Sandwich NT

[jdonn]

The discussion about the merits of sandwich NT was covered pretty extensively in a recent thread. Since people still seem to want to talk about it, I'll reiterate some of my points from before in favor of the convention.

Sorry I suck, I vanished off the discussion board for a long time :)

 

And of course you know, I only really pick on you because you write long answers. After all, you were my partner for my best ever finish in an NABC.

 

I can't remember, did we play sandwich notrumps?

 

(1) While it's true that people are opening/responding lighter and lighter, this doesn't mean that they usually have nothing for an opening and response. In fact the odds that our side has 24+ hcp are still pretty low even assuming they open all tens and respond all hands.

Wouldn't you have to agree that the odds our side has a game are MUCH MUCH MUCH higher on a balanced 18 than on a randomly selected hand in that position?

 

(2) In fact the light opening/response style often backfires when the opening side has no real fit. The issue is that while occasionally you "steal a game" when you have 14 hcp combined and no fit, much more often someone has a little bit of values and you end up playing 1NT with 17 hcp combined and no fit. Quite frequently this is worse than just passing and letting the other side bid their partial. The reason good players still bid/respond very light has to do with the fact that you have a fit on something like 85% of all hands (even more if responder has shape, and most people aren't actually responding on balanced zero-counts so much as shapely zero-counts). It's not clear that letting the opponents play the hand when they open/respond and have no real fit and less than half the high card points is necessarily a bad result.

It sounds to me like you haven't even convinced yourself this is true. A ton of the hands with 8 or even 9 card minor suit fits are going to end in 1NT anyway, so just because they end in 1NT does not mean at all they do not have a fit. And of course, if the opponents have a fit, then you (almost always) do too.

 

(3) When fourth seat has the wrong shape for a takeout double, it tends to increase the odds that the opponents have flattish hands and/or no real fit. Note that most people don't open balanced ten counts, it's the shapely ten counts where they bid. The more cards I have in opener's minor the more likely he is flat. And if the opponents have a fit in responder's suit, often fourth hand will be short in that suit and be able to manage a double. The very fact that fourth hand has the right shape for a 1NT bid and the wrong shape for a double tends to imply that opponents being very light on fitted hands is less likely than it would otherwise be.

It's a lot like what I said above, but the argument that we will have game much more often when I am known to be strong has to drastically overshadow your third point, which combines merely an inference (that if we are balanced the opponents likely are) with a conclusion based on an assumption which will often be untrue (that the opponents will not be light if they are balanced).

 

(4) In addition to increasing the odds that we have game (slightly) by opening/responding very light, the opponents also increase the odds that we want to compete for the partial (substantially) by opening/responding very light. Intermediate hands (say 8-11 high) with the unbid suits are going to be more frequent than strong (say 16-19 high) hands without great support for the unbids. If our goal is to compete for the partial we want to get in on as many hands as possible.

- Many of those intermediate hands can get in already via double or 2NT, or a cuebid for some people.

- Even when you have a partial, competing for it when you might not have will often gain you nothing. Maybe the opponents outbid you for their partial. Maybe you were setting them a similar amount. Maybe you even help them (say by allowing a support double).

On the other hand, when you have game and fail to compete, disaster.

 

(5) An advantage to using sandwich is that it keeps the minimum values up for the takeout double. This sometimes allows us to penalize the opponents. Of course, the strong notrump also allows us to penalize, but here opponents have an easy out (just pass the 1NT) when they are bidding on garbage, and the value-showing double is going to be a lot more frequent than the big notrump.

Can anyone remember the last time they hit the opponents for a big penalty after 1X p 1Y DBL, with the further caveat that they would have been unable to make the later penalty double but for the oh-so-stringent takeout double requirements? To me this is the kind of argument that is somewhat convincing in theory, but has absolutely no impact at the table.

 

(6) In any case, sandwich notrump is more appealing at MP scoring than IMP. I've won a ridiculous number of matchpoints by bidding sandwich 1NT on hands where other people couldn't get into the auction. Of course, at MPs the frequency of bids is extremely important. Perhaps a part of my contrasting philosophy with some of the best players on these forums has to do with a preference for MP scoring (as opposed to the apparently prevalent preference for IMPs).

The first sentence is certainly correct :)

[han]

I agree with most of what jdonn said in this thread, but I don't agree with his use of the word sarcastic.

[1eyedjack]

(1) While it's true that people are opening/responding lighter and lighter, this doesn't mean that they usually have nothing for an opening and response. In fact the odds that our side has 24+ hcp are still pretty low even assuming they open all tens and respond all hands.

Wouldn't you have to agree that the odds our side has a game are MUCH MUCH MUCH higher on a balanced 18 than on a randomly selected hand in that position?

and

Can anyone remember the last time they hit the opponents for a big penalty after 1X p 1Y DBL

You raise an interesting point. I can't remember the last time I was dealt a balanced 18 count in the sandwich position.