Dear Ed and Peter,

Following up on your discussion of major suit 5-4 hands after partner opens 2NT (click here to read it), playing Puppet Stayman, how do you respond with 5 spades and 4 hearts and no slam interest? Obviously you can't transfer to spades and then bid hearts. Do you transfer to spades and then follow with 3NT, missing a potential heart fit? Thank you.

Jerry Miller

Reply Ed Hoogenkamp (South)

Dear Jerry,

In the Dutch (extended) Puppet version (it's called Niemeijer, after its creator Chris Niemeijer), the direct 3NT response over 2NT shows the hand in question: 5-4 in spades-hearts, no slam interest (the bid is therefore not forcing ). 
Yes, this is a dangerous agreement, since 2NT - 3NT sounds very passable...
Indeed many a 2NT opener has passed the 3NT reply thoughtlessly. Of course, part of the fun for the responder is to bid 3NT as fast and smoothly as possible to check if partner remembers...

Here is a link to read more about it.

Since responder cannot bid 3NT directly with no interest in the majors, he will have to bid 3♣ first and follow up with 3NT over any possible reply by opener.
An alternative I prefer: responder bids 3♠ over 2NT as a transfer to 3NT. Over opener's compulsory 3NT rebid, responder either passes (if he has a hand on which any 'normal bridge player' would have raised to 3NT directly...) or shows typical hands by bidding on after that.

I stopped playing the direct raise to 3NT showing 5-4 in spades-hearts with Peter. The reason is, that he passed 3NT five times with 4-4 in the majors, saying: 'But you bid 3NT... I always pass that.' He seems to miss the point.

Un saludo desde Barcelona

Dear Jerry,

Firstly: Ed and I have never agreed upon this fearful convention. I think it is a breach of the Geneva Convention to play 2NT-3NT as artificial. I came to this conclusion after opponents had a misunderstanding using this agreement (or should I say they had the misunderstanding?): West opened 2NT, East raised to 3NT (5-4 in spades-hearts), West passed without even thinking (he had 4-4 in the majors) and 3NT turned out to be the only game that made, since we had four top tricks.
So the problem was not that I had forgotten the convention five times on a row but that Ed had forgotten that we didn't play it four times on a row. Yes, only four times: the first time he assumed we played it, since he played it with his other partners; fair enough. The other four times are about an average score for Ed: any new agreement backfires (read: Ed forgot) statistically 4.17 times before he uses it correctly the first time. 

Of course you have spotted that neither Ed nor the link he suggests tell you how to bid with a stronger (slam invitational) hand with 5-4 in spades-hearts over partner's 2NT-opening. A possible solution: start with 3♥ (Jacoby transfer to 3♠) and rebid 4♥. Without a fit in either major, the opener retreats to 4NT, a sign-off, not Blackwood.
Still, even this sequence is not forcing: opener can pass 4♥. So if you have 5-4 in spades-hearts and definitely want to be in a slam but want to find out in which slam, you have to find another solution. Perhaps readers can be helpful here? (Ed has no idea, but doesn't see the problem either: he applies Puppet Stayman and if there is no 4-4 heart fit, he rebids 6♠; his partners are used to this kind of 'shooting from the hip'.)

En hils fra Orkanger