Gambling 3NT

The opening bid of 3NT is still played as showing a monster balanced hand by some die-hards. But the majority of people, including almost all experts, seek a better use for the bid. A very large balanced hand can be adequately handled through a 2C opening (or whatever is your conventional strong opening bid). And starting to try and bid constructively at 3NT is fairly hopeless, making the very old-fashioned opening ineffective as well as unnecessary. The commonest alternative is what is called the Gambling 3NT.

The Gambling 3NT was originally part of the Acol system. The opening showed a solid or semi-solid 7- or 8-card minor suit, with one or two stoppers outside. With some help, responder could pass, hoping that declarer could gain the lead and run off nine tricks before the defence could organize five. This might depend on a favorable opening lead, or an ace being on-side, or some such – hence the “gambling” designation.

The modern incarnation of this bid is modified from that original description. These days, a seven card suit is enough, but it is expected to be pretty solid (minimum AKQxxxx). Rather than having outside strength, the opener is expected to have little outside strength, usually defined to be no ace or king outside. Responder still has the option to gamble with a pass, or bid 4C or 5C for pass-or-correct to opener’s suit. There is also a 4D response to ask for a singleton (with no aces or kings, a singleton is the most useful feature opener might have outside his suit). Opener rebids:
After 3NT – 4D ;
4 major = singleton in the bid suit
4NT = no singleton
5 minor = singleton in the other minor
(The reason for reversing the minor suit calls is that it wouldn’t necessarily be a good idea for opener to go past 5C holding a singleton diamond – what if responder was really looking for a heart control?)

This incarnation of the bid is clearly more frequent in occurrence (though still pretty rare), and also fits in to a spectrum of pre-emptive bids that runs from very weak (3-minor pre-empts are often made on 6-card suits these days) to very strong (4- and 5-level pre-empts are usually 8- or 9-card suits). But one obvious weakness of the modern version is that the contract is wrong-sided. Since the responder is the one with the stoppers, it would be much better to have the opening lead running around to his hand. That is why the usual advice for the opening leader is to lay down an ace, so that you get a look at the dummy and can (hopefully) spot the flaw that will give you your defensive tricks. This also is why transfer pre-empts or Alder pre-empts or some such scheme are attractive for this case – if the opening is 3S , responder gets to be the declarer when he wants to gamble, which is much better.

With virtually all of opener’s assets concentrated in one long suit, there is scope for the opposition to have decent prospects of game in one of the other suits. But finding a fit when you have to start at the 4-level is bound to be somewhat problematic. The best idea looks to be to use a defence against 1NT, just a few levels higher. We would go with Multi-Landy:
4C = both majors
4D = one major, unspecified
4H = hearts and a minor (hopefully, the one opener doesn’t have)
4S = spades and a minor
Double can be used to show general values, but clearly you aren’t going to get fat on penalties most of the time. Opener will probably be able to round up at least eight or nine tricks, even without too much in the dummy. So probably it would be better to use an immediate double to show the other minor.