One of the reasons that 1NT is a desirable opening bid is that the responses are so well defined. Even if you play nothing more than Stayman and transfers, you have clear ways to show your hand and ask opener about his. Bidding misunderstandings aren’t impossible, but they’re rare.
The longer we play, the more challenging these auctions become because we find more to think about. New gadgets and agreements can improve the basic notrump system -- and increase the difficulty level -- but they aren’t the main contributors to our success. Getting to the right contract depends more on judgment than a filled-to-the-margins convention card.
Good bidding judgment is largely the product of playing experience. We see what works and what doesn’t, learn new ways to evaluate our hands and pick up advice from experienced players. The result is that we start rethinking some of the rules we learned as beginners and become better at recognizing exceptions.
The pancake dilemmaStayman is often the first artificial bid taught to new players. For simplicity, your teacher or mentor may have said it should be used any time partner opens 1NT and you have at least 8-9 points and one or both 4-card majors.
Then a partner or an expert at your club told you that “no one" uses Stayman with a 4333 pattern, so you changed your approach. Did you get good advice?
When partner opens a 15-17 1NT and you hold a hand such as ♠1054 ♥A964 ♦KJ6 ♣Q82 , you have a choice between 3NT and 2C to search for a heart fit. Called a “pancake" because it's so flat, this pattern looks right for notrump because it has no ruffing value. Even if you have a heart fit, this might well be a deal where there are only 9 tricks available in hearts or notrump.
Another downside of Stayman is that the opponents will be listening to your exchange of information. It also gives your LHO the opportunity to double 2C for a lead.
The argument for Stayman is that although you're flat, partner probably isn't. He's 3.5 times more likely to have a 4432 or 5332 hand than any 4333. There’s only a 2.6-percent chance that you'll have identical 3=4=3=3 patterns (sometimes called, erroneously, “mirror" distribution).
If partner has four hearts and a doubleton, the ruff in his hand could result in +620 instead of +600 in notrump. Overall strength can be an issue, too, since it’s likely you have only 25 combined points. If you have a weak or unstopped suit, you may need the control offered by a trump suit.
The experts speak
In bidding quizzes and polls, experienced players typically vote heavily for 3NT with hands similar to the one above. The mathematicians among them have run numerous simulations that tend to support this choice, but there are many variables that affect the conclusions.
One is that opener will make subjective decisions about which hands are right and wrong for 1NT, so it’s difficult to specify his hand. The simulation has to predict how often he’ll have a 5-card heart suit or four hearts and a 5-card minor. And with the new ACBL rules that allow opening 1NT with a singleton honor, there’s the possibility that your spade stopper will be ♠1054 opposite stiff ♠Q.
So the answer to “Did you get good advice?” is yes and no, but it’s not just a blind guess. Even an unremarkable pancake hand offers plenty of clues that can help you make a good choice between 3NT and 2C. More about these in the next issue.
© 2021 Karen Walker