[Jinksy]

I've just been fiddling around with my NT continuations, and come up with one particular sequence that I'd now like to play with all my weak NT partners, and probably the strong ones as well: 1N 2C / 2D 3H, where the 3H bid shows exactly 5-5 in the majors and is inv NF. This seems much more useful than Smolen to me, since on normal systems it's not normally possible to invite and show that distribution.

Anyone else play this/something comparable?

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Some play the 3-level jumps to show the 5-5 majors :

1NT - 3H! = 5-5 invite
and
1NT - 3S! = 5-5 game force

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In your structure, how would you show the 5-4 / 4-5 hands ?

[PhilKing]

I play the same. After 1NT-2♣-2♦:

3♦ = typically 5♠4♥(31), then 3♥ relays for shape.
3♥ = 55 inv
3♠ = 5422 or 54(31) with say a stiff king


BTW, I can find no hand from top-level play where Smolen produced a particularly good result.

[Siegmund]

Quote

since on normal systems it's not normally possible to invite and show that distribution

Eh?

If you are playing a strong notrump and transfers, 5-5 inv is the standard meaning of 1NT-2D-2H-2S. You get to stop a level lower half the time too.

If you are playing a weak notrump and not playing transfers, you may well want to include your toy.

Expectations for Smolen should not be high, as it is showing exactly the same hands as 1N-2C-2D-3M in standard, just with the two bids reversed, and when you have game values, you will rarely be gaining much from 'right'siding those 4M games.

[Vampyr]

 Siegmund, on 2013-December-21, 12:48, said:

If you are playing a strong notrump and transfers, 5-5 inv is the standard meaning of 1NT-2D-2H-2S.

Standard? I think that the 3M treatments for 5-5M are a lot more common.

Quote

Expectations for Smolen should not be high, as it is showing exactly the same hands as 1N-2C-2D-3M in standard, just with the two bids reversed, and when you have game values, you will rarely be gaining much from 'right'siding those 4M games.

I think it is one of those things that somehow caught on in North America, until finally "everybody" played it and it seemed more or less standard.

{Dare I say the same thing about support doubles?)

[jallerton]

 PhilKing, on 2013-December-21, 08:17, said:

I play the same. After 1NT-2♣-2♦:

3♦ = typically 5♠4♥(31), then 3♥ relays for shape.
3♥ = 55 inv
3♠ = 5422 or 54(31) with say a stiff king

I play various structures over 1NT. Many of them involve playing 3♥ here as 5/5 invitational. I don't play your 3♦ gadget which looks interesting. However, anybody thinking of adopting it needs to consider it in the context of their overall structure (I'm sure that Phil does!). If playing 1NT-2♣-2♦-3♦ as conventional, then how do you bid hands with 5 diamonds and a 4-card major? Transfer to diamonds then bid your second suit seems like the obvious answer, but it's becoming fashionable to use that sequence to show a single-suited hands with shortage in the bid suit. These are all useful hand types to be able to show, but when designing a structure it's important to consider all likely hand types so there's no big hole.

 PhilKing, on 2013-December-21, 08:17, said:

BTW, I can find no hand from top-level play where Smolen produced a particularly good result.

In theory, some of the gains (playing strong NT) for Smolen will come when the Smolen call is not employed at all; the auction just goes 1NT-2C-2M-4M and the stronger hand gets to declare. Playing standard transfer methods there are usually some hands where Responder gets to declare in his second suit.

[Zelandakh]

I have used 1NT - 2♥; 2♠ - 3♥ to cover the 5-5 invite hands in almost every 1NT structure I have developed. There are many better ways of handling the 5-5 GF hands - my current favourite is to use transfer rebids after a 2♦ transfer, ie

1NT - 2♦; 2♥
==
2♠ = natural 2NT rebid or clubs, GF or slammy 1-suiter
2NT = spades, invite
3♣ = diamonds
3♦ = 5+ spades, GF
3♥ = 1-suited invite

If you do not like the multi-way 2♠ rebid then another alternative is to play transfers after Stayman + negative. That is

1NT - 2♣; 2♦
==
2♥ = both majors, weak
2♠ = range ask
2NT = clubs
3♣ = diamonds
3♦ = 5-5 majors, GF
3M = Smolen

Of course you can also combine these ideas to gain additional space for, for example, showing 3-suited hands.

As an aside to jallerton's discussion on minor transfers, I quite like to play another alternative in which you use the transfer with 4M5m hands and simply respond 3m with 1-suiters. That seems to work out very efficiently if you do not need the 3m responses for invites or 3-suiters. I also like the method where there are only initial transfers for ♠, ♥ and ♣, with diamond-based hands starting off with Stayman. That has an obvious advantage when you have a weak takeout and partner responds 2♦ but beyond that it seems to distribute the correct number od hand types into 2♣ very simply and makes designing other parts of the structure easy.

[aguahombre]

You can also use a direct 3D/1NT for the 5-5 invite if you want to keep 5-5's out of the Stayman mix and want to preserve Stayman, then 3m, as forcing with 4M and longer in the minor ---we still have 2H then 3H for 5-5 forcing.

You don't lose your (our) pet Smolen. You don't lose your (our) pet mini-Smolen at the 2-level. Our Direct 3C is already taken with Puppet, so all we lose is a natural 3D invite, if we ever had it to begin with.

[aguahombre]

 PhilKing, on 2013-December-21, 08:17, said:

BTW, I can find no hand from top-level play where Smolen produced a particularly good result.

Perhaps not, but I don't know all of their methods and what they do or do not give up in order to use them. I also don't know if our Smolen gains or breaks even with theirs when the things I like about it occur ---

When there is a 2D response to Stayman and Responder holds Smolen, there is only 1 suit strain or some level of NT in play. Methods where 5-5 is alive might suffer from that.

1) Opener's advance cue after 1N-2C-2D-3M are in support of a known major.
2) With the 4-6 holding Responder, having not used delayed Texas, and acting over 3NT can distinguish between mild slam interest (bidding 4 of her Major) and serious slam interest (Cueing a minor) --- again the 6-2 fit is known.

[awm]

This isn't something you can really look at in isolation; you need a full notrump structure. For example, I already play that 1NT-2♦-2♥-3♥ is invitational 5/5 in the majors, so it would be ridiculous for me to use stayman followed by 3♥ as the same hand type.

It seems important that you have some way to bid 5-4 majors GF hands, since the 5-3 major fit will often be superior to 3NT here (and opener can easily judge when it isn't by looking at his minor suit holdings too). Ideally you would be able to isolate the shortness as well. An alternate way to deal with the 5-5 invite is to bid stayman followed by 2♠; presumably this shows 5♠ invitational so you might miss a 5-3 heart fit, but you have the advantage of getting out a level lower on declined invites. I think this is less serious than missing the 5-3 major fit when responder has the more frequent 5/4 GF (although perhaps you have another way to show these hands).

[BillHiggin]

 PhilKing, on 2013-December-21, 08:17, said:

BTW, I can find no hand from top-level play where Smolen produced a particularly good result.

Would you be so kind as to clarify:
Do you mean to say that GF hands with 5-4 in the majors are not important?
Or do you mean that it is not important to assure the strong hand declares the possible 5-3 fit?
Or is there some other intended meaning?

I would not favor giving up a way to establish a game force with a 5-4 major hand (but do not feel so strongly about the transfer) to accommodate any invitational pattern. The range for invitational hands is too small compared to the gains from improved slam bidding - but my opinion may be suspect.

[GreenMan]

 BillHiggin, on 2013-December-23, 14:46, said:

Would you be so kind as to clarify:
Do you mean to say that GF hands with 5-4 in the majors are not important?
Or do you mean that it is not important to assure the strong hand declares the possible 5-3 fit?
Or is there some other intended meaning?

I suspect he means, as I've heard others say before, that the hands where a good result is available only if the pair uses Smolen are sufficiently rare that one has not been observed yet.

[BillHiggin]

 GreenMan, on 2013-December-23, 14:56, said:

I suspect he means, as I've heard others say before, that the hands where a good result is available only if the pair uses Smolen are sufficiently rare that one has not been observed yet.

How nice of you to repeat the original statement slightly reworded but still with the same ambiguity. Perhaps if you used all caps or bold face then I might see the light [/sarcasm]

I assume that these others are speaking of the transfer aspect of Smolen. This bothers me because the sequences used to show the GF 5-4 major suit hands before Smolen were the same sequences except with the long major being bid. Yet, I always see such statements in the context of "I want to abandon Smolen and use those sequences for some other purpose". This ignores the need to constructively bid those hands whether with or without the transfer aspect.

Now, if the "others" actually do not care about finding the correct fit with 5-4 major hands then I will simply and happily avoid those "others".

[PhilKing]

 BillHiggin, on 2013-December-23, 14:46, said:

Would you be so kind as to clarify:
Do you mean to say that GF hands with 5-4 in the majors are not important? That would just be a silly.

Or do you mean that it is not important to assure the strong hand declares the possible 5-3 fit?

Smolen's usp is that it right sides everything, but I can't find a single hand where this was even close to being worth a trick.

Or is there some other intended meaning?

Smolen gives up the ability for delicate exploration of strain and economy on slam hands. The apparently "standard" U.S. method of 1NT-2♦-♥-♠ to show 5-5 inv is particularly ridiculous (I find it hard to believe many serious partnerships use this interpretation, though). There are many better uses, but even showing 45M F1 is a vast improvement if one discounts the wrong-siding spades issue. Here is a typical example held by Patrick Huang against the non-regular partnership of Garozzo and Sementa:

♠JT9♥A4♦AQJ742♣Q9

You open 1NT (not everyone's choice, but reasonable). Partner bids 2♣ then 3♠ and you have a blind guess. Huang tried 4♥ and fetched:

♠KQ63♥KJ852♦865♣7

Great hand for the methods!


I would not favor giving up a way to establish a game force with a 5-4 major hand (but do not feel so strongly about the transfer) to accommodate any invitational pattern. The range for invitational hands is too small compared to the gains from improved slam bidding - but my opinion may be suspect.

You (probably) don't have to give up anything important, but it is true that you can't show everything.

See above.

[GreenMan]

 BillHiggin, on 2013-December-23, 16:11, said:

How nice of you to repeat the original statement slightly reworded but still with the same ambiguity. Perhaps if you used all caps or bold face then I might see the light [/sarcasm]

Well if you're not clear about what ambiguity you claim to see, no one can clarify it for you, assuming it exists.

[GreenMan]

duplicate, sorry

[BillHiggin]

 PhilKing, on 2013-December-23, 17:11, said:

Do you mean to say that GF hands with 5-4 in the majors are not important? That would just be a silly.

Thank you Phil for a well thought out reply.
Unfortunately, the OP did what you have just labeled as "silly" by replacing a sequence showing one of the GF 5-4 major holdings (which depends on Smolen or No Smolen) and not specifying the replacement.
Perhaps your suggestion of trans to 2♥ then 2♠ is adequate - without knowing further details, I cannot offer any opinion.

In fact, it was questions about the "standard" meaning for that sequence (when I returned to bridge after a 20+ years sabbatical to raise a family) that led me to study a lot of 1N response systems. I rather quickly discovered that when it comes to standards for responding to 1N that the good news is that there are ever so many such standards (all different).
For 1N 2D; 2H 2S:
1) Common with systems using garbage stayman - shows invitational values with 5♥ and 4♠ (as shown by 1N 2C; 2D 2H with invitational stayman)
2) In BBO Advanced - shows invitational values with 5♥ and 4+♠ (adds in the invitational 55 hands - but seems awkward to me)
2) With invitational stayman systems - Variations of Walsh relays - perhaps a basis for the 5-4 f1 meaning you mentioned
4) With intermediate players - whatever they happen to hold at the moment (good luck partner).
+) I am sure there are others.

[Vampyr]

 BillHiggin, on 2013-December-23, 16:11, said:

Yet, I always see such statements in the context of "I want to abandon Smolen and use those sequences for some other purpose". This ignores the need to constructively bid those hands whether with or without the transfer aspect.

I do not think that this is what was meant. I think that the comparison was made between Smolen and natural.

But you are obviously very resistant to opinions that are critical of Smolen. I love "abandon Smolen" as if Smolen were the initial position!

[1eyedjack]

I find it useful to split invitational 5-5 in the majors into two subcategories of strength, because I can construct hands with anything from about 7 to about 10 HCP and 5-5 in the majors opposite which game is possible but not certain (playing weak 1N). In practice with the extremes I would probably GF or weak t/o and pay off to the occasions when it fails, but it served to convince me in my own mind that, given the bidding space, and assuming no higher priority, it is nice to be able to distinguish a "weak invitational" from "strong invitational" hand with 5-5 in the majors. The latter I show by an immediate 3H response (3S response showing 5-5 in minors and stronger). The former (weak inv) I start with a 2C structure, which I will not go into here.

I realise that this is not very useful when viewed out of context of the whole response structure (which I have posted elsewhere on this forum a while back). But that is an inevitable consequence of the manner in which the OP question is phrased. Simply picking out bits that you dislike in a complete response structure and then shoehorning in another bit is not an approach to system design that will end happily. If instead you start with a clean slate you may not be tempted to include Smolen in the first place and then find yourself wanting to discard it.

But talking of higher priorities, yes it is nice for 1N-2D-2H-2S (method mentioned earlier in this thread) to allow you to stop in 2S on the rare occasion that it is the last making spot when responder has 5-5 inv, but it is also a very cheap sequence to devote to such a rare and narrowly defined hand type, so I don't like that solution at all.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

 1eyedjack, on 2013-December-24, 18:32, said:

Simply picking out bits that you dislike in a complete response structure and then shoehorning in another bit is not an approach to system design that will end happily. If instead you start with a clean slate you may not be tempted to include Smolen in the first place and then find yourself wanting to discard it.

Well said....