no aces & a singleton!

[hrothgar]

But playing 1NT as frequently holding a singleton doesn't just require an alert in GCC events, it's actually banned. In fact, it's banned in Midchart. As there is a tendency to play a number of things in GCC world which are banned, not alert them, and then claim that you 'psyched' or the bid was 'rare' in your methods.

Comment 1: Why should I give a rats ass what the ACBL puts in the GCC? I haven't played in a F2F event in the ACBL since Vegas Nationals back in 2001. On very rare occasions, I play in ACBL online events, however, thats more to ensure that I continue to have an informed decision about the ACBL's online tournaments than any real desire to play in these events.

 

Comment 2: If you are going to go arround lecturing about the ACBL's Midchart, you might want to read it a bit more carefully. Note the clause that states

 

Allowed: Any Strong (15+ HCP) Opening Bid.

 

I can play a 1NT opening that shows 15 - 17 HCP and either

 

A balanced hand or a 4-4-4-1 / 5-4-3-1 pattern that looks appropriate for a 1NT opening.

 

Comment 3: As for the GCC... It would be useful if the expression "generally" was actually defined. I'll be up front: I'm really not sure about the frequency with which I opening 1NT with a stiff. However, even if I did know the frequency, I have no way of understanding whether this qualifies as "generally".

 

Ben: Any chance that you could help out with quick BRBR search. I don't recall ever experimenting with any "artificial" NT openings (ROMEX or anything of that sort)

 

Any chance that you could search on

 

The total number of 1NT openings that I made

 

The number of NT openings containing a 5-4-3-1 or 4-4-4-1 pattern?

[han]

I think this hand is not good enough for opening 1NT, I don't think it is a good bid.

 

I agree of course that you did nothing wrong. If you think that opening 1NT is best then you should do so (hey. we've all made worse bids than this!), and your opponents shouldn't complain when it works out well for you.

[jtfanclub]

You're absolutely right, I did miss #8 on the Midchart.

 

Why should I give a rats ass what the ACBL puts in the GCC?

 

If you don't direct, you shouldn't. But if you do direct, and you don't list what is allowed and disallowed, people tend to assume that your rules are the same as whatever your home country's rules are. Jilly's listed as Canadian, so people tend to assume that her rules will be GCC-like, if not actually GCC.

 

I can't disagree with the rest of of your post. I don't have a problem with Jilly's bid, but I can sympathize with those who did. The (deliberately) vague rules don't help.

[hrothgar]

I have a much better idea...

 

Why don't all of you who somehow believe that xx in a suit is a better stopper than a stiff king (or even a stiff x) start alerting that your NT openings explicitly deny a singleton.

That's a wonderful idea, right along with alerting when our one heart opening shows hearts, instead of spades.

The two examples are not in any way equivalent.

 

Occasionally opening 1NT with an offshape hand that presents a rebid problem is perfectly normal. People have been doing this back before there was dirt.

 

Unfortuantely, a lot of people learn the game by learning a bunch of simplistic rules instead of learning how to think. They also learn to go screaming to the director trying to get redress when someone else doesn't obey the rules.

 

I believe in full disclosure, but there are limits. To me, the most important limit is that you don't get to shove your head into the sand and then claim that you are owed redress to protect yourself against your own ignorance.

 

But I can't but feel sympathy for the pair who, in the two boards they played against you, got a highly unusual call, and wonder how many times you do it in an average night.

 

I feel pity for them. Anyone who gets this bent out of shape strikes me as a paranoid nut job...

[sceptic]

I myself will bid 1NT with a singleton with some pards (I think I always alert it, unless I am playing against someone that knows I do this, but I am sure I forget occasionally)

 

Jilly, I am only sayiing that I believe that you should have alerted it as I am sure your partner was not suprised you had a singleton, hence my point you should have alerted it. I really dont care that much for strict rules but this game is becoming more addictive to me and the rules and things are part of it and I have to some extent have to abide by them, so I now have opinions on this sort of thing and if I am wrong in what I am saying, someone please tell me I am catagorically wrong and I will apologise for beating on about it.

 

What I do not understand is why you mentioned you were a TD for this, surely even if you were not the TD then this issue is the same, someone did not like your call and said so, all I see is he challenged that you made a call that could have a different meaning to your partner than it meant to your opps and this is what I do not understand (this is general not undersatnding not specifically to this call)

 

My question is this, what is a deviation from a standard alertable call, and how much can it deviate before the alert has to change and how many times in what frequency does it have to be to becoma an implicit agreement.

 

Jilly a question for you, was your partner suprised that you bid 1NT with a singleton, if the answer is no, then maybe opps challenge was justified?

[han]

Do you alert 1NT when you have a singleton or anytime you open it? If the first, then that is clearly wrong.

 

I'm pretty sure that Jillybean's partner at no point considered the fact that 1NT could have a singleton. Don't make problems where there are none.

[bid_em_up]

deleted

[sceptic]

actually Hannie there is a problem, the person who made the challenge feels belittled and isolated, so I do not think I am making a problem, there is a problem, no one considered the feeelings of the person making the challenge and I am sure they would like a proper answer to this as

 

1/. It will prove he was wrong in his challenge and he probably would think twice about doing it again. a learning curve ?

 

2/. If he is right then maybe I can learn from it as well, I think he was justified to challenge (but this is only my opinion and I know I am not always right so a learning curve for me also)

[jillybean]

Sceptic,

 

I did not alert the bid because we do not have an agreement. You seem to want to ram down my throat that we do or should have an agreement because "I rarely open these hands 1nt" which you take to mean that I have made this bid more than twice with this partner and therefore we have an agreement, bullshit.

 

Fwiw since July 2005 – Dec 2006 I have opened 1nt with a stiff 14/147 with all my partners. I don’t know how many times with this specific partner but I asked him and he said NO I do not expect a singleton. He will be just as surprised as the opps at my hand.

After all this I’m sure we will be alerting my 1nt :)

 

I mentioned I was a TD because that according to my opps is why I was allowed to open 1nt, not alert it and get away with it. I don't mind people questioning bids and agreements, I’d say I encourage it.

I don’t think it’s ever appropriate to accuse someone of deliberately concealing agreements

 

end of rant

 

I am posting this here not because I think the bid is great (if you read my earlier post you will see I said it was more to do with the opps defense than the ‘good’ bid) I told the opp I would post the hand and get feedback on the legality of the bid.

[bid_em_up]

Katherine,

 

Lets try and look at this another way.

 

Suppose you put this hand up as a poll, with the choices of 1C, 1H, 1S or 1N. What percentage would you expect 1N to receive? I am reasonably certain that the percentage would be fairly low, so the call is not justifiable by bridge logic. Given that few, if any, would open 1N on this particular hand, and that you are probably reasonably aware of this, I really think you should bend over backwards not to do it.

 

As a playing director, knowing that opening 1N on a stiff is, at least, "frowned" upon, do you not think that you should be "more accountable" to abiding by this?

 

And who, if anyone, can your opponents appeal to, when you do it as a playing director? They feel as if, well, you are the director, you can do anything you want and get away with it, as you probably are not going to rule against yourself in a case like this. So their position is somewhat understandable, even though they contributed to the result themselves as well.

 

It is not clear to me what you mean by "Fwiw since July 2005 – Dec 2006 I have opened 1nt with a stiff 14/147 with all my partners." If that means you have done it 14 times out of 147 times that you opened 1N, that is a frequency of almost 10%...and is certainly frequent enough to be considered as a partnership agreement or understanding in my book. If it was 14 times out of 1470 (a 1% frequency), its ignorable. If you meant something else, then ignore this whole paragraph. :)

 

All of this, of course, is my own opinion, and having said that, I do not believe you had any prior specific partnership agreement regarding this, there was absolutely no need for an alert, the bid is perfectly legal (no matter how bad I or others may think it is), and the opponents are not entitled to any redress.

[jtfanclub]

But I can't but feel sympathy for the pair who, in the two boards they played against you, got a highly unusual call, and wonder how many times you do it in an average night.

 

I feel pity for them. Anyone who gets this bent out of shape strikes me as a paranoid nut job...

Well, we don't know how out of shape they got. We only have one side of this conversation.

 

Occasionally opening 1NT with an offshape hand that presents a rebid problem is perfectly normal.  People have been doing this back before there was dirt.

 

Absolutely, and I'm sure you could design such a hand, as could I. I'm also sure the hand I would desgin wouldn't look anything like this. I doubt yours would either. Most important to me, this hand does not have rebid issues. 1♣-1NT-P looks completely ordinary. It looked even more ordinary when as originally described it seemed not to have 10s or 9s.

 

To me there are three possibilities:

1. It was, effectively, a psyche. The last 100 times she had that hand, she'd opened 1♣, but this time one of her opponents had a gleam in his eye, or she knew them, or state-of-match said do something anti-field, or she just read a book, or whatever. Completely legal.

 

2. This is the exception hand where she opens 1NT with a singleton. She feels that opening 1NT is more protective of a singleton queen than a singleton king or ace (and there is, IIRC, a valid argument for that), and that there's a rebid issue here we don't expect: maybe 1♣-1NT shows 9-11 in her system so her rebid issue is with 15 instead of 17. Still completely legal.

 

3. She like opening 1NT. Any time her hcp total to 15-17 and she can squint and see it as semi-balanced she opens 1NT. This is the problem one. The way you're supposed to deal with it in an ACBL game is to report it to the director, who makes a note of it, and the next time she does it in an ACBL game she'll get warned about it. That's a problem when your opponent is a director.

 

I understand why a person would look at this hand, and say 'if you would open this as 1NT, is there any 15-17 count 4441 or 5431 with a 5 card minor where you wouldn't open it 1NT?' Certainly, if I was directing an ACBL game and a player asked me to record this as an off-shape 1NT opening, I would do so. I wouldn't adjust the score, unless there was a history of it, but I wouldn't tell him to shut his cakehole either.

 

I'm sure in Jilly's case it was #1. That's legal, and it's not alertable.

[sceptic]

Fwiw since July 2005 – Dec 2006 I have opened 1nt with a stiff 14/147 with all my partners. I don’t know how many times with this specific partner but I asked him and he said NO I do not expect a singleton. He will be just as surprised as the opps at my hand.

After all this I’m sure we will be alerting my 1nt 

 

14 out of 147 times, almost 10% of the time, seems like a lot to me but what do I know,

 

anyway if having an opinion different from yours or not saying what you want to hear is bullshit, then I am guilty me lord and glad to be of service, please dont rant at me, I was not being assy with you at all

[jillybean]

Katherine,

 

Lets try and look at this another way.

 

Suppose you put this hand up as a poll, with the choices of 1C, 1H, 1S or 1N. What percentage would you expect 1N to receive? I am reasonably certain that the percentage would be fairly low, so the call is not justifiable by bridge logic.  Given that few, if any, would open 1N on this particular hand, and that you are probably reasonably aware of this, I really think you should bend over backwards not to do it.

If I was smarter perhaps :) but irrelevant here. Its my bad bid and I should get the result I deserve but I got lucky when the opps misdefended.

 

 

As a playing director, knowing that opening 1N on a stiff is, at least, "frowned" upon, do you not think that you should be "more accountable" to abiding by this?

No, I dont follow ACBL laws and nor would I penalize anyone for opening this hand 1nt.

 

 

And who, if anyone, can your opponents appeal to, when you do it as a playing director? They feel as if, well, you are the director, you can do anything you want and get away with it, as you probably are not going to rule against yourself in a case like this.  So their position is somewhat understandable, even though they contributed to the result themselves as well.

Its a lose/lose situation then if you are a playing TD, either the players can trust you or take their business elsewhere I guess. I think I take extraordinary steps as a playing TD to ensure that I do not have any advantage over other players, such as assigning myself A-/A+ if I get UI from another table.

 

It is not clear to me what you mean by "Fwiw since July 2005 – Dec 2006 I have opened 1nt with a stiff 14/147 with all my partners."  If that means you have done it 14 times out of 147 times that you opened 1N, that is a frequency of almost 10%...and is certainly frequent enough to be considered as a partnership agreement or understanding in my book.  If it was 14 times out of 1470 (a 1% frequency), its ignorable.  If you meant something else, then ignore this whole paragraph.  :)  

It is as it appears, In 1.5 years I open 1nt with a stiff 10% of the time, unfortunately I can't tell you if this is with 2 or 14 partners.

[gwnn]

10% seems a little much...

 

Anyway. Back to the original question: did the opps explain why did the existence of the singleton and/or the lack of aces mislead them into a losing defense?

[jtfanclub]

No, I dont follow ACBL laws and nor would I penalize anyone for opening this hand 1nt.

Well, it would be common courtesy then to define what you allow or don't allow, and put it in the rules (maybe you already do this, I dunno). Not fair to 'not follow ACBL laws' but not replace them with something else.

 

Me, I'm an 'all systems allowed if properly alerted', person, forcing pass, you name it. But I also announce it on those rare occassions I run my own tourney.

[jillybean]

Back to the original question...

 

It was pointed out that I have a singleton and no aces and I should alert that my nt is not 14-17. I said it said it was standard, nothing to alert, I wasn’t taking the complaint seriously it was obviously mis defended. The next comment I got was ‘you win, you are the td’ so I suggested I post the hand here.

[1eyedjack]

No, I dont follow ACBL laws and nor would I penalize anyone for opening this hand 1nt.

Well, it would be common courtesy then to define what you allow or don't allow, and put it in the rules (maybe you already do this, I dunno). Not fair to 'not follow ACBL laws' but not replace them with something else.

 

Me, I'm an 'all systems allowed if properly alerted', person, forcing pass, you name it. But I also announce it on those rare occassions I run my own tourney.

I should have thought that by default, unless the SO expressly lays down any proscriptions or prescriptions, by default "anything goes" that is otherwise permitted by the primary Laws, and this should be assumed and should not require express confirmation. If it comes down to "common courtesy", then the SO is actually being courteous beyond the boundary of necessity by pointing out to habitual ACBL players who attend the tourney, and who tend to forget that there is a universe outside of ACBLand, that ACBL rules do not apply. I would be astonished to enter an event on BBO where the TD takes the trouble to say "EBU rules do not apply".

[hrothgar]

Absolutely, and I'm sure you could design such a hand, as could

 

I. I'm also sure the hand I would desgin wouldn't look anything like this. I doubt yours would either. Most important to me, this hand does not have rebid issues. 1♣-1NT-P looks completely ordinary. It looked even more ordinary when as originally described it seemed not to have 10s or 9s.

 

To me there are three possibilities:

1. It was, effectively, a psyche. The last 100 times she had that hand, she'd opened 1♣, but this time one of her opponents had a gleam in his eye, or she knew them, or state-of-match said do something anti-field, or she just read a book, or whatever. Completely legal.

 

2. This is the exception hand where she opens 1NT with a singleton. She feels that opening 1NT is more protective of a singleton queen than a singleton king or ace (and there is, IIRC, a valid argument for that), and that there's a rebid issue here we don't expect: maybe 1♣-1NT shows 9-11 in her system so her rebid issue is with 15 instead of 17. Still completely legal.

 

3. She like opening 1NT. Any time her hcp total to 15-17 and she can squint and see it as semi-balanced she opens 1NT. This is the problem one. The way you're supposed to deal with it in an ACBL game is to report it to the director, who makes a note of it, and the next time she does it in an ACBL game she'll get warned about it. That's a problem when your opponent is a director.

 

I understand why a person would look at this hand, and say 'if you would open this as 1NT, is there any 15-17 count 4441 or 5431 with a 5 card minor where you wouldn't open it 1NT?' Certainly, if I was directing an ACBL game and a player asked me to record this as an off-shape 1NT opening, I would do so. I wouldn't adjust the score, unless there was a history of it, but I wouldn't tell him to shut his cakehole either.

 

I'm sure in Jilly's case it was #1. That's legal, and it's not alertable.

I think that its a big mistake to drag the concept of psyches into this discussion.

 

A psychic call is defined as follows: “A deliberate and gross misstatement of honor strength or suit length.”

 

If I agree that I am playing a 15-17 HCP 1NT opening and chose to open 1NT on

 

♠ 65

♥ 4

♦ AKT9764

♣ JT3

 

I have clearly made a gross mistatement regarding both strength and shape. However, a decision to treat a 1=4=4=4 hand as if it were a 4-4-3-2 is not the same thing.

 

From my own perspective, my own decisions to open 1NT with a singleton is almost always based on my anticipation of a rebid problem. I don't like playing a style in which the auction

 

1m - 1X

1N

 

can show anything from a 4432 12 count to a 4441 17 count. Accordingly, if I have a hand where I would be forced to make an uncomfortable rebid into NT, I will often prefer to open 1NT to begin with. At least partner will know my range.

 

The classic example is a hand like the following

 

♠ K

♥ KQT8

♦ AQT7

♣ KT98

 

After a 1♦ opening, your completely fixed if partner responds 1♠.

 

In a similar vein

 

♠ K

♥ KQT

♦ AQT7

♣ KT986

 

also prevents some real rebid problems after a 1♣ openingand the (anticipated) 1♠ response.

 

Lots of people bid in just this same way.

[Al_U_Card]

14 of your 147 1NT openers contained a singleton? I would alert the 1NT call with "frequently contains a singleton" no matter who I was playing with AND I would pre-warn my pard so that he could decide about the merits of that kind of a partnership agreement. People can play anything they want to....as long as they agree to it and inform the opps.

[jtfanclub]

One-eyed jack: If I joined a tourney run by a man with an English flag, I would assume that EBU rules apply.

 

Hrothgar, I think we're going past each other here. Perhaps you'd prefer abberation to a psyche for #1. If she has a policy of opening 1NT with a hand like this, and this one case she makes an exception, that's fine.

 

If I agree that I am playing a 15-17 HCP 1NT opening and chose to open 1NT on

 

♠ 65

♥ 4

♦ AKT9764

♣ JT3

 

I have clearly made a gross mistatement regarding both strength and shape.  However, a decision to treat a 1=4=4=4 hand as if it were a 4-4-3-2 is not the same thing.

 

Strengthwise. There is no difference as far as the ACBL is concerned between her 1NT opening the actually did and:

 

♠ Q5

♥ Q

♦ AKT9764

♣ AT9

 

as 6322 is explicitly defined as balanced. Right now, the ACBL considers any non-balanced hand opening 1NT to be a 'gross distortion', although I personally wouldn't record a strong-end hand with a singleton black ace or king, or a 7222 hand with honors in all three doubletons. Those are generally accepted exceptions, even here.

 

Both of your examples are fine, however in Jilly's case...

1. 10% of her 1NT openings are with a singleton. I seriously doubt that even 1% of your hands fit your more exacting standards, and

 

2. There is no 'least lie' coming up. Your hands are clear agonizers. She's got easy rebids.

 

Note that opening 1NT with Jilly's hand wasn't a bad idea. It was a very good idea, especially if the opponents think that the hand is balanced. As I play Precision, I would love to include 2-4-1-6 hands in the 1NT as well as more balanced ones. But it's not just alertable, it's banned by the ACBL.

 

Which it's fine if you don't follow in your tourneys- I don't. But if you start your own tourney, don't announce any rules, and play Moscito, don't be suprised if people are upset.

[1eyedjack]

One-eyed jack: If I joined a tourney run by a man with an English flag, I would assume that EBU rules apply.

I think that assumption would be unwarranted (unless of course expressly stated).

 

Heck, if the TD had an Abanian flag, and ran a tourney that did NOT suggest Albanian Bridge Federation rules applied, would I still be expected to acquire the Albania equivalent of our Orange book before participating?

[jtfanclub]

Heck, if the TD had an Abanian flag, and ran a tourney that did NOT suggest Albanian Bridge Federation rules applied, would I still be expected to acquire the Albania equivalent of our Orange book before participating?

What percentage of people do you think read the ACBL handbook before playing in ACBL tourneys? Far less than half, I'll bet.

 

But it really does help to have some standard. I don't read the traffic laws of every community I drive through, but if a cop pulls me over for having too many mirrors or whatever, you'd better believe that I want *some* book I can look it so I know the cop isn't just making stuff up.

[awm]

Seems like the conclusions here are:

 

(1) If you occasionally decide to open 1NT with a singleton, this is okay. You can do this because you anticipate rebid problems, or because you "just feel like it" based on opponents or state of the match. This is not really a "psych" if the hand is roughly similar to a notrump opening (i.e. about the same points, singleton probably an honor, etc) -- the term psych refers to bids that are "gross mistatements" like opening 1NT(15-17) with a 4-count or 1♠(5-card majors) on a three-card suit; not to "tactical actions" like opening 1NT(15-17) on a good 14 or with a singleton honor, or opening 1♠(5-card majors) on a strong four-card suit.

 

(2) However, if you frequently open 1NT on a singleton, or if your partnership has methods which specifically allow the 1NT opener to show the singleton in the subsequent bidding, then this sort of action becomes an agreement. If you have an agreement to open 1NT with a singleton on certain patterns, this requires disclosure (in the form of an alert) everywhere in the world, and may be considered an illegal agreement (thus barred) in certain very nit-picky places (like ACBL land).

 

(3) The hand that Jilly opened 1NT is not one that most of us would open 1NT, because of a combination of lack of strength, support for both majors, and no rebid problem. Of course, this by itself isn't particularly relevent to the issues at hand since her judgement may differ from other people.

 

(4) It is somewhat troubling that roughly 10% of Jilly's 1NT openings seem to contain a singleton. This percentage is high enough that it may qualify as an agreement and need to be disclosed.

[1eyedjack]

Heck, if the TD had an Abanian flag, and ran a tourney that did NOT suggest Albanian Bridge Federation rules applied, would I still be expected to acquire the Albania equivalent of our Orange book before participating?

What percentage of people do you think read the ACBL handbook before playing in ACBL tourneys? Far less than half, I'll bet.

 

But it really does help to have some standard. I don't read the traffic laws of every community I drive through, but if a cop pulls me over for having too many mirrors or whatever, you'd better believe that I want *some* book I can look it so I know the cop isn't just making stuff up.

We may be confusing the regulations regarding permitted methods with the regulations regarding alerting and disclosure requirements.

[hrothgar]

(4) It is somewhat troubling that roughly 10% of Jilly's 1NT openings seem to contain a singleton. This percentage is high enough that it may qualify as an agreement and need to be disclosed.

Ben ran a BRBR study for me suggesting that (roughly) 12.9% of my 1NT openings have contained a singleton.

 

He's going to go and send me a collection of the hands in question so I can look at them a bit more closely. (I readily admit that I've been experimenting with this style for a while now, so I expect that the percentage is a bit higher than it would normally be).

 

Once again, I will note that it would be useful to understand what the expression "generally" means.