It's clear that if the short club can be shown before the other hand shows them naturally then there is not much of an issue finding this.

[mikeh]

My experience has been that inverted minors are a bit like a forcing club method: unless one has a good, complex set of agreements, they are not worth the effort. Further, since there is only so much information one can unpack, building a method that permits an inverted raise with a major seems inefficient, not to mention unnecessary if one has sensible methods after 1m 1M.

Our basic structure uses 2H by opener, after the single raise, to show a gf hand: a hand that would accept a limit raise. Then responder can limit his hand, to an invite (but now forced to game) via 2S, or can show shortness or balanced gf raises via 2N or 3c/d/h.

Opener in turn can show shortness next, or set the suit to commence cuebiding or sign off (especially if respondervshows a lmited hand).

If opener has only a game try, he will be distributional, since our 1N is 14-16: with a distributional game try we bid the cheaper non-2H bid over the raise, and responder, if interested, can relay, and then we show shortness via the next 3 steps.

There is a bit more to it, for rare hand types, but it has proven remarkably effective.

[nekthen]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-19, 02:08, said:

Because he hasn't denied a long suit control in a suit partner has bid naturally, partner could have Ax, Kxx, KQxx, AQxx where it's the K specifically he's after or something with AQJx where he can count 13 in NT if you have the ♣K but not opposite a singleton. One pair did bid 6N which didn't make, and this is the problem with showing singletons in partners' suits along with kings.

Surely with K♠ and K♣ partner bids 7♦ instead of 5♠, so after 5N 6♣ must be a void or singleton

[Lovera]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-August-19, 02:08, said:

Because he hasn't denied a long suit control in a suit partner has bid naturally, partner could have Ax, Kxx, KQxx, AQxx where it's the K specifically he's after or something with AQJx where he can count 13 in NT if you have the ♣K but not opposite a singleton. One pair did bid 6N which didn't make, and this is the problem with showing singletons in partners' suits along with kings.

But you have this information read w/o K for an eventual 7♦.

[cherdano]

mikeh, on 2019-August-19, 02:27, said:

My experience has been that inverted minors are a bit like a forcing club method: unless one has a good, complex set of agreements, they are not worth the effort.

Wow, I think you forgot how bad bidding works when you want to make a forcing raise but don't have one! I agree that inverted minors are improved a lot by even a little bit of artificiality - maybe more so than any other basic situation where there aren't any common conventions. But just "bid naturally, 2N is forcing, 3m is non-forcing" still works better than having no forcing raise IMO.

[mikeh]

cherdano, on 2019-August-19, 07:10, said:

Wow, I think you forgot how bad bidding works when you want to make a forcing raise but don't have one! I agree that inverted minors are improved a lot by even a little bit of artificiality - maybe more so than any other basic situation where there aren't any common conventions. But just "bid naturally, 2N is forcing, 3m is non-forcing" still works better than having no forcing raise IMO.

Well, there are alternatives to inverted. I have played, with moderate success, criss-cross raises, in which a jumpshift into the other minor is limit or better. 1C 2D works better than 1D3C, because of space constraints, but it is playable. I’ve also played 2N as a forcing raise. Eddie Wold used to play that (purely coincidentally, I played it long before I saw him playing it).

I do think that inverted is a very powerful concept, but the simple version most non-experts play seems, to me anyway, not worth playing. Most seem to use 2M by opener asc showing stoppers, looking for notrump. Sure, 3N is the most likely game in these auctions, but the point of a good minor raise method should be to find high-level minor suit contracts when such are better than 3N. Most pairs can stumble into 3N no matter what they play.

[HardVector]

cherdano, on 2019-August-19, 07:10, said:

Wow, I think you forgot how bad bidding works when you want to make a forcing raise but don't have one! I agree that inverted minors are improved a lot by even a little bit of artificiality - maybe more so than any other basic situation where there aren't any common conventions. But just "bid naturally, 2N is forcing, 3m is non-forcing" still works better than having no forcing raise IMO.

Why should you want to make a forcing raise in a minor when you have a major suit? 1m-(p)-1M is still forcing, is it not? POOF, problem solved, partner is forced to bid.

[mikeh]

HardVector, on 2019-August-19, 08:50, said:

Why should you want to make a forcing raise in a minor when you have a major suit? 1m-(p)-1M is still forcing, is it not? POOF, problem solved, partner is forced to bid.

I think you misunderstood Arend: he was speaking, I think, about the very real issues that arise when one has a forcing raise in a minor, without a 4 card major, and yet don't have a forcing raise tool in your system.

Some basic forms of 'standard' suffer from this, and the result has been a number of attempts at 'fixes', of which criss-cross and a forcing 2N are examples.

Imo, inverted minors with good subsequent sequences are the best I have seen, but my point was that most players who use inverted minors, in my experience, are so focused on showing or denying stoppers, especially in the majors, that they have problems bidding minor suit games or slams. Now, I am mostly an imp player, and so I would far rather be in a cold 5m making 5 than in a 65% 3N that makes 10 tricks or goes down, but at mps one's priorities change. Of course, I like to think that I can have it both ways, but my point is that simple inverted doesn't work well.

[Cyberyeti]

HardVector, on 2019-August-19, 08:50, said:

Why should you want to make a forcing raise in a minor when you have a major suit? 1m-(p)-1M is still forcing, is it not? POOF, problem solved, partner is forced to bid.

because when you actually want to play in the minor, you can't always distinguish between 3 and 4+ card raises when you bid the major first then bid the minor.

I actually think Nethken got it right, over 5N partner bids 7 with the king of clubs, so 6♣ is the stiff