[awm]

I prefer not to play puppet over 2NT. There are two main issues:

(1) It's important to get those 5-4 major hands in. Playing puppet, there's not really a way to do this (without giving up on 3NT). Of course you can play that transfer to hearts followed by three spades shows one of the 5-4 major hands, but this will wrong-side the spade contract and still leaves no way to describe the other 5-4.

(2) There was a recent bridge world article doing some statistical work, indicating that 5-3 major fits with both hands reasonably balanced generally fair worse than 3nt. I've found that the times I've opened 2NT with a 5332 pattern and partner has raised to 3nt with some shape like 3244, or bid stayman and then 3nt (say 3424), I've done on average about as well as the field. The times you wish you were in 4M are more or less compensated for by the times you have exactly four losers, and the times opponents mistakenly lead spades after the non-revealing 2NT-3NT auction.

I reserve the right to open 1M with strong balanced hands that are particularly oriented towards suit play. You miss fewer games than you think this way (20 opposite 5 doesn't play as well as 12 opposite 13 in 3NT for example) and you sometimes find games when partner manages to raise with a really lousy hand holding four-card support (and might've passed 2NT). Elianna and I play Gazilli over 1M-1X which makes this even easier, but even without that convention I would open 1M on some strong balanced hands.

I'm willing to play some modified puppet (i.e. muppet) methods if partner wants to, but my general impression is that regular puppet isn't worth it, and that the (much more complex) methods that fix many of the weaknesses of puppet are not really worth the memory burden for the slight gains over just playing regular stayman.

[luis]

jdonn, on Apr 18 2006, 06:45 PM, said:

luis, on Apr 18 2006, 01:37 PM, said:

cherdano, on Apr 18 2006, 06:05 PM, said:

Luis, I once thought the same ("all good pairs use it"), but puppet stayman (over 2NT) isn't even BWS, which should be a strong indication that it's not the majority choice among North American experts.

Arend

Don't confuse experts with people that play and do well at the local club :-)

Are we talking about "people that do well at the local club", or "good pairs in international competition", of which either "90%" use puppet stayman, or 100% ("I know exactly 0 good pairs that play regular stayman over 2NT") or 99% ("among the good pairs I would say 1% play regular stayman over 2NT")? Are experts not "good pairs"? Or are you saying the opinions of experts are somehow LESS relevent than the opinions of good club players?

It wouldn't kill you to just admit you were wrong about something, rather than frantically making up statistics at every corner and contradicting yourself.

Thanks for the statistics Arend. It's nice to see a poster make claims he can actually back up instead of fabricating them.

You need to chill out,
I have the idea that most good pairs play Puppet or Romex over 2NT.
Of course that I can be wrong.

You can say "you idiot" don't know what you are talking about and I will reflect and probably admit I was wrong, I don't have any problem being wrong because I have been wrong a lot of times before.

Seems like in the US regular Stayman is quite popular even among very good pairs, maybe I never had the pleasure to see them play and maybe the 2NT opening is not very common so I had a wrong picture in my mind.
If that is the case I have no problem saying sorry I was wrong and I hope you accept my sincere apologies if you were offended. I just have the idea that we can say thinks in quite a crude way in this forum without people taking offense. Sorry! hope we can still be friends.

I wonder what is the trend in Europe, for some reason here in Argentina 100% of the good pairs play either puppet or romex I think this is because Smolen is not so commonly used even over 1NT, just about 40% of the pairs play smolen over 1NT. Maybe that explains it.

Luis

[luis]

Jlall, on Apr 18 2006, 06:46 PM, said:

Not to sound hypocritical because I have often been known to be rude, but you were definitely out of line with Josh. Read your post in a day and I'm sure you will realize that. You are definitely entitled to your opinion, but I would reconsider how you phrase them because they can be hurtful and make you sound like an idiot.

BTW, jdonn himself is a "real expert." He has represented and currently represents his country internationally and has some very good successes in national events. He is a regular partner of Marshall Miles. He is likely twice the player that you are, so perhaps you should also take that into consideration when you ignorantly respond to his posts in a nasty way.

I have no problem at all with Jdonn and have expressed I'm sorry if he was offended I was wrong and I didn't meant to offend him as most regular posters should know.
I have no problems admiting I was wrong and apologizing, we are discussing bridge here so no reason to fight I think.

[Free]

I think Luis' comments are meant sarcastic, because he actually turns things completely upside down... Many players which do good at club tourneys play puppet stayman, but the real top players apparently have mixed feelings.

[luis]

cherdano, on Apr 18 2006, 06:39 PM, said:

luis, on Apr 18 2006, 08:37 PM, said:

cherdano, on Apr 18 2006, 06:05 PM, said:

Luis, I once thought the same ("all good pairs use it"), but puppet stayman (over 2NT) isn't even BWS, which should be a strong indication that it's not the majority choice among North American experts.

Arend

Don't confuse experts with people that play and do well at the local club :-)

I think you misunderstand how the BWS polls work.

In fact, I just checked, only 13% of the expert panel (this is by invitation I suppose) voted for puppet stayman, and 25% of the "ordinary" Bridge World readers.

Edit: Josh, I am sure Luis wasn't intending any offense. Luis won't mind either if you call his opinion nuts. In fact, let me try:

Luis, your opinion on puppet stayman is completely nuts!

Arend

Yeah, seems I had a wrong view about it. Sometimes when you write something it is read very differently than what you wanted to say in words, so I understand Jdonn could be offended and I apologize.

[FrancesHinden]

Let's get back to where we came in.

If I was not playing in a regular partnership I would not have 'puppet stayman' on my profile, because there are too many ways things can go wrong. While I get the impression there may be a 'standard' way to play it in North America, I have seen it played in all sorts of different ways, giving huge potential for misunderstandings and screwups. At least most people have a fair idea how normal Stayman works.

Quote

1/. is Puppet stayman anygood? 
2/.can you adds some pros and cons please

I don't believe anyone has created the perfect system of responses to 1NT or to 2NT. The more complex you get, the more hand-types you can fit in, the better definition you get and the easier it is to bid scientifically to the right contract. Against that, the more information you give away to the defence and the more opportunities the opponents have to make lead-directing bids.

These are the same pros and cons of any scientific method.

Quote

3/. if the problem is playing (or missing a 5/3 fit) how big is this issue

Personally, I rarely open 1NT with a 5-card major but in one partnership I still play a 2C response as asking for a 5-card major, with a number of conventional follow-ups. We're not so interested in finding 5-3 major-suit fits, more in getting to the right game and/or right slam by using all the additional sequences we now have available.

Quote

4/. is it not easier to drop openng NT with a 5 card major, ifyou feel strongly enough that missing 5/3 fits is not good

You said it. But then, I'm from a school which only opens 1NT with a 5-card major if I think it looks like a no-trumpy hand.

Quote

Any other comments

By the way, "puppet Stayman" and "finding 5-3 major suit fits" are not synonyms. In some partnerships I play a 3C response to 2NT as asking for a 5-card major, but do not play puppet continuations. You sometimes wrong-side 4M, but you give a lot less information away.

[1eyedjack]

I will always open 1N when 5332 in range.
I do not usually play puppet stayman in response (only really when partner insists, and it has been a while since that has happened).

Basic reason: If responder has enough for game then there is enough room to investigate 5-3 major suit fits without having to do so at the 2-level. If responder is weak then there are more important uses for the sequences that allow you to bale out low.

There are bound to be hands that are good for puppet. Before you get seduced by them you have to stand back and consider the frequencies and what else you are giving up.

[luke warm]

winkle, on Apr 18 2006, 09:51 AM, said:

Disadvantages:

1. Puppet stayman consumes the sequences 1N-2C-2D-2H, 1N-2C-2D-2S, so you can no longer use them for whatever you used them for.  For many people the main loss is garbage stayman.

the way i play it, if responder uses 2c at all and then bids again, he has an invitational hand anyway... in the sequences you gave, you can play in 2s (on the 1st), 2nt (both) or 3h (the 2nd)

Quote

I definitely feel the loss of garbage stayman, especially at matchpoints.

maybe we're using the term differently, but i call garbage stayman a 2c bid by responder followed by passing anything opener rebids... i haven't lost that ability at all

luis said:

I personally hate PS over 1NT so I use Keri which is a lot better.

maybe it is, but there's much more memory work involved and i haven't seen a convincing argument for keri's superiority (based on, say, kibbing and bidding the hands as they come up)

Quote

There are bound to be hands that are good for puppet. Before you get seduced by them you have to stand back and consider the frequencies and what else you are giving up.

right... that goes both ways, tho

[winkle]

luke warm, on Apr 18 2006, 05:57 PM, said:

Quote

I definitely feel the loss of garbage stayman, especially at matchpoints.

maybe we're using the term differently, but i call garbage stayman a 2c bid by responder followed by passing anything opener rebids... i haven't lost that ability at all

Playing regular stayman, you can bid 2C with xxxx xxxx xxxx x and pass partner's reply. You can't do that with puppet stayman because partner will usually bid 2D which does not deny either major. Puppet does gain some abilities to stop in 2D with long diamonds.

In any case, I don't think garbage stayman just means "bid stayman with garbage." It refers to using the sequence 1N-2C-2D-2H to show a bust with 4+ spades and 5+ hearts.

[barmar]

luke warm, on Apr 18 2006, 05:57 PM, said:

winkle, on Apr 18 2006, 09:51 AM, said:

Disadvantages:

1. Puppet stayman consumes the sequences 1N-2C-2D-2H, 1N-2C-2D-2S, so you can no longer use them for whatever you used them for.  For many people the main loss is garbage stayman.

the way i play it, if responder uses 2c at all and then bids again, he has an invitational hand anyway... in the sequences you gave, you can play in 2s (on the 1st), 2nt (both) or 3h (the 2nd)

Quote

I definitely feel the loss of garbage stayman, especially at matchpoints.

maybe we're using the term differently, but i call garbage stayman a 2c bid by responder followed by passing anything opener rebids... i haven't lost that ability at all

I think he was referring to "creeping (or crawling) stayman", where you bid 2♣ with a weak hand with 4-4 majors. You plan on passing any major response, but bid 2♥ over 2♦ and opener passes with 3 or corrects to 2♠ (too bad if you do this when he's opened slightly offshape with 2245). I think this is the common meaning of this sequence in the US, although with most of my regular partners I prefer to play this as invitational Smolen, as I'm usually happy to pass with semi-balanced weak hands.

Lots of people call this garbage stayman. There's not really much point in giving a name to the form where you pass any response -- it's not really a separate agreement, it's implicit in the normal Stayman convention.

[luke warm]

ok, thanks you two

[Gerben42]

In the Netherlands, 99% of the expert pairs play some kind of Puppet Stayman. 90% of these will play "Niemeijer", thanks to former international Chris Niemeijer.

What I find striking is that the Italians play (modified) Puppet Stayman. For me the Italian top players are the ruling authority on bidding in natural systems. Italian 2/1 (as played by Lauria Versace Bocchi Duboin) is the most well thought of 2/1 system I've seen. However some parts of it are hard to handle and I guess for lesser mortals one would use more like a Gitelman - Moss approach to 2/1 GF. However, Puppet Stayman is included.

Over 1NT it's a completely different story. Not many pairs play Puppet after this.

[luis]

Gerben42, on Apr 20 2006, 09:37 AM, said:

In the Netherlands, 99% of the expert pairs play some kind of Puppet Stayman. 90% of these will play "Niemeijer", thanks to former international Chris Niemeijer.

What I find striking is that the Italians play (modified) Puppet Stayman. For me the Italian top players are the ruling authority on bidding in natural systems. Italian 2/1 (as played by Lauria Versace Bocchi Duboin) is the most well thought of 2/1 system I've seen. However some parts of it are hard to handle and I guess for lesser mortals one would use more like a Gitelman - Moss approach to 2/1 GF. However, Puppet Stayman is included.

Over 1NT it's a completely different story. Not many pairs play Puppet after this.

If you get in trouble with Justin about your percentages let me know and I will defend you :-)

Luis

[Impact]

Forget the percentages of who plays what -the difference between regular "top-level" partnerships and generally expert bridge is huge.

THe mere fact that a bid (or system) has popularity, is no definitive point (many topline players have to play with mixtures of partners or were brought up playing rubber etc).

Moving on:-

Over 1NT opening:

a) if weak NT the relevance and advantage of what has been referred to as "garbage Stayman" is much higher than when playing a strong NT

conversely Smolen or similar is more useful than garbage Stayman over Strong 1NT;

c) completely agree with Frances about opening with 5M(Frances you might want to rethink on that basis ) as to use of puppet Stayman over 1NT opening whether weak or strong and also that 2C is more useful as asking initially with the ability to locate whether 4/5M subsequently.;

NOTE: a personal quirk is that I consider S as the ranking suit to be in a different class from H, and hence tend to be more reluctant to suppress 5S within 1NT than 5H (all other things being equal), and impose more stringent negative suit requirements accordingly.


Over 2NT Opening or overcall:-

Here both level and space combine to require you to make the NT bid with more distributions.

Now finding 5M in opener/overcaller's hand may be crucial.

Any system which asks for 5M has to be useful.

In response to the oft-cited inability to show 5S & 4H below 3NT (other than by allocation of the 3S bid - which is too great a liability for minor suit investigation IMHO, and too great a devotion of a valuable resource to a small class of hands), tradditional puppet Stayman replies to 3C by bidding the 5M, while 3D denies 5M (but promises at least 1x4M) and 3NT denies M altogether.

Merely by doing what I call the SHUFFLE between 3NT and 3H, you gain room to show 5S & 4H (given that 4S & 5H can be shown by transfer to H and S rebid).

Hence 2NT-3C
?
3D= no 5M, at least 1x4M
3H= no 4M (yes it permits a lead directing double, but only by the player sitting OVER the NT bid who would be on lead most of the time anyway....but also leaves room for responder to bid 3S to show 5S & 4H! while still below 3NT)
3S= 5S
3NT= 5H (over which you may choose to play retransfers with 4C/D or retain natural meanings).


25 years ago I used both 3S and 3NT as puppets to get extra room for information disclosure- but in terms of a single bid that can go wrong, the "raise" of NT to game was the most frequently forgotten I have ever seen in any partnership - with any partner. Regardless of theoretical efficacy, I am convinced that playing witha human it is losing strategy to adopt it (but if Icould clone myself, as so many have descibed me as inhuman.....)

regards

[DelfinoD]

whereagles, on Apr 18 2006, 04:45 AM, said:

If you play that 1NT can have a 5 card major, then it sure is better than regular Stayman. Otherwise it's useless

It's not useless. All the information you give to ops. would be available to them anyway after first lead. In classical Stayman they play double dummy.

[Jlall]

Jlall, on Apr 18 2006, 01:46 PM, said:

Luis, here are a few expert pairs (all competed in Istanbul in the Olympiad).

Zia-Rosenberg

Jotcham-Richardson

Lindop-Cummings

Priebe-Mackay

All of those are North American Pairs.

Elishiekh-Saiid of egypt.

Multon-Quantin of france.

I could go on and find many many more examples of your ignorace, but I think you get the point. BTW, I also don't play puppet in any of my partnerships and find it vastly inferior to regular stayman + smolen. Bob Hamman has told me that he considers puppet to be a terrible convention. He does not play it in his partnerships.

Playing regular puppet stayman, there is not a satisfactory way to bid a hand with 5 spades and 4 hearts. If you use 2N-3D-3H-3S to show 4-5, then what do you do with 5-5 and a slammish hand? Do you use 3S to show one of these hands? If so, you have less room for minor suit slam tries. Do you use 3N as artificial to remedy this? Then every time you just want to bid 2N-3N you have to go through an extra step helping them with their lead. What do you do when the opponents defend correctly because your puppet stayman has given away more info than regular stayman would have? There is no good answer to these problems, other than to modify puppet stayman which carries it's own problems. If my options are regular puppet or regular stayman, count me in for regular stayman 100 %.

Not to sound hypocritical because I have often been known to be rude, but you were definitely out of line with Josh. Read your post in a day and I'm sure you will realize that. You are definitely entitled to your opinion, but I would reconsider how you phrase them because they can be hurtful and make you sound like an idiot.

BTW, jdonn himself is a "real expert." He has represented and currently represents his country internationally and has some very good successes in national events. He is a regular partner of Marshall Miles. He is likely twice the player that you are, so perhaps you should also take that into consideration when you ignorantly respond to his posts in a nasty way.

This post was important in BBF history. It marked the end of the jlall-luis alliance, and started a bitter hatred towards me, culminating in eventually leaving the forums forever a few months later.

It also marked the end of an extended posting hiatus by me.

It also marked the rise of jdonn, giving him credibility, and beginning a jlall-jdonn alliance that was not to last.

Luis was basically the jdonn of 2006. A sad but important day.

[bid_em_up]

jdonn, on Apr 18 2006, 11:44 AM, said:

If more than 99% played puppet stayman as you imply, then why would it still be alertable?

For the same reason negative doubles and transfers were alertable for some 20+ years, namely the people who wrote the alert chart never got around to changing it.


(I'm not disagreeing on the puppet issue itself.)

Edit: Had I realized this thread had simply been resurrected from the dead, I wouldn't have even added this to it.

[jdonn]

Jlall, on Nov 22 2009, 06:56 AM, said:

Jlall, on Apr 18 2006, 01:46 PM, said:

Luis, here are a few expert pairs (all competed in Istanbul in the Olympiad).

Zia-Rosenberg

Jotcham-Richardson

Lindop-Cummings

Priebe-Mackay

All of those are North American Pairs.

Elishiekh-Saiid of egypt.

Multon-Quantin of france.

I could go on and find many many more examples of your ignorace, but I think you get the point. BTW, I also don't play puppet in any of my partnerships and find it vastly inferior to regular stayman + smolen. Bob Hamman has told me that he considers puppet to be a terrible convention. He does not play it in his partnerships.

Playing regular puppet stayman, there is not a satisfactory way to bid a hand with 5 spades and 4 hearts. If you use 2N-3D-3H-3S to show 4-5, then what do you do with 5-5 and a slammish hand? Do you use 3S to show one of these hands? If so, you have less room for minor suit slam tries. Do you use 3N as artificial to remedy this? Then every time you just want to bid 2N-3N you have to go through an extra step helping them with their lead. What do you do when the opponents defend correctly because your puppet stayman has given away more info than regular stayman would have? There is no good answer to these problems, other than to modify puppet stayman which carries it's own problems. If my options are regular puppet or regular stayman, count me in for regular stayman 100 %.

Not to sound hypocritical because I have often been known to be rude, but you were definitely out of line with Josh. Read your post in a day and I'm sure you will realize that. You are definitely entitled to your opinion, but I would reconsider how you phrase them because they can be hurtful and make you sound like an idiot.

BTW, jdonn himself is a "real expert." He has represented and currently represents his country internationally and has some very good successes in national events. He is a regular partner of Marshall Miles. He is likely twice the player that you are, so perhaps you should also take that into consideration when you ignorantly respond to his posts in a nasty way.

This post was important in BBF history. It marked the end of the jlall-luis alliance, and started a bitter hatred towards me, culminating in eventually leaving the forums forever a few months later.

It also marked the end of an extended posting hiatus by me.

It also marked the rise of jdonn, giving him credibility, and beginning a jlall-jdonn alliance that was not to last.

Luis was basically the jdonn of 2006. A sad but important day.

Thanks for the public service announcement. I wonder which event in world history is most equatable?

Now that I read back, I was a much better poster back then!

[stegenborg]

I think Granovetter makes quite a good case against puppet stayman here:

http://www.scribd.co...y-november-2006

Stegenborg

[helene_t]

Yeah the arguments are quite obvious. However,
2NT-3♣
3♦-3♠(dbl)
3NT

How often does it take a spade lead to defeat a 3NT contract when the 2NT opener has four spades?