The Aces on Bridge: Sunday, March 2nd, 2014
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You recently answered my question about your preference for strong jump responses to openings. Do your preferences extend to competitive auctions, or to responding to overcalls as well as opening bids? Chatty Kathy, Lakeland, Fla. After your partner opens, if the next hand bids or doubles, all jumps in new suits can be played as weak. But if the second hand passes, I prefer to play all jumps as strong. As either an unpassed hand facing an overcall, or as a passed hand facing either an opening or an overcall, jumps in a new suit should not be weak. I like to play them as good suits (five-plus cards) with a guaranteed fit for partner — a combined holding of eight-plus cards. This is known as a fit-jump.
Imagine that you held ♠ Q-5, ♥ A-Q-4-3, ♦ A-J-7-6-5, ♣ K-4. When partner opens one club and rebids one spade over your response of one diamond, I assume it is correct to bid two hearts as the fourth suit to set up a game force. But what should you do when partner rebids two no-trump next? Reality Check, Honolulu, Hawaii With no fit and the likelihood of facing a minimum hand, either balanced or oriented to the black suits, three no-trump may be comfortably high enough. With extras in a forcing auction partner could have jumped to three no-trump. Therefore, his two-no-trump call suggests 12-14 or 18-plus, and in the latter case he will bid again over our sign-off.
When one player at my club used Blackwood, her LHO overcalled five clubs, and the next player now also bid five clubs, not seeing the overcall. When the bid was not accepted, I gave the ruling that the player can make the bid sufficient at six clubs without penalty. Or they can bid anything else, and bar their partner from the auction. Is this right? Bench Ruling, Saint John, New Brunswick |
Since replacing the five-club bid with six clubs might convey additional information to the Blackwood bidder (the number of aces that responder has), I believe that whatever call responder makes, his partner is barred for the duration. If, however, the six-club call showed the same number of aces as five clubs (but with a void, say), then West could bid six clubs and the auction could continue.
How does the rule "Eight ever, nine never" work when finessing a queen or jack? Do you ever change your mind if one opponent has been marked with length in a different suit in the auction? Unlucky Lenny, Mason City, Iowa The rule correctly indicates that when looking for a queen missing five cards, you should finesse, but should play for the drop if only missing four cards. However, the percentages here are so close that even a small clue may make you change your mind. Say, for instance, East has one more card in a side-suit than West; that makes playing his partner for queen-third (rather than playing for the drop) even money. And a two-card disparity would make the finesse the indicated play.
What is my best call when holding ♠ 10-3, ♥ K-Q-10-3-2, ♦ Q-9-5-4, ♣ Q-4 after my partner opens one diamond and the next hand overcalls one spade? Is it right to make a negative double, or to raise diamonds, or even to bid two hearts? Lost in La-La land, Walnut Creek, Calif. Your hand falls awkwardly between these three actions. I would go for the most aggressive bid (two hearts) because the big diamond fit suggests both sides may make high-level contracts. In such instances it frequently works well for the double fit to become apparent early. Switch the minors and I would double. |
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Mr. Wolff,
Last Sunday (March 9) you and Jim2 generously took the time to answer my questions. The benefits of two-way Stayman, and the overrating of transfers, came across loud and clear.
This note is just to say Thank You again, and to report that your message got through. Specifically, one of the strongest players at our Club said the following:
“…And I guess Bobby has convinced me to switch to Two Way Stayman with my Toronto partner. A lot of little benefits I had not realized….”
Hi Clarksburg,
I appreciate your thanks for Jim2’s and my judgment about the advantages of 2 way Stayman. To repeat for others, the two largest ones:
1. It allows, what forcing clubs and standard 2 over 1 GF bids do in non-opening NT situations, more room for both slam explorations and alternate game contracts at lower than game levels enabling the partnership to choose both what level to seek and, sometimes critical, what trump suit or 3NT to play when only game is in the cards.
2. The defense has only 1 shot at the apple to choose to compete against their opponent’s 1NT opening with a 2 of a major sign off by the partner of the 1NT opener instead of 2 shots, always present when transfers are played, especially valuable when both opponents have only medium competitive hands to decide, and, of course, the ability for th opponents to double the transfer bid to either get the lead or to then enable partner to compete higher in that suit when he has a fit.
Both of those advantages, at least to me, substantially offset what I think is the smaller benefit to get the play from the usual right side. Not over a 2NT opening, but only over 1NT. Along with 2 way Stayman should probably be played. that a jump to 3 of a minor is to play rather than invitational, with invitations starting with 2 clubs and then rebidding 3 of the minor. This method leaves the normal raise of 2NT over 1NT a simple NT raise, usually denying a 4 card major unless holding a 4-3-3-3 or 3-4-3-3 distribution.
You are very kind! Our Host is the World Champion expert, not moi.
I might add that the benefits of transfers probably increase as the strength of the notrump opening increase. You will recall that Our Host differentiated between systems after one notrump versus two notrump (and two clubs followed by notrump).
That is, the potential for positional advantage from which partner is declarer increases as the point difference increases.
One of my partners insists on playing 11-14 HCP one notrumps (I call them “the work of the devil, but comply nonetheless). With that low HCP requirement, the positional advantage is scant indeed, so 2-way Stayman is an obvious choice. Somewhere there is a break-even point statistically, but I am unsure where it is (maybe the old style 16-18 one notrump would be close).