Puppet Stayman

[32519]

Seems like Larry Cohen doesn't recommend Puppet Stayman after a 2NT opening bid (because it makes it hard to handle 5-4 in the majors).

[glen]

Seems like Larry Cohen doesn't recommend Puppet Stayman after a 2NT opening bid (because it makes it hard to handle 5-4 in the majors).

You may not know this, but Larry Cohen (Florida) is "persona non grata" at the SBO (Secret Bridge Olympics) due to his constant whining about having to play against exotica

[32519]

Is this hand another failure for Puppet Stayman or just poor bidding by N/S?

[hv=pc=n&s=sj984hj7dkq742c86&w=s62h963dj963cjt54&n=sak73hak842dt8caq&e=sqt5hqt5da5ck9732&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=ppp2n(20-21%20HCP)p3c(Puppet%20Stayman)p3hp3nppp]399|300[/hv]

1. East led the ♣3 to the Queen

2. What's your plan now?

 

4♠ can't fail. So was this hand poor bidding or just unlucky? Some may frown upon the 2NT bid when holding 5/4 in the majors?

[aguahombre]

We, too, would have opened 2NT with that one. IMO, when the primes are so strong in the majors, opener should choose to respond to Puppet as if he/she has one or two 4-carders rather than just showing the 5-bagger. Pard and I have discussed this.

 

Then, responder can get us to 4♠.

[lalldonn]

If I had opened 2NT with that hand and had to choose, I would much rather show both majors than five hearts. Missing a 4-4 spade fit looks more damaging than missing a 5-3 heart fit.

[glen]

... was this hand poor bidding or just unlucky?

The problem was not using advanced Puppet. Over 3♥, 3♠ is a puppet to 3NT (puppet/puppet), either to play (will pass 3NT) or slam try in ♥s (will cuebid over 3NT), and 3NT directly over 3♥ is choice of games with 4♠s.

[PeterAlan]

For anyone who might be interested, there are 3393199716 balanced 20-21 counts, of which 534618234, so about 15.8%, have a 5-card major.

Coming late to this, but since there seemed still to be some debate about the statistics despite campboy's contribution, he is of course spot on. For those who want the detailed breakdown of the 3,393,199,716 balanced 20-21 counts, there are 783,109,248 4-3-3-3, 1,540,854,000 4-4-3-2 and 1,069,236,468 (= 2 * 534,618,234; half are 5-minor) 5-3-3-2 shape.

 

From these facts, evidently 15.76% have a 5-card major and 49.38% a 4-card major (7.57% with two 4-card majors and 41.81% exactly one) for a total of 65.14% with at least one 4/5-card major.

 

[Original post edited to correct errors]

[manudude03]

There is something severely wrong with those stats. There must be at least one 4 card suit and logically at least half the time, that 4+ card suit will be a major, so why is there at least a 4 card major less than half the time?

 

edit: just looked into the numbers in more detail. Assuming your generic numbers are right, there would be 391,554,624 4-3-3-3s with a 4 card major, 1,412,449,500 4-4-3-2s with at least 1 4 card major and 534,618,234 5-3-3-2s with a 5 card major

 

That adds to 2,338,622,358 hands, which is around 68.92% of the total you gave for balanced 20-21 counts.

[Free]

Is this hand another failure for Puppet Stayman or just poor bidding by N/S?

[hv=pc=n&s=sj984hj7dkq742c86&w=s62h963dj963cjt54&n=sak73hak842dt8caq&e=sqt5hqt5da5ck9732&d=e&v=0&b=14&a=ppp2n(20-21%20HCP)p3c(Puppet%20Stayman)p3hp3nppp]399|300[/hv]

1. East led the ♣3 to the Queen

2. What's your plan now?

 

4♠ can't fail. So was this hand poor bidding or just unlucky? Some may frown upon the 2NT bid when holding 5/4 in the majors?

I don't see much wrong with opening this hand 1♥ and planning to reverse 2♠. It wouldn't be the first time I opened at 1-level with 20-21HCP, I can vaguely remember a bad experience when it got passed out and we missed game, but otherwise never had any complaints.

 

Personally I've had very bad experiences with opening NT with 5-4M, so maybe I'm biased. I've opened 2NT twice in my life with 5-4M, and in both cases we had a fit which we didn't find, and in both cases we got a poor result (both were MP scoring). Once I decided to show my 5 card suit and as a result we lost the 4-4 fit OM, the other time I decided to show a 4-4 because the 5 card was poor, and we missed a 5-3 fit. About a year ago I had opps who opened 2NT with 5-4M, bid like they had a 4-4, and after responder signed off in 3NT they just bid 4M in their 5 card suit. Needless to say they landed in their 5-3 fit.

[PeterAlan]

There is something severely wrong with those stats. There must be at least one 4 card suit and logically at least half the time, that 4+ card suit will be a major, so why is there at least a 4 card major less than half the time?

 

edit: just looked into the numbers in more detail. Assuming your generic numbers are right, there would be 391,554,624 4-3-3-3s with a 4 card major, 1,412,449,500 4-4-3-2s with at least 1 4 card major and 534,618,234 5-3-3-2s with a 5 card major

 

That adds to 2,338,622,358 hands, which is around 68.92% of the total you gave for balanced 20-21 counts.

You're quite right: carelessness on my part - I'd included only half of the one 4-card major cases. Thank you for pointing it out. I've now corrected the numbers, but perhaps you should check! The basic totals for the hand shapes were correct - it was my percentages that were wrong.

 

It's easy to make a slip in a rush (I think you'll find it's 5/6 not 11/12 of the 4-4-3-2s that have at least one 4-card major; then your total becomes 2,210,217,858 hands and our figures agree).

[manudude03]

You're quite right: carelessness on my part - I'd included only half of the one 4-card major cases. Thank you for pointing it out. I've now corrected the numbers, but perhaps you should check! The basic totals for the hand shapes were correct - it was my percentages that were wrong.

 

It's easy to make a slip in a rush (I think you'll find it's 5/6 not 11/12 of the 4-4-3-2s that have at least one 4-card major; then your total becomes 2,210,217,858 hands and our figures agree).

 

Ah yes, counted 3244 as having a 4 card major :)

[32519]

The problem was not using advanced Puppet. Over 3♥, 3♠ is a puppet to 3NT (puppet/puppet), either to play (will pass 3NT) or slam try in ♥s (will cuebid over 3NT), and 3NT directly over 3♥ is choice of games with 4♠s.

How does your auction change when opener has 5X♥ and 3X♠, responder has 2X♥ and 5X♠? How is opener to know that the ♠ suit contains 5-cards?

[mike777]

ZILLON POSTS

 

1) many good players play it

 

 

2) many good players dont

 

fwiw I think one can not play it and win and play it and win

[Zelandakh]

How does your auction change when opener has 5X♥ and 3X♠, responder has 2X♥ and 5X♠? How is opener to know that the ♠ suit contains 5-cards?

If Responder has 5233, should they not be starting with a transfer? As has been said many times, if you use a convention badly you are likely to get sub-optimal results; this is not the fault of the convention.

[32519]

To bring this thread up to date these two posts have been copied in from elsewhere:

 

On the downside we have the Puppet Stayman sequence as an example. Unless you come up with something more convincing, Puppet Stayman is a loser.

What do I gain with PS?

1. I can include 5-card majors in my 1NT bid if it falls in the range

What do I lose with PS?

1. An immediate 2/1 GF auction (although this won’t be a problem because you will get to game anyway, but with the GF auction initiated, your mindset changes towards the bidding while looking for the best spot to play)

2. The ability to raise immediately to level 4 with a weak hand but long in trumps

3. Splinter bids

4. Bergen raises

5. Fit jumps

6. Jacoby 2NT

7. Jacoby 3NT

And an even bigger downside, additional memory load to uncover a possible 5-3 or 4-4 fit in the major.

To which gwnn replied (also copied in):

 

What do I gain with PS?

1. I can include 5-card majors in my 1NT bid if it falls in the range

And several other things mentioned by others and misunderstood/misconstrued/ignored by you in the thread. Anyway your post is making some category errors too but let's leave it at that since this is not a bridge thread.

[Free]

You can bring every thread of yours up to date with that quote of gwnn.

[Zelandakh]

As has been pointed out many times, your biggest gain from including 5M(332) hands within 1NT comes when you open 1M and are known to hold an unbalanced hand. That you can sort these things out relatively painlessly after 1NT makes the loss small, possibly but not certainly smaller than the gain. But you already know this because it has been discussed umpteen times.

 

This is a similar, but more compelling, argument to taking strong 4441 hands out of the 1m openings by using a specialised sequence (Multi, Benji, Roman) or of taking strong 2-suiters out of the strong opening with specialised bids (MisIry). The difference is that Puppet has a smaller impact than the other possibilities mentioned here. Are the gains also less? That might depend on the rest of your system. How comfortable are you with your rebid options after 1M - 1NT holding (5-3)=3=2 and a hand within NT range? Can you sort everything out here more easily than having opened 1NT? Probably not, and remember that all of the losses mentioned in your post are gains when Responder makes these calls knowing Opener is unbalanced.

 

Put another way, I have a system and a few hands are left over that I have a choice of how to bid. Wherever I put these hands, we can point to a disadvantage if we only consider the sequence/opening where they are. More hands for the same bidding space = less accuracy. It really is that simple sometimes. So if you open 5M332 hands 1M then your 1M sequences are at a disadvantage; if you open them 1NT then your 1NT sequences are at a disadvantage. The question is simply which disadvantage is smaller and therefore which system works better overall. You cannot only look at 1NT nor only look at 1M to answer this. There is also a third option - open the 5M332 hands 1NT but ignore this in the response structure. Again, you need to look at the effects on both 1NT and 1M auctions to evaluate this.

 

And please, make a print-out of this post and read it before every bidding theory post you make. Before stating the advantages and disadvantages of a convention ask yourself whether you have really looked at all sequences affected. Also ask yourself if you have really evaluated the frequency of gain for all approaches correctly. Until you can look at a bidding system as a whole in this way, there is little point in these discussions. That would be a shame; I enjoy discussing bidding theory greatly. But it is really no fun to write a long post explaining the pros and cons of something, only to see only one side of the argument presented a few pages later as a summary or even "fact".

[gwnn]

Or the one from mgoetze:

 

Anyone care to perform the following sim:

 

32519 starts a thread on system

A knowledgable poster writes an answer

 

Identify the frequency with which

 

1. 32519 listens to any advice which does not agree with his foregone conclusions

2. Anyone learns anything

[the hog]

Day after day, alone on the hill........

[mike777]

Day after day, alone on the hill........

 

 

[manudude03]

Just when I think the quality of the arguments couldn't get any worse.

 

On the downside we have the Puppet Stayman sequence as an example. Unless you come up with something more convincing, Puppet Stayman is a loser.

What do I gain with PS?

1. I can include 5-card majors in my 1NT bid if it falls in the range

What do I lose with PS?

1. An immediate 2/1 GF auction (although this won’t be a problem because you will get to game anyway, but with the GF auction initiated, your mindset changes towards the bidding while looking for the best spot to play)

2. The ability to raise immediately to level 4 with a weak hand but long in trumps

3. Splinter bids

4. Bergen raises

5. Fit jumps

6. Jacoby 2NT

7. Jacoby 3NT

And an even bigger downside, additional memory load to uncover a possible 5-3 or 4-4 fit in the major.

It looks like you're more arguing that you shouldn't open 1NT with a 5 card major, that's all well and good, and you will at least get some support for that, but allowing yourself to open 1NT with a 5 card major doesn't mean you have to play puppet stayman.

[rhm]

And please, make a print-out of this post and read it before every bidding theory post you make. Before stating the advantages and disadvantages of a convention ask yourself whether you have really looked at all sequences affected. Also ask yourself if you have really evaluated the frequency of gain for all approaches correctly. Until you can look at a bidding system as a whole in this way, there is little point in these discussions. That would be a shame; I enjoy discussing bidding theory greatly. But it is really no fun to write a long post explaining the pros and cons of something, only to see only one side of the argument presented a few pages later as a summary or even "fact".

Wish I could do that.

I try.

But there are so many creative aspects and criteria people come up with, all of which can only be weighted subjectively, that this is impossible to do comprehensively.

Some do a more convincing job and some do worse, usually dependent how good and experienced the person as a Bridge player is.

For example you yourself wondered why Multi might be a winner at all when used directly, considering a weak two more effective and claiming that Multi's main advantage is in overall system construction freeing other bids.

 

There was a recent intriguing discussion on bridgewinners

 

http://bridgewinners.com/article/view/is-multi-effective-against-world-class-competition/

 

which shed some interesting aspects why this convention might be effective after all and how to use it.

 

With regard to PS, it's advantages and disadvantages and its variants have been discussed to death. As usual there remain

 

the convinced

the skeptical

the ones, who do not care.

 

I belonged to each of these buckets at some stage in my Bridge career

 

Rainer Herrmann

[32519]

With regard to PS, <snip> its variants have been discussed to death.

 

Rainer Herrmann

 

Here is a new variant which I saw for the first time in a recent tournament:

RHO opened 1NT (announced as 15-17 HCP)

2♣ (alerted and asking for any 5-card suit, not necessarily a major suit)

So now a reasonably long enquiry session ensued as to how the bidding continues and what each bid would show. This was the answer I got:

2♦ = Denies a 5-card major but promises at least one 4-card major

2♥/2♠ = 5-card major

2NT = Denies a 4-card major and a 5-card minor

3♣/3♦ = 5-card minor

 

The pair still got to the routine 4♠ contract via the following sequence -

1NT-2♣

2♦-2♥

4♠-All Pass

 

4♠ was an easy make, nothing to it.

 

Anyone else seen this method before? Your thoughts on it?

[Zelandakh]

First of all, you are not allowed to ask about future bids, or rather your opps do not have to answer you. You can ask about bids made and alternative calls to those made. Secondly, the method suffers from the same problem as extended responses to Stayman; you probably lose more than you gain. Note that this response structure effectively makes 2♣ game forcing, which they should have informed you about when you asked. Presumably they have some other method to handle invitational hands with a 4 card major.

 

As always, we would need to see the entire structure to make a proper judgement. You cannot simply take an isolated part and judge everything from that.

[Free]

Yes I've seen the method, I'm not fond of any form of Puppet Stayman at 2-level, and I think it's a very poor choice to make a double jump to 4♠ when partner is unlimited.