[Kaitlyn S]

Hi - these problems should be very easy for experienced players but a beginner needs to think about the right things in an auction. If you are a beginner and get them wrong, don't feel too bad as long as you understand the rationale for the answers. I'll provide the answers later but I'll put a hint as a spoiler. Try to solve the problem without the spoiler. Also, let me know if you would be interested in seeing more of these from time to time.

Assume you are playing standard bridge (SAYC), 15-17 point 1NT opener, IMPS, and nobody is vulnerable.

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Spoiler

Do you have a game? If not, what is your safest place to play?

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Spoiler

How likely are you to be able to make a game?

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Spoiler

Do you have a game? Do you have a fit? Where do you want to play?

[bravejason]

First impressions:
Hand 1: Pass. 5-4-2-2, but the hand doesn't excite me and I don't want to risk partner bidding again. if I knew partner would pass, I'd consider 2 diamonds.
Hand 2: Pass. It appears that we have the points for 2 NT, but don't know that we have the distribution. If I knew needed the higher the contract to win, then I'd go to 2 NT.
Hand 3: 4 hearts. Anticipating that partner can cover my side suit losers and thus I only have to lose tricks to the high heart honors.

2nd thoughts:
Hand 1: 2 diamonds. Why play no trump with 5422 distribution? Guard against a long suit holding by an opponent. If the diamonds break poorly, it probably won't matter if the contract is no trump or diamonds.
Hand 2: 2 NT. Game could be there if partner has a maximum. Yes, the hand is full of queens and jacks, but that means partner has the missing aces and kings and in no trump those queens and jacks aren't so terrible.
Hand 3: 4 hearts. I looked, but I couldn't see slam and with those cards I'm unwilling to play for less than game.

[Liversidge]

I don't really know SAYC (only ACOL) but:
1. 2D. We aren't going anywhere. Partner should pass. We have a fit.
2. Pass. We aren't going anywhere. We don't have a fit.
3. 3H. We have game points and a heart fit. Partner can choose contracts. Partner would probably pass 2H.

[msjennifer]

Good enough for Intermediates also.!Nice work Kaitlyn.

[Liversidge]

Thought further about 2. (have not looked at the spoiler so this could be a mistake). I have 11 points. Partner has at least 12. My hand is balanced and the QJ combinations are nice. I should bid 2NT. In ACOL that shows 11-12. The way we play it partner should pass with 12, bid game with 14, and with 13 look at his hand, decide whether to upgrade to 14 and bid 3NT or downgrade to 12 and pass. It's a very crude approach but at least better than just counting points

[Liversidge]

Ps. Please keep these coming.

[fourdad]

2H, 2NT, 3NT

[aawk]

Hand 1 :

2d showing a 4+ card h and d with 6-9 HCP.

Hand 2 :

Depends how light 1d can be with a balanced hand (1nt is showing such hand) if any 12 HCP or even 11 HCP is possible 2nt is best (being a invite with 10-11 HCP), if only solid 12 HCP are possible 3nt is the better option because you got a perfect 11 HCP for a nt contract (in IMP play a good rule is if it smells like game bid game).

Hand 3 :

3h showing a game forcing hand with a 6+ card h. If 3h is not game forcing your best option is 4h.

[SelfGovern]

aawk, on 2016-September-22, 05:17, said:

Hand 3 :

3h showing a game forcing hand with a 6+ card h. If 3h is not game forcing your best option is 4h.

A jump rebid in responder's suit is invitational in (so far as I know) any modern bidding system. Your choices, then, are
- 4!H
- New Minor Forcing (2!C) if played (is that SAYC-allowed?)
- Ugly, ugly (but necessary if NOT playing NMF) 3!C jump shift
- 3NT for a "swing" in Matchpoints (hoping to "win the board" on the extra 10 points for NT, when NT and !H take the same number of tricks) -- note: This is not a "beginner" or "intermediate" bid!

[Kaitlyn S]

Answers: I will put the material for more advanced novices in brackets and blue like: [this is material a beginner might not understand now]

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Hint: Do you have a game? If not, what is your safest place to play?

Answer: You do not have the strength for game, and want to play in your safest spot. If you have an eight-card fit, you want to play there. Since the only time partner should open 1D with three diamonds is when he has two 4-card majors, which he doesn't have when he doesn't raise hearts, you have an 8-card diamond fit and 2D is likely to make. 2H might be in trouble opposite two small hearts and 1NT could have problems considering the shortness in the black suits. [The problem specified IMPs. If you were playing matchpoint pairs, and needed a decent score, you might pass 1NT or bid 2H hoping to make it for a higher score, but in IMPs you want to be in the partscore which makes most often. That would be your guaranteed 8-card fit.]

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Hint:How likely are you to be able to make a game?

Answer: I don't think there is any doubt that we want to play in notrump with our 3-4-3-3 distribution opposite a balanced hand. The only question is how high.

When I learned bridge, it was suggested that you bid game on 26 combined points. Now, the suggested number is 25, and that includes length points! The assumption is that declarer is going to play better than the defenders who don't see each other's cards, but normally, if you play well, 25 points will give you about a 50% chance to make a game.

Partner, who is opening 1NT on 15-17 (and should be opening 1NT with 14 and a decent 5-card suit which plays like 15 points) should not have more than 14 average points. You have 11. Let's assume our hand is really worth 11 points for a moment. You're not going to bid a game yourself, so let's look at the ramifications of inviting a game. When partner has 14 points, he will bid a game, and you'll have a 50% chance of making it, so there isn't much difference in expectation between passing and inviting.

The difference comes when partner does not accept. You are playing in 2NT if you invite, or 1NT if you do not invite. Some of the time, partner is not going to take eight tricks, so there is an advantage in passing 1NT. There is also the possibility that partner accepts on a "good" 13 and you will go down more often than not. So even if you value this hand at 11 points, and most beginners should because that is what they have been taught, passing is the wiser choice. [I stated non-vulnerable. Vulnerable at IMPS you can be more aggressive since you gain 10 IMPs for bidding a vulnerable game and make it versus losing only 6 IMPs for going down, assuming you go down only one. However, the IMP odds are almost even non-vulnerable, and there is no guarantee you're going down just one, as we will see.]

Now, this hand worth 11 points? How does it stack up against other 11-point hands? First, it's nice to have some places to develop tricks. Your 4-3-3-3 hand has only one four card suit to develop where a 4-4-3-2 hand would have two possible "long" suits. One bad. This hand doesn't have 10's or 9's which take tricks sometimes but do not count in the point count. Another bad. Now, the kicker. Even though you and partner don't have a long suit, nothing says that the opponents don't, and the opening leader is going to try to set up his long suit. It will take him a while to set it up, but you have no aces and one king, which means that the opponents probably are going to get in a lot of times to establish and run their long suit. Even if their "long" suit is only four cards, your lack of aces and kings makes it quite likely that your opponents are going to score two tricks in their long suit and three tricks in outside aces and kings. [Aces and kings are undervalued in the 4-3-2-1 point count while queens and jacks are overvalued. We use 4-3-2-1 because it's a lot easier than using 4.3-3.1-1.7-0.9 (or some facsimile) but be aware that hands with lots of queens and jacks aren't worth their full point count value. This hand is the almost the worst 11 point hand imaginable and is worse than most 10 point hands.] Think of the play in notrump. The opponents are working on their long suit and your partner is presumably working on diamonds and/or hearts. Somewhere along the line, your partner is going to need to take his diamond and heart tricks and have enough aces and kings outside to make the total nine, before the opponents get five tricks. When you are providing no aces and one king, that's not likely to happen. You should pass 1NT and hope partner makes it! If you get nothing out of this example other than resolving close decisions aggressively with aces and kings and timidly with queens and jacks, you will have gained. I do not think this example is close to an invitation, but you might, and there are so many factors telling you to be pessimistic against no factors telling you to be optimistic. Using any one of those factors would have given you the correct result.

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Hint: Do you have a game? Do you have a fit? Where do you want to play?

Answer: You have a game. Do you think partner might have a singleton heart? Partner could have bid 1S, 2C, or 2D with a minimum unbalanced hand, so partner should definitely have two hearts.

You have an eight-card trump fit. Having an eight-card trump fit generally is worth at least a trick, so you want to play in hearts. You have enough for game but can't have enough for slam, so bid what you think you can make, 4H. 3H would be invitational in most of the systems I know and you don't want to play below game. If you play any gadgets, there is no reason to use them here; you know the level, you know the strain, just bid the final contract. Bad things can happen when you use a gadget for no reason - partner might forget and pass, or might think you have a reason to use the gadget and that the reason is you're making a slam try, making him bid again after you try to sign off in 4H later.

[I would bid 4H in matchpoints also despite the 10 point bonus for making the same number of tricks in 3NT. Let's think about the play. I have a wretched heart suit. In all likelihood, partner is going to need to set up my hearts in notrump and will have to give up the lead several times to do that. This works fine if the opponents are docile and helpful, but most of the time the opponents are working on their own long suit, and if you give up the lead often enough, they are going to take some small cards in that suit. If hearts are trump, they aren't taking any small cards in their long suit because you will trump. Even if I had 3 heart losers, I would make 4H if that's all I lost; whereas in 3NT, the opponents will get those 3 hearts plus at least one winner in the suit they led, giving me +400 instead of +420. Possibly more than one winner, making 4H a big winner at IMPs.]

[aawk]

SelfGovern, on 2016-September-22, 10:53, said:

A jump rebid in responder's suit is invitational in (so far as I know) any modern bidding system. Your choices, then, are
- 4!H
- New Minor Forcing (2!C) if played (is that SAYC-allowed?)
- Ugly, ugly (but necessary if NOT playing NMF) 3!C jump shift
- 3NT for a "swing" in Matchpoints (hoping to "win the board" on the extra 10 points for NT, when NT and !H take the same number of tricks) -- note: This is not a "beginner" or "intermediate" bid!

I think you mixed up the hands. On hand 2 i said you can bid 3nt if your partners openings bid are solid for hand 3 i said bid 3h if this is game forcing if not bid 4h.

I did not suggest that you should bid 3nt for a extra 10 p opposite a contract of 4h but did say in IMP play bidding game (hand 2) pays better in the long run.

[Tramticket]

Some nice commentaries here Kaitlyn.

Can I add that hand 2 causes similar problems for less experiences players over here, where most players play a weak NT. So often I see players raise a 12-14 no trump bid to 2NT on a moderate or poor 11 count. They have been taught that a raise shows 11 or 12 points - but in reality most 11 counts offer poor chances of game opposite a weak no trump (particularly at pairs, which most inexperienced players are playing at their clubs).

There is a nice corollary to this: when partner raises your weak no trump to 2NT, you should expect 12 points and bid game with most 13 or 14 point hands - only passing with a bare minimum 12 points.

[Liversidge]

I don't follow the bit that says I should assume partner to have just 14 average points. I would assume 15 1/2 with a 15-17 range, enough to invite, saying "partner, with a good 15-17 bid 3NT. By good I would mean 16+. So we have 27 points, and even if you downgrade my hand a full point we still have 26 points after reevaluation. There is obviously a flaw in my thinking so what is it?

[smerriman]

Liversidge, on 2016-September-23, 01:41, said:

I would assume 15 1/2 with a 15-17 range, enough to invite, saying "partner, with a good 15-17 bid 3NT.

Partner has rebid 1nt, showing 12-14, not 15-17.

[Liversidge]

Doh! Thanks.

[NickRW]

Liversidge, on 2016-September-23, 03:13, said:

Doh! Thanks.

Actually that is a good lesson to learn for a weak notrumper in this country! Not everyone plays weak NT. And even some of those that do, have a wide ranging 1NT rebid (about 12-16). And some of those that play weak NT and do not have a wide ranging rebid do it on 15-17, some the more old fashioned 15-16 only. So it is wise to get into the habit of asking about the range of the rebid before selecting your lead. (And if nothing else, it buys some thinking time!)

[Kaitlyn S]

Tramticket, on 2016-September-23, 01:24, said:

There is a nice corollary to this: when partner raises your weak no trump to 2NT, you should expect 12 points and bid game with most 13 or 14 point hands - only passing with a bare minimum 12 points.

There goes well with the saying that invitations at bridge should be like invitations to a party: invite seldom, accept often.

[Kaitlyn S]

Liversidge, on 2016-September-23, 01:41, said:

I don't follow the bit that says I should assume partner to have just 14 average points.

Just so there is no confusion, I said you should assume partner to have at most 14 average points.