WBP Pairs bidding problems

[Finch]

I think you would be hard pressed to find good pairs remaining these days who play 1♣ p 1NT and 1♣ p 3NT etc. as promising four clubs. It is disgusting and pointless to force yourself to bid 1♦ on hands with lousy diamonds instead of decribing the nature of your hand with a notrump bid.

As soon as someone supports their point of view with an argument along the lines of ...."all good pairs" "most experts" "nobody who is any good"... play a certain way I just _know_ I'm going to disagree!

 

Just to paraphrase: it is disgusting and pointless to respond 3NT to 1C unless the bid is extremely well-defined and allows partner to make a good decision over it. I play 1C - 3NT as 13-15, almost certainly 3334, honours in every suit, not very slam suitable. It doesn't come up very often - the last time I bid it I had something like KJx QJx AJx Kxxx. But you don't expect this type of bid to come up very often, that's the point.

 

Anyway, I can find a lot of good pairs who play 1C - 3NT as promising four clubs. I can find quite a lot (not necessarily the same ones) who play 1C - 1NT as promising four clubs. There are significant advantages in competition to finding out about the club fit.

 

On this actual hand, I feel very strongly that east should make an inverted 2♣ raise and ignore the four tiny spades.

 

We're certainly agreed that 3NT on that particular hand was horrible: far too suit-orientated a hand with too many controls. What you do instead depends on methods - I would also make an inverted raise, but then I don't play 2C as denying a 4-card major; it's quite easy to construct hands where 4S is the only or best game.

 

I also didn't get to see your opponents - if I knew them well enough to know that they thought that was a 3NT bid and pass, I agree that pass over 3NT is correct!

[joshs]

If you want my opinion, which nobody ever does, playing

1m-2N INV

and thus 1m-3N as any or most 13-15 balanced hands

is among the worst agreements in bridge.

 

Even if its 3343 or 3334 13-15 it uses up so much space that opener never knows what to do with unbalanced, but relatively minimum, hands.

Now if its 13-15, 4333 with kings or QJ's in all 3 card suits, then it would at least be helpful, but it will not happen much and you have a problem with the other 13-15 balanced hands.

[jdonn]

If you want my opinion, which nobody ever does, playing

1m-2N INV

and thus 1m-3N as any or most 13-15 balanced hands

is among the worst agreements in bridge.

 

Even if its 3343 or 3334 13-15 it uses up so much space that opener never knows what to do with unbalanced, but relatively minimum, hands.

Now if its 13-15, 4333 with kings or QJ's in all 3 card suits, then it would at least be helpful, but it will not happen much and you have a problem with the other 13-15 balanced hands.

It's an awesome agreement, it sucks those opponents right in for 1400.

 

Ok ok you're right, it stinks.

[whereagles]

You may not like 1x-3NT to show 13-15, but I can assure you most people in Europe play like that and live happily ever after.

[mike777]

I admit with those nice controls I would have responded a pucky 1s.

[joshs]

You may not like 1x-3NT to show 13-15, but I can assure you most people in Europe play like that and live happily ever after.

Is "happily ever after" a statement about their state of mind or their bridge results?

Going down in 3N on an easy to bid slam hand is not a good result...

[awm]

Well I certainly would not pass holding a 0346 hand after 1♣-3NT. The way most people play it, the 3NT call denies a four-card major or a five-card minor. So I expect at least nine clubs between the two hands if not ten. Certainly if partner's values are mostly in spades we may not have a slam, but partner's values don't have to be locked up in a 3-card spade suit. For the most part 5♣ will play fine and 6♣ will make fairly often when partner doesn't have a lot in spades. So I think this is a clear 4♣ bid.

 

I agree that 3NT showing 13-15 balanced isn't the best bid in the world. However, I would argue that: (1) 3NT showing 16-17, which is another common agreement, is potentially even worse since you will often have slam and difficulty to explore for it (2) Removing the 3NT bid from the system entirely, or using it as a raise, leaves you with an awful lot of balanced ranges to show. You will likely end up bidding four-card minors and then manufacturing forcing bids in three-card suits fairly often with these hands, which is a style that has many weaknesses of its own. (3) Probabilistically, most 1m openings are 12-14 notrumps. Opposite these hands, the direct 3NT bid is often the best contract and gives the defense a minimum of information.

[joshs]

I would have said that 16-17 gives you 4N safety, so you can much more safely bid your distributional hands over a 3N bid that shows 16-17 (since you are able to stop in 4N when partner has your shortage well taken care of).

 

Also,

With:

- QJx Qxxx AQJxxx

KQx Kxx kxx Kxxx

 

3N is slightly better than a 50% contract.

4N is slightly better than a 0% contract.

5C is slightly better than a 5% contract

 

You have 3 levels of bidding available to figure out where you belong, but instead you pre-empt yourself by bidding 3N and forcing your side to guess. If you bid over 3N and this is the mesh, you have just turned your good contract into a bad contract.

 

Good constructive bidding is all about getting to the best contract most of the time and a reasonable contract the rest of the time. I don't think playing 5C with the above two hands qualifies as reasonable and neither does playing 3N when the 3N bidder has Qxx Kxx AKx Kxxx. Yes I have sympathy when a pairs methods forces them into an unreasonable contract, but if those methods don't solve lots of other problems to compensate for these losses...

 

I would define an unreasonable contract as one that:

a. has close to no play

b. some other game level or higher contract is making

c. the other game contract is easy to bid, using relatively simple methods

 

getting to 3N instead of 4H on

Axxx AKxx Qx Kxx

Kxx QJx Jx AQxx

 

Is not what I mean by an unreasonable contract.

[Codo]

Hi Josh,

 

as always a hand does simply prooves nothing.

 

If you are able to find out, that your example hand

QJx Qxxx AQJxxx

KQx Kxx kxx Kxxx

must be played in 3 NT but this hand

-,QJx Qxxx AQJxxx

Axx Kx kxx Kxxxx

 

must be played in 5 club, you need quite many tools to find this out.

 

And: Statistically, you simple win, if you find a tool, that helps bidding the more frequent hands (weak NT Hands) very effective.

1 Club 3 NT makes it much more difficult to lead the best suit for the defenders as long bidding sequence.

[joshs]

Hi Josh,

 

as always a hand does simply prooves nothing.

 

If you are able to find out, that your example hand

QJx Qxxx AQJxxx

KQx Kxx kxx Kxxx

must be played in 3 NT but this hand

-,QJx Qxxx AQJxxx

Axx Kx kxx Kxxxx

 

must be played in 5 club, you need quite many tools to find this out.

 

And: Statistically, you simple win, if you find a tool, that helps bidding the more frequent hands (weak NT Hands) very effective.

1 Club 3 NT makes it much more difficult to lead the best suit for the defenders as long bidding sequence.

Thats right one hand proves nothing. My claim is that this treament gains on close to 0 hands, and loses on a substantial amount. Not only do the 1m-3N auctions suck, the 1m-2N(INV) auctions also sucks, since the auctions:

1C-2N-3C

1D-2N-3C

1D-2N-3D can be given only one meaning (either forcing or not forcing) and when ever you hold the other hand you are stuck.

 

You in fact only have al ong auction and give information to the opponents when you are not sure where you belong. The auction 1m-2N-3N provides no particular information about what suit to lead other than

a. you knew what you were doing so less reason to make an extremely agressive lead on the hope that you are off the entire suit.

If responder wanted to gamble 3N on occasion with an unbalanced hand just to keep the opps on his toes, well that might be a good mixed strategy, although its not my taste.

 

In the US at least, the proliferation of 1m-2N INV started with players misunderstanding what the 2/1 system was, and thinking that since 2/1's were game forcing over 1M, 2C should be game forcing over 1D. But there is a huge difference between those auctions, and that is the forcing NT.

 

In Britian, traditional ACOL is a profoundly unscientific system with lots of limit bids. The players didn't mind getting to horrible contracts as long as they got there quickly (its certainly better than getting to horrible contracts slowly...)

 

 

My example hands are both very easy to bid in standard american bidding (which incudes most 2/1 systems). They start:

1C-2N (balanced, game forcing)-3D

on the first hand (KQX Kxx Kxx Kxxx) responder bids 3S and opener bids 3N (or responder can just bid 3N since opposite a stiff heart his K would be wasted in a suit contract).

 

On the second hand with Qxx Kxx AKx Kxxx responder should bid 3H (his K is wasted opposite a stiff) or 4C over 3D.

 

In your example hand,

Axx Kx Kxx Kxxxx

Thats a forcing club raise, not a NT bid, so it doesn't matter what your NT ranges are.

[whereagles]

You may not like 1x-3NT to show 13-15, but I can assure you most people in Europe play like that and live happily ever after.

Is "happily ever after" a statement about their state of mind or their bridge results?

Going down in 3N on an easy to bid slam hand is not a good result...

I'm not talking about this particular hand (which btw would be bid 1C-1S). I'm talking in general, and yes, europeans are pretty satisfied with the results.