Never Know What To Do

[ejm1938]

Hi,

This situation nearly always causes me problems: I have a minimum hand and open 1d or 1c and hold 3h or 3s. Partner responds 1h or 1s. I don't know if he has 4 or 5 hearts or spades. Almost always when I raise his spade or heart bid, the partnership ends up with only 7 cards for trump suit and usually fails. How should I bid to avoid this problem?

Thanks

[TylerE]

Bid 1NT. Especially at the B/I level, I strongly advice against raising with 3 trumps in an uncontested auction.

[ASkolnick]

There are a couple of theories.

 

1) Many people are advocates of rebidding 1NT when they have only 3 card support no matter what. The responder can then check to see if they have 3 card support by bidding the other minor over the NT rebid.

 

So the auction 1C-P-1H-P-1N-P-2D says nothing about diamonds, just asks if you have 3 card support for the suit. This convention is called New Minor Forcing. Sure you may lose out on the diamond suit, but it is much more likely that parnter wants to know how many hearts you have than to play in diamonds.

 

2) Some people think it is OK to raise with 3 trumps provided you also have the following. A weak doubleton and 3 good trumps. So with a hand such as

 

♠ AT8

♥ 32

♦ KQ98

♣ KJ32

 

The auction 1C-P-1S-P-???. Here you may choose to raise to 2 Spades since you have ruffing values in your hand, so chances are good that it may produce an extra trick even if you only have 7 cards between you. Remember raising does not prohibit the person from having a 5+ trumps anyway.

[Stephen Tu]

Blame your partners for not knowing how to play Moysian (4-3) fits?

They shouldn't "usually fail" at the 2 level IMO.

 

Players who allow 3 cd raises systemically think it's OK to raise if you have singleton, or small doubleton. The key is more in the play than the bidding. The main thing in the bidding is not to compete 3 over 3 in this situation if the opponents balance, which is easy if both partners follow the total tricks guideline and avoid competing without thinking there's a 9th trump. And if partner has a strong hand that is appropriate for notrump, only 4 trumps, he should offer 3nt as a place to play instead of leaping to 4M.

 

The play:

Try to figure out why you or your partners are going down in the 4-3s. Are you playing the hands properly?

- avoid taking ruffs in the 4 cd trump hand, unless you see a clear cross-ruff path to the 8 tricks or refusing to ruff will definitely lead to failure. Ruffing in the 4 cd hand tends to leave an opponent with more trumps than you, which leads to loss of control. If there is an option to discard a loser/potential loser instead, that will often be better. Sometimes it's even better to discard a winner.

- set up side suits before drawing trumps. It will often require all the trumps to draw the opponents, so you won't be able to lose the lead afterwards or they run their suit.

- try to make it assuming the opposing trumps split 4-2, which is more common than 3-3 (~48% - 36%). Only assume 3-3 if that's your only chance.

- on many layouts it's not right to draw trumps at all, or to just draw 2 rounds & leave the last 2 outstanding and just assume the opponents will win those tricks.

 

Beginners tend to get in trouble because they have a tendency to auto-draw trumps without really considering where they are getting all their tricks from. Plan the play and 4-3 will often come out OK.

[neilkaz]

Superb post by Stephen !!

[Lobowolf]

Hi,

This situation nearly always causes me problems: I have a minimum hand and open 1d or 1c and hold 3h or 3s. Partner responds 1h or 1s. I don't know if he has 4 or 5 hearts or spades. Almost always when I raise his spade or heart bid, the partnership ends up with only 7 cards for trump suit and usually fails. How should I bid to avoid this problem?

Thanks

Once upon a time, raising with 3-cards was almost automatic, particularly if one of the 3 was an honor. Nowadays, the pendulum has swung such that many players are extremely reluctant to suggest a trump fit of fewer than 8 cards. The best solution is almost certainly, as has been suggested, in the middle - you want to do it sometimes, but not always. The (possible) 4-3 fit is best, as has been noted, when the 3-card holding can gain a trick by ruffing, or at least help prevent a loss of trump control by taking the ruff in the short hand -- i.e. when the 3-card holding has a singleton or void, or to a lesser extent, a small doubleton.

 

Part of the issue involves the question of how to discover 5-3 fits in these situation; there are really only 2 ways - the hand with 3 can raise, or the hand with 5 can rebid them. Most beginning/intermediate players overly rely on the wrong solution to this problem - they rebid 5-card suits too often. So by raising with 3, at least sometimes, you're increasing the chances of finding a useful 5-3 fit; if you incorporate the ideas in this thread as to when it's most appropriate, you can improve your results from the other end, too - helping to ensure that when you DO play a 4-3 fit, it's either better or not much worse than the alternative (which is usually NT). In contrast, if you rely on the rebid of the 5-card suit, you often end up in 5-1 fits, which are often less than ideal.

 

I mean, at least 4-3 fits have a NAME.

[HeavyDluxe]

The first bridge book I ever read assumed 4/4 or 4/3 major fits were what you bid for (yes, it was from the 40s). So, I never realized the big deal about moysians until I realized no one else thought that way. :)

 

 

Not that I played them particularly well, mind you.

[vuroth]

New Minor Forcing is the "gadget" that fixes the problem.

 

To start, though, it's probably not worth fixing. Determine with your partner whether you prefer always bidding 1NT, or under what circumstances you're ok raising to 2 with only 3. Play it for a while, and see how you do.

 

Just because there's a gadget to solve the problem doesn't mean you should immediately adopt it. You may find that you're happier living by a simpler set of rules in the short term. Over time, you'll get experience with 4/3s, and 5/3s in notrump, and you'll figure out for yourself just how often/seldom you're losing out.

 

V

[Lobowolf]

New Minor Forcing is the "gadget" that fixes the problem.

...when responder has more than a minimum response.

[EricK]

There are two situations, and it's not clear from your post which applies.

 

1. Partner passes and then frequently goes down in 2M. In this case, partner must learn to play the cards better.

 

2. Partner bids on and then insists on playing with that major as a trump suit (because you have already agreed it). Partner needs to understand that you often raise on three, and then take that into account in future bidding when he only has 4.