[han]

I can't sleep, the following problem is keeping me awake:

Playing IMP pairs on BBO with a worldclass player we have the following auction:

1C - 1H
2H - 3NT

The contract is cold, but I tell him that I was surprised when I saw his hand. My partner informs me that 3NT shows a GF hand with exactly 4 hearts and stoppers in the unbid suits. This obvious statement ends the discussion.

His hand was A42 J987 A2 K1064.

I think that you'd always want to be in 4H with this hand if I have 4 hearts (and won't I pass 3NT with all 4333's?). If I have only 3, I tend have side suit shortness, and if not I'll have a small doubleton. So with the given hand, I'd often want to be in 4H even if I have only 3 hearts.

What do you think? What if the hearts were a bit stronger, say KJ98 (giving him a 15 count)?

[Walddk]

If you don't have a relay available after

1x - 1M
2M

to find out more about opener's hand, I think 3NT is a fine bid, offering you a choice of games.

Roland

[awm]

I agree with Hannie here. On what basis is opener supposed to decide whether to bid 4♥ or not? My tendency would be to pass 3NT with three hearts and bid 4♥ with four hearts unless perhaps 4333. But this hand will play better in 4♥ opposite three-card hearts with either pointed singleton, or either pointed small doubleton. Even opposite 4333, you may do better in 4♥ by scoring a diamond ruff, or protecting against lack of a second diamond stopper.

My personal choice would be a natural (and game forcing!) 3♣ call, but not playing such a thing I think 4♥ is right.

[1eyedjack]

2H raise by opener may be on only 3 card support in some methods, perhaps subject to agreement, so I would not want to commit to 4H unilaterally. Lots of room between 2H and 3N, of course, and lots of scope for agreement about what they all mean.

[coyot]

3NT is a nice bid... no shortness... Perhaps it would be better to have one more diamond and one less club (1♣-2♥-3♥-3♣ would be a forcing bid, no doubt about that...), but it certainly gets the message across - we might be in a better spot with one less trick to make, partner, especially if you raised with 3card.

[FrancesHinden]

I guess this was not a regular partnership?

Playing with a partner where I haven't discussed these continuations in detail, 3NT seems not unreasonable. It shows a balanced hand, a game force, likely to be only four hearts.

Yes, if you want to have a delicate auction you could try bidding something else (3C?) to have a conversation. But there's always a chance that partner will pass an "obviously" forcing bid, or that partner will think you've implied five hearts, and then you end in a stupid contract. Even worse, partner might bid 3NT and then you'll have to let partner play the hand(!)

With my regular partner I wouldn't have bid 3NT on this hand, not least because it's not a game force. But in a pick-up partnership it seems a sensible call (particularly if there's a risk 2NT will be alerted).

[Gerben42]

3NT is choice of games. I had this sequence yesterday also and partner corrected to 4♥ with a singleton which was the correct thing to do.

At MP I prefer to have more than a minimum GF for this, otherwise just bid 4♥ (after making sure partner has 4 ♥ as well). At MP 3NT only pays off if it makes at least the same number of tricks than 4M, at IMP 3NT also pays off if it makes one trick less than 4M.

[Fluffy]

In my partnership 3NT would show something like 3325, or maybe also 3433, but if you play inverted minors I guess that is not possible. So just offers to play there if you want.

[mike777]

Agree 3nt. Sleep like a baby.

[han]

Thanks Mike, I slept fine after posting this.

[inquiry]

I typically go through 2NT relay here rather than jump to 3NT, but I understand 3NT.
As for playing better in 4-3 fit, with ruffing in the hand with three hearts. Yes, I like moysein's, especially at MP, but here, responders heart suit is so weak, anything more than one ruff will cost you the trick you gain. That is either you are ruffing with honors, or your heart suit is too anemic anyway. Now make responder stronger as Hannie suggested, then ruffs are a good thing in the short suited hand and source of bucketfulls of matchpoints over time.

If you play 2NT relay, maybe you should consider what a 3NT bid means instead of the 2NT relay. Surelly this still has to be a pick-game bid, but the direct 3NT should be "weak hearts" and good values outside of hearts, so you can play in 3NT when hearts is the weakness, even with 4-4 fit.

Also, some people "frequently" will bid 1♥ over 1♦ (but not 1♣) on a three card suit (sort of a waiting bid). If your parnteship does much of this, you might have another use for the jump to 3NT.

[Elianna]

FrancesHinden, on Aug 30 2005, 01:59 AM, said:

With my regular partner I wouldn't have bid 3NT on this hand, not least because it's not a game force.

lol

[whereagles]

Depends on who pard is..

1. A hog (not the_hog.. lol): pard is used to stealing the hand, and prefers to play 3NT to 4H. Pass and let him play his favorite contract.

2. A joker: 3NT 100% to play because 1H was a psyche. Pard can have xxx of hearts, or possibly even less of them!

3. A normal person: natural. Proposing to play 3NT or 4H.

[hrothgar]

I recall seeing a couple studies comparing the trick taking capabilities for hand with 4-4 fits in NT as compared to a suit contract. The findings were mildly interesting (especially for MP play)

If the two hands total approximately 24-26 HCP, the 4-4 fit will typically produce one more trick than NT. However, add another Queen (give the two hands 27-29 HCP or so) and you should expect to take the same number of tricks in NT as in your 4-4 fit.

[Free]

3NT just suggests 3NT as alternative to 4♥. Usually it's done with a 4333, or with 4432 with shortness in opener's suit. So I wouldn't bid 3NT on this hand, but swap the ♣ and ♦ suits and I'll do it...

[kfgauss]

With one partner, where we raise on 3 cards basically anytime we have a worthless doubleton and a balanced hand (maybe the 3 card suit needs an honor), in addition to various unbal hands (though if we like our rebid we usually won't -- e.g. if we can rebid a nice 6 card suit -- but note that 3154's without extras almost always raise), after 1C-1H type auctions (except when we have a spade suit to bid), and we use the following rebid scheme:

1m-1M;2M:
2N = inv NF
3m = inv NF (4+m, exactly 4M)
3X = inv forcing, usually exactly 4M (often just a stopper)
3M = invite almost always with 5

and we tend to bid 3N on most GF hands with 4 cards in the suit when we've got all suits vaguely stopped (we'd bid 3X in some suit we've got stopped if we're worried about some particular suit)

I'm not so happy with this setup, but it works reasonably and we haven't come up with anything we like better. We don't really want to give up the ability to play in 2N. The game tries are rather unspecific, but that seems to be the trade-off. Note that we like matchpoints and so I'd rather not hear disparaging comments towards 2N contracts . I suppose I'd be willing to hear an "imps only" response structure, but I'm not overly convinced that one should just toss away these partscores at imps.

If you're wondering why we bid like this when we then try so hard to wriggle out of playing a 4-3, it's because we're happy with the sort of 4-3 fits we get to when playing only 2M and because we like the way it helps out other rebids by opener.

Does anyone have suggestions -- I'm willing to hear your thoughts on why I should give up the ability to play one of the partscores (as well as rebid schemes you prefer that do this), but I'd be very interested in ideas that allow me to keep the ability to play 2N/3m. If you care, this is in the context of a 2/1-type system.

Andy

[inquiry]

Doubt what I play will be for you, but here goes...

1m-1M-2M <<--- frequently three card support. In fact, raise most weak three card support hands quality of the three cards is not a issue.

1m-1M-3m <<---- three card support for M, good minor suit, NF

1m-1M-2NT <<---- all strong 4 card raises (JACOBY 2NT By opener)

1m-1M-3M <<--- roughly 15-16 points counting dist. (really based on ZAR points), raise

1m-1M-2om <<---- ART, "force", can inlcude balanced hands (rebid 2NT) or strong or really strong 3 card support without long first minor (raise M or rebid NT)

But back to the 1m-1M-2M auction

Responder's rebids, are
   3m, non-forcing, fit for minor, but invitational
   2NT - inquiry
   -----3m minimum, 3 card M raise
   -----3om maximum, 4 card M raise
   -----3M, Minimum, 4 card M raise
   -----3OM, Max, 3 card M raise, splinter
   -----3NT, MAx, 3 card M raise, splinter other minor
   -----4m, splinter in "other major", 4 card M support, max
   -----4om, splinter in minor, 4 card M support, Max
   -----4M, picture bid, Max 4 raise, no control in sides

This scheme of course gives up on playing 2NT, but a lot of my auctions give up on 2NT. And if partner chose to raise to 2M, it is more likely on part-scores that suit contract will be correct. A lot of time we will be 4-4 and not have much combined strenght. Others, we will be 4-3 but the hand with three has ruffing values (in general). The max splinter bids have worked well in helping responder decide on NT or moysein fit. And, BTW, if opener has three card support and a singleton, it also works well for finding minor suit game/slam. Remember, the max here is not all that "strong" after the 2M raise.

[pclayton]

Unlike the others, I don't like a 3N rebid on this hand. Would your w/c partner really pass 3♣?

When pard raises 1M to 2M with a 3 bagger, its because he has side shortness and that would be in ♠ (bad) or ♦'s (awful). How will the 4-3 play? Perhaps awkward, but better than 3N, unless we can run 9 tricks at them (very possible - x, Axx, Kxxx, KQxxx (THREAD ALERT, THREAD ALERT - OVERLAP WITH AL'S F-WORD POSTING ).

If Pard has a 'slower' hand like: x, KTx, KQJx, QJxxx, then I'd like to climb back into clubs, but this may be tough.

For me, a 3N call looks more like: AQx, Txxx, AQx, Kxx.

[inquiry]

pclayton, on Aug 30 2005, 02:20 PM, said:

Unlike the others, I don't like a 3N rebid on this hand. Would your w/c partner really pass 3♣?

My partners pass 3♣ all times they lack four card MAJOR support. That is what I use the 3♣ bid for... but lets look at your hands opposite my 2NT bid...

Quote

, but better than 3N, unless we can run 9 tricks at them (very possible - x, Axx, Kxxx, KQxxx (THREAD ALERT, THREAD ALERT - OVERLAP WITH AL'S F-WORD POSTING   ).

Well, we have two Kings of clubs, so let's change one to the ace... (responders hand was A42 J987 A2 K1064). My rebid with the opener's hand woudl be 3♠, maximum hand, three card suipport, spade splinter. Now, 5!C is very easy to bid, and sometimes, slam becomes biddable.

Quote

If Pard has a 'slower' hand like: x, KTx, KQJx, QJxxx, then I'd like to climb back into clubs, but this may be tough.

Over my 2NT inquiry, opener rebids 3♣, 3 card support, minimum hand. The auction ends there. How hard was that?

Quote

For me, a 3N call looks more like: AQx, Txxx, AQx, Kxx.

Exactly.

[kfgauss]

Thanks for the response, Ben. This is a nice example of what to do if you're going to give up 2NT -- of course I'm still looking for the potentially impossible combination of our two methods (and while we're dreaming, we might as well hope for actual short suit & long suit game tries too). Defining more precisely what happens after certain 3X bids in my methods (and/or making some of those artificial to some extent) seems promising, but I haven't done this in a satisfactory way.

That said,

inquiry, on Aug 30 2005, 06:16 PM, said:

   2NT - inquiry

I found this quite amusing. Couldn't quite tell whether inquiry just meant "ask" or whether you'd named it after yourself .

Andy