[kgr]

My partner and I play minorwood when the minor was agreed before.
We open short clubs, and therefor we don't play
1♣-2♣
3NT-4♣
as minorwood.
This can sometimes be confusing in competition.
e.g
1♣-(1♥)-1♠-(2♥)
Pass-(Pass)-3♥-(Pass)
3NT-(Pass)-4♣
I think that we don't play this as minorwood, because the ♣-fit was not agreed before 4♣.
Sometimes this is too difficult for us and we are confused if the 4m bid is minorwood or not.
Minorwood sometimes is confusing, but I think it is better then RKC. (Is it?).
Question: What is good and easy way for asking keycards for minor fit? (or maybe we can simplify the minorwood we play? (I think kickback or redwood if even more difficult)
Remark: I didn't find a method where 4 in other minor is RKC, so that probably is not a good idea?

[mgoetze]

The problems will only get much worse if you adopt kickback, redwood, other minor as RKC, whatever. So don't do that.

The advantage of minorwood is that you can stop in 5m when missing 2 keycards much more often. The disadvantage is that you need solid agreements when it applies. The most important thing is to have a general rule: "if in doubt, 4m is NOT minorwood". (Some people have the rule "if in doubt, 4m IS minorwood" instead. I don't like that but it's much better than not having a rule.) Once you have the general case covered, you start discussing exceptions. The most obvious exception is, of course, "when we have already established a minor fit below 4m, then 4m is minorwood". These two rules alone are good enough to play minorwood successfully. Of course you will sometimes want 4m to simultaneously establish the fit and ask for aces - I would recommend in such cases to follow your rules for the moment, and then after the hand discuss with partner whether to make the situation you just had a new exception. This way you might miss a slam at first but you will always be on solid footing - and that is much more important.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

You can play BOTH Minorwood and Kickback and which one depends simply on the following circumstances:

- - Minorwood when suit agreement is first made BELOW the 4-level.

- - Kickback when suit agreement is first made AT the 4-level .

So, in your first example, I would take 4C as Minorwood ( especially if 2C were Inverted GF ) .

And, in your 2nd example, 4D! ( after 4C ) would be Kickback.

[Free]

Kickback Turbo

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

we play RKC, which enables us to use 4m as a way to signal SI,
"serious 3NT" for the minors.
This works fairly well, you rely more on cue bidding than on ace
asking.

If you go the full way, you may end up playing Turbo.
As far as I understood, Turbo 4NT showes an even number of KCs.
if you only have 4NT s key card ask, SI + cuebidding + refusing to
use KC implies also the possesion of exactly 2KC (clubs being trumps),
because the 5D answer to 4NT will kill you, if you bid 4NT.

Diamonds being trumps => 1KC only (+ trump Queen).

If you play minorwood, I would play it as conditional ace asking,
i.e. 4m includes a quantitative invite, only with SI you answer the
KC.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Quantumcat]

You could also play 4♦ as KC for clubs and 4♥ as keycard for diamonds - the agreement is it is keycard if it is a jump right after someone just bid the minor naturally, or whenever a minor has been bid and agreed. 4♥ is only not KC if the other partner bid hearts and you have had ABSOLUTELY NO OPPORTUNITY BEFORE THIS BID to give preference to hearts. Example: 1♥ (2♠) 3♣ (3♠) 4♦ (pass) 4♥. (Note 4♦ was not KC for clubs - 4♦ was not a jump and clubs haven't been bid and agreed.)

If the bidding got above the KC bid before you were ready to use it, 4NT becomes KC.

Also you can say that 4NT is to play after a KC bid. So then you have the freedom to look for a minor suit slam without giving up the ability to play in NT (esp. good for matchpoints).

Having different bids than the suit itself for KC means you can make a general slam-try-ish bid (bidding 4 of your minor) without committing to KC.

[Zelandakh]

If the minor is agreed at the 4 level then you can play a simple little convention that combines making a slam try with a key card ask. After 4m, the first step says that you would decline a slam try; the next 4 steps accept the slam try and show key cards according to your usual scale. If the slam try is declined then the first step over that is RKCB. So

....4♣
======
4♦ = decline slam try (now 4♥ = RKCB)
4♥ = accept slam try, 1 or 4 key cards
4♠ = accept slam try, 0 or 3 key cards
4NT = accept slam try, 2 or 5 key cards, no ♣Q
5♣ = accept slam try, 2 or 5 key cards, ♣Q

and

....4♦
======
4♥ = decline slam try (now 4♠ = RKCB)
4♠ = accept slam try, 1 or 4 key cards
4NT = accept slam try, 0 or 3 key cards
5♣ = accept slam try, 2 or 5 key cards, no ♣Q
5♦ = accept slam try, 2 or 5 key cards, ♣Q

I suspect this would solve your problem completely (assuming you and your partner can agree on when a minor suit is agreed!).

[mgoetze]

kgr, on 2012-June-03, 06:33, said:

This can sometimes be confusing in competition.

Cue half a dozen system freaks recommending even more confusing methods. Yeah I'm sure that will help.

[sfi]

kgr, on 2012-June-03, 06:33, said:

Question: What is good and easy way for asking keycards for minor fit?

You could always adopt a little gem of a convention we encountered a couple of years ago: Use 2NT as RKC for the last bid suit.

The opponents twice in one match had the auction 1S - 2S; 2NT - 3x; 3S - Pass, both times for +140 and both times off two key cards. Clearly it's a winner.

Or not.

ObOnTopic: No idea - most partnerships I play in use 4NT for this purpose and lots of cuebidding otherwise. We don't seem to wind up in trouble too often, but then I am firmly of the opinion that asking for keycards is vastly overused.

[Codo]

From my experience: Kickback is MUCH more confusing then minorwood.

If you play minorwood, I would strongly recommend Zels advice. In your example partner will always bid 4 ♦ with short clubs and your problem is solved.
Just one more thing: You need to be sure whether 4 NT after minorwood is "always" to play or always a question. Both agreements have their flaws, but better have an agreement with a flaw then no agreement.
And as Michael pointed out: Clear agreements are much better then "it depends" agreements. I play 4 m is "always" minorwood, which has its flaws, but it makes it easy to recognize.

BTW: I doubt that many experts play minorwood. They prefer to have the 4. level for cuebids. But I am not convinced that they are right...

[lowerline]

kgr, on 2012-June-03, 06:33, said:

My partner and I play minorwood when the minor was agreed before.
We open short clubs, and therefor we don't play
1♣-2♣
3NT-4♣
as minorwood.
This can sometimes be confusing in competition.
e.g
1♣-(1♥)-1♠-(2♥)
Pass-(Pass)-3♥-(Pass)
3NT-(Pass)-4♣
I think that we don't play this as minorwood, because the ♣-fit was not agreed before 4♣.
Sometimes this is too difficult for us and we are confused if the 4m bid is minorwood or not.
Minorwood sometimes is confusing, but I think it is better then RKC. (Is it?).
Question: What is good and easy way for asking keycards for minor fit? (or maybe we can simplify the minorwood we play? (I think kickback or redwood if even more difficult)
Remark: I didn't find a method where 4 in other minor is RKC, so that probably is not a good idea?

Read Roman Keycard Blackwood by Kantar. It has the answers to your questions. But be warned: there are no easy answers.


Steven

[kgr]

Zelandakh, on 2012-June-04, 01:13, said:

If the minor is agreed at the 4 level then you can play a simple little convention that combines making a slam try with a key card ask. After 4m, the first step says that you would decline a slam try; the next 4 steps accept the slam try and show key cards according to your usual scale. If the slam try is declined then the first step over that is RKCB. So

....4♣
======
4♦ = decline slam try (now 4♥ = RKCB)
4♥ = accept slam try, 1 or 4 key cards
4♠ = accept slam try, 0 or 3 key cards
4NT = accept slam try, 2 or 5 key cards, no ♣Q
5♣ = accept slam try, 2 or 5 key cards, ♣Q

and

....4♦
======
4♥ = decline slam try (now 4♠ = RKCB)
4♠ = accept slam try, 1 or 4 key cards
4NT = accept slam try, 0 or 3 key cards
5♣ = accept slam try, 2 or 5 key cards, no ♣Q
5♦ = accept slam try, 2 or 5 key cards, ♣Q

I suspect this would solve your problem completely (assuming you and your partner can agree on when a minor suit is agreed!).

In our current agreements, when we have only agreed the minor suit at the 4-level then we start cue bidding. When we have agreed the minor before then we can continue cue bidding by skipping 4m.
Your suggested method is more clear, but has the disadvantage that you cannot start cueing if minor was not agreed before 4m.

[Vampyr]

kgr, on 2012-June-03, 06:33, said:

My partner and I play minorwood when the minor was agreed before.
We open short clubs, and therefor we don't play
1♣-2♣
3NT-4♣
as minorwood.

If opening and raising the suit doesn't apply, when do you actually play "minorwood"?

[kgr]

Vampyr, on 2012-June-04, 17:51, said:

If opening and raising the suit doesn't apply, when do you actually play "minorwood"?

that is because we can open 1C with a 2 card. We want opener to bid 4NT after 4C when he is short.
It would apply after 1D opening.

[Zelandakh]

kgr, on 2012-June-04, 10:59, said:

Your suggested method is more clear, but has the disadvantage that you cannot start cueing if minor was not agreed before 4m.

Absolutely, that is the trade-off. I call it the 4m compromise convention because it takes 2 extremes (Minorwood and 4m as slam try + cues) and tries to find a compromise between the 2. The compromise gives a slam try (but no cues) plus key cards (at a higher level than Minorwood but lower than traditional RKCB). Your specific question was "What is good and easy way for asking keycards for minor fit?" so this convention seemed to fit the bill. If cues are more important to you then you should probably just stick with standard RKCB in these auctions.

Strangely enough I actually think the true solution to the specific problem in the OP is probably to improve your inverted minor follow-up structure to allow you to agree the minor at a lower level. That obviously does not apply to other auctions where you agree the minor at the 4 level though.

[fromageGB]

Zelandakh, on 2012-June-05, 00:50, said:

That obviously does not apply to other auctions where you agree the minor at the 4 level though.

But it's these situations that cause the problems in the OP.

It seems to me that a combination of two4bridge's and zelandakh's suggestions fit the bill, and is easy. If you have agreed the minor at the 3 level then 4m is a minorwood that can also be used when you need partner's coooperation, with the reply of 4m+1 denying interest, when then 4m+2 insists on asking for aces. Any bid lower than 4m is a cue bid.

When - perhaps because of opposition bidding - you have not had room for minor agreement at the 3 level, 4m is simply a suit preference or competitive, while 4m+1 is ace asking (kickback). The only problem with this occurs when the kickback suit 4m+1 happens to be a suit already bid, so can be construed as natural. Your meta-agreements will probably determine that this is therefore natural, and you have no way of asking for aces in partner's minor. However, this is a rare occurrence, and I can live with it. Normally 4m+1 is kickback agreeing the minor.

The first method - minorwood then 4m+2 to ace ask after partner's lack of interest - suffers if you use the standard RKCB responses, as a simple 2 aces can take you too high. I would suggest a "1234" response structure as in green aces. Alternatively, if your style of cue bidding is that partner is not obliged to cue too, and can bid 4m to deny interest, then there is no problem as kickback can then be used to insist on slam hunting.

[kgr]

Thank you all for the answers

Zelandakh, on 2012-June-05, 00:50, said:

Strangely enough I actually think the true solution to the specific problem in the OP is probably to improve your inverted minor follow-up structure to allow you to agree the minor at a lower level. That obviously does not apply to other auctions where you agree the minor at the 4 level though.

Right.

1♣-2♣
3NT-4♣
(1♣=2+card; 2♣ is inv min and 3NT is 13-14).
This was a specific example of when minorwood does not apply for us, and I think it is best for us to keep it like that.

The issue is more for similar auctions that are not explicitly defined in the system notes.
An example that comes to mind:
1♣-1♥!
1NT-2♠!
3♣!-4♣
With:
1♣=2+card
1♥=♠ (T-Walsh)
1NT=denies 3c♠ (or 3444)...Therefor at least 4c♣
2♠=Transfer ♣
3♣=Would not accept invite in ♣
4♣=RKC or setting fit?
As indicated above 4♣ should be minorwood, but I hope we would both think it through when it happens

1♣-(1♥)-2♥!-(3♥)
Pass-(Pass)-4♣?
2♥=inv+ with ♣, but is ♣-fit fixed? It still can be a 2-5 fit (or even 2-4).

1♣-(1♥)-2♥!-(3♥)
4♣?
We agreed that 4♣ by opener should normally be minorwood because ♣-fit is known to opener, but does it apply here?

After a ♦-opening we have less problems because that shows a 4+card. Any support would set the fit.

....It is probably better if I discuss this with my partner
I think I prefer our current method, but we need some more discussion on when minorwood is on.

[rhm]

kgr, on 2012-June-05, 09:03, said:

1♣-2♣
3NT-4♣
(1♣=2+card; 2♣ is inv min and 3NT is 13-14).
This was a specific example of when minorwood does not apply for us, and I think it is best for us to keep it like that.

This is the crux of the matter.

If you analyze this example, which stands for many others you can see:
Opener (in this case) is fairly well defined: Balanced and in a small HCP range.
Responder (or potential key card asker) on the other hand is almost unlimited in distribution and strength. He has at least slam invitational values.
No matter how many clubs opener has, clubs is a key suit. Also responder seems to have a strong suit, could be solid or semisolid.
He may not care much, how many clubs opener has beyond the ones already promised.

Given this I do not understand the strange preference many good players have for control bidding.
Control bidding in other sequences - usually as a pretext to a subsequent keycard ask, necessary because modern control bids do not immediately differentiate between first and second round control- can have their field days, typically when there may be a hole in a side suit.
It is unlikely that this is the most pressing need here and in many similar situations. Control bidding tends to be ineffective if it starts above 4 of the agreed suit.

The question you need to answer is how easy and frequent do you want to make minorwood available.
If you insist that minor suit agreement must come before you can even use the convention you make the use of minorwood difficult and rare.
If I am correct in the above example there is no way for responder to ask for keycards at all.
Given the lack of bidding space I would bet that this is the most urgent information the 4♣/4♦ bidder requires 9 times out of 10.

Kantar is certainly an authority on the subject. However, many of his agreements, usually littered with exceptions, like when minorwood applies, are too complex for any partnership below the professional level. The fact that he produced 5 editions (I have several of them) in a relative short period does not instill confidence in me that all his interesting ideas will stand the test of time.
I want to have a key card ask available in examples like the above and key-card-ask looks to me more important than starting a control-bidding sequence above the 4 level of the strain we might want to play in.

My rules for minorwood are different, simple and I consider them effective.
Minorwood does not apply in competitive situations were opponents have forced us to the 4 level.
However, as long as the bid is forcing and somebody has bid the suit before in a natural sense it is a key-card ask. (No minor suit agreement necessary; the key-card asker may well have a self sufficient suit). So minorwood would apply in both of your examples.
4NT after minorwood is always natural and a suggestion as a final contract. Partner is allowed to overrule.
I consider this rule a must in all matchpointed events but have found this rule useful even at IMPs.
It allows us to bypass or proceed over 3NT and suggest slam in a minor and still stop at 4NT, important for reaching good minor suit slams.

Zelandakh's idea is popular in my area and known as conditional minorwood.
I am not fond of it: Too expensive and I want to maximize the chance of being able to stop in 4NT after having received a clear key-card response.

Rainer Herrmann

[fromageGB]

kgr, on 2012-June-05, 09:03, said:

I think I prefer our current method, but we need some more discussion on when minorwood is on.

Your last 2 examples would seem to be solved by having 4♣ to play and 4♦ as unambiguous kickback. The one starting 1♣ 1♥ is safe for minorwood, but again kickback is stand-out unmistakable. I agree with rhm that ace asking is more important than cue bidding at the 4 level. But in this example, maybe any suit over the 3♣ would be a cue bid insisting on clubs. If you need those bids for other purposes, then I'd give up on cue bidding this hand.

[kgr]

Thanks for the answer.
I think you are an expert player (at least you have expert posts ), so I'm trying to take your advice to the heart, but not convinced. (I also read the other replies with interest)

rhm, on 2012-June-06, 03:28, said:

This is the crux of the matter.
If you analyze this example, which stands for many others you can see:
Opener (in this case) is fairly well defined: Balanced and in a small HCP range.
Responder (or potential key card asker) on the other hand is almost unlimited in distribution and strength. He has at least slam invitational values.
No matter how many clubs opener has, clubs is a key suit. Also responder seems to have a strong suit, could be solid or semisolid.
He may not care much, how many clubs opener has beyond the ones already promised.

Here is where I'm not convinced.
Opener can have: AQxx=KJxx=QJx=xx or Kxx=AQ=Qxx=QJxxx
Over a 'natural' 4♣ opener will discourage and bid 4NT with the first hand & encourage by cueing 4H with the 2nd hand.

rhm, on 2012-June-06, 03:28, said:

...The question you need to answer is how easy and frequent do you want to make minorwood available.
If you insist that minor suit agreement must come before you can even use the convention you make the use of minorwood difficult and rare.

Yes, It is VERY rare & that makes it also more difficult to remember.

rhm, on 2012-June-06, 03:28, said:

If I am correct in the above example there is no way for responder to ask for keycards at all.
Given the lack of bidding space I would bet that this is the most urgent information the 4♣/4♦ bidder requires 9 times out of 10.

4C followed by 4NT if opener encourages by cueing.

rhm, on 2012-June-06, 03:28, said:

....

Because we open short ♣ (2+c) it is maybe a good idea to use 4♦ always as 'minorwood', also for ♣? That allows me to still bid 4♣ if I want to very openers ♣ length.