responding in a weak suit with a weak hand

[quiddity]

In several books by Kelsey and Reese I have come across the advice that responder should not respond in a weak 4-card major with a weak hand. Kelsey even calls it a "golden rule" of bidding at pairs. With a hand like J9xx Qx Kxx Qxxx, if partner opens 1m, it seems they both prefer to bid 1NT or raise the minor if possible rather than bid 1S.

 

I found this surprising, since I thought responding 1S was close to automatic. Is this advice outdated or is it still considered sound?

[jdonn]

It's outdated, though there are still some who bid 1NT on a hand like that there aren't many. Like on that hand if partner has spade support I don't see why you wouldn't want to play in spades. It also damages inferences about minor suit length for a 1NT response to a minor if you could have that many cards in the majors.

[Echognome]

I think there's something to it personally, although I would only make and adjustment in a more extreme case. So in that sense I think it is outdated.

 

For example, say I had xxxx Kxx QTx Kxx and partner opens 1m, I would prefer to bid 1NT rather than 1♠. I don't believe what I'm saying here is contradictory to what Josh has said. I'm just stating that I think the modern approach is only to make an exception when the rest of the hand makes another bid more descriptive.

[karlson]

Isn't this advice from 4-card major players/days? It makes a lot more sense then, since partner might have opened 1♠ with a good 4-card suit.

[jdonn]

Even with xxxx of a major, I can understand not wanting to bid the major but that's a bad holding to declare notrump with as well.

[quiddity]

Isn't this advice from 4-card major players/days? It makes a lot more sense then, since partner might have opened 1♠ with a good 4-card suit.

Perhaps, but in Kelsey's case it sounds like he's mostly worried about lead direction. He argues that if opener has a good hand he can introduce the major at his second turn, and if he doesn't there's a good chance the opponents will buy the hand and he doesn't want to direct a spade lead. (This is from his "Match Point Bridge" book).

[EricK]

Another benefit is that it allows opener to more freely raise a 1M response with 3 card support.

 

And a further one, at least in the case of bidding 1NT instead of 1♥, is that it makes it harder for LHO to introduce ♠.

[gnasher]

Reese also wrote that you shouldn't bid bad suits on good hands. I never worked out whether there was some middle category of hands where it was OK to bid your suits, or if he just thought that you shouldn't bid bad suits at all.

 

Anyway, as karlson says, both Reese and Kelsey lived in the world of four-card majors, so their recommendations aren't really relevant to a five-card major system. Even though Kelsey's worry was about lead direction, the opposing concern about missing a fit would have been less significant to him than to a five-card major player.

[wank]

his point about not bidding bad suits on good hands was that you don't want to end up in a slam with a weak trump suit when you potentially had another slam, with a worse fit but making on power.

 

obviously if you've got a minimum game force or game invitational type hand it's safer to show the suit because you're likely not playing in slam.

 

it's a bit like not bidding stayman with a flat 14 count opposite a strong NT - better to play 3nt on power.

[PhantomSac]

Hamman often says stuff like this also, but he is a 4 card major person. In 5 card majors it is terrible advice.

[mike777]

In several books by Kelsey and Reese I have come across the advice that responder should not respond in a weak 4-card major with a weak hand.  Kelsey even calls it a "golden rule" of bidding at pairs.  With a hand like J9xx Qx Kxx Qxxx, if partner opens 1m, it seems they both prefer to bid 1NT or raise the minor if possible rather than bid 1S. 

 

I found this surprising, since I thought responding 1S was close to automatic.  Is this advice outdated or is it still considered sound?

1s easy

 

I lose for many reasons..not responding 1s

[EricK]

With a question like this it is easy to list pros and cons of each method. And people are very quick to say one method is clearly superior to another. But how do you know who or what to believe?

 

Even if you spent one year playing one method and another year playing another, would you have seen enough hands to be sure that any difference you discovered was due to the methods rather than being a statistical fluke?

 

And can you even be sure that any differences were due to the methods themselves rather than your potentially faulty implementation of them. eg in this example, if partner is always going to respond 1M even with a weak 4cd major, then you should be less inclined to lead his suit than if partner needed a better or longer suit to make that reply. But in practice, you might put too much or too little emphais on that when deciding on your opening lead.

[Pict]

The downsides of responding weak majors on weak hands at MPs probably most affect people playing 4cM and weak NT. They are more at risk of having to play in 2m instead of 1NT when opener is not strong, for example.

 

I suspect that serious Pairs competitors are now more likely to move to 5cM strong NT systems if they are worried, rather than change bidding style at Pairs.

[Finch]

Isn't this advice from 4-card major players/days? It makes a lot more sense then, since partner might have opened 1♠ with a good 4-card suit.

Perhaps, but in Kelsey's case it sounds like he's mostly worried about lead direction. He argues that if opener has a good hand he can introduce the major at his second turn, and if he doesn't there's a good chance the opponents will buy the hand and he doesn't want to direct a spade lead. (This is from his "Match Point Bridge" book).

This is still in the context of a 4-card major system. If partner has a good unbalanced hand with a maj and a longer minor he can bid it at his second turn. Partner will raise 1NT on a strong balanced hand, but won't have a a major because he would have opened it.

 

There's not a great deal of difference between 5-card majors and 4-card majors open the lower of two four card suits; there's a huge difference between 5CM and 4CM with a majors-always-first style.

[peachy]

Both Reese and Kelsey were 4-card major players, I think. It could work in that context more often than "seldom". In a 5-card major system it would typically lead to a poor score, so much so that I call it a clear error to not bid the major. I might just have sympathy for 1NT if responder is 4-3-3-3, in the upper range for NT, and the 4-card major is 6xxx.