We start with a look at the modern evolution to more aggressive 1NT opening bids: 14 -16 point 1NT opening bids.  We discuss how to bid if we agree to play this, both as an Opener and as Responder. 

Lebensohl is an excellent system for dealing with interference over our 1NT opening bids, but it has some flaws. In Lebensohl auctions, we will sometimes play the hand from the “wrong” side (Responder’s side), and Responder often has three strengths (buckets) to describe. Let’s see how Transfer Lebensohl is an upgrade to help solve these problems.

One of the ways that we investigate slam in a suit contract is the use of control showing bids. When one member of the partnership is interested in slam then they show this interest by making a control showing bid. Based on our partnership agreement this control showing bid either shows a 1st round control or a 2nd round control in the suit bid. Once we start the process of making control showing bids then we continue to do so to explore slam. But as the auction approaches game we have a big decision to make: should we go past game or not? This can be a difficult decision; we should not go past game without a good reason, often some extra values. In this situation we would like to have a way to make “one more try for slam”. The way that we do that is with a convention called the Last Train to Clarksville (“Last Train”). Let’s see how this gadget works!

When we find a Major suit fit at the 3-level in a game forcing auction, then partner is usually expressing interest in slam (because without slam interest, partner would have applied the Principle of Fast Arrival and bid 4M.) In this case, now we usually express whether we have slam interest or not by either making a cuebid or simply bidding game with 4M. A partnership can use a gadget called “Non-Serious 3NT” to gain even further clarification about a player’s level of slam interest.

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 Ace-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.

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.

5NT is not a common bid. We most frequently use it in Ace-asking auctions to ask for Kings. We 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 (especially 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 us find the best small slam. Let’s see how this works.

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.

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. 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.