Brian Davies
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Another solution to the problem of transfers over 2NT is South-african Texas – which I have played in some partnerships.
Hi Geoff, yes I think that 3NT instead of 3S would be normal on the given hands. Firstly I think that the two spade bid has already shown the six-card suit (if a 1NT opening might include 5 spades), or strongly suggested a six-card suit, at the very least. Repeating spades seems to be repeating the same feature. Secondly, partner’s three diamond bid is very likely looking for a 3NT contract, so it would seem to be perverse not to tell partner the good news that you have a stop.
Doubleton leads can sometimes be effective, usually because the lead is passive, not giving anything away.
Hi Michael, what about 1D-1S-2C? Most (including me) would still play this as non-forcing, but I do know one teacher who likes this to be forcing.
The rule that is almost universal is a new suit at the three level is forcing. But even this isn’t always true … 1S-1NT-2S-3C is non-forcing for most!
Great post Roger! My theory is that partnerships would be better discussing which bids are forcing, rather than which convention to add. Forcing bids can be Game Forcing or Forcing for One Round. Non-forcing bids can be sign-off or constructive.
Some sequences cause confusion for less experienced players. For other sequences the advice has evolved over the years and some players are still playing out-of-date methods. Then there are sequences where there can be differences of opinions – even amongst experts.
I can quickly think of a few sequences you might want to discuss with partner:
1H-2C-2D
1C-1S-2C-2D
Pass-1D-1H
1H-2C-2NT
1H-2C-2S
1NT-2D-2H-2S
1D-(Dbl)-1S
1S-(Dbl)-2D
2H-2S
3H-3S
(1D)-1H-(Pass)-1S
(1D)-1H-(Pass)-2C
(3D)-3H-(Pass)-3S
(1NT)-Dbl-(2D)-PassThis is far from an exhaustive list!
I’m sure that Bernard will cover most of these as we go on, but I do like the idea of treating this as a topic in its own right.
Ok, let’s be generous and assume that South might sometimes choose spades, despite having a heart stop. If South would do this half of the time, we can simply take an average between my two simulations. Leading the ace of hearts is still a big winner.
Hi Geoff, Yes – Jack carries out a simulation. But the simulation will only be as good as Jack’s interpretation of the auction. It is one thing to make Acol bids, but an entirely more complex problem to reverse engineer from the auction to the likely hands, taking into account inferences from bids made and also negative inferences from bids not made. I don’t know if Jack is able to supply the hand types that it is expecting?
I have run the lead through Lead Captain assuming the following parameters:
– South: 10-13 HCPs; 6-7 spades; 0-3 diamonds; 0-3 clubs; any number of hearts excluding the king.
– North: 13-18 HCPs; 0-1 spades; 3-4 diamonds; 4-6 clubs; any number of hearts excluding the king.The results were quite dramatic:
– Ace of hearts lead: sets the contract 80.06%; expected number of defensive tricks 4.56
– Queen of hearts: sets the contract 80.05%; expected number of defensive tricks 4.56
– Three of hearts: sets the contract 60.89%; expected number of defensive tricks 4.23
– seven/six of diamonds: sets the contract 48.43%; expected number of defensive tricks 3.07
– Clubs or spade leads were considerably worse.I expected a heart to be a big winner – but the size of the win at both IMPS and Pairs surprised even me. (Note that the measure for setting the contract is the best measure at IMPs. The expected number of tricks is the best measure at MP pairs). You can quibble about the parameters that I chose, but the only parameter that makes any significant difference is the parameter to exclude the king of hearts from either hand.
As a comparison I re-ran the simulation but excluded the condition that neither opponent held the heart king. The results changes to:
– seven/six of diamonds: sets the contract 39.87%; expected number of defensive tricks 3.17
– Ace of hearts lead: sets the contract 37.07%; expected number of defensive tricks 3.17
Now a diamond lead is marginally better at IMPs and the expected returns are the same at MP pairs. I suspect that Jack has not picked up on the negative inference that neither opponent bid no trumps.As Sean says, there is a significant problem with using 4NT to ask for aces / key cards if clubs are the proposed trump suit. Any response other than 5C commits us to slam, meaning that we can’t use 4NT if 5D (or higher) is a possible response and would leave the partnership missing two key cards. This problem exists to a lesser extent if diamonds is the agreed suit and is even occasionally possible if hearts is the agreed suit.
There are many possible solutions. I currently play (at partner’s insistence) the Minorwood convention suggested by John. Redwood as suggested by Sean is probably an improvement. I think that Bernard’s Diamondwood is a similar option, designed just for the club suit. In this system, a 4 diamond bid asks for aces and the step responses operate in a similar way to the 4NT ask. It should be emphasised that this applies if and onlh if clubs are agreed.
Since we are currently working through slam bidding, I expect that Bernard will introduce us to it soon.
Asking Q plus to select a lead is not carrying out a computer simulation. Computer programmes are notoriously poor at choosing opening leads. I am not familiar with Q Plus but I know from people who play regularly against the GIB robots on BBO, that it tends to make too many passive leads. Computer algorythms are very difficult to programme and each will have its own biases and tendencies.
A genuine double dummy simulation can be carried out by programmes such as Lead Captain. This type of programme will not understand bidding – instead you input the possible parameters for the North and South hands and the programme will generate (say) 10,000 hands consistent with the auction and play those hands (double dummy).
Choosing the parameters is easy enough on a simple auction such as 1NT-3NT, but more complicated as the auctions gets more complicated. Understanding the possibilities for the opponent’s hands is of course exactly what you should do at the table.
If I were selecting parameters for a Lead Captain simulation, they would include the conditions that neither opponent has the ace, king or queen of hearts. I don’t need to run a simulation to know that leading a heart will work out best under those conditions.
Listening to the bidding will guide you to the best lead.
Can you be too strong for Jacoby? I’ve never seen it suggested that Jacoby has an upper limit. I have seen it stated that splinter bids have an upper limit and you should use Jacoby if too strong to splinter, so I always assumed that Jacoby has no upper limit. What is the alternative? You can’t cut out four rounds of bidding and leap to Blackwood every time you hold 16+. That is not scientific! Maybe a jump shift 3C bid?
Anyway, how do you value the North hand. Superficially there are 7 losers. But the three aces and the likely 10-card trump fit mean that it is worth better than 7 losers. But surely not enough to insist on slam?
Sad to say, I can’t see any reasonable auction to a slam.We would be playing this in four spades.
There are degrees of “balancedness” with 4333 hands at one extreme: clearly completely balanced and 13— at the other extreme: completely unbalanced. Bridge theory tends to divide hand shapes into three broad categories: balance, semi-balanced and unbalanced. There is broad agreement that the three balanced shapes have at most one doubleton and are:
– 4333
– 4432
– 5332
Note that the 5332 shape is balanced, whether the 5-card suit is a major or a minor. We may prefer (as Bernard recommends) to open one heart or one spade with this hand type, but the that is a choice to not open 1NT with a balanced hand because we think that there is a more descriptive bid available.The second category is semi-balanced hands. Most would agree that hands with two doubletons definitely fall into this category:
– 5422
– 6322
There are two further hand shapes which are more controversial:
– 4441 – This is tricky because the hand contains a singleton. But you can’t expect to develop length winners with this hand type and for this reason it tends to be weaker in playing strength and relatively stronger in defensive strength. It is an awkward hand-type in any system.
– 7222 – Can a seven-card suit be regarded as semi-balanced? It has no singletons and will often play surprisingly poorly. Be very careful pre-empting with is hand shape, it rarely plays as well as you might expect.Finally, there are unbalanced hands. All hand-types with singleton are unbalanced, except maybe the 4441 hand type.
You wouldn’t usually open 1NT with a semi-balanced hand. But very occasionally it might save you a rebid problem. Consider:
A10
KJ94
97632
AQ
If you choose to open one diamond you will have a difficult rebid over a one spade response. You can’t bid hearts (not strong enough to reverse), but do you really want to repeat those diamonds? Opening 1NT is surely the most practical choice.You will more often choose to make a no trump rebid (say 1C-1S-1NT) with a semi-balanced shape. I am sure that Bernard does not recommend that you open 2NT with every semi-balanced hand, but it is quite often desirable to open a semi-balanced 2NT:
AK
AQ
KQ98
A9842
You might open one club, planning to reverse next round with two diamonds. But it might be better to open two no trumps – just in case there isn’t a next round!Thanks Bernard. We don’t play Gerber or 4-level transfers, so we do have both 4C and 4D available as natural and single-suited. We don’t have good ways to show both minors and probably should use the 3S as the minor suit Stayman as you suggest.
We play it as showing the 5 spades / 4 hearts hand. This method is straightforward but probably not optimal.
There are methods which include the 5S/4H hand type within the 3C structure freeing the 3S response to show various minor suit hand types (try googling Muppet Stayman). Traditional response structures do not work well in finding minor suit slams. If you are willing to embrace complexity, there are methods where the 3NT response is not natural and this would give the scope to build a comprehensive system to find minor-suit slams. Easy for one partner to forget though …
“Contract 3NT no bidding sequence given unfortunately.”
Your club is setting an unhelpful quiz. Always consider the bidding when choosing your lead and your club should be encouraging you to do this by giving you a bidding sequence. The correct answer should be “I don’t know yet. What is the auction?”. But don’t expect to win a bottle of champagne with my answer!!
Andrew, yes you are correct, the two exceptions are (where x is any suit):
– 1X-Pass-1NT-Dbl (take-out of the suit x)
– 1X-Pass-1NT-Pass-Pass-Dbl (take-out of the suit x)Stephen, I think that many less experienced players have this fear of bidding slams. They focus on why a slam might fail, rather than why it is likely to succeed. If you follow the right decision process, you should bid the slam with confidence: (1) Do I have the values for slam? Think of Bernard’s idea that you are excited. You need about 30 Total Points between the two hands for a suit slam. (2) Do I have the controls (aces, kings, singletons, voids) to ensure I won’t lose the first two tricks?
Your slams won’t always succeed – but if you succeed at least 50% of the time you will be showing a profit. This fear of failure stops many from bidding slams, but making 13 tricks in a four heart contract is also a type of failure! Be bold and bid more slams – it is great fun! 🙂
