[kenberg]

Yesterday at the club we had q 60% game. The pair above us had 60.50 and the pair below had 59.50. There was also a 77%, but second place instead of third would have been nice. Anyway, here is a hand. It's mps, everyone vul.

---

1NT is 15-17, partner does not shade it to 14, he would open 1NT freely with a five card major if his other suits ar 3-3-2 in some order.

I have various options available.

1. Raise directly to some number of NT, either 3NT to play or 4NT invit.

2. Bid 3♣ Puppet Stayman. If partner responds 3 of either major, showing five, 4NT is Key Card.

3. Bid 2♣ Stayman. After which:
a. If partner responds either 2♦ or 2♠, I can bid 3NT to play or 4NT invit.
b. If partner responds 2♥ I can bid 4♥ to play, I can bid 4♣ as Key Card Gerber, I can bid 2♠ as a balanced slam try in ♥.

I seem to have the tools I need, the issue is judgment. Your choice? Does it matter that it is matchpoints?

[ahydra]

It seems to be a few points short of a quantitative invite, surely (you need 16).

I would simply bid 3NT.

- At MPs you get a great score by playing in 3NT rather than 4M if it comes out to the same number of tricks.
- When you have lots of points 3NT is pretty much guaranteed to be cold.
- When you have a 4333 you're not making any tricks on ruffs (though admittedly partner might).

So go for 3NT, keep opps in the dark and hope to score the extra 10 that gives you the (joint) top.

ahydra

[helene_t]

Maybe if I could locate a black doubleton after having found a heart fit? After
1NT-2♣
2♥-2♠
we have plenty of room.

But at matchpoints I would just bid 3NT.

[fromageGB]

A quick count to 31 with this shape and I bid 3NT. I don't even consider anything else.

[JonnyQuest]

Close
...but no cigar.

3NT

[kenberg]

If you bid 3NT you get an opening lead of a small spade. The hands are:

---

Partner gets violently ill when dummy is laid down so you move over to the W seat to play the hand. (Not really, but go with the story line.)

As mentioned, this is matchpoints. Everyone who is in hearts is making eleven or twelve tricks depending solely on the location of the ♣Q. In NT, you can settle for 11 or you can try for twelve, or perhaps many fewer than 12, by running the club.

If you duck the first spade it will be taken by the Q and the suit continued with the K. It will become reasonably certain that here are five spades to the J on your left.

The opponents can be trusted to know that when you show up with five hearts you will not, because of the opening 1NT, have four diamonds, and so they can freely pitch diamonds and spades on the run of the hearts.

Your play.

[mikeh]

So far it is unanimous: 3N

this is right for several reasons.We have extra hcp: a minimum of 29. Generally speaking, the more hcp we have, the less likely it is that we need a trump suit to stop the opps running a suit on us. We won't need to knock out as many defensive cards to set up our winners as we would probably need to do with, say, 25 or 26 combined hcp.

When we have extra hcp, sometimes the hand is about losers rather than tricks or winners, and we'll have the same losers in nt as in a suit

We may be mirrored. While finding a 4-4 fit can sometimes produce an extra trick when mirrored, that is not the norm, so we would always prefer to play notrump

any exploration of opener's shape will give information to the defenders. This is a very important point.

if we have a 4-4 major, it may be weak. I'd always eschew the major with this hcp and shape but were I a little weaker, I'd still bid 3N unless my hearts were stronger. It would be really annoying to find that partner's hearts were, say, Jxxx, and the suit broke 4-1, and we made fewer tricks in hearts than in notrump.

Obviously this decision may work out poorly, but mps is a game of percentages and the percentages are all in favour of 3N...especially the notion of not giving the opps any help on opening lead or subsequent defence.

[mikeh]

kenberg, on 2014-January-29, 09:30, said:

If you bid 3NT you get an opening lead of a small spade. The hands are:

---

Partner gets violently ill when dummy is laid down so you move over to the W seat to play the hand.

As mentioned, this is matchpoints. Everyone who is in hearts is making eleven or twelve tricks depending solely on the location of the ♣Q. In NT, you can settle for 11 or you can try for twelve, or perhaps many fewer than 12, by running the club.

If you duck the first spade it will be taken by the Q and the suit continued with the K. It will become reasonably certain that here are five spades to the J on your left.

The opponents can be trusted to know that when you show up with five hearts you will not have four diamonds, and so they can freely pitch diamonds and spades on the run of the hearts.

Your play.

sh@t happens: I'm still ok with my 3N....we all knew it might not work out

run the hearts. Sure they can pitch diamonds, but then I cash a top club and then run diamonds ending in dummy. I'd know a lot about the hand...probably have an exact count.

If LHO was dealt the club length, I play him to have been squeezed. If RHO had the length, I hook the club. Once again, it is a game of percentages and I never worry or second-guess myself when I have done what I am sure is the right thing.

If I don't have a count, then my decision would be dependent on how I felt at the table, which would be influenced by many factors, including my view of my opps, and any clues I might glean from their body language, tempo, etc.

[fromageGB]

kenberg, on 2014-January-29, 09:30, said:

As mentioned, this is matchpoints. Everyone who is in hearts is making eleven or twelve tricks depending solely on the location of the ♣Q.

So your 3NT has already been vindicated. Don't find the ♣Q and you are still beating all those in hearts 50% of the time. If the Q hasn't dropped I take 11.

[mikeh]

fromageGB, on 2014-January-29, 10:09, said:

So your 3NT has already been vindicated. Don't find the ♣Q and you are still beating all those in hearts 50% of the time. If the Q hasn't dropped I take 11.

That seems like an odd approach. Assuming clubs count to be 4-3 or 3-4, you have a 57% chance of going right by playing the long clubs to hold the Q. Why accept a 50% line when a 57% line is available?

[kenberg]

My choice was to bid 2♣ and raise 2♥ to 4♥. The ♣Q is onside so both 6♥, which was the most popular contract, and 3NT outscore me. North, to the left of the opener, has 5-2-4-2 shape and if the first spade is ducked I think that this is likely to be clear or at least probable. Win the second spade and run all five hearts. North follows to two rounds of hearts and can pitch two spades on the next two hearts since he has long ago given up hope of setting this contract. On the last heart he has to throw a minor before we discard the third spade from the dummy. It seems likely he will discard a diamond and then three rounds of diamonds makes the original shape clear. At mps, I imagine you run the ♣J, just as mikeh says. It works.

Partner thought that perhaps I should have started with Puppet. This wasn't a quarrel, but he said I would get more info that way. But not the info I need. I have no interest in playing spades even if we have a 5-3 fit. As for hearts, if we are playing in hearts I would prefer 4-4 and a side suit of four diamonds That way, if diamonds split 3-3 he makes six w/o needing the club hook. So he gets two shots at making 6.

I am never slamming on my own here, but I though later that maybe I should have shown a balanced slam try after the 2♥ response to 2♣. I gave it some thought, but decided against it. My thinking for playing in the 4-4 fit was that just because I am flat doesn't mean pard is, and on at least some hands there will be another trick playing in the 4-4. Wrong here. I am not fully convinced that I should change my ways but I asked because I was interested in hearing and I definitely appreciate the responses. I do think going on to 6♥ is extravagant but that's where the money was.

Another point of disagreement with partner is that with his hand I would have responded 3♥ rather than 2♥ to Stayman. North that we want to be in 6 anyway until we see the result. I expect the 2♣ bidder to either have invitational values, and with this hand I accept an invitation, or else, when weak, I expect him to have both majors and 3♥ has at least some sort of play on the fit. Mostly this approach has worked for me, although of course nothing works all the time. Against the fact that 3♥ might go down there is the possibility that partner might bid a (making) game that would not be reached if I bid only 2♥.

This is a forum for I/A and so I mention that I was mistaken about the meaning, for us, of 2♠ over 2♥. For many, this would of course be four spades and invitational values because as four suit transfers are often played it must be clarified whether the 2♣ bidder really has a major. But we have agreed that 1NT-2♠ shows either clubs or else an invitational hand in NT. Opener assumes 2♠ is invit in NT and bids 2NT if he rejects and 3♣ if he accepts.. Responder's actions then depend on whether he has the invit or a club suit. Playing this way, the 2♣ bidder always has a four card major. I though we had then agreed to use 2♠ as a balanced slam try in hearts but partner says no. It was this bid, which would have been misunderstood, that I mostly thought I might have tried.

[gszes]

We are around a K short for a quatitative bid so the main question is do we have the tools to

safely search for slam if we think it is plausible?? IMO you do (though I have no clue why you would

differentiate btn regular stayman and puppet but that's another story). If p does not have five hearts

the odds of slam are just too great to worry about so we start with puppet stayman and p cooperates

beautifully and bids 3h NOW WHAT---we have a nice easy 3s bid available---we know its not looking

for a 5 card spade suit.

In my partnerships it is showing something in spades and worries about clubs OR a cue bid for slam

(which we will discover later). If p cannot bid 3n (no club stop) then we have a super simple 4h bid since

the opps may win the first 5 club tricks (in 3n) for all we know. If p bids 3n and we bid bid 4h p will realize

the 3s bid was a cue bid and mild slam try which they should only accept with a really top notch hand since

we were not strong enough to make a quatitative try right away.

Starting with puppet I give us our best chance to reach slam and still leave 3n in the picture. It just seems

wrong to arbitrarily decide 3n is right when we still have so many options and can play 3n after exploring.

The other problem is how would we treat our hand if p were to open 1h and then show extra values after

we use something like jacoby 2n??? Pairs that do not like to open 1n with 5 card majors might easily

start that way and by jumping to 3n we are giving them all of their exploration for free when by using puppet

we can at least get a fair amount of that exploration working for us.

[fromageGB]

mikeh, on 2014-January-29, 10:30, said:

That seems like an odd approach. Assuming clubs count to be 4-3 or 3-4, you have a 57% chance of going right by playing the long clubs to hold the Q. Why accept a 50% line when a 57% line is available?

Yes, I got it wrong. You need to play out the reds to see how many clubs North started with, and even if it's 50/50 taking a losing finesse still beats those in slam, which is what I overlooked.

[kenberg]

fromageGB, on 2014-January-30, 06:43, said:

Yes, I got it wrong. You need to play out the reds to see how many clubs North started with, and even if it's 50/50 taking a losing finesse still beats those in slam, which is what I overlooked.

There is a possibility for some interesting choices here. On the actual hand North was 5-2-4-2 but suppose he was 5-2-3-3. Declarer wins the second spade,and runs five hearts. North has to hold onto the spade J so he must toss a minor on the fifth heart. If he tosses a diamond then declarer tosses a spade and runs the diamonds. On the third diamond North must choose between tossing a club or his last spade. If he tosses the spade, then the finesse is a no-brainer in that even if it loses declarer takes the rest. So of course he tosses a club when he holds xxx, hoping declarer lacks the courage to finesse. But now declarer has to ask himself if North, holding Qxx in clubs, would have been up for tossing a club, a play that gets him two tricks or none, depending on declarer's next move.

If North believes that declarer will go with the finesse with an original distribution of three clubs on his left, four on his right then he needs to come down to Qx and J. but then declarer might cash AK and be delighted that N made this "error".

As to my bidding, I imagine I'll change my ways. I can construct and I am sure you all can construct hands where my partner has four hearts and the hand takes one more trick in hearts than it does in no trump, and this is what I was catering to. But I think, at least maybe, that the hands where the same number of tricks are available in hearts as in no trump are more frequent. For example, if partner has four hearts (remove opne of his spots) and AJxx of diamonds, his clubs and spades unchanged, then the hand makes 12 tricks in hearts without taking the club hook. But for this to work, partner first has to have that diamond holding and, for it to do any good, the club finesse has to fail. If the club finesse is working, declarer has 1+4+4+3=12 tricks in NT anyway.

So there will be times that raising 1NT to 3NT will be wrong, and hopefully partner will forgive me if this happens, but I think maybe I do it.

[monikrazy]

3N seems pretty normal. Even with 2 aces and good intermediates how much can we upgrade a 4-3-3-3 shape when opener may only have 15.

You could probably convince me that 1H is a better bid than 1N, though maybe someone could argue otherwise for technical reasons.