6-5 Minors opposite 1NT

[Antrax]

MBC, all white. Partner deals and opens 15-17 1NT, passed to you.

♠7

♥4

♦J98763

♣A6543

 

Your bid:

a) Without minor-suit transfers?

b) Let's say you're playing four-suit transfers. Over 2NT to diamonds, patner breaks with 3♣, showing ♦Hxx or better. Now what?

[Vampyr]

MBC, all white. Partner deals and opens 15-17 1NT, passed to you.

♠7

♥4

♦J98763

♣A6543

 

Your bid:

a) Without minor-suit transfers?

 

What methods am I playing? I do whatever I do with a weak takeout in diamonds.

 

 

b) Let's say you're playing four-suit transfers. Over 2NT to diamonds, patner breaks with 3♣, showing ♦Hxx or better. Now what?

 

Too late to change my methods, but anyway I can punt 3NT or correct to 3♦. No big deal either way.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

With one partner we play 4-suit Transfers.

Right or wrong, we then decided to define the 3-level-jumps as:

1NT - 3H! = (5/5)+, Weak

1NT - 3S! = (5/5)+, GF or better

 

1NT - 3C! = (5/5)+, Weak

1NT - 3D! = (5/5)+, GF or better

 

The question for this hand for us is which 3-minor-jump to use:

 

♠7

♥4

♦J98763

♣A6543

 

Since the hand has too much game potential, I'd bid:

1NT - 3D! ( GF )

 

Now for follow-ups:

Whichever minor suit Opener selects ( 4C or 4D ), Responder has 2 options:

1) Make a Minorwood reply or

2) Sign-off .... 5C or 5D

 

Signing-off is more prudent here.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Edit ( addition ) :

There is a 3rd course of action for the more pessimistic:

3) PASS partner's 4C/4D selection.

Edited March 23, 2012 by TWO4BRIDGE

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

a) If cant get out in diamonds, I will pass.

b) 5D

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[highhood55]

So far you all are incorect. IF PRT HAS THE A-Q OF BOTH SPDS AND ♥ AND THE ACE OR KING OF ♦ WHICH IS 16/15 POINTS YOU RATE TO MAKE NEITHER 5 OF EITHER MINOR NOR 3NT. IF YOU ARE PLAYING 4 WAY TRNS THEN YOUR RESPONSE OF 3C OVER 1NT IS A PREEMPTIVE 5/5 MINORS AND THE 3D BID OVER 1NT IS ONLY INV. NEW SUITE OVER A TRNS IS FRC TO GM.

CORRECT BID WITH THESE HANDS IS 3 ♦ INV

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

welcome to the forum.

 

I doubt that opener is able to judge correctly what to do,

if we bid 3D inv. He wont expect a 6-5 hand.

 

Nevertheless, asking him may well be a good idea.

 

In the end, get it right.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

 

PS: I would try to use the capital letter sentences only very

carefully.

[Fluffy]

do whatever you need to lpay 3♦ it doesn't matter what partner thinks about it.

[Vampyr]

So far you all are incorect. IF PRT HAS THE A-Q OF BOTH SPDS AND ♥ AND THE ACE OR KING OF ♦ WHICH IS 16/15 POINTS YOU RATE TO MAKE NEITHER 5 OF EITHER MINOR NOR 3NT. IF YOU ARE PLAYING 4 WAY TRNS THEN YOUR RESPONSE OF 3C OVER 1NT IS A PREEMPTIVE 5/5 MINORS AND THE 3D BID OVER 1NT IS ONLY INV. NEW SUITE OVER A TRNS IS FRC TO GM.

CORRECT BID WITH THESE HANDS IS 3 ♦ INV

 

YOU ARE ASSUMING A LOT ABOUT THE METHODS IN USE.

[highhood55]

YOU ARE ASSUMING A LOT ABOUT THE METHODS IN USE.

 

 

I asume nothing. For every hand that you show me that makes game with these cards I can give you 3 hands that do not

[Zelandakh]

IF YOU ARE PLAYING 4 WAY TRNS THEN YOUR RESPONSE OF 3C OVER 1NT IS A PREEMPTIVE 5/5 MINORS AND THE 3D BID OVER 1NT IS ONLY INV.

 

I asume nothing. For every hand that you show me that makes game with these cards I can give you 3 hands that do not

You have assumed the above. Believe it or not it is possible to play 4 way transfers without agreeing to play the 3m bids as described.

[Antrax]

Okay, thanks. I was wondering how much partner was resulting - on the cards, 5♦ and 1NT both make. Partner had nice fillers for my clubs and the diamond AQxx, but only Kxx in hearts and the ♦K was wrong.

[ggwhiz]

If you generate a bunch of hands with a strong nt opposite these cards in Dealmaster or some other program I bet any game is extremely odds against.

 

If you can do that maybe you can get your partners head out of the clouds or wherever else it may be.

[mikeh]

Late to the thread.

 

Playing 4 suit transfers, it is common to have 3♣ as pass or correct, with forcing minors shown, often, via 3♦. One can't usually show an invitational hand.

 

My preference would be to bid 3♣, both minors, weak.

 

My view is that opener should usually correct with 3-3, in order to get the lead coming around to his hand.

 

Given that assumption, we can expect opener to correct to 3♦ more than half the time.

 

That allows us to make an unusual call: we can raise 3♦ to 4♦, presumably implying a hand somewhat like this: at least 6 diamonds (I don't think we can construct any hand on which 4♦ can be justified with fewer than 6), and therefore presumably 5 clubs, and a maximum weak hand. Partner should be able to see that minor suit cards are huge, and that major suit Aces are good while lesser major suit honours are bad.

 

It sounds as if opener may have enough to bid 5♦.

 

If we have no way of showing both minors and weak(ish) values, then I do whatever I need to do to sign off in 3♦.

[highhood55]

You have assumed the above. Believe it or not it is possible to play 4 way transfers without agreeing to play the 3m bids as described.

 

 

Regardless of how you play transfers the the only real point that I am trying to make is that this hand is at best a inv hand. As the last 2 who posted on this have stated your head is in the clouds if you realy expect to make a gm on these cards.

[phil_20686]

Regardless of how you play transfers the the only real point that I am trying to make is that this hand is at best a inv hand. As the last 2 who posted on this have stated your head is in the clouds if you realy expect to make a gm on these cards.

 

Game does look reasonably far away, but that is hardly teh only consideration. It seems reasonably likely that opponents might have game on in a major. I think tactical considerations are important here, if oppos come back to the party i won't know what to do and will certainly now be doubled in 5m. If I show a 55 GF i will more than likely be passed out in 5m, which could be a huge win.

 

I'm not saying you should drive a game for this reason, but at the very least we should consider how we can get partner to make a good decision if it comes back to him in 4M.

[Quartic]

In my methods, I would bid 2NT transfer to ♦, and partner would bid 3♦ showing Hxx or better. I would probably leave this. If partner bid 3♣ denying Hxx in ♦, I would let partner play 3♣.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

In my methods, I would bid 2NT transfer to ♦, and partner would bid 3♦ showing Hxx or better. I would probably leave this. If partner bid 3♣ denying Hxx in ♦, I would let partner play 3♣.

Finally, we have a situation where the "pre-decline" is more useful than the "pre-accept" .

[mikeh]

Finally, we have a situation where the "pre-decline" is more useful than the "pre-accept" .

At the risk of going way off topic, the main advantage to the pre-decline arises if you use 2♠ as either clubs or an invitational notrump raise....opener bids 2N with all hands with which he would decline the invitational notrump range and super-accepts with all hands with which he would accept such an invite. This suffers from a slight loss of precision in the hands on which responder has clubs, since opener's decision to superaccept is independent of his club holding, but it more than makes up for it from the significant benefits that flow from not having to use stayman when responder has a notrump invite with no interest in a 4 card major.

 

These benefits include:

 

1. not telling the defenders and, in particular, opening leader, anything about opener's major holdings, and

 

 

2. Freeing up some bids after 1N 2♣. For example, since 2♣ now promises a major, one can use 1N 2♣ 2♥ 2N in a creative way. In one partnership, we use 2♠ here as natural, invitational and 2N as a balanced slam try in hearts.

 

The idea of 2♠ being a 2 way bid is something I have seen played by a number of top pairs and never knew where it came from until I bought a series of books from Martens, who is one of my favourite bridge authors.

[Vampyr]

Playing 4 suit transfers, it is common to have 3♣ as pass or correct, with forcing minors shown, often, via 3♦. One can't usually show an invitational hand.

 

I don't think it's that common.

 

In my methods, I would bid 2NT transfer to ♦, and partner would bid 3♦ showing Hxx or better. I would probably leave this. If partner bid 3♣ denying Hxx in ♦, I would let partner play 3♣.

 

Now this is very common, and in my experience works quite well.

 

At the risk of going way off topic, the main advantage to the pre-decline arises if you use 2♠ as either clubs or an invitational notrump raise....

 

Probably the methods are not compatible then.

 

 

The idea of 2♠ being a 2 way bid is something I have seen played by a number of top pairs and never knew where it came from until I bought a series of books from Martens, who is one of my favourite bridge authors.

 

2♠ as invitational/Baron has been played in England probably since before Martens was born.

[johnu]

If you generate a bunch of hands with a strong nt opposite these cards in Dealmaster or some other program I bet any game is extremely odds against.

 

I ran 400 hands thru Dealmaster Pro opposite 15-17 HCP balanced hands.

 

3NT only made 10% so clearly is an odds against contract. Even if you can get diamonds going, the low point count adds up to too many losers and not enough winners.

4♦ made 64%.

5♦ made 33%.

4♣made 45%.

5♣ made 21%.

 

The other question is whether you just sign off in 3♦ (or 3♣ if you can sign off in either), or invite to 5 of a minor. You can make 4+ of a minor about 80% so getting to the 4 level is not completely safe, but if you have a good fit (my seat of the pants estimate based on 3+ support with at least a top honor)in one or both of the minors then I estimate 5 of a minor will be about 50% based on a partial review of the results. If the NT opener only accepts with minimum wasted major suit honors, the game percentage will go up.

 

The other observation I have is that the opponents will usually have a good major suit fit, and even game so you may not have an unobstructed auction.

 

Before I ran the simulations, I thought I would probably just sign off in 3♦, but if you can show an invitational minor 2 suiter, than it seems like an invitational bid will have the best EV. If you can only invite in diamonds, it looks like you should probably just sign off in 3 diamonds since clubs are going to be the best contract a sizeable percentage of the time.

[Zelandakh]

Regardless of how you play transfers the the only real point that I am trying to make is that this hand is at best a inv hand. As the last 2 who posted on this have stated your head is in the clouds if you realy expect to make a gm on these cards.

Would you care to point out where I have suggested bidding game? As far as I can see only one poster did choose a game-forcing response to 1NT here and even then the possibility of stopping in 4m is given.

 

As it happens I play a system over 1NT (weak) that is based on 2♣ as Puppet Stayman. On this hand I would quietly play 2♦ unless Opener had a 5 card major in which case it would be 3♦. Funnily enough I did not assume that the OP plays my method. The point here is actually not that I was disagreeing with your evaluation but rather with the statement that you assumed nothing in your first post of the thread.

 

In the last normal Stayman structure I used the weak take-out in diamonds also went through 2♣ but now it is unlikely that we get to play there (partner almost certainly has a 4 card major) and I would prefer to show a weak hand with both minors instead. Playing 4-way transfers which include "weak, both minors" into the diamond transfer I would bid 2NT and pass partner's 3♣ response. In either case it looks quite possible to raise a 3♦ bid to 4 if this is defined as invitational.

 

The structure you assumed has a bid for an invitational hand with both minors included in it. Given that, we have a choice between starting 3♣ and raising 3♦ to 4♦ (as suggested by Mike), bidding a direct 3♦ (invitational), or simply signing off in 3. The numbers in johnu's simulation seem to suggest that the hand is worth an invite in diamonds but not clubs - this would suggest 3♣ followed by 4♦ but this seems to me to be much more a matter of judgement than your "the correct bid is 3♦" post suggests. Thus I do not believe the matter is as clear-cut as you have suggested. It probably depends as much as anything on what is expected for an "invite" in this context - are we inviting 3NT or 5m? Since this is a minority method I have never played it is difficult to really comment.

 

Also what matters is less whether Opener has 15/16 or 16/17 and more where those high cards are located. The big advantage of the 3♣ -> 4♦ approach is it gets partner to really focus in on the minors without worrying about whether 3NT is in the picture. The downside is being a level higher on the (not uncommon) case where game is not good.

 

John, would it be posible for you to run a further simulation specifying Hxx or better in diamonds in Opener's hand to better answer Antrax's second question?

[johnu]

John, would it be posible for you to run a further simulation specifying Hxx or better in diamonds in Opener's hand to better answer Antrax's second question?

 

I ran 200 hand samples. Opposite 15-17 with at least Qxx or better, 5♦ was at 37%, if 5♦ failed, 5♣ adds another 4-5% so maybe 41% in the best minor suit contract. With Kxx or better, 5♦ was at 48% (not surprising since you will lose 2 diamond tricks opposite Qxx so you can't lose any other tricks) and 5♣only added another 2% when 5♦ fails for about 50% overall.

[Antrax]

thanks, johnu.