rogerclee

To me it's normal to pass at imps and to double at matchpoints.

dwar0123, I would like to address two of your points I think this is a common fallacy. My 1N opening bid does not show a 14 count with a 6 card minor. If you would truly like the entire list of hands that I would open 1N with, in roughly decreasing order of probability, it is: -Any "balanced hand" with no singletons or two doubletons and 15 to a non-amazing 17 points, including a 5 card major -Often, a good hand with 14 points and lots of intermediates and a 5 card suit -Often, a hand with 22(54) shape and 14-16 points, depending on my hand -Often, a hand with a 6 card minor and 322 in the other suits, 14-16 points, depending on my hand -Occasionally, a hand with a stiff Q or K, a 5 card minor, and 4-3 in the other two suits (edit, thanks Phil) -Occasionally, a very bad hand with 18 points -Occasionally, a remarkable hand with a 6 card minor and 322 in the other suits, 13 points -A tactical bid/psyche Notice that the kinds of hands you are talking about only make up a small percentage of the time I would open 1NT. If you want to completely change your style to cater to the less than 5% chance I may be "goofing around", that is okay, but I doubt you will find it is very effective. My point is that even if whenever I opened 1NT, my partner listed this entire set of possibilities, I would be very surprised if any of my opponents would think it necessary to bid in a completely different way. As to the first part of your sentence, since I would accept a NT invite with Qx Txx AKQJxx Qx, I do not see why I cannot possibly think Jx Txx AKQJxx Qx is "worth" a good 14 points. I suppose if you forced me to assign a number to it, I would say "about 14", but part of bridge is bidding tactically, and I do not see why we should not apply that element to opening bids. Is opening 1S with KQJxx ATxx xxx x a "psyche" to you also in first seat, playing a standard 2/1 style? I would always open this hand, not because I consider it worth 12 points, but because I think it is tactically sound and that I will do better in the long run to open this kind of hand. If you do not object to the second example, I do not think you should object to the first.

Here are some downsides to opening 1N: We go -200 when the opponents weren't going to bid game (even if it's cold). If partner transfers to spades and passes, it's bad. 2H could also play poorly on a similar auction since our hearts are terrible. Partner gives us an uncomfortable problem, like 1N 2H 2S 3H P P X, where we likely have no winning option. We make more in diamonds, and could have bought it (notice we often can make more in diamonds, but they will just outbid us in their major, so 1N is the best we can do). Notice I haven't put down getting to 3N down a few tricks as a downside. To me, getting to 3N by opening 1N when we would have stopped in 2D by opening 1D is an upside, not a downside. I expect to make 3N more often than not if we get there. This is a bigger upside at IMPs, of course. I didn't want to get into details of MP/vulnerability tactics, but vul at MP is the worst form of scoring to open hands like this 1N. When we are NV it's almost godlike, since I like my position if it goes 1N AP and we take any number of tricks. My main point is that from the sound of it, you do not have very much experience opening hands like this 1NT, and I have lots of experience opening hands like this 1NT. I understand your concerns but feel like you are either overestimating the likelihoods of the downsides or underestimating the likelihoods of the upsides. You really do buy it a ton of the time, and that is almost always good if the strain is NT or diamonds. You would be a believer too if you just saw how often you buy it in 1N with them cold for 3M/4M, you wrap a light 3N with a bad lead into your Q, etc. As to the other point, my 1N openers are alerted as 14+-17, and I think a hand like Jx Txx AKQJxx Qx is worth a good 14, so I don't feel any special need to alert it. However, it is true that I like to open 1N tactically in all seats, and especially 3rd. I'll think about whether these 1Ns should really be alerted, I guess I have always discussed bridge with a crowd where this was considered normal, and AFAIK there has never been any high profile (national/WBF) ruling against someone who has opened 1N with lots of playing strength but not the requisite HCP. That does not mean I think you are wrong, just that in the current climate of things that it is considered okay in high level bridge to fudge your points by a considerable amount as long as it is not an out and out psyche.

I am very comfortable saying that I know without a doubt that it is better to open 1N than 1D on hands like this. It's not even a matter of opinion/style, opening 1D is an extremely losing style. You are easily within strength to open 1N, and opening 1N has tons of additional upside. You could make it impossible for them to find their fit, convince them not to bid game, convince them not to compete once it goes, say, 1N (2H) X P 3D, when a standard auction might go 1D 1H X 2H 3D 3H. People will tell you things like opening 1N is matchpointitis or "too unilateral" or "misdescriptive/anti-partnership", but honestly those are just meaningless buzzwords and they just have not seen how amazing it is to open 1N on a hand like this. You have almost the perfect hand too, 6 solid and very little outside. I would consider it automatic to open 1N with Jx Txx AKQJxx Qx, and I would even do it with xx Txx AKQJxx Qx but that is more controversial.

people who like everything except country

I play high from 3+ cards usually.

It would be very silly for anyone to vote for me/jdonn for achievement of the year, it is obvious that Justin's year has been so much better. It's telling that nobody even seems to remember he won a national pair game in addition to the other things.

I don't know what else is even worth thinking about. I think 4H is better than pass.

2NT, we might get to game, and 2N could easily outplay 2H.

[hv=pc=n&s=sa74h4dakt943caj3&n=sk983ha75dqj62ct4&d=s&v=0&b=11&a=1d2n3c4h6dppp]266|200[/hv] Lead: ♣2 to RHO's K Your play. Edit: Sorry, original post had a mistake.

3H to me is a splinter in support of clubs. West should just bid blackwood over that.

I would think everything is natural NF, and 3D is like stayman. Definitely good to talk about this auction, I doubt most expert partnerships have an agreement.

I would bid my 5 card suit headed by the AKQ.

Honestly I think this is just a lightner double.

RHO's heart shift is dangerous no matter what he shifted from, certainly more dangerous than continuing Axx of clubs. If he underled the Q, then it could give us a no-play contract a lot of the time, and if he underled JT or J/T I don't see anywhere where it says we can't have Qx Q9xx KJxx Jxx (presumably we played the jack at trick 1). Edit: If all we know is clubs are 6-1 and we assume that if the spade hook loses that they will always play back a heart, then the Pavlicek suit calculator says Spades 3-3 28.38%: Hook has EV of -6 imps Spades 4-2 8.51%: Hook has EV of +0.67 imps Spades 2-4 38.31%: Hook has EV of +6.3 imps Spades 5-1 0.93%: Hook has EV of -5 imps Spades 1-5 20.43%: Hook has EV of +1.67 imps Spades 0-6 3.41%: Hook has EV of +3 imps Spades 6-0 0.03%: null Hooking has +1.165 imps EV. This is less than I thought intuitively, but the more I think about it the more I think clubs are 6-1.

Would have opened 1N, now we have a normal keycard bid.

If you want to be really conservative, we can still test the black suits before seeing what happens in diamonds, and use the algorithm that we only hook the diamond when it's marked. You could also use this (imo better) method: duck the first heart, and if hearts are 1-7, cash the DA, 3 clubs, and 2 spades ending in dummy. If LHO followed to everything, take the marked diamond hook for 11 tricks unless RHO was kind enough to have pitched one. If LHO followed to 2 clubs and 2 spades, take the diamond hook and get 12 tricks if the diamond is on. Otherwise play for the drop.

We are making 12 tricks in NT as long as the diamonds come in and the 3H bidder doesn't have 4 spades.

To me the most likely cause of this defense is that clubs are just 6-1 (LHO led the 5 from 865432), since it is so hard to construct hands where RHO would shift to a heart, possibly away from the queen, when he had Axx of clubs. That said, we are down 3 if we are wrong about the spades, but I will play the ten anyway.

4S is automatic to me, not sure if the two above posters realize that you doubled 2D, typically showing something like a takeout double of hearts. edit: oh I see now mike777 was talking about the original post

I really dislike pass, this may be our last chance to conveniently describe our hand as approximately weak with long diamonds, so let's not overthink it and open 2D.

I mean I agree, but he was actually the nuts on this hand, 5S is down 2 on routine play. I think it's east you want at your money game.

Maybe you think it's tactically good to open 2C or 1N or whatever, I can buy that, but I don't understand the argument that you wouldn't open 1C because you don't think this hand is worth 16 or more points.

Anything but pass is from another planet, I will pass the reopening double if that's what the real problem is.

First of all, 3H then 4S is not a mild slam try, it is your only slam try. I guess you could agree to play that it's a mild slam try, but I don't know what you would do with your normal slam tries. Anyway I would not make a slam try, but we're pretty close.