can some one tell me the benefits of puppet stayma

[Finch]

Let's get back to where we came in.

 

If I was not playing in a regular partnership I would not have 'puppet stayman' on my profile, because there are too many ways things can go wrong. While I get the impression there may be a 'standard' way to play it in North America, I have seen it played in all sorts of different ways, giving huge potential for misunderstandings and screwups. At least most people have a fair idea how normal Stayman works.

 

1/. is Puppet stayman anygood? 

2/.can you adds some pros and cons please

 

I don't believe anyone has created the perfect system of responses to 1NT or to 2NT. The more complex you get, the more hand-types you can fit in, the better definition you get and the easier it is to bid scientifically to the right contract. Against that, the more information you give away to the defence and the more opportunities the opponents have to make lead-directing bids.

 

These are the same pros and cons of any scientific method.

 

3/. if the problem is playing (or missing a 5/3 fit) how big is this issue

 

Personally, I rarely open 1NT with a 5-card major but in one partnership I still play a 2C response as asking for a 5-card major, with a number of conventional follow-ups. We're not so interested in finding 5-3 major-suit fits, more in getting to the right game and/or right slam by using all the additional sequences we now have available.

 

4/. is it not easier to drop openng NT with a 5 card major, ifyou feel strongly enough that missing 5/3 fits is not good

 

You said it. But then, I'm from a school which only opens 1NT with a 5-card major if I think it looks like a no-trumpy hand.

 

Any other comments

By the way, "puppet Stayman" and "finding 5-3 major suit fits" are not synonyms. In some partnerships I play a 3C response to 2NT as asking for a 5-card major, but do not play puppet continuations. You sometimes wrong-side 4M, but you give a lot less information away.

[1eyedjack]

I will always open 1N when 5332 in range.

I do not usually play puppet stayman in response (only really when partner insists, and it has been a while since that has happened).

 

Basic reason: If responder has enough for game then there is enough room to investigate 5-3 major suit fits without having to do so at the 2-level. If responder is weak then there are more important uses for the sequences that allow you to bale out low.

 

There are bound to be hands that are good for puppet. Before you get seduced by them you have to stand back and consider the frequencies and what else you are giving up.

[luke warm]

Disadvantages:

 

1. Puppet stayman consumes the sequences 1N-2C-2D-2H, 1N-2C-2D-2S, so you can no longer use them for whatever you used them for.  For many people the main loss is garbage stayman.

the way i play it, if responder uses 2c at all and then bids again, he has an invitational hand anyway... in the sequences you gave, you can play in 2s (on the 1st), 2nt (both) or 3h (the 2nd)

 

I definitely feel the loss of garbage stayman, especially at matchpoints.

maybe we're using the term differently, but i call garbage stayman a 2c bid by responder followed by passing anything opener rebids... i haven't lost that ability at all

 

I personally hate PS over 1NT so I use Keri which is a lot better.

maybe it is, but there's much more memory work involved and i haven't seen a convincing argument for keri's superiority (based on, say, kibbing and bidding the hands as they come up)

 

There are bound to be hands that are good for puppet. Before you get seduced by them you have to stand back and consider the frequencies and what else you are giving up.

right... that goes both ways, tho

[winkle]

I definitely feel the loss of garbage stayman, especially at matchpoints.

maybe we're using the term differently, but i call garbage stayman a 2c bid by responder followed by passing anything opener rebids... i haven't lost that ability at all

 

Playing regular stayman, you can bid 2C with xxxx xxxx xxxx x and pass partner's reply. You can't do that with puppet stayman because partner will usually bid 2D which does not deny either major. Puppet does gain some abilities to stop in 2D with long diamonds.

 

In any case, I don't think garbage stayman just means "bid stayman with garbage." It refers to using the sequence 1N-2C-2D-2H to show a bust with 4+ spades and 5+ hearts.

[barmar]

Disadvantages:

 

1. Puppet stayman consumes the sequences 1N-2C-2D-2H, 1N-2C-2D-2S, so you can no longer use them for whatever you used them for.  For many people the main loss is garbage stayman.

the way i play it, if responder uses 2c at all and then bids again, he has an invitational hand anyway... in the sequences you gave, you can play in 2s (on the 1st), 2nt (both) or 3h (the 2nd)

 

I definitely feel the loss of garbage stayman, especially at matchpoints.

maybe we're using the term differently, but i call garbage stayman a 2c bid by responder followed by passing anything opener rebids... i haven't lost that ability at all

I think he was referring to "creeping (or crawling) stayman", where you bid 2♣ with a weak hand with 4-4 majors. You plan on passing any major response, but bid 2♥ over 2♦ and opener passes with 3 or corrects to 2♠ (too bad if you do this when he's opened slightly offshape with 2245). I think this is the common meaning of this sequence in the US, although with most of my regular partners I prefer to play this as invitational Smolen, as I'm usually happy to pass with semi-balanced weak hands.

 

Lots of people call this garbage stayman. There's not really much point in giving a name to the form where you pass any response -- it's not really a separate agreement, it's implicit in the normal Stayman convention.

[luke warm]

ok, thanks you two

[Gerben42]

In the Netherlands, 99% of the expert pairs play some kind of Puppet Stayman. 90% of these will play "Niemeijer", thanks to former international Chris Niemeijer.

 

What I find striking is that the Italians play (modified) Puppet Stayman. For me the Italian top players are the ruling authority on bidding in natural systems. Italian 2/1 (as played by Lauria Versace Bocchi Duboin) is the most well thought of 2/1 system I've seen. However some parts of it are hard to handle and I guess for lesser mortals one would use more like a Gitelman - Moss approach to 2/1 GF. However, Puppet Stayman is included.

 

Over 1NT it's a completely different story. Not many pairs play Puppet after this.

[luis]

In the Netherlands, 99% of the expert pairs play some kind of Puppet Stayman. 90% of these will play "Niemeijer", thanks to former international Chris Niemeijer.

 

What I find striking is that the Italians play (modified) Puppet Stayman. For me the Italian top players are the ruling authority on bidding in natural systems. Italian 2/1 (as played by Lauria Versace Bocchi Duboin) is the most well thought of 2/1 system I've seen. However some parts of it are hard to handle and I guess for lesser mortals one would use more like a Gitelman - Moss approach to 2/1 GF. However, Puppet Stayman is included.

 

Over 1NT it's a completely different story. Not many pairs play Puppet after this.

If you get in trouble with Justin about your percentages let me know and I will defend you :-)

 

Luis

[Impact]

Forget the percentages of who plays what -the difference between regular "top-level" partnerships and generally expert bridge is huge.

 

THe mere fact that a bid (or system) has popularity, is no definitive point (many topline players have to play with mixtures of partners or were brought up playing rubber etc).

 

Moving on:-

 

Over 1NT opening:

 

a) if weak NT the relevance and advantage of what has been referred to as "garbage Stayman" is much higher than when playing a strong NT

 

:P conversely Smolen or similar is more useful than garbage Stayman over Strong 1NT;

 

c) completely agree with Frances about opening with 5M(Frances you might want to rethink on that basis :D ) as to use of puppet Stayman over 1NT opening whether weak or strong and also that 2C is more useful as asking initially with the ability to locate whether 4/5M subsequently.;

 

NOTE: a personal quirk is that I consider S as the ranking suit to be in a different class from H, and hence tend to be more reluctant to suppress 5S within 1NT than 5H (all other things being equal), and impose more stringent negative suit requirements accordingly.

 

 

Over 2NT Opening or overcall:-

 

Here both level and space combine to require you to make the NT bid with more distributions.

 

Now finding 5M in opener/overcaller's hand may be crucial.

 

Any system which asks for 5M has to be useful.

 

In response to the oft-cited inability to show 5S & 4H below 3NT (other than by allocation of the 3S bid - which is too great a liability for minor suit investigation IMHO, and too great a devotion of a valuable resource to a small class of hands), tradditional puppet Stayman replies to 3C by bidding the 5M, while 3D denies 5M (but promises at least 1x4M) and 3NT denies M altogether.

 

Merely by doing what I call the SHUFFLE between 3NT and 3H, you gain room to show 5S & 4H (given that 4S & 5H can be shown by transfer to H and S rebid).

 

Hence 2NT-3C

?

3D= no 5M, at least 1x4M

3H= no 4M (yes it permits a lead directing double, but only by the player sitting OVER the NT bid who would be on lead most of the time anyway....but also leaves room for responder to bid 3S to show 5S & 4H! while still below 3NT)

3S= 5S

3NT= 5H (over which you may choose to play retransfers with 4C/D or retain natural meanings).

 

 

25 years ago I used both 3S and 3NT as puppets to get extra room for information disclosure- but in terms of a single bid that can go wrong, the "raise" of NT to game was the most frequently forgotten I have ever seen in any partnership - with any partner. Regardless of theoretical efficacy, I am convinced that playing witha human it is losing strategy to adopt it (but if Icould clone myself, as so many have descibed me as inhuman.....)

 

regards

[DelfinoD]

If you play that 1NT can have a 5 card major, then it sure is better than regular Stayman. Otherwise it's useless :P

It's not useless. All the information you give to ops. would be available to them anyway after first lead. In classical Stayman they play double dummy.

[Jlall]

Luis, here are a few expert pairs (all competed in Istanbul in the Olympiad).

 

Zia-Rosenberg

 

Jotcham-Richardson

 

Lindop-Cummings

 

Priebe-Mackay

 

All of those are North American Pairs.

 

Elishiekh-Saiid of egypt.

 

Multon-Quantin of france.

 

I could go on and find many many more examples of your ignorace, but I think you get the point. BTW, I also don't play puppet in any of my partnerships and find it vastly inferior to regular stayman + smolen. Bob Hamman has told me that he considers puppet to be a terrible convention. He does not play it in his partnerships.

 

Playing regular puppet stayman, there is not a satisfactory way to bid a hand with 5 spades and 4 hearts. If you use 2N-3D-3H-3S to show 4-5, then what do you do with 5-5 and a slammish hand? Do you use 3S to show one of these hands? If so, you have less room for minor suit slam tries. Do you use 3N as artificial to remedy this? Then every time you just want to bid 2N-3N you have to go through an extra step helping them with their lead. What do you do when the opponents defend correctly because your puppet stayman has given away more info than regular stayman would have? There is no good answer to these problems, other than to modify puppet stayman which carries it's own problems. If my options are regular puppet or regular stayman, count me in for regular stayman 100 %.

 

Not to sound hypocritical because I have often been known to be rude, but you were definitely out of line with Josh. Read your post in a day and I'm sure you will realize that. You are definitely entitled to your opinion, but I would reconsider how you phrase them because they can be hurtful and make you sound like an idiot.

 

BTW, jdonn himself is a "real expert." He has represented and currently represents his country internationally and has some very good successes in national events. He is a regular partner of Marshall Miles. He is likely twice the player that you are, so perhaps you should also take that into consideration when you ignorantly respond to his posts in a nasty way.

This post was important in BBF history. It marked the end of the jlall-luis alliance, and started a bitter hatred towards me, culminating in eventually leaving the forums forever a few months later.

 

It also marked the end of an extended posting hiatus by me.

 

It also marked the rise of jdonn, giving him credibility, and beginning a jlall-jdonn alliance that was not to last.

 

Luis was basically the jdonn of 2006. A sad but important day.

[bid_em_up]

If more than 99% played puppet stayman as you imply, then why would it still be alertable?

For the same reason negative doubles and transfers were alertable for some 20+ years, namely the people who wrote the alert chart never got around to changing it.

 

 

(I'm not disagreeing on the puppet issue itself.)

 

Edit: Had I realized this thread had simply been resurrected from the dead, I wouldn't have even added this to it.

[jdonn]

Luis, here are a few expert pairs (all competed in Istanbul in the Olympiad).

 

Zia-Rosenberg

 

Jotcham-Richardson

 

Lindop-Cummings

 

Priebe-Mackay

 

All of those are North American Pairs.

 

Elishiekh-Saiid of egypt.

 

Multon-Quantin of france.

 

I could go on and find many many more examples of your ignorace, but I think you get the point. BTW, I also don't play puppet in any of my partnerships and find it vastly inferior to regular stayman + smolen. Bob Hamman has told me that he considers puppet to be a terrible convention. He does not play it in his partnerships.

 

Playing regular puppet stayman, there is not a satisfactory way to bid a hand with 5 spades and 4 hearts. If you use 2N-3D-3H-3S to show 4-5, then what do you do with 5-5 and a slammish hand? Do you use 3S to show one of these hands? If so, you have less room for minor suit slam tries. Do you use 3N as artificial to remedy this? Then every time you just want to bid 2N-3N you have to go through an extra step helping them with their lead. What do you do when the opponents defend correctly because your puppet stayman has given away more info than regular stayman would have? There is no good answer to these problems, other than to modify puppet stayman which carries it's own problems. If my options are regular puppet or regular stayman, count me in for regular stayman 100 %.

 

Not to sound hypocritical because I have often been known to be rude, but you were definitely out of line with Josh. Read your post in a day and I'm sure you will realize that. You are definitely entitled to your opinion, but I would reconsider how you phrase them because they can be hurtful and make you sound like an idiot.

 

BTW, jdonn himself is a "real expert." He has represented and currently represents his country internationally and has some very good successes in national events. He is a regular partner of Marshall Miles. He is likely twice the player that you are, so perhaps you should also take that into consideration when you ignorantly respond to his posts in a nasty way.

This post was important in BBF history. It marked the end of the jlall-luis alliance, and started a bitter hatred towards me, culminating in eventually leaving the forums forever a few months later.

 

It also marked the end of an extended posting hiatus by me.

 

It also marked the rise of jdonn, giving him credibility, and beginning a jlall-jdonn alliance that was not to last.

 

Luis was basically the jdonn of 2006. A sad but important day.

Thanks for the public service announcement. I wonder which event in world history is most equatable?

 

Now that I read back, I was a much better poster back then!

[stegenborg]

I think Granovetter makes quite a good case against puppet stayman here:

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7375162/Bridge-Today-november-2006

 

Stegenborg

[helene_t]

Yeah the arguments are quite obvious. However,

2NT-3♣

3♦-3♠(dbl)

3NT

 

How often does it take a spade lead to defeat a 3NT contract when the 2NT opener has four spades?

[jdonn]

Yeah the arguments are quite obvious. However,

2NT-3♣

3♦-3♠(dbl)

3NT

 

How often does it take a spade lead to defeat a 3NT contract when the 2NT opener has four spades?

Of course it's not frequent, but it's those particular times where it's especially damaging since a spade is a very unlikely lead to be chosen on that auction without the double.

[eyhung]

I think Granovetter makes quite a good case against puppet stayman here:

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7375162/Bridge-Today-november-2006

 

Stegenborg

To be fair, he also tries to make a case against lebensohl here:

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7375159/Bridge-Today-june-2006

 

I don't buy it. The lebensohl principle is incredibly useful in my experience.

 

I wonder what other conventions he wrote against.

[awm]

Well, one has to take what Granovetter says with a grain of salt. One of his big issues in these articles is lead-directional doubles, yet with one of his regular partners (Russ Ekeblad) he plays a complex relay system with lots of artificial calls that opponents could double for the lead...

 

On the other hand, he certainly makes some good points. It's nice to see someone arguing coherently against popular conventions regardless of whether you agree with him.

 

In the case of puppet, I agree with the point that you can always open 1M with a five-card major when in the 2NT point range, and that this rarely causes you to miss a game, sometimes helps to reach better partials, and makes some slam auctions a lot easier. I also agree that 3NT often plays better than a 5-3 major fit when both hands are balanced, which greatly reduces the utility of playing puppet.

 

In the case of lebensohl, I think it's a huge win over the weak two bids. Granovetter is right that you sometimes get the hand where you wish you had a natural 2NT. But it's incredibly frequent that doubler has some hand with mild extras (like a good 16 to 19) and needs to guess whether to bid on after 2M-X-P-3Y. The wins there have to outweigh the mild losses from lacking the natural 2NT.

[eyhung]

On the other hand, he certainly makes some good points. It's nice to see someone arguing coherently against popular conventions regardless of whether you agree with him.

Agreed, that's why I wanted to see what other "sacred cows" he was targeting. But I strongly disagreed with his attempt to discredit lebensohl or "artificial 2NTs". I think after the splinter bid, the trend towards artificial 2NTs is the best concept of modern bridge.

 

Full disclosure : I don't play puppet and don't like it. But compared to other prominent bridge authors, I find myself disagreeing with Granovetter a lot, and I can't imagine not having lebensohl over 2M. (Over 2D, I find the natural 2NT is more useful -- you now have two ways to show the majors anyway.)

[ArtK78]

In his now departed bridge magazine, Bridge Today, Granovetter railed against numerous popular conventions. In addition to those already mentioned, he railed against Checkback, Drury and others.

 

I have many of his Bridge Today issues saved on my computer at home (the magazine morphed into an online publication after a couple of years of being a physical magazine, but even that cost savings did not save it). If I get a chance, I will look through some issues and get a longer list of conventions that he argued against.

[aguahombre]

(Over 2D, I find the natural 2NT is more useful -- you now have two ways to show the majors anyway.)

Referring to (2d) x (P)..and the available advances.

 

Those who like Leben 2NT in that situation feel two ways of showing the majors is not enough. They need bad hand, invite hand, GF hand --plus exploration with 4-4 in majors and invite or GF, etc.