Constructive Bidding

(538) Slam Bidding: Q-Minorwood

(538) Slam Bidding: Q-Minorwood

When we have a minor suit fit, keeping the auction below 5-minor, while trying for slam is one of the advantages of minorwood — using 4-minor as an asking asking tool. By making an improvement to our Ace-showing structure in Minorwood, we can combine both Keycard-asking and quantitative bidding into one structure. This new structure is called Q-Minorwood.

(537) Slam Bidding: Responding to 4NT Keycard with a Void

(537) Slam Bidding: Responding to 4NT Keycard with a Void

When partner bids 4NT as Keycard in our established fit, a void in a side suit can be useful. We may still be able to make a slam if we are missing two Aces/Keycards if the void is in a suit of one of those missing side Aces. We need a way to tell partner about this void if we haven’t already done so earlier in the auction.

(535) Slam Bidding: 5NT Choice of Slams

(535) Slam Bidding: 5NT Choice of Slams

5NT is not a common bid. We most frequently use it in Ace-asking auctions to ask for Kings. We now have another use of a 5NT bid in Grand Slam Force. But trying for a grand slam is a rare occurrence and we would like to use 5NT (specially a jump to 5NT) for another more frequently useful purpose. The modern approach is to play a jump to 5NT as a “choice of slams” to help up find the best small slam. Let’s see how this works.

(534) Slam Bidding: 5-Major Bids - "Obvious Question"

(534) Slam Bidding: 5-Major Bids - "Obvious Question"

We can use a 5-Major bid for something other than to end the auction. 5-Major can be bid concisely for a variety of reasons -- to take away bidding space from the opponents or to ask partner a specific question (which we call the “obvious question”). Let’s look at our options for how to make use of this 5-Major bid.

(533) Slam Bidding: Minor Suit Slams After 1NT Openings

(533) Slam Bidding:  Minor Suit Slams After 1NT Openings

Minor suit slams are much harder to bid than Major suit slams. This is especially true after we open the bidding with 1NT (or 2NT). We start off the auction looking for Major suit fits and only then look for our minor suit fits after that. These Major suit showing bids are the cheapest bids and that means that our minor suit showing bids take up more space. We look at how we overcome this bidding challenge to bid good minor suit slams.