[karlson]

Partner opens 1N, 15-17

Scoring: MP

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Question 1: Do you stayman playing standard methods?

Question 2: Suppose you play that 3H shows a gf with 4 spades. Partner can bid 3N or 4s to play, 3s as choice of games, or anything higher as "you declare 4s". Would you bid 3h? You could also just stayman if you wanted to.

[CSGibson]

You have four cover cards and no source of tricks, opposite a balanced 15-17. There is no likely slam, and no reason to play it from your side since you aren't lead directional in any suit. You also have no ruffing values. This is a clear 3NT, with the lead coming into partner's minor suit values or his Qx of hearts or whatever.

[kfay]

I voted blast but I was too hasty blasting my answer and didn't read the full question. After reading it 3♥ with these methods is tempting to me but I'd probably bid 3NT anyways.

[Halo]

If I have the 3H bid I'll use it, since it seems to cater for partner preferring NT.

Otherwise I'll Stayman and play in a 44 spade fit.

[Codo]

Blast 3 NT with so strong hands and the given possibilities.
If 3 Heart had been exactly 4333 or just a choice of gasme, I had choosen it. But if Pd bids a cuebid and makes my hand declarer, this will wrongside the contract very badly.

[whereagles]

Let's just be practical: 3NT

[FrancesHinden]

This looks like a good hand for suit play. Playing the sexy gadget I'll offer 4S or 3NT.

[hrothgar]

I suspect that I would just blast 3N. I've seen a number of studies that suggest that notrump takes as many tricks as a suit contract when the two hands have (roughly) 28-29 points between them.

I readily admit that this might be one of the exceptions. If partner has 4 card Spade support and a weak doubleton he's going to be able to ruff losers with baby trump (always a good thing). Even so, I don't find the availability of this particular gadget particularly compelling.

There are other gadgets that might sway my decision. For example, if I had a bid to ask for a weak doubleton or some such, I might prefer this to an immediate 3N

[mcphee]

Find it hard to appreciate why we would look to play in S with this hand opposite a strong NT. 4-3-3-3 does not use stayman, although there might be some mixed feelings on that.

This gadget of 3H to show 4S and a GF hand would not strike my fancy. Looks to me like a waste of a bid that can have a far better use.

[ArtK78]

There is a very good reason why you might want to play in spades rather than notrump.

Pard might have a weak holding in any of the other three suits - even two honors doubleton in one of the minors could be a problem playing in notrump.

However, given that we have 28-30 HCP, it is more likely than not that 3NT is the right place to play the hand, even if partner has 4 spades. And since this is matchpoints, I go with frequency.

At IMPs, I would want to play in 4♠ if partner has 4 spades.

[gwnn]

I have to use that 3♥ thingie, it sounds ideal for this hand. Obviously I bid 3NT if pd re-checks with 3♠. In std. I'd certainly bid 3NT though.

[dake50]

What part of Bal opener with Bal GF doesn't jibe? Blast 3NT. Steal some when no info doesn't direct the weakness, lose some when 4-4S covers that weakness. But the systemic bal w bal is maintained.

[keylime]

3NT. We're 4333, and we're likely getting a major suit lead with that auction. I like my chances.

[Apollo81]

karlson, on Dec 12 2007, 02:12 AM, said:

Partner opens 1N, 15-17

Scoring: MP

---

Question 1: Do you stayman playing standard methods?

Question 2: Suppose you play that 3H shows a gf with 4 spades. Partner can bid 3N or 4s to play, 3s as choice of games, or anything higher as "you declare 4s". Would you bid 3h? You could also just stayman if you wanted to.

I voted "Blast 3N playing standard, but bid 3H with these methods "

[jdonn]

Without regard to the methods, this is a situation players get backwards. At MPs is where you should be more likely to bid stayman, as when you have the spade fit you are very likely to take one more trick in spades. I would always bid stayman on this particular hand, though I normally don't with 4333. In these methods 3♥ seems fine, but I don't know about offering the choice since I think partner will choose notrump too often, given his bad spades. Or I should say, he will offer me the choice too often and I'm not picking notrump anyway.

[jdonn]

whereagles, on Dec 12 2007, 06:10 AM, said:

Let's just be practical: 3NT

Stayman is now impractical? I feel old.

[Apollo81]

jdonn, on Dec 12 2007, 11:39 AM, said:

At MPs is where you should be more likely to bid stayman, as when you have the spade fit you are very likely to take one more trick in spades.

This is true for lower HCP totals but becomes false when you're not bidding a slam and the partnership has 30ish+ HCP.

My intention in posting the above is not to apply this comment to the hand from this post, but rather to offer it as general advice.

[karlson]

I thought this was one of the clearest hands to stayman with given 4333 shape. If partner has a doubleton anywhere, 4s is almost certain to play a trick better.

Since the scoresheet was full of 460's, and a few people that I talked to said they'd bid 3N, I thought I'd post it.

I also did some double dummy simluations. I gave partner a strong notrump with >=4 spades, and us this hand (I gave us some averagish spots, a 9 and an 8 somewhere). I solved 1000 hands double dummy.

The first column is the difference in tricks between spades and notrump. The second is the number of occurrences out of 1000 hands.

-4 1
-3 2
-2 3
-1 26
0 415
1 449
2 87
3 15
4 2

That's 55.3% of hands on which spades plays at least 1 trick better than NT. A ballpark estimate of the standard error is (.5)(.5)(sqrt(1/1000)) which is about 0.8%. So this is a very significant difference if you believe the setup.

[pclayton]

If I read this table right, it says that NT will only take more tricks than spades about 1 out of 20 times? That seems incredible to me.

[jdonn]

pclayton, on Dec 12 2007, 03:32 PM, said:

If I read this table right, it says that NT will only take more tricks than spades about 1 out of 20 times? That seems incredible to me.

That seems normal to me, double dummy. The main gains from notrump come from opponents doing the wrong thing. This happens much more against notrump since it can happen in many more ways, two examples being they lead a spade from Jxxx into partner's ten, or they lead low from something headed by the KQ and let a random jack score, neither of which will happen against 4♠. Still this confirms what I already believed. You simply want to play in spades when you have a spade fit opposite this hand.