Brian Davies
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Ian, yes different experts give different advice. This reflects the fact that it us an awkward distribution and any choice involves compromises.
The danger with opening 1H is that you can find yourself in an ugly 4-3 heart fit after an auction such as 1H-1S-2C-4H with responder expecting opener to hold a 5th heart. Maybe responder should allow for the possibility of the 4441 shape and bid the 4th suit? But the auction becomes imprecise and the problems only increase if the opponents have over-called.
I don’t like overcalling a vulnerable 2D on a weak five-card suit, but at least LHO is passed, so you probably won’t be doubled. But 2-off and -200 is certainly a possible (likely?) outcome.
If you are tempted to overcall, you would be better advised opening 1D or 1NT.
No, not directly as a topic yet. But the subject has come up in a number of the quizzes and hands of the week. We have also discussed 4441 hands a few times in these forums.
Here are some thoughts:
– 4441 shapes tend to be relatively week in playing strength (no 5-card suits etc.) and strong defensively (if the opponents find a 4-4 fit, the trumps will break an awkward 4-1). For this reason, it is often better to be prudent with this shape.
– 4441 is the ideal shape for a take-out double – another reason not to rush into the auction.
– You often have to mislead partner with this shape. For example, if you open a suit and rebid a second suit, you suggest five cards in the first suit. But if you open a suit and rebid 1NT, you suggest a balanced hand (no singleton). Our objective if we open the budding is to make the mist descriptive / least misleading choices.
– Personally, I will always choose to open a minor as it tends to be less harmful to wrongly imply a five-card minor than a five-card major.
Hope this helps!
This will depend on partnership style.
With 11 points, a couple of tens and a decent five-card suit, my partner would not expect me to pass!
Hi Anne, do you have the actual hand? And vulnerability?
Bidding 3S is certainly bidding to the level of fit, but with only two points you may be completely out-gunned and I would probably want some extra distribution to jump to 3S – particularly if vulnerable.
I am struggling with this one – mainly because West only seems to have 12 cards …
It looks easy, unless the 13th card is a diamond?
Hi David, I have also come up against:
#4: Weak sign-off (this by a pair who seem to open a weak-two with any random five-card suit).
As David says, this is something that you should discuss with partner when you agree to play weak twos. Personally, I play a change of suit as strong and forcing and this is in line with Bernard’s recommendations in one of the Friday live presentations.
Nigel, opportunities to interfere over Blackwood are rare, but can make life difficult for your opponents. But as a more general tip, you should try hard to interfere whenever the opponents use an artificial convention. Players are often very familiar with the responses to their favourite gadget, but can be thrown when you bid in the middle of (say) their Ogust inquiry!
It is good competitive bridge and is very much part of the game, not unethical. 🙂
Hi Charles. What would you expect to lead without the double (i.e. 1NT-3NT)? I suspect that if you have few points, you would try to find partner’s suit and often pick a major. So maybe there is a theoretical case for the double to show a minor? I have never come across this idea before, but I wonder whether this might be an improvement?
You have 19 points and partner has 15-17 (assuming that your basic system is Acol). You have at least a combined 34 points. You have the values for slam and I would have raised to 6NT.
4NT is quantitative, not RKCB, but you don’t need it on this hand.
You don’t give the hands, but I would expect 6NT to usually make with 34+.
Yes well done. The day is Special, because it is the first time that the sun has appeared for six months!
This has come up many times over the years and no one ever offers any evidence other than anecdotal comments about distributional hands. My thoughts are:
- Complaints about computer dealt hands are usually made by players who are used to hand shuffling and dealing the cards. There is very ample evidence to show that people are very bad at shuffling hands adequately to randomise the cards, There is also plenty of reasons to expect, as well as evidence to show, that poorly shuffled cards result in flatter and less distributional hands.
- There is no motivation for BBO or anyone else to produce artificially distributional deals. What is to be gained?
- As human beings we will tend to notice patterns and extremes. You might play one extreme hand in the course of a 24-board evening duplicate and the other 23 boards will be more mundane. But it is the one extreme board that will occupy your thoughts and subsequent discussions. I am sure that Julian will confirm that he receives far more questions about the extreme distribution hands than he receives about the flatter hands in the part-score zone. The questioners fail to realise, of course, that the flat, part-score hands will score just as many Match Points.
- Boring hands do happen on BBO – I played in a duplicate on Monday night where three of the 22 boards were passed out at most tables! But there is much less comment when hands tends to be flatter than average.
Unfortunately, none of us are able to play face to face at the moment. But when we can play face to face, I suggest that people will be reluctant to return to clubs that still use hand-shuffled cards and will migrate instead to the clubs with access to a dealing machine. They will have become used to properly random hands and hand records at the end of the night.
