1x - p - p - 2NT?

[sdoty]

Two part question:

 

1. How do you play (or prefer to play) 2NT by an unpassed hand on the auction:

1x - p - p - 2NT?

 

2. What meaning, if any, do you think is standard? (standard = what you think the majority currently plays / the meaning you'd assume without discussion)

 

Thanks in advance for voting.

 

Susan

[kenberg]

So far (with 2 votes) it's unaminous.

 

After voting, I looked it up in Lawrence "The Complete Book on Balancing". He says it's 19-20 balanced. "This is simple, efficient, and it works", page 21. Of course you can't assume your partner of the moment has read Lawrence, but he makes no mention of this being an out of the mainstream idea. If partner trotted out 2NT, I would assume he had a big hand.

[Gerben42]

I'm also unanimous in that (people know "Are you being served?" ?)

 

In balancing position no 2-suiters are shown: 2NT is natural. Balancing NT ladder:

 

1NT directly 12 - 15 (depends a bit on what they bid)

X then NT 16 - 18

2NT directly: 19 - 21

 

(answers both 1 and 2)

 

Also 1X p p 2X is not Michael's but "strong cuebid".

[whereagles]

Most authors take this sort of 1x-p-p-2NT balancing bid as some strong balanced hand. Now, exactly how many hcp depends. I've seen all ranges from 16-18 to 19-21 :rolleyes:

[Walddk]

19-21 balanced. I have the impression that this is pretty standard.

 

Roland

[hatchett]

I think 19-21 is very standard. 16-18 balanced double and bid NT at the lowest level.

[awm]

Among good players I would expect something like 19-21 to be standard without discussion.

 

Opposite a random player on BBO I'd have no idea. :rolleyes:

[han]

Yeah, what Adam said. Talking about the majority doesn't make a lot of sense.

[mcphee]

19-21 Balanced, a hand that would have opened 2NT.

[luis]

Agree, my "standard" is very similar to the others.

 

1NT reopening 10-14

X followed by 1NT 15-17

2NT reopening 18-20

 

"The good thing about standards is that you can choose among many" :-)

 

Luis

[Free]

I play exactly like Luis, with following additions:

Dbl followed by jump NT is 21-23

3NT 24+

[inquiry]

This SHOULD be strong hand balanced. I think 21-23 is fine, so is 20-22, etc.

 

I think the average BBO player probably doesn't play it this way. One way to check is with bridgebrowser. To search this,

 

1) Set bidding opening 1C to 1S

2) Set seat relative (so dealer is opener)

3) Set 2nd and 3rd seat to pass

4) Set 4th seat to 2NT

5) Mark bidding as auxiallary term

6) Set bid analysis as auxiallary term

7) go to shape/bidding term

8) give dealer 10+ hcp

9) give dealer partner 0 to 7 hcp

10) press search

 

(steps 7-10 make this search faster).

 

If you have the free version of homebase, you will not find any matching hands (we haven't played enough). If like sdoty and me, you have the full version, you can choose dataset after dataset to search. My guess is the majority (perhaps the large majority) will be "unusual" in part because the strong hand is too rare to show up very often and the two suiters (weak or strong) will be more frequent.

 

A similar question might be is cue-bid on 1x-p-p-2x michaels, strong takeout, or to showing suit x.

 

If anyone is really intersted this search can be done. The problem is finding a lot of unusuals will not help determine what the majority thinks simply because those hands are much more common.

[pclayton]

I had always played a 2N call as one bracket higher than a double followed by 1N. If you are playing a jump to 2N as 20-22 or so, how would you bid the 18-19 hand?

 

For me, a jump to 2N shows 18-19, but I seem to be in a minority here.

[joker_gib]

Agree, my "standard" is very similar to the others.

 

1NT reopening 10-14

X followed by 1NT 15-17

2NT reopening 18-20

 

"The good thing about standards is that you can choose among many" :-)

 

Luis

I have the same standard ! ;)

 

Alain

[inquiry]

Ok, I ran a small BridgeBrowser test on the following auction using data from hands played on the Bridge Base Online. For this test, the auction was dealer opening one of a suit followed by two passes and a bid of 2NT. I limited the search to 676360 auctions where dealer opened the bidding (that is, if dealer passed or opened 1NT or higher then the hand was not considered one of the nearly 700,000 auctions examined). There were 810 2NT bids on this auction

 

1x-Pass-Pass-2NT

 

The HCP range was:

6HCP = 1 hand

7HCP = 5 hands

8HCP = 14 hands

9hco = 17 hands

10hcp = 42 hands

11hcp = 50 hands

12hcp = 59 hands

13 hcp = 45 hands

14 hcp = 34 hands

15 hcp = 63 hands

16 hcp = 61 hnads

17 hcp = 81 hands

18 hcp = 57 hands

19 hcp = 76 hands

20 hcp = 128 hands

21 hcp = 45 hands

22 hcp = 17 hands

23 hcp = 11 hands

24 hcp = 4 hands

 

58% of the hands had less than 18 hcp for the 2NT bid, and 75% had less than 20 hcp.

 

If one considers balanced hands as 4333, 4432, 5332, and 6322 there was a total of 351 balanced hands out of the 810 (43%). The most common distribution for 2NT was 4432, with 172 hands. The second most common was 5521 with 159 hands. The hand patterns were:

 

4333 - 94 hands

4432 - 172 hands

4441 - 8 hands

5332 - 72 hands

5431 - 72 hands

5422 - 99 hands

5440 - 5 hands

5521 - 159 hands

5530 - 18 hands

6322 - 12 hands

6331 - 2 hands

6421 - 13 hands

6430 - 4 hands

6511 - 30 hands

6520 - 34 hands

6610 - 5 hands

7321 - 3 hands

7510 - 8 hands

 

If one takes the reputed balanced hands (4333, 4432, 5332, and 6322), so to examine the range most people play. I looked at the hcp with these balanced distributions. The hcp were

 

10 hcp - 2 hands (both 44 in the minors and alerted as unusual)

12 hpc - 4 hands (2 44 in the minors, one 44 in reds, one 5 card spade suit)

14 hcp - 6 hands (again 4-4 in minors and alerted twice)

15 hcp - 15 hands (none looked like meant as usual)

16 hcp - 16 hands (three alerted as unusual, one as 17=19 balanced)

17 hcp - 56 hands

18 hcp - 36 hands

19 hcp - 52 hands

20 hcp - 94 hands

21 hcp - 40 hands

22 hcp - 16 hands

23 hcp - 8 hands

24 hcp - 4 hands

 

From this you can see the number of balanced hands in the appropriate hcp range is less than might appear from the first hcp range table. For instance, there were 11 hands with 23 hcp. but only 8 of them were "balanced" and 128 hands with 20 hcp, but again, only 94 of them were balanced.

 

If we accept 18-24 balanced as an acceptable range fro someone (no one would play the full range) of the 810 hands that bid 2NT, only 250 out of 810 hands were in that range and shape (31%). And if you take 20-22 as the correct "standard" range, the the total would be only 150 hands (18.5%).

 

But then again, remember you are not seeing the dozens and dozens of people who did not BID 2NT with these inappropriate hands. So this doesn't mean the average player bids it wrong.. in fact, the average players maybe getting it right, they just lack the hand to make the right call.

[Gerben42]

This just tells you that the introduction of "complete book of balancing" is still true. People don't know what they are doing in this position. Is this a disadvantage of Fantunes? Not giving opps the possibility to mess up in balancing position?

[csarmi]

hm, strange; I would naturally assume it was a two-suiter. Nothing else would have occured to me. Certainly not strong balanced ;)

 

I never put too much thinking into it, though.

[JohnnyH7]

There are too many balanced ranges to cover if 2N is not played as natural. In direct seat the weak NT hand type can just pass, but in balancing seat it bids 1N. An extra bid is needed to distinguish between all the ranges intelligently, and this is still hard to do specifically over a 1S opener.

[whereagles]

There are too many balanced ranges to cover if 2N is not played as natural. In direct seat the weak NT hand type can just pass, but in balancing seat it bids 1N. An extra bid is needed to distinguish between all the ranges intelligently, and this is still hard to do specifically over a 1S opener.

Indeed. This is a correct analysis of the situation.

[kenberg]

A data list always suggests further investigations. Fortunately I have only the free version of Bbr, so I can only suggest this effort be undertaken by others. For example:

 

In the first list we see for hcp and number of 2NT bids:

hcp- #

15- 63

16- 61

17- 81

 

Bbr could check to see if by some fluke there actually were sharply more 17 point hands than 15 or 16 point hands in the bank. That is, forget what was bid just check on the hcps. If no such fluke occurred, the explanation has to be bidding judgment. I am guessing there is a sizable flock who think that 15 or 16 should be handled by X then NT, or perhaps just by 1NT, but 17 by a jump to 2NT.

 

A similar sharp increase in the number of 2NT bids occurs between 19 and 20 hcps. This would suggest another flock sees 19 as too little (or maybe 19 as a borderline hand that requires some judgment) but 20 as a clear 2NT call.

 

My point is that the significant jumps in number might be a fluke of the data or might show a real pattern, and that some further work could indicate which.

 

Forgetting data for a moment, it has long been my opinion that exactly what agreements you have is not crucial. The important thing is to have agreements and to know what they are. It could be a real service if BBO drew up a list of defaults for situations like this. I suppose it might be rather long. Players could agree to play things any way they choose, but there would be a BBO default list to resolve quarrels if no discussion has taken place. I for one would be happy to just agree "BBO default list", whatever it might be, and be done with it.

[csarmi]

There are too many balanced ranges to cover if 2N is not played as natural. In direct seat the weak NT hand type can just pass, but in balancing seat it bids 1N. An extra bid is needed to distinguish between all the ranges intelligently, and this is still hard to do specifically over a 1S opener.

Possibly. I did not say it was a bad interpretaion, it's just something that wouldn't have oocured to me.

 

However, I do not think that a weak NT hand should balance 4ht seat. What for?

[pclayton]

(snip)

However, I do not think that a weak NT hand should balance 4ht seat. What for?

Because frequently the balancer's partner also has a good hand but cannot find a call over the opening bid.

 

The balancer's partner may have a semi-balanced 13-14 count, but has the wrong shape for a TOx.

 

Or, the balancer's partner may have a 11-13 count (or so) with a 5 card suit, but the suit quality doesn't justify an overcall.

 

If you overcall on garbage suits or make offshape doubles, protecting is less of a problem.

 

And sometimes, getting to 1N (especially at MP's) with 13 opposite 8 is better than defending their one bid.

 

I would say however, that most players overbalance in 4th chair, especially at MPs, when passing rates to get the best result.

[JohnnyH7]

However, I do not think that a weak NT hand should balance 4ht seat. What for?

Well, the main problem is that if neither player is willing to bid with a weak NT, you will miss game when you both have the weak NT hand type. You will also lose partscore swings when you have a majority of the points and perhaps a fit and sell out at the 1 level.

[Al_U_Card]

Yep, a favorite auction is 1x -p-p- 1NT (11-14)-p-2NT (10-11)-p-3NT-p-p-p making when you know the location of the high cards just like 1x-1NT-p etc.....;-))

[inquiry]

In the first list we see for hcp and number of 2NT bids:

hcp- #

15- 63

16- 61

17- 81

 

Bbr could check to see if by some fluke there actually were sharply more 17 point hands than 15 or 16 point hands in the bank. That is, forget what was bid just check on the hcps. If no such fluke occurred, the explanation has to be bidding judgment. I am guessing there is a sizable flock who think that 15 or 16 should be handled by X then NT, or perhaps just by 1NT, but 17 by a jump to 2NT.

 

A similar sharp increase in the number of 2NT bids occurs between 19 and 20 hcps. This would suggest another flock sees 19 as too little (or maybe 19 as a borderline hand that requires some judgment) but 20 as a clear 2NT call.

 

My point is that the significant jumps in number might be a fluke of the data or might show a real pattern, and that some further work could indicate which.

 

Forgetting data for a moment, it has long been my opinion that exactly what agreements you have is not crucial. The important thing is to have agreements and to know what they are. It could be a real service if BBO drew up a list of defaults for situations like this. I suppose it might be rather long. Players could agree to play things any way they choose, but there would be a BBO default list to resolve quarrels if no discussion has taken place. I for one would be happy to just agree "BBO default list", whatever it might be, and be done with it.

Using the same database, I looked at 1x-p-p-? auctions where the fourth seat held 15, 16, or 17 hcp. For this study, I stopped the search when 10,000 matching hands were found (this took up just a bit less than 1/3 of the 1x-p-p-? auctions - 2) suggesting just over 30,000 hands would have been found if I continued.

 

Of these 10,000, 2NT was bid a total of 61 times, specifically by:

15 hcp - 21 times

16 hcp - 13 tines

17 hcp - 27 times

 

This is also roughly 1/3 the earlier found hands.

 

For what it is worth, DOUBLE was by far and away the most common bid in fourth seat with 4300 bids. The hcp were nearly equally divided between the three options (guessing numbers from bar chart rather than calculating them 1400 for 15 hcp, 1450 for 16 hcp, and 1250 for 17)...

 

The next most common bid was 1NT with 2272 hands, again 16 hcp being teh most popular, followed by 15 then 17, each with over 700 bids.

 

For the suit bids, at the one level, 15 was by far and away the most common hcp holding, and 17 was the fewest by far and away. When the first suit was bid at the three level, 17 was sliightly more common than the others.

 

There were less 17 hcp hands total than 15 or 16 hcp.... ones...