Fantunes

I guess everyone has heard about the Italian pair Fantoni-Nunes, aka "Fantunes". They play a special system which has a lot of theoretical strengths. We all know the best way to bid with strong hands is to stay low, and preferable bid natural before opponents mess up our auction (relays are only great if opponents keep quiet).

The base of their system is in the 1-level openings: they all show 14+HCP (unlimited, so forcing for 1 round) and are natural in a 5M4♦ system. The 1♣ opening shows balanced hands (no 5M) or hands with ♣. So all strong hands start natural and very low (and use low relays to show their extra strength)! This also means they don't need an artificial opening for any strong hand (except the balanced ones).
The 2-level openings are used for hands with 10-13HCP, basicly the normal minimal distributional openings. They are all unbalanced, so they have some playing strength. They usually enter the bidding on the par score contract, so the opponents have to guess what to do, which they usually don't do quite well.
1NT openings show 12-14HCP with most hands which just look like a NT distribution. It includes 5422's, 6m322's, and these days even 4441's. This way their 2-level openings have a 5+ card suit and almost always have a singleton or void.

The system works great (I sometimes play a version from a few years ago online), but the 2-openings tend to randomize the result from time to time. Luckily in the long run, they earn a lot more imps than they lose!
- Here's an example where opponents guessed wrong: I held ♠Q72-♥AKJ54-♦Q942-♣5 and opened a systemic 2♥. LHO had 14HCP with a 4333 and decided to double, partner passed and RHO bid 3♣. Partner's pass wasn't necessarily weak, so I doubled (takeout) and that was the end of the auction. It was obvious that partner only had 1 or 2♥ so we started with a ruff, and eventually they went -4 on a partscore deal!
- Problems arise when you have a misfit: you're higher than normal and can't do much to get to the right strain since many bids are forcing, invitational, or even have a special meaning... Sometimes you have to play in a 5-1 fit, or a level higher than the others. The key principle which seems to work is that opponents have to guess, even after 2X-p-p-? they don't know what partner holds. It's one hell of a preempt although it's constructive.

They also use another kind of slambidding. The first time I read about it, I thought it was near impossible to draw the right conclusions. After playing some hands however, I've found out that it's almost as accurate as a relay system! A combination of frivulous 3NT, last train, Turbo 4NT, and 5NT denying the trump Q, together with 1st and 2nd round controls does wonders. It's basicly some sort of cuebidding where one of the players first tells if he has serious slam interest, later on will one of the players show an odd or an even number of keycards (just to make sure you don't end up in slam with 2 keycards missing), and even later on you can figure out about the trump Q in various ways. Let me demonstrate:
I held ♠AQ94-♥AKJ-♦T7632-♣9.
The bidding went (opponents quiet):
1♦ - 2♣*
2♠ - 3♠
3NT - 4♦
4NT - 5♦
6♠
Almost nobody found the slam. Partner's hand was ♠KT32-♥Q3-♦AKQ4-♣J76.

2♣ showed GF with balanced/♦ support/♣; 3NT denied slam interest; 4NT showed a control ♣, a control ♥ and an even number of keycards. Now partner didn't have ♣A but still was looking for slam, so he was clearly asking for ♠Q, so I bid the small slam since I knew we had to lose a ♣.

We've noticed that ♣-slams are the hardest to find, since the Turbo is just one step under 5♣. ♦-slams are quite hard sometimes, but most of the time it's still easy. Major slams are very easy!

If anyone has their latest notes, let me know. ;-)

Lead directing pass vs Dbl

When you begin to play bridge, the 'common sense' gets hammered in your head: pass when weak hands, bid with good hands. Ofcourse, like with most things, the reversed attitude is more successful. Look at the changes in preempting style over the years, strong pass systems are theoreticly superior for constructive auctions,... Here's another one: lead directing passes!

Basicly it's most used when you've opened, overcalled or supported a suit, and opponents ask for a stopper in your suit. Example:
1♣ - 1♠ - Dbl - 2♠
3♣ - pass - 3♠ - ???
There are many other situations.

Most pairs play "Dbl = lead my suit", which is technically inferior to "Pass = lead my suit", and here's why. First of all, opponents won't play in your suit anyway (usually at 3-level), so Double or Pass is equally safe (*). The difference is that Double gives opponents extra space (2 extra bids which are always welcome: RDbl and pass), while Pass doesn't do so.
- When do you want to give your opponents more space? When they don't have anything to search for, which is when they have stoppers, so when you DON'T want partner to lead the suit.
- When do you want to put up the pressure? If they need to find 2 half stoppers (Qx opposite Jxx for example) or a better suit, which is more frequent when you want partner to lead the suit.

(*) Ofcourse, when you showed a 5 card suit it's a lot safer than when you only showed 3+m with a 1m opening. So there are some basic rules on when the lead asking pass is on. You can summarize this to "when it's safe":
- When you or partner opened in a Major
- When you overcalled
- When your partner opened/overcalled and you supported (the example above)
- When your partner made a solid overcall and you didn't get the chance to support (for example: 1♠-2♣-3♣-?)
- When your partner showed 2 suits and you made a clear prefference to one suit, then it's valid to that one suit only (useful with FREEWILL overcalls for example)
- ... (I probably forgot some)

Once you've shown or denied your prefference for the lead, you obviously keep passing to keep opponent's bidding space limited.

Responding to takeout doubles

Sorry for the few updates last week, but my computer gave up on me and is in repair...

Here's a hand I had a little discussion about:
Kxx - Jx - 9xxx - KQT9

The bidding started:
1♣ - Dbl - 1♥ - ???

What do you bid?

At the table, I bid 1NT, showing my decent strength. The entire auction went:

1♣ - Dbl - 1♥ - 1NT
pass - 2♠ - pass - 3♠
pass - 3NT - pass - 4♠
all pass

RHO lead a low ♥ from Qxxx, my partner had AKx, so we made 3 ♥ tricks. He was whining that I didn't have a ♥ stopper. But do I really?

Lets see what the double can be:
- either a normal takeout double, showing tolerance in the unbid suits. This would mean at least Qxx or 4+ ♥s, and with my Jx we have a stopper.
- either a strong hand, which will definetly bid after my free and positive 1NT response.

So either way, it's good to show my strength. This made me think about another situation, where I've had discussions about for a long time:
1X - Dbl - pass - ???

Without a decent suit, and without a stopper, you don't have any bid. 1NT seems to be ok when you have some values. For 3NT the stopper should better be in partner's hand anyway - how can you ever make a decent 3NT if you hold KJx in X and LHO doesn't lead the suit?
Partner must be aware of this style, and should be able to use 2X as a stopper ask in case he doesn't have one on his own. 2NT will still be playable most of the time, since there's only 1 suit open (and perhaps an Ace which will defeat the contract). So there's no big danger, and you can still play 2M most of the time in a 4-3 fit.

Odd but successful leads

Suppose your RHO plays some trump contract. You hold trump KQJ2 and there's no other lead attractive (unsupported Kings or Queens, or leading into declarer's suit), so you want to lead trumps. What is the best card to do so?

The most important question to ask is if partner can have a trump. If he can't, the K or Q or even J is obvious, but if he certainly has one or more a small one is better! Here's why: if partner has the T or 9 (or perhaps even the 8) you probably won't give away a trick. The T is obvious, but the 9 you may wonder? Look at following dummy:
- T83 <-> A7654: nobody will try the T, since it's quite useless. Most people don't start small with KQJx, so it would be a waste losing the T to RHO's honour.
- AT6 <-> 87543: again, why try a finesse?
- T93 <-> A7654: partner has the 8, declarer will probably play low in dummy.
Ofcourse there are many losing positions as well, so there's quite a risk involved. You may want to prospone this by leading another suit (with other risks) and play small when RHO tries to play trumps. However, a good declarer will usually spot the 4-1 split early enough, and will try to endplay you.

Other useful holdings: QJTx, QJx, KQx (most risky I think)

The most successful time is probably after 1NT followed by a transfer. You'll be leading through a long suit, so the chance of dummy having a key Ten is highest. But there's still no guarantee...