mm_aa

3) What I mean is that balanced hand with 16-18 (well, 15-17) points are quite rare. Are we dealing badly? My opening hands are usually 13-14. I haven't had any 1NT hands for 10-20 deals in a row. Over-shuffling? :)

Hi! We're learning bridge with my friends using ACBL books. And there are a couple of questions I have after studying several lessons: 1) We started with first edition of the bidding book, and today brand-new "bidding in 21st century" arrived. These books differ in amount of points enough for game: 26 for 4maj vs. 25 for 4maj, 16-18 for 1NT and 15-17 for 1NT. So, the natural question arises: what's up? Are high cards more valuable now than 20 years ago? 2) The book often says that X amount of points is not enough for bidding at Y level. However there's no information how much point should I have for other levels except 4+ with trumps and 3+ NT. What are they? 3) This book (and many other online material) right after opening lesson have the "response to 1NT" lesson following. It's really strange, since there're almost no 1NT openings when we play. 1 trump responses are much more valuable for us. Is it normal that we don't feel almost no value in studying 1NT responses or does it mean that we're not opening accurately? I'm quite confused that much less valuable material is being studied first. PS Before you start telling me that we should go to club/find a teacher, let me tell you: we _do_ understand that we have taken a difficult route. However we're all busy professionals and there seems to be no bridge clubs operating at 10PM - the time we usually can play for an hour :)