Shugart23

are you planning on publishing the new numbers ?

I would conject that if you use a weaker NT range ===say 13-15 , this will shade the results away from transfer and in the favor of NT....Just like 16 opposite 8 is usually a bad 3NT bid and 12 opposite 12 is probably a good NT bid, I'm thinking the larger point spread your simulation has between the two hands has skewed the result due to transportation problems ( I play 16+ is a 1C opening) That is great that you ran the simulations...,Thanks for doing that and sharing the numbers

Because sure, "an 8-card fit more often than not takes one trick more in the suit than in NT", You may be 100% right about this, but I don't know if the statement is true when you have a balanced hand (5332) playing with partner's balanced hand (4432,4333,5332). There will be a non-trivial percentage of hands where the Major fit is 5-2 and not 5-3 and, with both hands being balanced, there will be hands where trumps don't have much impact. For those hands where you hold 5-4 or 5-3 in the Major, it seems that if you can set the suit up to run the Spades (or Hearts), it seems the suit would also run in the NT contract. If Opener has a 5332 hand playing with your 5332 hand, as long as the doubletons are in different suits, in this instance, playing 2 of the Major seems to have a clear advantage over 1NT. I'm not so sure the same can be said for 5332 playing with 4333 or 4432; with 23 HCP, I'm still thinking I may want to be in NT. Having said that, I cant really argue with your opinion, as I have no statistics. My experience is that when I open 1NT with 5332 hands and the opponents let me play it, especially non-vulnerable - I am more than happy to take my top (most of the time) in Match point. I'd love to see some real analysis or data

I am not convinced either but lean toward it being true...Lert's look at the two extremes of 5332 hands...at one extreme we have a zero-point hand; we all agree we are better off transferring so that maybe dummy's hand can get 1 or possibly two tricks. Now suppose you have a maximum hand where you know combined partnership strength is, say 22-23 HCP. Transferring will only beat Passing strategy if you can take more tricks in the suit contract vs the NT contract most of the time. If you would take the same number of tricks, Passing and playing in NT was the better option. Is the probability 2S will take more tricks than 1NT greater than 50% when on a fair percentage of the hands, you will have 6 Spades out against you? With both hands being balanced, my gut feeling is I want to be in NT and get a 120 vs 110 or 90 vs -50. True, there will be instances where it will be 90 vs 110, but I'm thinking with the HCP, and balanced distribution, NT is the better contract when 5332 and good HCP Just an opinion, though it makes sense to me

I think Apollo has it about right. With a 5332 distribution and a crappy hand, you are likely going to be better off with the transfer as at least you may get a trump trick or two. As the strength of your hand improves, I think the 1 NT contract becomes more and more the preferred place to Play ( all assuming the only decision is to Pass or transfer first then pass). I think I will reject the 'Always transfer' or 'Always Pass' in future situations

Yes, sort of why I always open 1NT instead of the Major sometimes and NT at other times Here is one thing I know (or think I know) . Playing 1NT going down 1, NV, is almost always a top in Match point, so I will hardly ever let my opponents play 1NT NV, especially if I am also NV. I am just wondering if there is a corollary to this (i.e. let your partner go ahead and play1NT for a likely top in Match point) Thanks for your comment as well. I wonder if there is actual data out there or if double dummy simulations are possible to yield insight

So the people you are quoting seemingly fall into the camp of ALWAYS transfer.... But I don't know if they would make the same comment if strictly considering a 5332 distribution (opposite 1NT) where a part score is the best to be expected. Thanks for the comment

when I have a 5332 distribution (with a Major), with NT HCP, I have made a decision to always open the hand 1NT....mostly for consistency. What about when partner opens 1NT and I have a 5332 distribution where the only real choice is to either transfer or pass.....Am I better off always passing or always transferring or looking at each hand and varying my approach ? Thank you ( Match point Play, not IMPS)

thanks!

If the point of a Rusinow leads against a suit contract is to remove the ambiguity of an Honor lead by leading second of touching Honors, why is this only used on a suit that partner has not bid? why not lead second of touching honors when partner has mentioned a suit...eg. 1H -1(S)-all Pass and you hold QJx of Hearts. Why not just be consistent and lead the J? There must be a reason, but I don't see it. Thank you

Do you know (or does anybody know) why rusinow leads are different when partner has bid the suit ( against a suit contract) s a suit that partner did not bid?

with a 3+ card suit, headed by a '9' or higher, we lead 3rd down, so in the case of 974, the 4 would be led....we use Rusinow leads for the other suits.. Thanks !

Thanks..I guess I should be more explicit with my question. Is there any harm in leading 2nd from touching honors in an interior sequence ? What is lost if you do ?

Assume bidding has gone something like 1H by partner -(1S) -2H by you -2S by Opponent -all pass and you have decided to lead partner's suit. When you have supported your partner's suit, we are playing that with 3 or cards headed by the 9 or better, lead 3rd down and partner will apply Rule of 12. But with touching Honors, lead the top one. With the Ace and no King, lead the Ace, and the lead of the King promises Ace or Queen With this is mind, what does the lead of a 9, 10, or Jack suggest ? Holding a KJ9(x), the lead of the 9 is apparent.......But what about K,10,9,(x) or K,J,10,(x) or Q,10,9,(x)...Am I leading the top card of the interior sequence ( i.e. I need to add a 4th rule) or am I sticking with leading 3rd down with the interior sequence? I'm sort of thinking that sticking with 3rd down isn't going to be harmful..... It would then seem that the lead of a Jack would have to promise J,10,x,(x) The lead of a 10 shows K,J,10,(x) The lead of the 9 shows K,J,9,(x) or K,10,9(x) or Q,10,9(x) If I add a 4th rule that says lead the top card in an interior sequence, I just move some of the holding s around, but nothing really is gained, but you lose the Rule of 12 info Comments are abundantly welcome. Thanks much

Thanks, i will look into namyats. I appreciate your comments

I just threw those hands together without really contemplating what I would bid, but my intention was to show 4 different hands that, depending upon who is vulnerable and who is not, and whether or not partner is a passed hand, could all be opened 4S....Partner and I do ahve a pretty sound method and agreement of 'knowing' how many tricks we will be set on a preemptive bid. But in the case of bidding game, maybe instead of being down 3, the bidder really thinks he will be down only 1 or 2. By bidding 3NT,Responder can use the 4C bid to find out how much 'better' his hand is . Then Responder can just set the final contract...I hope I am explaining this well enough

Our 3NT bid is an idle bid for us. SO Gambling 3NT is one possible use of it. However, we all have hands that are worthy of preempting 4H or 4S. Some of these hands could actually even be preempted even higher, say, 5 or 6 Hearts or Spades, but what would be the point of that ? The 3NT opening gives room for partner to ask questions with the 4C or 4D bids, to hone in more specifically how 'strong' of a preempt is it. For example, suppose you have the AKx of Diamonds, Axxxx of Hearts, x of Spades, xxx of Clubs and you hear partner open 3NT ? Yeah, you can just bid 4S, but there is room to explore for more if you want. Not vulnerable against Opponent's vulnerable, playing Match point, how do you open each of these 4 hands ? (just curious) KJxxxxxx xx xxx void AKxxxx x QJ10 xxx AKQxxxxx xx x Ax QJxxxxx void QJx QJx

I'm not seeing where opening 2NT showing a range of 6-15 , or quite possibly even 0-15 would be disallowed. However...If a variable range were to be allowed...say 5-8/9 OR 11-15, the idea behind it would be to have subsequent bids letting partner know you are weak or strong. If having two different ranges were the agreement, opening a 10 point hand is messing up the partnership agreement; one would be better off passing or possibly opening 1D.

Is your point that since the 9-34 point hand might have only 9 HCP, that it is defined as a preempt ? That would be surprising to see a 18 point hand come down and being told it was a premptive bid for sure.. Yes, my partner better have a good reason for passing my 2NT ! so , do you agree a multi-2NT overcall would be allowed without any ( or very limited) restrictions ?

Thank you for providing some helpful comments Disallowed rule 7 would seem to disallow a 2NT being either 5-5 in the Minors OR a long club suit as I would read it. I'm not sure what you were driving at when looking at the definition of preempt.. I've always thought a preempt is a weak jump bid, whether at the open or after, so I am missing your thinking. Rule 11 would also seem to limit the point range to 9 for a 2NT to have any range, so a range of 5 -15 would seem to be disallowed, But , after another reading, an OVERCALL of 2NT over a natural suit opening would seemingly be wide open as to what it could mean..eg. could show both Minors OR Clubs, could have whatever point range the partnership agrees to. Is that correct ..e.g a multi-2NT is legal as an overcall of a suit? For the opening bid of 3NT to be an undisclosed Major, my memory has it that the rule used to be that it has to be a solid suit,,eg, AKQxxxx and that Kxxxxxxxx would not qualify as an allowable 3NT opening showing a Major. Maybe my memory is faulty or the rules are more lax. Thanks for any comment

Open chart, and the answers are not clear to me even if they are obvious to you

Yes, I need to know what ACBL allows and doesn't, so as not to run into problems. I believe multi 2D is still not allowed

can an opening of 2NT show a hand being at least 5-5 in the minors , with any HCP range ? can opening of 2NT show at least 5-5 in the minors with 5-9 HCP OR 11-15 HCP? can an opening of 2NT show a hand that is either at least 5-5 in the minors OR a long club suit ? Can a 3NT opening show an unspecified 4 of a Major bid ? Thanks

Thanks much...There is a lot here and I appreciate the response. My bridge history started about 12 years ago when I asked the wife if she would learn bridge with me . She said pick out the system and after research decided that since the best players in the world play precision, that is where we would start. SO for the next 5-7 years we learned and played Oliver Clarkes' super precision system: http://ocp.pigpen.org.uk/ We went from absolute beginners to being among the top in club games ( we have also scratched in 49 states as a bit of trivia). I then got tired of opening 5 card Majors and having Opponents overcall my 1D bid and convinced my wife that we should open 4 card Majors. I just didn't see why opening 5 card Majors had to be linked to strong 1C openings. Living in ACBL, I found Kem's Modified Italian Canape System (MCIS) and we began using his work as a framework , with a few of our own modifications. We had to throw out a lot of what we knew about non -1 Club opening bids and it took about 3-6 months before things were clicking again. Bridge was no longer stale for us ( it was fun to open our opponent's suit with a crappy 4 card Major ) SO we played MCIS for about three years, and then the Pandemic hit. The wife retired from bridge and I haven't looked at a bridge hand until about 3 weeks ago. https://bridgewinners.com/store/ebook/modified-italian-canape-system/ Fortunately, I found on-line, an old friend and he and I have begun to play. He has never played Precision so I am teaching him, using Oliver's system as the foundation. At this point I am going through with him all the 1C bids, and responses and asking bid sequences and the 2C and 2D openings .( I also use an opening of 2NT as showing 5+-5+ in the minors 11-15) It's unlikely I will teach him MCIS. as unfortunately there just aren't a lot of canape players around. But if you have a life-long bridge partner, MCIS is a ton of fun to try anyway, that is my boring history, and the context of where I am at with my questions. Thank you all for your help as I get back up to speed after a 3 year compete hiatus from the game

yeah, the jump to 4NT over 1C -3m doesnt make a lot of sense, but I didnt think a jump to 3NT as in 1C-2H -3NT was bad. do you think showing the minimum NT w/o support or a simple raise to show minimum w support or showing a new 5 card suit w/o support and a max are bad responses ?