I find it a tough choice between 2
and 2
. Of course it's an error to bid on too much hope of what partner has bit he did open 1NT and if he has
fit with the AK and the
A , that's 11 points, then 4
is very apt to make. Of course he probably does not have exactly that. Still.
They opted for 1NT - 2
- 2NT -3
-P.
I think if I took the 2
route and partner showed a fit with 2NT, I would give 3NT a try at any form of scoring. With almost all 9 counts and some 8 counts I invite over 1NT. This is a 7 count but that's a lot of tricks in the club suit.
As it happens, 3NT is on ice. If E has all four missing clubs you will have a problem but otherwise you are making 3NT. In the pass out seat, after 3
- Pass-Pass, I got a little adventurous and it worked out well, but perhaps I should have just let them at 3
. Here is the full hand. I'm W.
| Q854 9 93 KQ8764 | |
A T87642 AJ76 J5
| | KT732 QJ3 842 93
|
| J96 AK5 KQT5 AT2
| |
When 3
was passed around to me I figured they have a 9 card club fit, we have a fit somewhere, almost certainly in hearts, and we are non-vul so I trotted out 3
, passed out. I think partner might have been a little flummoxed when he put down the QJx of trump and watched the opponents take two trump tricks. But -50 was a fine result. S has a max, but on the auction he cannot assume N has any high cards at all so he cannot do much. But if N had doubled to show a decent hand for his sign off in 3
then perhaps S would have converted it to 3NT. Or not. I did not figure them to be signing off in 3
with a combined 24 count and a known running six clubs, so the
seemed like a reasonable shot.
I am not entirely convinced that these minor suit transfers are worth the effort. On the score sheet there was a 180 their way, presumably 1NT followed by three passes. There was also one 600 and even one 660, but mostly they didn't get there. I used to play Minor Suit Stayman. It's not so popular anymore, and it would not work here, but mostly the transfer didn't work here either.
I truly don't know if I, as N, would start with 2
or 2
. I think 2
. It would work fine here, partner bids 2
, I bid a very nervous 2NT, partner bids 3 NT and brings in 9 tricks.
I can go for a long time w/o a minor suit transfer coming up, but in the club game on Thursday there were two hands where it might have. The above was one of them. On another, partner opened 1 NT and I held
9
Q7
AT8
KQJT874
I gave a moment's thought to bidding 2
(transfer) followed by 3
(shortness) but I got a grip on myself. For one thing, although I like to play 3
as shortness after the transfer I could not recall having discussed it. Anyway, I just raised to 3NT, they cashed their two aces, we scored up 460.
Worse, partner and I were playing that 2
shows either clubs or diamonds. I don't like it at all, but as mentioned it rarely comes up.
So: Two hands where the minor suit transfer could have come up On one of them they used it and got to the wrong contract, on the other i didn't bother with it and it was fine. Usually in a 24 board game it doesn't come up at all. I am not going so far as to suggest we chuck it, but I think I need to have a discussion with pard about how an auction might develop after we use it. If all we use it for is a sign off, I think it's not enough.