[roninbc]

One of my partners insists that we open 1NT with any 15-17 HCP hand that is no more distributional than 5332, even if the 5 card suit is a major.

At the same time, although we use 4-suit transfers and "gap suit" super-accepts when responder transfers into a minor suit, he insists that 3C and 3D must remain invitational minor suit hands.

So we have no access to Puppet Stayman.

I'm wondering how many, if any, successful, experienced players prefer a "naked major" structure, where 1NT is opened on all/most/many hands that contain a 5 card major suit, but there is no easy way to show that major suit.

I'm sensitive to his concerns about opener's frequent rebid problems if a major suit is opened with 15-17 HCP. But I'm not ready to open 1NT with a 5 card major with no "safety net" like Puppet!

Comments? Advice? Solutions?
Thanks in advance, and Happy whatever kind(s) of Holidays you celebrate!

[johnu]

What's wrong with using 2♣ as Puppet Stayman? That was the original Puppet Stayman.

My (probably lousy) estimate is that about 75%+ pairs do not play a method to find opener's 5 card major.

[smerriman]

I've noticed a lot of the time we get to 3NT, the opponents lead my 5 card major. I'm happy hiding it

[DozyDom]

The vast majority of pairs don't play any form of puppet. Some of those will be people who just can't be bothered to remember it - others because they really don't see the benefit. Both make compelling points.



But further to that, I don't understand the question. Puppet stayman was designed to be better than stayman. Using both insults both.

[rmnka447]

There are always a few hands that don't fit the pattern where 1 NT makes sense. So restrictions about distribution shouldn't be absolute.

Ask partner how he/she would bid this hand ♠ AK ♥ AQ ♦ K1032 ♣ 105432. It's a 5-4-4-2 hand with the preponderance of strength in the short suits. Anything other than 1 NT puts you into an auction where you'll have to misrepresent your hand worse than if you bid 1 NT. Also, in the last few years, the ACBL revised restrictions on opening 1 NT to allow with a singleton A, K, or Q. That was a sop to the expert players who realized that on occasion 1 NT may be the best bid with a singleton because of severe rebidding dilemmas with other bids.

My experience with opening 1 NT with a 5 card major is pretty commonplace among really good to expert players. Since I don't run across many of these players that use "puppet" Stayman at the 2 or 3 level over 1 NT, they must not be worrying about it too much. Where "puppet" is used a lot is over 2 NT openers.

Maybe some of your fears could be assuaged if you and your partner can work through some sequences where the major could be shown.

[nige1]

 roninbc, on 2018-December-21, 18:07, said:

One of my partners insists that we open 1NT with any 15-17 HCP hand that is no more distributional than 5332, even if the 5 card suit is a major.At the same time, although we use 4-suit transfers and "gap suit" super-accepts when responder transfers into a minor suit, he insists that 3C and 3D must remain invitational minor suit hands.So we have no access to Puppet Stayman.I'm wondering how many, if any, successful, experienced players prefer a "naked major" structure, where 1NT is opened on all/most/many hands that contain a 5 card major suit, but there is no easy way to show that major suit.I'm sensitive to his concerns about opener's frequent rebid problems if a major suit is opened with 15-17 HCP. But I'm not ready to open 1NT with a 5 card major with no "safety net" like Puppet!Comments? Advice? Solutions?Thanks in advance, and Happy whatever kind(s) of Holidays you celebrate!

IMO you should open a 15-17 1N with a 5-card major when, for example ...

• The major is of poor quality e.g. ♠ Q x x x x ♥ A K x ♦ K x ♣ A x x
• You have lots of tenaces e.g. ♠ A J x x x ♥ K x ♦ K J x ♣ K J x
• You have 15 HCP and a rebid problem if you open 1M e.g. ♠ A x x ♥ A K J x x ♦ J x x ♣ Q x

[johnu]

 nige1, on 2018-December-21, 20:32, said:

IMO you should open a 15-17 1N with a 5-card major when, for example ...

• You have 15 HCP and a rebid problem if you open 1M e.g. ♠ A x x ♥ A K J x x ♦ J x x ♣ Q x

You basically always have a rebid problem with 15-17 and a semi balanced hand with a 5 card major. If you make a minimum rebid, your partner can't really play you for 15-17 if you are going to get to high if you only have 11-14 which will be a large majority of the time. If you make a stronger rebid, your upper limit is ~19 (that brings up the problem of not opening 2NT with a 5 card major when you have ~20-22).

[johnu]

 rmnka447, on 2018-December-21, 20:15, said:

My experience with opening 1 NT with a 5 card major is pretty commonplace among really good to expert players. Since I don't run across many of these players that use "puppet" Stayman at the 2 or 3 level over 1 NT, they must not be worrying about it too much.

A lot of real world world class players use some kind of puppet Stayman. They worry about 5 card majors enough to add something to their NT system.

[lorantrit]

A simple way to get some benefit is to answer Stayman normally in your 5 card major. If partner raises, use your own judgement. If partner bids 2NT, bid 3 of your major with a good minnie and 3♣ or ♦ with more and a fragment in the bid suit. You can make this up at the table. What else could it be? OK. Maybe you open one NT with a minor suit six bagger once in a while. Now repeating the major at the three level has to show a little extra.

[awm]

I play this way in many partnerships and generally prefer it. The issue is that even if you open 1nt with all 5332 hands in range, opener having a five card major is a rare event. So you end up “fishing” with puppet a lot without catching many fish.

Puppet wins when you have a 5-3 major fit with both hands balanced AND this major fit plays better than 3nt.

Puppet loses when you have a 5-3 major fit that plays worse than 3nt.

But puppet also loses when opponents double puppet stayman for the lead (and you would’ve bid 1n-3n otherwise). And puppet loses when opponents double responders major suit bid (1nt-3c-3d-3M instead of 1nt-2c-2x). And puppet loses when the puppet auction helps opponents defend better by giving more info.

And all the losses above can easily happen even when opener has NO 5-card major, which is the vast majority of the time.

With that said, it’s important to be able to show shortage on 3-1 major hands because here the 5-3 major fit is a big win (but 3nt could be bad even if opener has no 5M, so I prefer to show these directly and not bid puppet).

[Tramticket]

 DozyDom, on 2018-December-21, 19:48, said:

Puppet stayman was designed to be better than stayman. Using both insults both.

We use both, but in a weak NT context. For us, it is important to be able to use Stayman with weak hands and we can't do that if one of the responses is 2NT. We have recently started using 3C as Puppet because we are opening 1NT with a greater proportion of hands that include 5M. I am not sure that we are seeing any significant benefit from Puppet.

[dsLawsd]

There was a system in use called "Shield" back in the 80s/90s.
I don't remember it but maybe there is a reference out there somewhere.

I do recommend reading Kit Woolsey's "Matchpoints" because he discusses when to open 1 NT with a 5 card major in some detail.

[apollo1201]

I use Puppet at 3C with GF hands only, with either exactly 1 4-cd M (no disclosure or opener majors to help leader), or one or two 3-cd M and a small wide open doubleton (playing the 53 fit might be better in those cases). This restricts a lot the « fishing » that awn mentionned and that helps opponents as much as or more than you.
But we don’t open all 5332 15-17. With 17 we rebid 2NT. So 15-16 be it. And we prefer to have several of the following elements to open NT, a « notrumpy » hand, with tenaces, scattered values in all suits, strong or weak M suit, and 3-cds in other M.

[pescetom]

 roninbc, on 2018-December-21, 18:07, said:

One of my partners insists that we open 1NT with any 15-17 HCP hand that is no more distributional than 5332, even if the 5 card suit is a major.

At the same time, although we use 4-suit transfers and "gap suit" super-accepts when responder transfers into a minor suit, he insists that 3C and 3D must remain invitational minor suit hands.

So we have no access to Puppet Stayman.

I'm wondering how many, if any, successful, experienced players prefer a "naked major" structure, where 1NT is opened on all/most/many hands that contain a 5 card major suit, but there is no easy way to show that major suit.

I'm sensitive to his concerns about opener's frequent rebid problems if a major suit is opened with 15-17 HCP. But I'm not ready to open 1NT with a 5 card major with no "safety net" like Puppet!

Comments? Advice? Solutions?

I find your reasoning sound. If it makes sense to play 3♣ as Puppet over 2NT then it should make sense to play 2♣ as something similar over 1NT. I think the reason that most people who take the plunge of 5-card major in 1NT make do with a normal 4-card Stayman instead is three-fold:
1. 4cM Stayman is an already mastered and effective tool which continues to work (more or less) with 5cM in a 1NT
2. much of the rest of the field will be doing the same
3. there is no convincing off-the-shelf alternative designed to handle this situation.

I think point 3 is the crux. Kit Woolsey reworked Puppet Stayman over 1NT but it is hard to remember and nothing like the 2NT version, which is the only one widely played. Ron Klinger's Five Card Major Stayman is pretty rudimentary. So experts like Sabina Auken have to invent their own conventions over 1NT instead, and good luck trying to understand all the developments.

In the meantime, most people just play a normal 4cM Stayman, with some agreed variations. Our national federation now teaches beginners to open 1NT containing a 5cM, but they still teach a normal 4cM Stayman.

But I do have a solution, if you're open to experiments - I wrote my own 5cM Stayman, and you're welcome to have a look and try it. It's rather unusual, but it seems to work and can be played over 2NT too. If you're interested drop me a message.

[apollo1201]

 pescetom, on 2018-December-22, 09:29, said:

But I do have a solution, if you're open to experiments - I wrote my own 5cM Stayman, and you're welcome to have a look and try it. It's rather unusual, but it seems to work and can be played over 2NT too. If you're interested drop me a message.

I think several of us would be interested in seeing it! Especially if it doesn’t affect (much) other developments after 1NT. Like transfers, minor-suit developments, handling 54 Majors, etc.

[pescetom]

 apollo1201, on 2018-December-22, 09:49, said:

I think several of us would be interested in seeing it! Especially if it doesn’t affect (much) other developments after 1NT. Like transfers, minor-suit developments, handling 54 Majors, etc.

It affects them, but it doesn't just simply forget them like some other 5-card major Staymans do. And it has a few tricks of it's own too.
Ok, probably the best thing is if I publish it and then open a specific thread so as not to hijack this one. Sometime in the next few days.

[Giangibar]

Coming from the other side of the pond, the main philosophy here (Italy) is to almost always give preference to the Major and show it whenever possible. There are certainly hands favorable to either approach, but in my experience the hands where I was stuck and struggling in 1NT while 2M (or even game!) was cold were many more than the hands where landing in 3NT rather than 4M resulted in a superior contract.

With all my serious partners I play Gazzilli (a relay structure after 1M - 1NT) so I can easily describe all 15+ hands, even when balanced, after opening 1M without any rebid problems. Without Gazzilli I can understand the need to open 1NT instead, but I still do it just when I feel there's no better way.

In order to solve your problem, you could consider the following possible solutions:

1) employ 2C Puppet Stayman;

2) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with 4 or 5 cards, not being able to distinguish;

3) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with 4 or 5 cards, then responder can relay with 3C ("re-Stayman") to ask about specific length;

4) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with just 4 cards, while jumping to 3H/S with 5 cards. In this case it would be useful to play 1NT – 2NT as natural and invitational, also because using Stayman for all invitational hands, with or without Majors, discloses too much information to the opponents without a real purpose; you would lose the 2NT as transfer to Diamonds, but you could replace it by playing 3C transfer to Diamonds weak or GF+ and 3D as exactly invitational in Diamonds;

5) employ 2C regular Stayman and 3C Puppet Stayman. The loss of 3C as purely invitational in Clubs is marginal, since you anyway have 2S as transfer to Clubs with the possibility to super-accept. This is, by the way, the approach chosen by the Lavazza team (several times world champion) in the Big Bang system, so it cannot be that bad.

6) Use Gazzilli!

I hope I could be helpful

[nige1]

 Giangibar, on 2018-December-22, 11:16, said:

Coming from the other side of the pond, the main philosophy here (Italy) is to almost always give preference to the Major and show it whenever possible. There are certainly hands favorable to either approach, but in my experience the hands where I was stuck and struggling in 1NT while 2M (or even game!) was cold were many more than the hands where landing in 3NT rather than 4M resulted in a superior contract.
With all my serious partners I play Gazzilli (a relay structure after 1M - 1NT) so I can easily describe all 15+ hands, even when balanced, after opening 1M without any rebid problems. Without Gazzilli I can understand the need to open 1NT instead, but I still do it just when I feel there's no better way.

In order to solve your problem, you could consider the following possible solutions:
1) employ 2C Puppet Stayman;
2) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with 4 or 5 cards, not being able to distinguish;
3) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with 4 or 5 cards, then responder can relay with 3C ("re-Stayman") to ask about specific length;
4) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with just 4 cards, while jumping to 3H/S with 5 cards. In this case it would be useful to play 1NT – 2NT as natural and invitational, also because using Stayman for all invitational hands, with or without Majors, discloses too much information to the opponents without a real purpose; you would lose the 2NT as transfer to Diamonds, but you could replace it by playing 3C transfer to Diamonds weak or GF+ and 3D as exactly invitational in Diamonds;
5) employ 2C regular Stayman and 3C Puppet Stayman. The loss of 3C as purely invitational in Clubs is marginal, since you anyway have 2S as transfer to Clubs with the possibility to super-accept. This is, by the way, the approach chosen by the Lavazza team (several times world champion) in the Big Bang system, so it cannot be that bad.
6) Use Gazzilli!

Giangibar makes sense to me, especially his recommendation of Gazzilli. to avoid a rebid problem after
1♥ - 1♠ or
1M - 1N

Our local version of Gazzilli defines the 2♣ rebid as either 16+ HCP or 6+ of the bid M, so, we do tend to open 1N with 15 HCP. even when we hold a 5-card major.

I also play Extended Stayman 3♣ as recommended by Giangibar:
After 1N - 2♣ - 2♥ - 3♣ - ?

• 3♦ = ART 4m. (3♥ asks which m? Then 3♠ = 4 ♣s. 3N = 4 ♦s)
• 3♥ = NAT 5 ♥s.
• 3♠ = NAT 4 ♠s.
• 3N = NAT 3433.

After 1N - 2♣ - 2♦ - 3♣ - ?

• 3♦ = ART 33(43). (3♥ asks which m? Then 3♠ = 4 ♣s. 3N = 4 ♦s)
• 3♥ = ART 5 ♣s.
• 3♠ = ART 5 ♦s.
• 3N = NAT (23)44.

[pescetom]

 Giangibar, on 2018-December-22, 11:16, said:

Coming from the other side of the pond, the main philosophy here (Italy) is to almost always give preference to the Major and show it whenever possible.

Things are changing even in Italy, though - as I mentioned the federation is now teaching beginners (the few we have...) to open any 15-17 5M332 as 1NT, and a similar opening is beginning to be accepted at club level (though it is wise to announce it, even if the regulations do not foresee this).

 Giangibar, on 2018-December-22, 11:16, said:

1) employ 2C Puppet Stayman;

2) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with 4 or 5 cards, not being able to distinguish;

3) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with 4 or 5 cards, then responder can relay with 3C ("re-Stayman") to ask about specific length;

4) employ 2C regular Stayman and answer 2H/S with just 4 cards, while jumping to 3H/S with 5 cards. In this case it would be useful to play 1NT – 2NT as natural and invitational, also because using Stayman for all invitational hands, with or without Majors, discloses too much information to the opponents without a real purpose; you would lose the 2NT as transfer to Diamonds, but you could replace it by playing 3C transfer to Diamonds weak or GF+ and 3D as exactly invitational in Diamonds;

5) employ 2C regular Stayman and 3C Puppet Stayman. The loss of 3C as purely invitational in Clubs is marginal, since you anyway have 2S as transfer to Clubs with the possibility to super-accept. This is, by the way, the approach chosen by the Lavazza team (several times world champion) in the Big Bang system, so it cannot be that bad.

6) Gazzilli

It's a useful analysis.
#3: FWIW I would choose this one between numbers #2 to #5
#4: I don't like the jump to 3-level, and while I agree with your comments about the technical superiority of a natural 2NT, playing 2NT as transfer to Diamonds is what most partners (and BOTs) currently expect
#5: I wouldn't say that the 2S transfer can substitute 3C, it is an alternative to Stayman and partner will expect 6+cards. But yes, 3C doesn't get used that often.

[Cyberyeti]

Bear in mind that some of the time you will find your 5-3 major fit for games anyway, over what is effectively 1N-2N however you get there you can still bid 3♠ with 5 and an accept. You can also use 1N-2♣-2♠-3♥ as something artificial where partner will show one of several things including a 5th spade.

I don't like to give up garbage stayman so would never play 2♣ puppet over 1N. I do however habitually play a weak NT. We don't play 1N-3♣ as puppet although are considering options.