On Apr 30, 6:17=A0pm, "Jim Greer" <jim...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I have been playing Smolen for years and have never played Puppet
although=
> I'm familiar with the rudiments.
>
> Am considering adding Puppet but would like to know if there are
conflicts=
..
>
> Thanks in advance for replies.
>
> --
>
> Jim Greer
> Home: (203) 966-9469
> Cell: =A0 =A0 (203) 979-6236
What is your purpose in playing Puppet over 1NT? Puppet Stayman can be
used to conceal opener's distribution (a major defect of regular
Stayman), and/or uncover a 5-3 fit for opener's major.
I consider the routine use of Puppet to hunt for a 5-3 fit when
responder has no 4 card major to be ludicrous -- it vastly increases
the frequency of 2C, giving fourth hand an easy lead-directing double.
When he doesn't double, his partner can guess to lead something other
than clubs (when he has no obvious lead.) In other words, this seems
to cancel out or even overwhelm the gains from concealing opener's
four card majors. Although a 5-3 fit is probably better than notrump
in general, it is not clear that the advantage is worth dragging
through a series of artificial bids to uncover. A strong notrump hand
with a concealed five card major often plays very well at notrump --
whereas, a five card suit in the responding hand is much harder to
take advantage of due to limited entries.
If you limit Puppet to hands with at least one four card major (or
certain minor suited hands that don't fit elsewhere in your response
scheme) Puppet then Smolen still makes some sense: you'll wrong-side
one of the major suits, but you can choose the less likely 4-4 fit
rather than the likely 5-3 fit. But as always with Smolen, you've bid
2 of the 3 side suits artificially as responder. Take, for example,
1NT-2C-2D-3H (showing 5 spades and 4 hearts.) Fourth hand has the
op****tunity to double both clubs and hearts for a lead. If he doubles
neither, leader can guess to lead diamonds. Are you sure the gain from
right-siding one major suit offsets this?
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