[ArcLight]

I'm a bit confused. From Mike Lawrences CONVENTIONS software (assuming you are using Quantitative slam bidding) if pard opens 1NT and you bid 2 ♣ (Stayman), you cant later use 4NT as Blackwood (its Quantitative). (To use 4NT as Blackwood you would have had to use Texas., also 4NT after Jacoby is Quantitative).

My question is:
How do I ask for Aces after pard has opened 1NT and I've employed Stayman?
Do I use Gerber?
Do many people use Kickback?


Another unrelated question - REVERSES
If I have 13 HCP with 5 crappy ♦ and 4 ok ♥ (and 2-2 in ♠ ♣)
and I bid 1 ♦ and pard responds 2 ♣, what do I do?
(If I bid 2 ♥ it shows a reverse, and my hand is too weak for that.)

[ack_hh]

Rebid diamonds - pard has denied hearts.

[cherdano]

Here is a secret: You can make slams without asking for aces!
Seriously, it depends. If you have a balanced hand, and you are thinking about bidding 6NT -- simply don't bother about aces. You need 32-33 hcp to bid 6nt, so it will happen very rarely that you bid 6NT and lack two aces. But 4NT is useful when you have a balanced hand, no fit for opener's major, and about 16 hcp (opposite 15-17).

If you have a fit for opener's major, and an unbalanced hand with fewer hcp, it gets a little more tricky. Here is a convention that ought to be more well-known:
After 1NT-2♣-2M, 3 of the other major confirms a fit and shows slam interest. Then a later bid of 4NT becomes RKCB for the agree major.

But again, asking for aces is by far not the most important part about slam bidding. Much more important is finding out whether you have the combined strength for 12 tricks.

[pclayton]

ack_hh, on Oct 26 2004, 03:24 PM, said:

Rebid diamonds - pard has denied hearts.

Partner hasn't denied hearts (could have game values with 4 hearts and 5+ clubs), but rebid 2♦ anyway. Now you'll hear if pard has the hoped-for heart suit.

[the hog]

Rebid diamonds - pard has denied hearts.

Playing standard systems partner certainly has not denied H. This depends on how good your XX of S is and what your pointcount is; with Hx and a strong hand I would bid 2N, otherwise I would rebid 2D.

[Cascade]

This is my structure after Stayman:

1NT 2♣
2♦ ...

2♥/♠ non forcing and not encouraging normally 54 in the majors but 44 is possible
2NT Natural invite
3♣/♦ are natural suits and slammish - these can be four-card suits.
3♥/♠ Natural 54 in majors opener will normally cue when raising the five-card major after which we can ask for Aces
3NT to play
4♣ would be Gerber
4♦ I don't think this exists
4♥/♠ 64 in the majors and not slammish
4NT Quantitative

1NT 2♣
2♥ ...

2♠ Invitational with four spades
2NT Invitational no major - we can only invite game through Stayman so Stayman does not promise a major
3♣/♦ Natural and Slammish may or may not have a major
3♥ Natural Invite
3♠ Cue Bid for hearts
3NT to play
4♣/♦ cue-bids for hearts after which we can ask for aces
4♥ to play
4♠ Kickback RKCB - yes we play this
4NT Quantitative

1NT 2♣
2♠ ...

2NT Natural and Invitational
3♣/♦ Natural and Slammish may or may not have a major
3♥ Cue Bid for spades
3♠ Natural Invitation
3NT to play
4♣/♦ cue-bids for spades after which we can ask for aces
4♥ this can be used for an ace ask - in practice we would avoid this since it is inconsistent with the rest of our system.
4♠ to play
4NT Quantitative

Because of the vagaries of our system we never use Stayman with a slammish hand that is distributional so all of these cues are high-cards and we do not need to be able to show short suits. Recently I played a casual game and we agreed on the following structure which works for unbalanced hands:

1NT 2♣
2Major ...

3Other Major = unbalanced slam try opener can relay to find your singleton
4♣ = balanced slam try
4♦ = RKCB for opener's major

[Flame]

I play 4nt as quentative and 4c as gerber even after stayman.
About the second question, 1d-2c there was a discussion here about it, not long ago, i think it was in the non nat system forum but not sure, you should read it, anyway it seems good to agree that 2 heart doesnt show good hand, but without an agrement i would take it as a reverse and bid 2d.

[mr1303]

How can you bid 1NT after partner has responded 2C.

If you play that 2D is forcing (and if you don't you really should do) then you will never miss a 4-4 heart fit. Indeed in 2/1 you are forced to rebid 2D with 5 of them (unless you have all other suits stopped and can bid 2NT) when partner responds 2C, as 2H and 2S deny 5 diamonds.

AS to asking for aces when you have a fit in a major after a stayman enquiry, how often do you need to do this directly? The only times when you need to ask for aces specifically is when you have a singleton somewhere, and here you can splinter, and ask for aces later easily enough

[Flame]

Found it for you
1d-2c

[jtfanclub]

Quote

If you play that 2D is forcing (and if you don't you really should do) then you will never miss a 4-4 heart fit.

Doesn't matter. If your partner only has the points for one bid he'd have bid 1♥, not 2♣. While I agree partner might have a four card major, it's only because he might be planning to reverse himself.

With the exception of 4333 hands, never bypass a four card major with a weak hand.

[helene_t]

As for asking aces after Stayman:

The only reason for asking aces is that there are prospects for a little slam with much less than 33 HCPs or a grand slam with much less than 37. This usually requires a fit but could also be when you have a solid suit. With a solid suit you could use Gerber directly over 1NT. (Alternatively, see Hardy's 2/1 book for a treatment of solid suits).
With a semi-solid suit you should establish it as trump suit so that you can locate the missing honour with RKC.

If you have a fit, you need a way to establish the trump suit at the 3-level so that the 4-level can be used for cue bidding. Don't use a jump to the 4-level as a cue bid that establishes the trump suit: first, such jumps should be reserved for splinters. Second, you need bidding space to find out not only what honours opner has but also if he is slamish or not.

With my regular p I play
1NT-2♣
2♥-2♠* relay, a.o. a forcing hearts raise. With a non-slamish hand and a four-card spades responder would bid notrumps.
1NT-2♣
2♠-3♦* forcing spades raise. It makes sense to use 2♥ here instead since responder could have an invitational hand with 6 diamonds and 4 hearts.

[Flame]

helene_t, on Oct 27 2004, 01:24 AM, said:

With my regular p I play
1NT-2♣
2♥-2♠* relay, a.o. a forcing hearts raise. With a non-slamish hand and a four-card spades responder would bid notrumps.

If you play 4 suits transfer, you need this bid to show 8-9 with 4 cards spade.

[helene_t]

No, with 8-9 HCPs and a 4-card spades I bid 2NT. Without a 4-card spades I bid 2♠.

[Flame]

helene_t, on Oct 27 2004, 07:01 AM, said:

No, with 8-9 HCPs and a 4-card spades I bid 2NT. Without a 4-card spades I bid 2♠.

8-9 without 4 spades, you bid 2sp and partner will bid 2nt on this with a minimum and and something else with max ? this is playable although it will most of the time just give your opponents extra information of you hand when you just had to simply bid 3nt.

[BrianEDuran]

Hi ArcLight

I think the easiest agreement, which requires little changes to your NT structure is to play 4C ask RCK (not Gerber). It works over both 2H and 2S responses to staymen, or a Jacoby transfer.

In my mind this falls into a class of agreement were jumping to 4C is RCK agreeing a suit, like over weak 2s by partner, 4C is RCK. I think this is a Bergen thing.

I find using 4C as RCK in many of these situation easier then kickback, since the agreements are the same regardless of which suit you are asking in. Doesn't mean that Cascade's or another methods is scientifically superior.

Brian

[Fluffy]

About balckwood after stayman:

You only want to know about aces when you are gonna play a suit contract, this means you can be on 1 of the following 3 situations:

1: you have a balanced strong hand
2: you have fit in the major suit bid by your partner
3: you have a long minor you are gonna play in (ad also a 4 c majot obviously)


The answers to the 3 options are these ones:

1: you don´t need to ask aces to play 6NT with 2 balanced hands: you need 33 HCP, so if you have 17 HCP just bid 6NT, if you have 16 bid 4NT quantitative, with 15 you should normally bid 3NT. (all asuming 1NT=15-17).

2: You need a way to not only stablish the major suit bid by partner as trump and ask for aces, ,but also be able to bid some controls, the answer may look not very intuitive, but most people use a conventional bid: the othe major at the 3 level, here are the examples:

1NT-2♣
2♥-3♠ = 4♥, slam intentions

1NT-2♣
2♠-3♥ = 4♠, slam intentions

3: just stablish your minor as trrump before asking for aces:

1NT-2♣
2X-3♣ = forcing with 5+♣, if you bid 4NT on next round it normally is no longer quantitative (unless partner has bid 3NT.... you can again bid 4 in your minor then).