Masterminding Continued

[Codo]

I am witht the 3 NT is not natural bidders.

If I am really interessted in 3 NT, I could have bid it directly.

But no, I first transfered to show my spades. Pd did supperaccept, so he surely has no 4333 with soft values, or he uses the Superacceptance wrong.

 

So, after I showed my spades and he did, now I should play 3 NT? You can count the number of hands, where this may work on one thumb... :P

 

 

For the two superaccept hands from Hanie: My pd and I, we have the agreement, that after a 2 NT opener, we always play retransfer.

But even without that, I would always bid 4 Spade after 4 Heart.

 

After 1NT openings, we gave up retransfers some month ago. The opener had shown his HCPS and distribution, so defending had been too easy now.

 

And a pass after your doubled 3 Club should show: No extra to show, weak hand, bid 3 H please.

[fred]

In my regular partnerships, 3NT after a super-accept of a transfer is a choice of games. If the 1NT opening is 13-15 a typical hand might be:

 

Kxxxx

Kxx

xxx

Ax

 

That is, a hand that that has a good chance of producing exactly 9 tricks in either spades or notrump. In my experience hands like these are not rare and it is nice to be able to play in 3NT when that is the only game contract that makes :P

 

In my opinion, as long as 3NT is a logically possible contract, any undiscussed 3NT bid should be considered non-forcing. So you deserve a lot of the blame for thinking otherwise and for expecting your partner to be on the same wavelength.

 

However, your partner should not have passed 3NT even though he apparently thought it was non-forcing (because his hand was much more suitable for playing in 4S).

 

For me "serious 3NT" only applies if the partnership is already committed to game (among other conditions).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Echognome]

Hi Fred,

 

I find this interesting. I am happy to accept any "blame" for the result as we are here to learn and develop sound methods.

 

I went back and reread your article on 2/1. It says:

 

You can never play in 3NT when you have an 8 card major suit fit after a 2/1 auction.  Some players (Irving Litvack for example) would find this to be a big enough problem that they would not consider playing this method.  In my experience, playing in 3NT in these sort of auctions is the least of your problems.  This is especially true when responder is known to have at least a five card 2/1 suit and the odds are high that at least one person has an unbalanced hand or extra values.

 

Here we are talking about having a 9 card fit as a minimum. However, the last sentence struck me as being crucial. There is no guarantee that responder has an unbalanced hand. So if you had a 5332 opposite a 4333, then it might be better to play in NT. What would be your guidelines then for when to offer up 3NT as a contract? Responder must be 5332 presumably with honours in his short suits? Is it a warning that game might be thin? What types of hands should opener leave in 3NT? Only 4333s or some 4432s?

 

Thanks for your input in advance.

[cherdano]

The big difference between this auction, and the 2/1 auction, is that opener is known to be balanced, and is limited. The first makes 3N=natural more useful, the latter makes 3N=serious less useful.

 

When Henri=ritong is commenting, he often makes remarks in the direction that with a balanced hand opposite a 1NT opener, you should always consider 3NT as an option. In a recent vuegraph, he suggested 1N-3N as a possible auction, when responder held ♠AKTxxx but two honor doubletons (I think Qx and Kx, opposite a weak NT). Actual responder gave opener a choice of games instead, and both tables found the superior 3N instead of 4♠.

 

 

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