Dispelling Beginner Myths: No Fit = No Trumps!
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A solid partner preempts 2S and we have x AQJ AKxxx AJxx. 19 points, nice! But partner preempted us, grr.1 There’s no spade fit, trying 5m would be really far away, so we try 3NT, right?
Would you believe it, down 2 or 3. Unlucky! Partner had a good suit: KQJTxx. What happened? Is 25 HCP not enough for 3N?
Let’s take a look at another deal.
We have Kx Q9x Q9xxx AJT. We deal and the auction goes:
1D 1S
1N 2H
So partner has a hand like 5 spades and 4 hearts. You might hope partner has 5 hearts and pass. I would bid 2S and try to play the 5-2 or the 6-2.
The one bid you should not make? 2N.
This is the full deal:
In 2NT on the natural club lead, the opponents are entitled to 3 clubs, 2 diamonds, 1 red trick, and 1 spade. That’s 7 tricks for the defense! This is not anywhere close to making. (I could have been a lot meaner! Move a diamond honor to E and give somebody 5 clubs…)
What about 2S? I see 3 spade tricks, 2 heart tricks, a club is 6. The 13th heart promotes a trump trick for us for 7. If spades behaved, we would gain a natural spade trick. (It’s irrelevant if spades/hearts behave in NT. Crazy, huh?) Making/down 1 versus down 2 is a big deal! Also, opponents in the know will know how bad 2NT is, and are more likely to double you. Especially on this auction.
So what lesson can we take away from all of this?
No fit does not mean no trumps!
NT is a very difficult strain!2 There’s a reason it’s ranked the highest; it’s the hardest to take a lot of tricks in!
Roughly speaking, there are two kinds of good NT contracts.
- We have a (super)majority of the high card points, both hands are balanced-ish, and have no good fit. Think a 1NT or 3/4NT contract.
- We have what I call a rip and run hand – cash a solid long suit, bang out aces, and go home.
This topic is very complex, so I want to leave you with a few guidelines in common auctions to avoid playing NT, even if you don’t fit. Particularly when you don’t fit.
Guideline 1
Choose a 5-2 fit over an underpowered NT.
I had a Fourth Suit Forcing 1 round auction a few weeks ago, and we stopped in 2M on a 5-2 fit. I gleefully announced that I could play 2M instead of 2N, then recoiled in horror when trumps broke 5-1. And then I made it. They couldn’t stop me. 2NT had no play. It was that dire!
Guideline 2
If partner preempts and you don’t fit, play partner’s suit!
Take a look at the very first hand of the article. Did you notice anything? 4S is a much better contract, especially on a non-club lead. We are lucky that partner’s suit is so good, but it doesn’t take luck to see that partner’s spades will be useless to us in 3N unless he has an entry to cash the suit after we set it up. But in spades, his spades will always be useful.
Guideline 3
Choosing NT after partner preempts is a rip and run!
For partner’s preemptive hand to have any value in 3NT, either we expect to run his suit, or we expect to run our own secret suit! This is a rip and run!
I wrote an article on my Patreon about hand evaluation, and how true hand evaluation comes from not counting length or shortness or fractional points, but from experience in trick taking and cardplay. Years of getting burnt playing underpowered or inappropriate NTs led to these well-known guidelines.
Bonus Hand
Captain, take a look at this. How would you rate NT vs spades?
PS.
On the first hand, it is difficult to figure out what the best contract is with the South hand during the bidding. If partner shows bad suit good hand, then we may try 3NT. If partner shows a good suit, we need to be in spades. Regardless, the main thrust is that we cannot simply choose NT because we don’t fit.