Partner opens a 15-17 1NT. What's your response holding ♠K102 ♥Q8763 ♦QJ4 ♣AJ ?
When I teach students how to respond to 1NT, I tell them to always make a Jacoby transfer when they hold at least five cards in a major, no matter what their hand’s strength. Artificial bidding is already a difficult concept for beginners, so this simple, “automatic” version is the easiest introduction.
You may have heard the same rule when you were learning. It’s still good advice for the vast majority of hands, but as you gain confidence in your bidding judgment, you might start finding exceptions. Is the hand above one of them?
In the previous issue, we discussed how to decide whether to use Stayman or raise notrump when you hold a 4-3-3-3 hand with 4-card major. Many of the same guidelines can be applied when partner opens 1NT and you have a 5-card major and 3-3-2 in the other suits.
You won’t want to routinely hide a long major, but this is the type of hand where a direct jump to 3NT could be the winning strategy. Its weak suit, balanced pattern and "soft" values suggest that notrump might play better than a possible heart fit. It doesn't quite meet Danny Kleinman’s Rule of Three Queens (“When you hold three queens, go out of your way to bid notrump"), but two queens and two jacks are pretty close.
Perhaps more important for notrump, your extra high-card strength gives you some confidence that you have double stoppers in all suits. If hearts break badly, your hand has enough outside fillers that partner should be able to find at least nine tricks in the other suits.
The downside of a 3NT response is that it won’t be the field bid. Most others holding your cards will transfer and play 4H if opener has 3-card support. At matchpoints, your goal should be to score average-plus on every board. If you play 3NT when the field is in 4H, you’re going for a near-top or a near-bottom, so you need to evaluate carefully.
Another legitimate concern about 3NT is that you might miss a fit of more than eight cards. If partner has four or five hearts, it will be rare for 3NT to outscore 4H. A recommended solution with the example hand is to treat the hearts as a 4-card suit and start with Stayman. If partner shows four hearts, you'll bid 4H. If his reply is 2D or 2S, you’ll try 3NT.
Partscore deals. In general, the weaker your hand, the more eager you should be to get out of notrump and into your 5-card suit. You aren’t so desperate, though, when you have enough strength that you expect to make 1NT.
My students would always transfer to 2S holding ♠J8643 ♥Q65 ♦104 ♣Q92. More experienced players will see "notrumpish" values and consider the merits of passing 1NT. Opener will often have at least 3-card spade support, but with your weak suit and scattered values, 1NT may well be the safer contract. With stronger spades and fewer outside honors, 2S rates to play better.
Opener’s choices. Suppose you open 1NT, partner transfers to hearts and then rebids 3NT. Do you pass or bid 4H holding ♠KQ6 ♥J73 ♦AK10 ♣QJ92 ?
Another common beginner rule is that opener should always prefer the 5-3 fit after this auction. For most of us, that’s not a command. This hand has all the right features for notrump – low honors and spot cards, weak support, no ruffing value – so passing 3NT is reasonable.
This choice, however, should be rare because it comes with more risks than responder’s suit-vs.-notrump decisions. Partner doesn’t promise a perfectly balanced hand and may not have stopper help in all suits. If he transfers and rebids 2NT, his hand could be very distributional because he can’t afford to go to the 3-level to show a second suit.
Like all “executive decisions” at the bridge table, you’ll want to have near-perfect hands to buck the beginner rules and reject these 5-3 fits. If you judge well to make that choice and it happens to be wrong, you can always claim your failed contract was one that only an expert would find.
© 2021 Karen Walker