[el mister]

I play acol and find the limit raise structure to be a very reassuring feature as a beginner. Is it sensible to play it in the minors though? Particularly with respect to 10+ hcp and 4 card support, where a jump to the 3 level is called for in the majors.

Say I hold the following: Kx xxx AJxx Kxxx and p opens 1♦. If I limit raise to 3♦ we have no space to ask about playing in 3NT, so how do we get there?

I've had a few 1m pass 3m auctions get passed out / descend into confusion recently for poor results.

[helene_t]

It's standard to play limits raises in the minors, too. If opener has 15+ balanced, 3NT will normally be fine but you can show stoppers if you are unsure.

If opener has less than that he will be unbalanced so 4m should have some play if we turn out not to have all suits stopped.

After 1♦-3♦ you don't have bidding space for checking all stoppers so you will have to gamble a little.

If you find this to be a major problem you may consider playing inverted minors.

[el mister]

What are inverted minors helene? Is it 2m is strong 3m is weak?

[helene_t]

Yes, exactly. http://en.wikipedia....Inverted_minors

[NickRW]

el mister, on Jul 25 2008, 11:47 AM, said:

I've had a few 1m pass 3m auctions get passed out / descend into confusion recently for poor results.

Yeah, you will improve your results overall by using inverted minors - certainly in the common case where responder is invitational. The downside (especially when playing a weak NT) is when responder has a 3m response and opener is a good bit above minimum. Now you get the no space to investigate problem again - but these are less common, especially if you restrict the 3m response to the weaker and/or unbalanced hand, but avoid it with the near invitational relatively balanced types. My 2 cents worth anyway...

Nick