On 5/1/2008 7:46 AM, paulhigh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> On Apr 30, 6:17 pm, "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: (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?
Opponents who double 3H for the lead, esp. in a Puppet auction, will be
getting terrifically bad scores on average. Your side has disclosed that
it has a game force, at least 6 hearts, and could have up to 8 hearts.
Doubling for lead in a suit opponents are saying they want to play in is
ludicrous: it leads to lots of appealing scores like -730 (3HX= when the
field is in 4H-1 on the bad heart split).
--
Cheers,
Alan (San Jose, California, USA)
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