[gnasher]

In some partnerships I play that all 4441 shapes in range are opened 1NT, but that responder bids as though opposite a balanced hand. We accept that we'll occasionally reach a silly contract in exchange for improving the definition of our one-bids.

This approach doesn't result in an inferior contract as often as you might expect. A 4441 shape occurs 1/16th as often as 4333, 4432 or 5332. For the opening to result in an obviously wrong contract, responder has to have a five-card major and a weak hand, a six-card major and a good hand, or a raise of notrumps without a strong holding in opener's short suit.

[andy_h]

My current partnership treats 4441 as balanced whenever we have a rebid problem. The hands with the singletons are usually the 1=4=4=4 and (13)45 type of hands. It can put us in a silly contract (admittedly, it has only happened to us once after 1NT-3NT and our spades were combined x-xxx) but we have agreed that it's the least of all evils lie that we prefer to tell.