Ask Justin 4 April 7, 2009
Posted by justinlall in Ask Justin.Tags: Advanced, Convention
4 comments
I recently had the opportunity to play a few sets with a dear friend who plays most often with an internationally-recognized household name. When my friend and I were filling out the convention card, we agreed that after partner opens 1NT, we’d play 3-level bids as “shortness,” something she said she plays with all her regular partners.
The 3-level bids come up so rarely that I was happy to write just about anything down on the card. But a couple of weeks later, I’m still thinking about it. Is “shortness” a pretty standard treatment? I’m familiar with 1NT-3M showing a stiff with three of the other major (game forcing) but 3m showing shortness is new to me. What’s the deal? What’s your favorite use for the 3-level when partner opens 1NT?
Stacy
I think that the 3 level bids should be there to fill holes in the rest of your NT structure, so it’s hard me to answer this question. Assuming you play 4 suit transfers, then you have bids for all your 1 suited hands as well as stayman for hands with 4 card majors and longer minors. All that’s left is 2 suited hands with the minors, and 3 suited hands.
It is very common to use 3
as 5-5 in the minors GF in this structure. Over that a 3
bid asks for shortness.
As you said, it’s common to play 3 of a major as short in the major bid with 3 cards in the other major, like 13(54). I would recommend an addition Bob Hamman likes to play, which is bidding 3 with 4144 also. Then opener bids 3
with 4 of them, and responder goes back to 3N without 4 of them.
This takes care of our almost all of our minor 2 suiters, and we’re left only with the other 4441s. I like to play 3
shows 1444, 4441, or 4414. 3 asks, and low middle high shortness.
Another common approach is to play 3 as puppet if you include 5 card majors in your 1N opener. This can be useful too, and usually you are fine with 44(14) by bidding stayman, though you lose 1444.
Finally, you could play 3 as both minors weak, or both minors invitational. The former can be taken care of by bidding 2N transfer to diamonds and passing partner’s response. The latter is very low frequency. I do not recommend either.
If you play 2 as minor suit stayman over your 1N opener then all of your minor 2 suiters are taken care of that way, and using all 3 level bids as shortness is fine albeit inefficient. Inefficient because you could just use your 2N bid as to play 3, or a 4441 (bid low/middle/middle/high over 3), and your diamond 1 suiters start with 2 then bid 3. Now ALL of your 3 level bids would be freed up for something more useful.
Playing that structure I would use 3m as a natural invite, and 3 of a major as 5/5 invitational and 5/5 GF respectively. This leaves you 1N 2 3 as an artificial bid, perhaps a 1 suited slam try in spades.
Again, the best use of the 3 level bids after a 1N opener is depends on the rest of your system
Ask Justin 3 April 3, 2009
Posted by justinlall in Ask Justin.Tags: Matchpoints
1 comment so far
About playing matchpoints, I’m wondering why you think avoiding zeroes are so important. If you were getting two tops for every bottom before, isn’t that a great 66% game? In other words, why is reducing volatility important if you have great expected value?
The first problem is that you win less often playing this style. You will have more 75 % games and more 55 % games, but 75 % is overkill for winning. I submit that playing in any game other than a national two very good players rate to win a large percentage of the time with a low variance style. They don’t need to risk zeros to do it.
The bigger problem is that your expected value can be increased by playing down the middle in the beginning because of the flexibility you gain. If you have too many average minus boards you can change your style and go for tops again and get back in it. However, if you start by playing tops and bottoms, and get too many bottoms the game is probably out of reach. To get back in it you have to take negative EV propositions, and your EV is being reduced. Of course if you are playing tops and bottoms and start with a lot of tops you could play sounder, but it’s better to start off normal and see what you need to do later.
The biggest problem is that if you take top or bottom swings in the bidding which is where most of the opportunities will come from, your superior card play is going to matter less.
Consider for instance bidding a close 23 HCP 3N or playing 1N. If you make 3N on tough card play you will get a top. However, if you had played 1N you might have gotten a top anyways. If you make 120 you will probably get above average because you played it well and some only made 90, but down 1 in 3N is zero. Obviously it would be silly to risk a zero by bidding this 3N.
Consider doubling them in a close 4H game. If they make you will get a zero, if they go down you get a top. Even if you have great defense to beat 4 two tricks, had you not doubled you still would get a top for that great defense. Doubling is just unnecessary, and risks a zero when they’re able to make it because there was nothing special you could do.
Taking big views in the bidding also commits you to a decision on how to win the board way too early. You can take all the views you want during the cardplay because you have much more information to go on. You don’t want to eliminate your chance to do something special in a normal 4H contract because you chose to bid 3N with a 9 card heart fit. There is advice in declarer play that you should delay the guess as long as possible, this is true in this situation as well.
I have talked to many people about matchpoints. One of them thinks that one should blast games at matchpoints because the defense will be worse. Another player thinks that one needs to be aggressive against weak players to pick up all the matchpoints against them, in order to win the event. Another player kibitzed the world open pairs and noticed the success of someone who just blasts to 3NT whenever possible (hiding his hand) and scores very well but with high variance. I’m wondering what you think about these theories.
LC Chen
I agree with the theory of hiding your hand to make the lead and defense hard for the opponents. It is all about balance, and I think some people go too far with it. In an ideal world you get to the best contract as quickly as possible, however sometimes you give away information to gain accuracy, and sometimes you blast and sacrifice accuracy. I would say I’m right in the middle of the blast/science spectrum.
Being aggressive against weak players in competitive auctions is a very good idea, especially non vulnerable. They’ll drop tricks and won’t double you and will probably undercompete. Other than that you don’t need to be aggressive. Do not bid hyper aggressive games against them, as we saw earlier that would be a big mistake. Don’t double them more aggressively unless you’re protecting your plus score.
The final thing I will add is that coming up with lots of strategies and theories for matchpoints is not the best way to improve your results in matchpoint events. Just play better, and figure out where you are dropping tricks or making bad bids. A lot of the players who are very successful in matchpoints at the national level tell me they basically play it like imps without the aggressive game bidding. That is probably not an optimal way to play, and just shows that they win because they are excellent bridge players.
Ask Justin 2 April 1, 2009
Posted by justinlall in Ask Justin.Tags: Declarer Play, Intermediate
1 comment so far
Dear Justin,
What is the best way to play 3N?
AJ9x
xx
xxx
Q9xx
K8x
QTx
KQJx
AKx
Imps love all
(2)* p (3) 3N
2 is often a five card suit.
T1:
H, small, jack, queen.
If you play clubs, RHO drops the ten on the second round.
Dean
It seems safe to assume hearts are 5-3 since RHO probably wouldn’t raise a partner who often has 5 on Jx. We need to figure out the best way to pick up the black suits for 8 tricks since we have 5 fast losers right now.
I think it’s right to start spades immediately. If LHO has stiff queen of spades we need to keep the club queen as an entry in dummy, and we want to delay the club guess as long as possible. One thing I would never think about doing is leading the J from dummy at some point trying to pick up Txx of spades on our left. It’s too big of a play for no reason, LHO could just as easily have the Q and open 2 .
So I’d start with a spade to the jack. If LHO plays the Q I will play small to the 8 on the way back. Yes this means I’m being burned by a great falsecard from QT, but you just have to pay off to that. If the jack wins I’ll play small back to the king in case RHO has Tx. After that I’ll run the spades and then try clubs.
After AK of clubs when the ten drops on my right, I’ll hook LHO for Jxxx unless they also had 4 spades. We have restricted choice on RHO, and LHO is more likely to be 3514 for a preempt than 3523. Again, I don’t think a jack would deter LHO from preempting.
My play on this hand was decidedly unfancy. That’s usually the right way to play.
Ask Justin 1 March 30, 2009
Posted by justinlall in Ask Justin.Tags: Bidding, Intermediate
1 comment so far
Dear Justin,
How do I recognize a negative X, takeout X, and penalty X?
Mary T
This is an excellent question that players of all levels struggle to understand. I could write an entire book on this subject, so I’ll just stick to the basics.
Negative doubles are made after an opening bid and an overcall. Almost everyone plays them through at least a 2 overcall, and some play them even higher. A negative double just promises at least 4 cards in the unbid major. If there are 2 unbid majors then it promises 4-4 in both. There are some exceptions to these rules, but they are rare, so I wouldn’t worry too much about them. You want at least 6 points to make a 1 level negative double, and at least 8 points at the 2 level.
Takeout doubles cover much more ground. A double is takeout if:
- It’s a double of an opening bid through 3
- It’s a double of a bid and raised suit
- It’s your first turn to bid in the auction, below 3NT
- You’ve doubled the suit for takeout already
Most doubles in competitive situations are for takeout. Some players play them on at the 4 level as well, but that requires a lot of experience to know when to pass and when to pull.
Penalty doubles are the rest of the situations. They apply when,
- The opponents are at the game level or higher
- You have stopped bidding, then the opponents balance, and you double
- You have passed several times in the auction and then double
- You have bid and raised a suit
Again there are exceptions to these rules, but I wouldn’t worry about them. A lot of experts play doubles that were classically penalty as “card showing” now. This is a modern style that I wouldn’t recommend trying to learn until you feel like you are an advanced player.
Ask Justin March 29, 2009
Posted by justinlall in Ask Justin.1 comment so far
So…you wanna ask me a question and see it answered here? It can be theoretical or from real play, beginner or expert, it doesn’t matter.
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