Stayman with 4333?

[mich-b]

I am sure this has been discussed in the past , but anyway :

How often do you Stayman with a "game values" 4333 (with a major) opposite a 15-17 1NT opening playing IMPs ?

never/rarely/sometimes/usually/always?

Does it depend on your strength (9? 14?) , on your controls?

 

And similarly how about using puppet stayman with a 33(34) (4 card minor) opposite a 2NT opening?

[aguahombre]

After a 2NT opening, we don't have to; forced by system issue to bid 3C puppet/1NT with the flat ones.

 

The flip side is that 2NT openings themselves can be more distributional. Though we are flat, partner might not be; and playing the 5-4 major when opener is (say) 2-5-2-4 might be a good idea.

[ArtK78]

As Agua alluded, the 2NT opener (and even the 1NT opener) may have some distribution. So, just because you are 4333 doesn't mean that a 44 fit will not play better than 3NT.

 

Having seen my partner's 1NT openings, I Stayman on 4333 all of the time EXCEPT when my hand screams not to (i.e., KJT xxxx KJT AJT).

[awm]

At imps I generally bid 3nt with these. The statistic I've seen is that when 4333 opposite a balanced hand, 4-4 major fit takes one additional trick a bit more than half the time, takes the same number of tricks most of the rest, and quite rarely has any other result. This means bid 3nt at imps because you need one trick less, but stayman maybe better at MP.

 

5-3 fit with 4333 in the 3 hand and 5332 opposite very often makes the same tricks in suit or NT so I would never look for fit on these.

[Codo]

I used 3 ♥ and 3 ♠ to show this hand type. Comes up more frequently then 5431 and other treatments. So my answer is no, never.

 

If I am forced to play something different for these bids, I would use stayman whenever we have less then around 28 HCPS or my own honour concentration looks as much "SUITable" as possible with this shape.

[aguahombre]

5-3 fit with 4333 in the 3 hand and 5332 opposite very often makes the same tricks in suit or NT so I would never look for fit on these.

Does your calculation change when (as OP stated) the 4-3-3-3 has four of a major? Or does the possibility of a 5-4 fit playing much better not affect anything?

[Phil]

I tend to bid 3N with these hands, unless I am looking for slam.

 

I don't have any hard evidence to back this up, but it seems to work fine. One of the benefits is you frequently get a lead of a major in 3N, when this was a suit that was breaking 4-1 in your 4-4, so its a good for 3N and bad for 4M.

 

There was a forum post a few years ago and it seemed like a good idea after hearing from some top players, and someone might have run a sim.

[BunnyGo]

With more Aces and Kings, I tend to bid stayman, with more queens and jacks I bid 3NT as these will not stop top losers, but will be valuable at NT. Again, no evidence it works, but it's vaguely what Woolsey advocates in "Matchpoints."

[Finch]

At imps I generally bid 3nt with these. The statistic I've seen is that when 4333 opposite a balanced hand, 4-4 major fit takes one additional trick a bit more than half the time, takes the same number of tricks most of the rest, and quite rarely has any other result. This means bid 3nt at imps because you need one trick less, but stayman maybe better at MP.

 

That's only true if you aren't allowed to use your judgement on when to look for a fit but have to follow a robotic rule.

[Finch]

I am sure this has been discussed in the past , but anyway :

How often do you Stayman with a "game values" 4333 (with a major) opposite a 15-17 1NT opening playing IMPs ?

never/rarely/sometimes/usually/always?

Does it depend on your strength (9? 14?) , on your controls?

 

And similarly how about using puppet stayman with a 33(34) (4 card minor) opposite a 2NT opening?

 

I wrote an article on this for English Bridge a couple of years ago, but I don't think it's available online any more (there are only a few 'selected' articles archived at the EBU website). I might be able to dig it out if anyone is really interested.

 

My personal answer is in two parts:

(i) I play methods after 'Stayman' where, having found a 4-4 fit, I can always offer to play in 3NT. Without this, I would look for a fit less often. With this, I would go for 'often' (which is about halfway between sometimes and usually).

(ii) With or without part (i) I think it is correct to look at your hand before deciding. At the extreme, obviously you raise a strong 1NT to 3NT with 5432 AQx KJ10 KJ10 and you look for a spade fit with KJ10x Axx xxx Axx.

[mikeh]

Opposite a 1N, I will always bid 3N with a good 12+ hcp and any 4333.

 

I will also bid it with 11 if my major is weak...say Qxxx or worse.

 

This is because I have seen a number of hands in which 3N is cold and 4M is defeated by a bad trump break....and this is more likely to happen when we have weak trump than strong.

 

On a bad day, partner is 5332 and we miss a 9 card major fit, but even so we will usually make 3N and lose only an imp or two.

 

With most 11's and virtually all 9+-10's I use stayman since opener will be 4432 more frequently than 4333. The exceptions on the 9-11 are when the major is abysmal.

[han]

At the extreme, obviously you raise a strong 1NT to 3NT with 5432 AQx KJ10 KJ10 and you look for a spade fit with KJ10x Axx xxx Axx.

 

I don't think that this is obvious at all. In fact I would always bid 3NT with the second hand you gave, and I was so surprised that you considered it obvious to look for a spade fit that I did a double dummy simulation.

 

On 400 hands where opener has a balanced hand with 15-17 points and exactly 4 spades, 3NT makes 91% of the time (365 hands) and 4S 85% of the time (340 hands). I don't know if that is statistically relevant (I'll do a larger search right away), but it's certainly not clear that searching for a 4-4 spade fit is obvious. Especially since on the hands where opener has fewer than 4 spades you will only lose by giving away information.

 

To get a definite answer one would need a large high-level single dummy simulation that also takes into account what the available methods are, how much information is exchanged, and how often opener will open 1NT with a 5-card major. It seems a very complicated question to me, and in the meantime I will follow mikeh's suggestion to bid 3NT with 4333 12-counts.

[han]

I redid the simulation, now with 2000 hands. 3NT makes on 89% of the hands, 4S on 83% of the hands. So maybe it is obvious that we should bid 3NT.

[han]

What's also interesting is that against 3NT the lead matters more. A standard feature in dealmaster pro is that, only for the hands where the contract can be beaten, it keeps track of from how many suits the best lead is. These are the results:

 

Against 3NT:

 

1 suit: 115

2 suits: 23

3 suits: 57

4 suits: 28

 

Against 4S:

 

1 suit: 60

2 suits: 36

3 suits: 116

4 suits: 132

 

So to paraphrase, against 4S it doesn't matter too much what they lead, but against 3NT they'd better lead the right suit. Another argument not to investigate too much when we very likely heading towards 3NT.

 

A well known Dutch bridge player once said: "if you are deciding whether to play 3NT or 4M and the hand looks suitable for 3NT, then bid 4M. But if you think your hand is better for 4M, pass." I don't know what he meant, this was before my time. But perhaps awm's robotic rule is not as stupid as Frances makes it sound.

[Siegmund]

"Never" is an excellent robotic rule, re bidding Stayman on 4333, and almost as good re bidding Puppet on 3334.

[bluecalm]

I redid the simulation, now with 2000 hands. 3NT makes on 89% of the hands, 4S on 83% of the hands. So maybe it is obvious that we should bid 3NT.

 

Also 3N makes more often in real life than double dummy suggest while 4M doesn't (at least not that often). This is because 1st lead vs 3N very often let the contract make.

I can't prove that but I did a lot of simulations and a lot of digging through the hands to be confident about it.

 

EDIT: thinking about it I could pull vugraph hands for which I have dd resutls calculated and compare how often 3N make comparing to dd and how often 4M makes comparing to dd if opening was 1N. I will do that later, should be interesting.

[Zelandakh]

There is actually quite a useful gadget (Stayman in Doubt = SID) that can sort this out for you if you desire. I actually still use a form of modified SID in my preferred non-Puppet methods but this is pretty much only used to set the major and start a slam auction. With (43)33 I almost always just bid 3NT. That said my first choice is Puppet over both 1NT and 2NT. Now it is closer and there is value in asking and playing in 4M if there is a 5-4 fit. Cyber posted a hand recently which was of this type. With 33(34) I would normally never choose to use Puppet - you are giving the defenders additional information for next to no gain.

[Trinidad]

I like SID a lot. It is easy to incorporate into our system. We use 1NT-2♣; 2M-3♦ as an artificial game force with support for the major. It is either a slam try, or SID (or both, i.e. a hand that only wants to investigate slam if opener wants to play in the major). So, in our case, SID doesn't really take up bidding space.

 

The drawback is that you have had an informative auction if you get to 3NT. The advantage is that you get to 4M when you belong there.

 

Rik

[EricK]

I generally just bid 3N with this sort of hand. IMO, the chance of finding a 4-4 fit which plays better than 3N are outweighed by a. the chance of finding a fit which plays worse than 3N, b. the benefits (both on opening lead and later in the hand) of keeping opener's distribution entirely hidden, and c. the chance that 4th hand can make a useful lead directing double or bid.

[neilkaz]

I'm a big fan of 1NT-3NT auctions giving little info to the defenders so I basically never Stayman with 4333 unless playing with a pard who is very fond of opening somewhat offshape 1NT's.

 

.. neilkaz ..

[gnasher]

I redid the simulation, now with 2000 hands. 3NT makes on 89% of the hands, 4S on 83% of the hands. So maybe it is obvious that we should bid 3NT.

What were the shape constraints for your 1NT opener?

 

I used to bid 3NT on most 4333 shapes, but I'm less inclined to now, because it's more common to open 1NT on a 5422, 4441 or even 5431 type. I'm more inclined to look for a heart fit than for a spade fit, because partner will open 1NT on 24(52) more often than on 42(52).

 

So to paraphrase, against 4S it doesn't matter too much what they lead, but against 3NT they'd better lead the right suit. Another argument not to investigate too much when we very likely heading towards 3NT.

To me that sounds like an argument against playing Stayman, not an argument against investigating on a 4333 shape. But I agree that within the parameters of the question it's relevant.

[han]

What were the shape constraints for your 1NT opener?

 

I don't know, I selected the box "balanced". I suspect it's 4333, 4432 or 5332, but the latter is not possible since I forced exactly 4 spades.

 

I have never opened 1NT with a 5431 shape, and certainly never with 4 spades. I wouldn't open 1NT with a 4441 shape and 4 spades either. So I certainly agree with you that this is an argument for investigating more often with hearts than with spades. (but to be honest, I'm almost always going to jump to 3NT with 3433 and 12 HCP.)

 

To me that sounds like an argument against playing Stayman, not an argument against investigating on a 4333 shape.

 

I don't follow your reasoning, how can the double dummy results obtained for this specific hand be an argument against playing stayman in general, rather an argumemt against investigating on this specific hand? It is true that one convention may do a better job in hiding information than another, but they all give information aboutdummy's hand or opener's hand, there is no way around it. Of course auctions in which we discover a 4-4 major suit fit but later make an informed decision to play 3NT anyway are absolutely worst in this respect, it's interesting that they are named as a plus by several people in this thread.

 

If you meant to write that there are conventions that investigate a 4-4 major fit without showing as much about opener's hand then I certainly agree. There are many options and for this purpose Stayman is probably the worst. I don't see why we should dump stayman though, it is a very useful convention for many other purposes. By which I again don't mean to say that it is better than other methods.

[gnasher]

I don't know, I selected the box "balanced". I suspect it's 4333, 4432 or 5332, but the latter is not possible since I forced exactly 4 spades.

If so, I don't think your results tell us very much. I suspect that we'd want to play in 4♠ opposite any 5422 with four spades, and almost any 5332 with five spades.

[MrAce]

Han, it is a very interesting statistics that you brought up about the leads that defeats vs both 3NT and 4M. And i think thats the main advantage. But ty for the simulation, when you wrote it i started to think how accurate the result u posted with my experience, and i think it is very accurate, at least accurate according to my own experience.

[gnasher]

What's also interesting is that against 3NT the lead matters more. A standard feature in dealmaster pro is that, only for the hands where the contract can be beaten, it keeps track of from how many suits the best lead is. These are the results:

 

Against 3NT:

 

1 suit: 115

2 suits: 23

3 suits: 57

4 suits: 28

 

Against 4S:

 

1 suit: 60

2 suits: 36

3 suits: 116

4 suits: 132

 

So to paraphrase, against 4S it doesn't matter too much what they lead, but against 3NT they'd better lead the right suit. Another argument not to investigate too much when we very likely heading towards 3NT.

 

I think I misunderstood this. If these figures are only for deals where we have a 4-4 spade fit, I agree that it doesn't tell us anything about the merits of Stayman as a convention. We'll just have to use our judgement about that instead.