Brian Davies
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No, a slam should fail when East leads their partner’s club suit and West cashes the first two club tricks!
Julian will give you his expert opinion on the auction. 1H-2C-4H would be my guess.
Hi Julian,
I am interested in your raise structure. You stated that (1♦)-1♥-(Pass)-2NT is a sound four-card raise and (1♦)-1♥-(Pass)-3♥ is preemptive. How do you play (1♦)-1♥-(Pass)-2♦ and (1♦)-1♥-(Pass)-3♦?
Thanks
Brian
Kenneth, your line needed the king of clubs onside and the ruffing finesse in spades to work.
In practice, I would be settling for game on a combined 25-point misfit – particularly after the opposition rob you of any bidding space to investigate slam.!
Susan, I found it confusing, because the first round of bidding is hidden and South’s bidding is hidden. But piecing it together the auction was:
Why should 4♠ go off on “best defence”?
It probably goes off if declarer tackles trumps by playing the ace and leading towards the queen. But on the auction described, South has shown an extreme two-suiter and West should probably lead a low trump towards dummy, playing the nine if North plays low. This is a safety play, guaranteeing no more than one spade loser unless South started with three spades.
You are just guessing with these freak hands.
Pairs of teams?
One idea is to open 2H then plan to bid 4D later..
I won”t comment on the friendliness or otherwise.
But I will say that Landy is not straightforward. The next question will be after 1NT-2C-P-2NT ‘Is that strong? What responses do you play?’
It is difficult to judge how these highly competitive auctions will go. Here is my guess:
After two passes, South will open 1♦.
Most West’s will choose to bid a 2NT (Unusual NT) overcall, showing at least 5-5 in hearts and clubs.
This is awkward for North. It is pushy, but since North is a passed hand it might be worth a stretch to bid 3♠ (which is non-forcing, but invitational given that North passed initially).
As East, I would bid 4♥ after the 3♠ bid. If North chooses to pass, then maybe 3♥ is enough.
If East has bid 3♥, then a 4♦ bid from South might get you to 5♦. But if East has bid 4♥, South has a really tough bid and might bid 4♠ – which will probably fail because of a diamond ruff!
It is a matter of partnership agreement of course.
With five spades and four hearts, you have three ranges that you might wish to show:
- A weak hand, looking to sign off.
- An invitational strength hand – looking to play in game if partner has a suitable fit and/or is top of range.
- A hand prepared to force to (at least) game.
The problem with Smolen (as suggested by Charles) is that you cannot use Stayman to escape with weak hands. Many in the US use Smolen because it works well with a strong no trump and you have less need to escape on weak responder-hands. The standard Acol treatment is for the sequences 1NT-2♣-2♦-2♠ and 1NT-2♣-2♦-2♥ to be a weak take-out with five cards in the suit bid and four in the other major, but this means that the bids are not available for Smolen.
In Acol, it is usual for the transfer sequence 1NT-2♥-2♠-3♥ to be forcing to game, meaning that Acol has a well defined structure for the weak hand and the game-forcing hand but doesn’t cope well with the invitational hand. With your first example Stewart, I would transfer, then 3♥. With your second example, I would transfer to spades then bid 2NT. This is not ideal, but at least it shows the main feature of my hand and the invitational strength. If partner is top of the range with four hearts and two spades, partner could bid 3♥, meaning that you wouldn’t lose the 4-4 heart fit.
It really is down to partnership agreement, but you only have two bids to describe three strengths and Bernard recommended these Acol methods.
Yes, the use of the term Balanced in that document is rather curious. Is the term “balanced” even defined in the laws / regulations?
In practice, I would expect a Strong 1NT or a 2NT opening to be quite frequently made on semi-balanced shapes (5422 and 6322 with a six-card minor). Even playing a weak NT, I think that a 1NT might be the best choice on a hand such as: ♠AQ ♥KJ42 ♦97642 ♣K10.
Hi Charles, I am sure that David will respond soon enough but I believe that the relevant part of the Blue Book is:
4.G.1 Natural 2NT openings are announced by stating the range, e.g. by saying “20 to 22”. It is not necessary to add “may contain a singleton”.
I agree with David, aces are undervalued in the point-count system. Both hands are comfortable opening hands.
The question in this post was prompted by a discussion about the strength of 4441 hands. I think that in the abstract, 5332 hands offer more playing strength than 4441 hands. Of course the degree of fit is important and Colin makes a good point that 4441 hands offer the possibility of a fit in three different suits.
