Julian Pottage
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With the benefit of seeing all 4 hands, it can be possible to make 12 tricks on roughly 1 deal in 10 or 12, so 2 of those per 24 board session. However, probably half the makeable slams require a couple of finesses or a finesse plus an even break, so you would not want to be in those; counting sound slams only, I would estimate 1 in 24 boards.
With both my partners who play 4-card majors, we open the major rather than the minor (indeed if planning to rebid NT we sometimes open a 4-card major in preference to a weak 5-card minor). Opening the major is the Standard English style too. Having a clear rule about what you open helps any partnership. If you open the minor, you will open a 4-card major a lot less often. Most people who are not keen on opening 4-card majors go the whole hog and play 5-card majors. I do not think there is a huge technical advantage either way – the important thing is that you and your partner are on the same wavelength.
With all my partners I play a form of 5-card Stayman over a 2NT opening. With fewer other bids available to show a hand of the strength of a 2NT opening, you are more likely to open 2NT on a non-standard shape.
With one partner I play a 3D response to a 3C opening as an enquiry but that is not standard.
If you are playing weak two bids, a three-level pre-empt shows a hand that was too good to open at the two level and not good enough to open at the four level, so it has a fairly narrow range anyway.
In response to three of a major, I play that four of a minor is a cue bid (it is unlikely that you would want to change a major to a minor in a natural sense). With a decent pre-empt, opener can then co-operate with a return cue bid while a poor opening hand simply signs off.
With two balanced hands and a combined 25 HCP you normally want to be in 3NT because it will make more often than not and it is what the room (at matchpoints) or the other table (at teams) will be doing.
On the layout you give the SJ is not working at all and the DJ is probably redundant. Responder might work out that the short SJ could be worthless and pass 1NT despite the good intermediates outside.
Most bridge players I know are like airline passengers – love to upgrade but hate to downgrade – and would have opened 1D, making it impossible to avoid game.
The first person to reply has misread your query and has answered as if all 4 players are bidding. Please ignore that.
If holding 3-card heart support, partner might have passed 1H (your response was non-forcing because you had previously passed) or raised to 2H. Partner’s 2C rebid rather suggests a doubleton or singleton heart, in which case 2C will be a safer contract. Occasionally partner will be 2-2-4-5 and hearts will play equally well but much of the time your side will have 8 clubs and only 6 or 7 hearts.
If the hearts were better, say K-Q-J-9-x, then I would agree with 2H. It would not be a disaster to play with that holding facing a singleton.
I am not familiar with the term endgaming either. where did you hear it?
Many people use the term endplay as synonymous with a throw in. If you are on lead and have to play a suit to your disadvantage (because you have no safe suits to lead), you are endplayed. As a defender you try to avoid the situation.
Most people play high to encourage and low to discourage and without agreement that is what partner will assume. A lot of experts play low to encourage but you would need to agree that with your partner.
If your spades were poor and your hearts good, you might treat the shape as 4-4 and respond 1hx. That is definitely not the case here. You will get to show the hearts as well if partner rebids 1NT but not otherwise – you would pass a 2C rebid and would have no reason to mention the heart length if partner raises spades and or reverses into diamonds.
thanks Mark – if there are two exposed hands as well as your own, you know exactly what the other player holds, which is why ‘double dummy’ means you can play as if you know where all the cards are
Frozen suits typically have the honours divided between the four players. If you have a suit with no honours or with touching honours, it is less likely to be a frozen suit. in a NT contract you are trying to set up long winners as well as high cards. If an opponent has bid the suit, you are less likely to find partner with length and so less likely to lead the suit anyway.
If you have unsupported honours in every suit, you have no choice but to lead what might turn out to be a frozen suit. Then you look for a suit with a good upside if partner has the right holding.
If you raise 1C or 1D, you are going to have 4-card support. Without four, you would have another suit to bid or would respond 1NT. The only time you would be raising a minor with three-card support is if the next hand has overcalled. If you are too short in the unbid major to double and you lack a stopper in the overcaller’s suit, raising with three could be the only option.
You are more likely to raise 1H with 3-card support and more likely still to raise 1S with three-card support. Opener will only find out by rebidding no-trumps – and will need at least 17 points to be doing that. Much of the time opener will have five and will not care whether responder has three or four.
An initial response at the one level to partner’s opening bid does not promise anything more than four cards in the suit, so opener does not know at that point. Subsequent bidding may reveal whether responder does or does not have at least five cards. If responder rebids the suit or introduces a second suit, the first bid will have more than four cards. Just about the only action that shows only four is if opener raises and responders rebids 2NT or 3NT (e.g. 1C-1S-2S-2NT).
A subtle clue as to whether responder has four cards or five is the amount of space consumed by the response. Responder is more likely to have five spades for a 1S response to a 1C opening than a 1S response to a 1H opening. Opener is more likely to raise to 2S with three-card support after 1C-1S than after 1H-1S.
Sorry I should have asked you to post this in the ask David section – you may find that we move your query to that section
