3NT or 4-4 major fit

[waubrey]

When do you think it makes sense to play 3NT rather than four of a major in a 4-4 fit?

[dicklont]

When one of the hands is 4333 and all suits are properly controlled.

[blackshoe]

When do you think it makes sense to play 3NT rather than four of a major in a 4-4 fit?

When 4M doesn't make, or doesn't make at least one more trick than 3NT. :D

 

In general, I suspect that means when one hand is 4333.

[rwbarton]

It makes a big difference whether the scoring is IMPs or MPs, since at IMPs you need to make two more tricks in the major to show a sizable profit. This can easily happen if there is singleton around or an unstopped suit. On the other hand 4M and 3NT might be making the same tricks if both hands are balanced, especially if the major happens to be breaking 4-1.

[MFA]

When the opponents have bid something they have revealed a lot about their hand types. This gives some delicate 3NT/4Ma decisions based on the holding in the enemy suit and potential to keep the dangerous opponent out, etc.

 

For that reason p and I have agreed that all 'serious 3NTs' and the like are off when the opponents have intervened in any way.

[jdonn]

Possible minority view: I think that fairly often it's right to bid stayman on 4333 hands. If partner has almost any doubleton opposite an xxx in my hand I certainly would rather play in a 4-4 major suit fit, so if I have two xxx suits I bid stayman.

 

Another factor is you might have a 5-4 fit as well.

[pooltuna]

Possible minority view: I think that fairly often it's right to bid stayman on 4333 hands. If partner has almost any doubleton opposite an xxx in my hand I certainly would rather play in a 4-4 major suit fit, so if I have two xxx suits I bid stayman.

Seems reasonable. Personally I think if you can tell the HCP for the combined hands run in the 28-30 range and you have relatively balanced hands then 3NT probably fares a little better

[mycroft]

also, according to Kit Woolsey, at matchpoints, when you have a clear super-game count (28-30 or so) and clearly all suits stopped; more often than in other situations NT will make the same tricks as the major.

 

I'm too much of a chicken to do anything but "don't stayman on 4333" - but that may be more "the queen lies over the jack" than "I don't guess right". I'll take my A+ and my A- on 4M against the 3NTers, and hope to gain on other hands where I have the thinkpower that I didn't use on the 4M vs 3NT decision.

[gwnn]

I will always bid stayman with 433xxx

[fred]

I never bid Stayman with 4333 unless I am interested in slam.

 

I could also imagine bidding Stayman with a very weak 4333 hand with which I was interested in escaping from 1NT before getting doubled (ie a psych). I don't remember ever doing this playing strong notrumps, but in some circles it is a fairly normal thing to do playing weak notrumps. Of course the main point here is having a very weak hand with no long suit to escape to - being exactly 4333 is not especially relevant.

 

Within the last year or two The Bridge World published a letter from David Stern that contained some interesting data about 3NT versus 4 of a major with various combinations of balanced distributions and HCP strengths. As one who tends to play notrump more than most (and perhaps more than I should), even I was surprised at how good Stern's data made 3NT look.

 

It should be noted that Stern's reliance on double dummy analysis likely introduced some kind of bias into his numbers, but I still would urge anyone who is seriously interested in this topic to try to find a copy of the issue of The Bridge World that contained Stern's letter.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[eyhung]

I am very aggressive about bypassing Stayman at matchpoints, especially when 4333. Consider that Stayman can contribute to losing matchpoints when:

 

1) They are able to double for a club lead

2) They are able to use a negative inference from the failure to double for a club lead

3) They know more about opener's distribution (he denies a 4 card major, he shows a 4 card major) and are able to use this knowledge to gain a trick by making a better lead/shift

4) Even when you find a 4-4 fit, sometimes your partner cannot take extra tricks in the major vs. notrump, because

• You have no ruffing value
  
• The opponents do not have a suit to run
  
• The opponents blow an extra trick leading aggressively vs. notrump
  (while they are less likely to do so vs. a suit contract declared by strong notrumper)
  
• The opponents are able to engineer a ruff or trump promotion
  
• The trump suit breaks poorly
  

While there are certainly hands where using Stayman on 4333 is right, I think it's similar to the decision on whether or not to transfer opposite a strong notrump holding a 5-card major with no chance for game. In these situations, I practically always transfer and never use Stayman. It feels solidly +EV, and frees my brain cells to worry about other areas.

[Jlall]

I never bid Stayman with 4333 unless I am interested in slam.

Ditto

[kfay]

Funny this topic should come up.

 

I was re-reading some Woolsey today and he believes that at least 3 of 4 conditions should be met (this is concerning matchpoints) and probably all 4.

 

1. Combined strength of 27+ HCP

2. Having quacks in your doubletons

3. Having quacks in your side 4-card suits

4. Good intermediate trump spots

 

He produced a variety of probably constructed hands to support his arguments but whatever. Good book, good player.

[Echognome]

I have stopped using stayman on 4333 hands awhile ago. The ones that I find somewhat more difficult to judge are the 4432 hands with strength in the short suits. For example, suppose partner opens 1NT (15-17) and you hold the follow hands:

 

1. ♠xxxx ♥QTx ♦Kxxx ♣AQ

 

2. ♠KQ ♥xxxx ♦AJx ♣xxxx

 

3. ♠xxxx ♥Jxxx ♦AQx ♣Kx

 

4. ♠xxxx ♥Jxxx ♦AKx ♣AQ

 

Etc. Would you use stayman or simply blast 3NT?

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

Regarding the 4333 Stayman issue - a possible agreement is

to play a 3H / 3S response as showing 4333 , the 4 card the

other major.

This would ensure, that you play 3NT if partner is also 4333,

otherwise you play the major.

 

This assumes of course, that you dont use 3H / 3S for soemthing

else.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[awm]

It really does depend on form of scoring, and probably not in the way people expect.

 

With two balanced hands, it's pretty frequent that a 4-4 fit makes one trick more than notrump (except if both hands are 4333, or with very strong doubletons). It is not very frequent that the 4-4 fit makes two more tricks than notrump; much more often than this they make the same number of tricks.

 

So at matchpoints, I would normally bid stayman. I agree with Woolsey's points -- you really need every sign to be against stayman before blasting 3NT.

 

At IMPs, it's best to avoid stayman a lot of the time with flat hands.

[karlson]

I think 4333 is getting a worse rap than it deserves. If you have weak side suits, playing in the major will usually score at least one more trick unless partner also happens to be 4333. The extreme would be for instance a hand like KQJx Axx xxx xxx where any doubleton in partner's hand is likely to be a useful ruffing value. I think it's clear to stayman with that at any form of scoring, despite the chorus here. Otoh all of gnome's examples look much more like 1n-3n to me.

 

Edit: just noticed that this is almost exactly what jdonn and gwnn said, sorry.

[jdonn]

I think 4333 is getting a worse rap than it deserves.

I agree but it's always been that way so I kind of gave up trying to convince people. Most of the good players seemed to bid 3NT always on 4333 so I did it myself, but I saw it work badly A LOT of times and so eventually gave up on the practice and now I simply use my judgement, sometimes bidding stayman and sometimes bidding 3NT directly. Frankly I think I'm gaining an edge on a number of otherwise better players in a relatively simple situation.

[gnasher]

I used not to look for a 4-4 fit on a 4333 shape, but nowadays I do unless I'm very strong or quite quacky.

 

The reason is the number of offshape 1NT openings I seem to face - most 5m4M22 shapes that are in range seem to be 1NT openers these days. If we have two 2-3 side-suits, 3NT is quite unlikely to be the right contract. Even singletons in a 1NT opener aren't as rare as they used to be.

 

I've never really thought about this before, but you should be more inclined to look for a 4-4 heart fit than for a 4-4 spade fit. With four spades, partner will rarely anticipate a rebid problem after opening one of a suit, so he is less likely to open a distorted 1NT.

 

One more thought: as Eugene mentions, one of the reasons for not investigating on a 4333 shape is the information leakage from bidding Stayman. The answer to that is to stop playing methods that reveal your distribution unnecessarily.

[Dirk Kuijt]

Richard Pavlicek has some statistics on his web site (a great site, BTW) at:

 

http://www.rpbridge.net/rpme.htm

 

Scroll down to the bottom where this and similar questions are put to a statistical answer. In top events, where one table played 3NT and the other 4M, the result was

wins

3NT 38

4M 54

 

Tied 8

 

In IMPs

 

wins

3NT 192

4M 223

 

OTOH, 3NT won out over 4M on a 5-3 fit by deals, though only narrowly by IMPs.

 

There are many other good statistics there, too.

[gwnn]

not sure what that stat means.....

 

If I am a top expert and I am exercising my judgement and also another top expert is exercising his/her judgement and we get to a different conclusion, a priori that one of us rates to be right who chose 4M.

 

So.. umm...?

 

If I consider myself a random top expert, then I should tweak my game in such a way that from now on I favour 4M a little bit more often than I used to on 4-4 fits and I favour 3NT a little bit more than I used to on 5-3 fits.

[jdonn]

not sure what that stat means.....

 

If I am a top expert and I am exercising my judgement and also another top expert is exercising his/her judgement and we get to a different conclusion, a priori that one of us rates to be right who chose 4M.

 

So.. umm...?

 

If I consider myself a random top expert, than I should tweak my game in such a way that from now on I favour 4M a little bit more often than I used to on 4-4 fits and I favour 3NT a little bit more than I used to on 5-3 fits.

In fairness it doesn't give any statistics for 3NT when one side bids it directly and the other side investigates something on the way.

[gwnn]

I think it would be hard to make any small modification to those statistics to make them useful in practice since the basic set-up seems to be that on some set of hands experts disagreed as to the optimal strategy and some of the numerous strategies prove to be slightly more successful than others. This does not mean that some strategies are inherently flawed, only that top experts, on average, seem to choose some strategies too often.

 

The way this kind of statistics could be useful if there were some definite schools suppose N Ossetian experts told you "only bid stayman if you have a notrumpiness of at most 6.7 on a 10 scale" and S Ossetian experts told you "oh no that's stupid, the correct limit is at 6.3". Now you could look up all the Interossetian championship hands and decide which limit is more appropriate (after eliminating random noise inherent of differences in skill level etc, for example N Ossetians don't like to underlead J8xx).

[cherdanno]

I think Pavlicek's statistic isn't very useful as it contains competitive auctions. If one partnership doesn't find their 4-4 major suit fit in a competitive auction and the other one does, well of course the one that finds the fit will come out on top.

[Fluffy]

IMO with 4333 it is best to use stayman if you find your fit since it probably puts you in a better place, however it is not worth the info you give when you fail.

 

If using 1NT-3♥/♠ as specific stayman I think I'd use it with most 4333s.