[thepossum]

Dear all

I occasionally fall into a trap with the following sequence and hand types when many people seem confident to bid to 3 NT without a stopper in a suit. This seems rather risky to me. Should south bid 3S showing a stopper. How do most 2/1 players as for stoppers and how does GiB do it.

Most people with this seem to just take the plunge with a points based 3NT bid and risk not having a heart stopper but I would like to be more sure

---

[helene_t]

South can't bid 3S. He already showed four. Bidding them again shows extra length.

North could conside rebidding 2nt (showing a balanced hand) or 3Nt (showing long diamonds, short spades and stoppers in the unbid suits. But 3di is normal.

South can't do anything other than 3nt.

[apollo1201]

helene_t, on 2019-February-20, 00:52, said:

South can't bid 3S. He already showed four. Bidding them again shows extra length.

Over Diamonds that cramp up bidding space, contrary to C where you just show your stoppers, it is not uncommon to play:
- 3oM = oM stopped, no C stopper
- 3M = C stopped, no stopper in other major, *or* 5 very good or 6 cards in M, partner being urged to bid 3NT when he can, often right siding the contract

It is upon partnership’s agreement (the famous diamond issue). But probably more I/A than N/B.

Anyway, N would have exercised a better judgment to open 1NT or rebid 2NT, with a more simple sequence as a result.

[Stephen Tu]

99.5% of people have no system here. You just bid 3nt and hope. Most of the time you turn out OK, often aided by the fact that people with good long suits often have bid them for you. But sometimes you go down off the top and usually have company. The problem is that unless you do something super fancy, you have only 1 bid, 3H, available, but 2 suits, hearts + clubs that have a potential problem.
Now for those in super-expert partnerships with super memory, I did once read a treatment here, where you do something like bid 3nt with a club stopper but no heart stopper, and bid 3H with a heart stopper or both, and over 3H partner can query with 3S if he needs both. Or one could choose different meanings, the key is 3H has to show two hand types. But good luck getting a non-pro player to play this with you.

[Tramticket]

apollo1201, on 2019-February-20, 01:07, said:

Anyway, N would have exercised a better judgment to open 1NT or rebid 2NT, with a more simple sequence as a result.

I agree with this and the exact bid will depend on your NT range - we would rebid 1NT as it shows 15-18 in our system (i'm treating this hand as close to an 18-count rather than a 16-count).

Our sequence would be 1D, 1S; 1NT, 2C*; 3D*, 3NT
(wher 2C is an inquiry and 3D shows 18 or a very good 17 and good diamonds)

[gszes]

the bidding would have been best served with 1d 1s 2n. It is true the strong hand is not totally balanced and diamonds are the main feature BUT bidding is a practical art. The slight shortage of HCP is compensated by the extra tricks in the diamond suit AND all of the side suits are stopped with partner bidding 1s. Most minimums by partner will not yield game so 2n asking partner to bid game if near top is a very practical idea. Many will consider opening 1n do to the HCP count but this hand is worth a bit over SEVEN tricks while most 1n opening bids are closer to FIVE. This makes the 1d 1s 2n rebid even more practical.

[akwoo]

I should explain why people don't explore for stoppers in this situation.

Exploring stoppers helps the opponents find the right lead.

This is particularly important at matchpoints, where overtricks matter.

Let's consider the following scenarios:

Suppose you don't have a good stopper. Probably what happens is that 3N makes 4 on the wrong lead and goes down 1 on the right lead, but 5D makes. In this case, if you just bid 3N, you are +430/630 on the wrong lead and -50/100 on the right lead. You are +400/600 (or +420/620) in 5D. If you look for a stopper, you end up in 5D. Against the pair in 5D, if you bid 3N, you gain a matchpoint half the time and lose a matchpoint half the time. This means you break even. (Yes, you are risking losing 450/700 points for the gain of 10 or 30 points. Matchpoints is weird.)

On the other hand, suppose you do have a stopper, 3N makes 4 on the wrong lead, and makes 3 on the wrong lead. In this case, looking for a stopper costs you a matchpoint half the time, because you've helped the opponents find the lead. So you are behind.

Most bridge is played at matchpoints, so bidding systems are generally optimized for such.

Playing safe is a good way of guaranteeing you always end up at 45%.

[Stephen Tu]

Eh, I think people don't explore for stoppers here because they don't have the fancy system discussed. Zero percent of my partners have wanted to play something fancy here, even though most are fairly advanced->expert players who have played for decades.
Your argument that opponents find right lead is 50-50 isn't quite right in my view. When you have short combined holding in a suit and no/bad stop, it is much more likely that opponent on lead has longer/stronger holding in that suit than in the one you have well covered. I find my opponents annoyingly find the right lead quite a lot more often than I'd like them to.

On completely blind 1nt-3nt auctions there is more chance to go wrong than after a couple suits have been shown.

A pair with sophisticated system that can get to 5d (or even just 4d, or sometimes 6d) when the field is in below par or hopeless 3nt IMO will do quite well at matchpoints. It's just the field doesn't have stopper asking methods here, so everyone just bids 3nt because it happens to be right a decent chunk of the time and when it isn't we have field protection.

[thepossum]

Thanks everyone

P