ACBL restriction on opening 1nt

[Cascade]

1) 1NT not balanced is conventional - maybe only by abusing the letter of the definition, but you won't find many who won't agree.

How do you come to that conclusion?

 

Convention (for a 1NT bid) means it must have a meaning other than willingness to play in No Trumps.

 

My agreement with my partner is that we open 1NT on anything where No Trumps is a likely final contract and will be difficult to describe by some other means.

 

For us this means all balanced hands in range and many 4-4-4-1s especially black singletons which are difficult to bid and singleton honours. It also includes some 5-4-3-1 hands (bad long suit or stiff honour etc) and perhaps a few hands more extreme 6-3-3-1 with a bad suit and stiff honour, 6-3-2-2 etc.

 

None of this is a meaning other than willingness to play in No Trumps any more than restricting your 1NT to traditional shapes is a meaning other than willingness to play in No Trumps.

 

I think you are confusing conventional with traditional or some sort of perceived notion of what is standard.

[Cascade]

In my opinion, it would be perfectly reasonable to disallow 1NT openings with a singleton, but the Laws currently do not give SOs that authority.

Why would this be reasonable.

 

I cannot think of any reason to ban opening No Trumps with a singleton.

 

♠ 65432

♥ A

♦ KQJ5

♣ AQ7

 

Why is 1♠ a better natural bid with this hand than 1NT?

 

To me it is perverse to allow 1♠ and disallow 1NT.

[jtfanclub]

Mycroft:

 

I don't disagree with anything you say except that I don't care much about the legality of the restrictions on the 1NT opener. I don't believe that 1NT with a singleton is conventional or artificial, and therefore the regulations on it are probably illegal. However, it's not high on my 'what the heck are they thinking' list.

 

Highest is disallowing 2 of a minor over a 1 bid as a limit raise. Exactly why do we need a paragraph of crud to allow Drury in 3rd and 4th seat, and yet it's somehow indefensible in 1st and 2nd seat? Why is Drury allowed over 1 heart but not 1 diamond? The logic seems to be 'some expert wants to play Drury, so we'll let him'. Yeah, thanks. That makes for streamlined rules.

[skjaeran]

I'd be surprised if you could find any SO where an agreement to open 1NT with all 4441 hands in range doesn't require an alert; in other words, I don't think anyone really believes that this is the "natural" meaning of 1NT (although many places are inclined to allow more artificial/conventional bids than ACBL does).

That's not true (or you will be surprised). :) Here in Norway you don't have to alert a 1NT opening which promises an average+ hand which is balanced or semibalanced (semibalanced defined as 2 doubletons or 1 singleton and no doubleton).

 

Thus we can systemically open 1NT on 4441, 5431, 6331, 6322 and 5422 without alerting it.

 

However, if the lower limit for opening 1NT is 8 or 9 hcp, it's alertable whatever distribution is allowed.

[foo]

 

I bet if you give a hand like

 

A or K stiff ♥ AQxx ♦ KQJx ♣ AJxx

 

to a panel of experts almost every one of them is going to be bidding 2N (20-21).  As a matter of practice, I'm sure that the experts open 2N with a singleton more than 1% of the time, so the ACBL rule seems pretty hypocritical to me.

 

I'll take that bet. This is a perfect hand for a Reverse: 1♦-1♠;2♥

Just so we're clear... Are you serious suggesting reversing with

 

♠ A ♥ AQxx ♦ KQJx ♣ AJxx

 

I'm well aware that there are plenty of hands out there where you need to take some liberties. However, I think that a 2NT opening is preferable to a reverse. I agree with Rob that I'd expect an expert bidding panel to bid the same way.

Personally, I find this laughable.  There aren't all that many hard and fast rules in bridge, however, 1♦-1♠;2♥ promises longer ♦'s than ♥'s.

LOL. ...and last I checked, a NT opening _promises_ no stiff or void.

That horse you are riding is not as high as you seem to be making it.

 

4441's are always a bidding problem. But =especially= if 2N can have a 5cM as is fairly regular practice nowadays, opening 2N with a stiff in a Major puts outrageous pressure on System and your partnership.

 

Your =other= Logical Alternative is 1♦-foo;3♣. Which chews up even more space than a reverse.

 

In addition, this hand has 1 ♠ + 1.75 ♥'s + 2.25 ♦'s + 1.5 ♣'s expected tricks. Opening 1♦ and then reversing into ♥'s happens to =exactly= describe your 1st and 2nd largest sources of expected tricks in their proper order.

 

IMHO, the extra strength of the hand makes up for it being slightly off-shape.

 

Switch the ♥'s and the ♣'s, and I'd be strongly considering opening 1♦ followed by 3♣ as the better sequence.

 

If your 2N opening can never contain 5 ♠'s, then I'm considerably less nervous about opening 2N with this hand; but still might not do it.

[hrothgar]

LOL. ...and last I checked, a NT opening _promises_ no stiff or void.

Say's who?

 

A NT opening suggests that you don't have a singleton.

However, it certainly doesn't deny a singleton.

 

My impression is that expert players would very much prefer to open 2NT with the hand in question rather open Diamonds and reverse into Hearts. I very much agree that either option is imperfect, however, I think that the NT opening is the best of a bad lot.

 

You, on the other hand, refer to this hand as a "perfect" reverse...

[Stephen Tu]

4441's are always a bidding problem. But =especially= if 2N can have a 5cM as is fairly regular practice nowadays, opening 2N with a stiff in a Major puts outrageous pressure on System and your partnership.

 

As is often the case, I don't follow your logic here. The main danger in opening 2nt with a stiff is that partner transfers and signs off in the stiff and you play a 6-1 when perhaps NT would have been better. Or occasionally 3M in a 5-1 if partner has a wretched hand. I don't see how allowing 5 cM could have any effect on this one way or the other. Partner presumably uses some puppet stayman variant, you say you don't have one here, show the hearts as a 4 bagger or support partner's 4 cd hearts depending on your scheme, end in 3nt otherwise. I don't see how allowing 5cd major changes partner's problems at all with regard to occasionally opening with a stiff.

 

But I will agree with you with the option on reversing occasionally with this shape, say the same hand with a small stiff in spades rather than the ace. With that weaker hand, to me reversing is more palatable than rebidding 2nt, or opening 1nt, or rebidding 2c. (See pinned reverses thread in the beginner/int section for arguments on whether reversing on 4-4 is sometimes reasonable).

 

Here, with the stiff honor, I think without having some 3 suited gadget, opening 2nt is reasonable.

[foo]

I had another suggestion for this hand: Open 1♦ and rebid 2N; downgrading the hand due to the Stiff A.

(Even though this is a serious suggestion based on logic, this should =really= fan the flames... :) )

 

 

...and Stephen is 100% right that this hand is an advertisement for something like The Mexican 2♦ opening.

[awm]

As far as I can tell:

 

(1) ACBL does not define conventional anywhere. ACBL does define natural quite specifically, and defines natural for a 1NT bid as not including any singletons or voids. It is implied (but nowhere stated) on the convention charts that conventional might be the opposite of natural, and that natural bids are generally allowed (in addition to what's specifically allowed on the charts), but there are some people who disagree with this interpretation.

 

(2) The Laws (which are universal to all SOs, not just ACBL) do define conventional. However the definition quoted is not very specific. In fact, due to negative inferences, it doesn't even really make sense.

 

One can make a coherent argument that all conventions should be legal. I know some forum posters who believe this. However, they are very much in the minority of bridge players world wide, since every SO enforces some system regulations. There are many arguments in favor of some form of regulation, primarily that (especially in events with short rounds) the game tends to degenerate into "who can spring the weirdest stuff on opponents and gain by their unfamiliarity." In fact it is possible to design methods which cannot even be disclosed reasonably in the time allotted for a round. This is essentially a short-circuit of the rules requiring full disclosure, and implies that at least in some extreme cases, methods should be disallowed.

 

In any case, once we have accepted that some system regulations will exist, there will have to be a line drawn somewhere dividing what is allowed from what is not. Everyone will have their opinion about where this line should be. Different countries put it in different places. This is fine in principle, but arguing about how "I like to open 1NT with small singletons so it should be allowed" or "I like to open light so drury should be allowed opposite 1/2nd seat openings" is purely a matter of opinion and counterproductive. I think it makes a lot more sense to look for places where the rules are specifically inconsistent or overly vague rather than just places where "X's favorite convention was disallowed, boohoo for him."

 

As far as opening 1NT, if 4441 and 5431 are okay, how about 5440? 5530? Any hand with no six-card suit? Any hand with no seven card suit? Any hand without two voids? Any of these definitions are arguably more likely to be a good hand for notrump than a hand which doesn't fit the definition. But a line has to be drawn somewhere. The logical line, and the one consistent with the laws is that opening 1NT is okay "if the hand is more suited to play in notrump than in a suit contract." But who gets to decide what's more suited to play in notrumps? If left to the individual player, then we're back to "you can open 1NT on any set of hands you want." So it makes sense for the SO to draw some line and say that "these hands are suited to play in notrumps and these are not." I believe a hand with a small singleton is less likely to belong in notrump than a hand with a small doubleton. Many simulations and hand evaluation metrics will support me on this. Obviously allowing 4432 and not 4441 is not the only place where this line could be drawn, or even the only reasonable place. But it is a reasonable place.

[foo]

LOL.  ...and last I checked, a NT opening _promises_ no stiff or void.

Say's who?

 

A NT opening suggests that you don't have a singleton.

However, it certainly doesn't deny a singleton.

You simply can not twist around this one. An "natural" NT Opening promises a balanced or semi-balanced hand.

 

One may bid one's hand however one wishes. Operating and Psyches are a legitimate part of the game.

 

But unless your system specifically allows for a shapely hand as a NT opening, any time one opens in NT with a shapely hand, that person is lying. Period.

[jtfanclub]

(1) ACBL does not define conventional anywhere.

http://www.acbl.org/play/alert.html

[hrothgar]

You simply can not twist around this one. An "natural" NT Opening promises a balanced or semi-balanced hand.

 

One may bid one's hand however one wishes. Operating and Psyches are a legitimate part of the game.

 

But unless your system specifically allows for a shapely hand as a NT opening, any time one opens in NT with a shapely hand, that person is lying. Period.

Arguing over semantics is pointless.

 

Most players understand that certain hands with singletons should systemically be opened with a NT bid. Individuals might disagree about the specific examples, but the the basic concept is pretty well established.

 

Does this mean that a natural 1NT opening denies a singleton?

Who the hell cares...

[hrothgar]

I had another suggestion for this hand: Open 1♦ and rebid 2N; downgrading the hand due to the Stiff A.

(Even though this is a serious suggestion based on logic, this should =really= fan the flames... :( )

I think that you're simply sidestepping the main point of the discussion:

 

If you believe that the hand is too weak for a 2NT opening, add another Jack or Queen or whatever you feel is necessary to get it into the right range. In a similar vein, if you think that the hand is too strong, alter the hand accordingly.

[foo]

You simply can not twist around this one.  An "natural" NT Opening promises a balanced or semi-balanced hand.

 

One may bid one's hand however one wishes.  Operating and Psyches are a legitimate part of the game.

 

But unless your system specifically allows for a shapely hand as a NT opening, any time one opens in NT with a shapely hand, that person is lying.  Period.

Arguing over semantics is pointless.

 

Most players understand that certain hands with singletons should systemically be opened with a NT bid. Individuals might disagree about the specific examples, but the the basic concept is pretty well established.

 

Does this mean that a natural NT opening denies a singleton?

Who the hell cares...

This is not merely about semantics.

 

I have related the original meaning of NT openings: that Opener did not have a suit good enough to offer as a trump suit or a hand where a trump suit would be useful; yet was powerful enough that the odds favored making "n" tricks over Book even considering those factors.

 

Thus the =original= and therefore most "natural" definition of a NT Opening is based on a hand unsuitable for play in a suit. What hands are those?

a= Obviously not shapely hands. For those benefit from the presence of a trump suit.

b= Equally obviously not hands containing suits that are likely to create a decent trump suit opposite most hands Responder could have. Thus we are talking about suits of reasonably short length and relatively poor to very poor suit quality if "long-ish"

 

Sometimes one is endplayed into having to lie about one's hand. That's just the way Bridge is. Then you strive to tell the least lie, but that in no way makes such a lie "systemic" nor does the fact that you might tend to tell the same lie in other similar circumstances have any bearing on the original definition of a bid. For you are lying, after all.

 

What SO's evidently do not want is for NT bids to be so wide ranging as to either strength or shape systemically that the response structure involving them effectively becomes a form of Psychic Control. The authoritative view seems to be that such systemic choices and methods would result in reducing the overall quality of Bridge played ATT. This is consistent with other such rulings like not allowing Drury in all seats or not allowing other forms of controlled psyches or not allowing Destructive methods (Bearing in mind that I do not always agree with Officaldom when they rule something Destructive).

[jtfanclub]

I have related the original meaning of NT openings: that Opener did not have a suit good enough to offer as a trump suit or a hand where a trump suit would be useful; yet was powerful enough that the odds favored making "n" tricks over Book even considering those factors.

 

Thus the =original= and therefore most "natural" definition of a NT Opening is based on a hand unsuitable for play in a suit.

Ummm...I just grabbed my 1949 Goren and it says nothing of the sort.

 

The concept of No Trump in Goren's day was PROTECTION, caps his.

 

-Three suits well stopped.

-Any doubleton (at most one) headed by an ace or king.

 

But I don't see anything in his book about suit quality.

 

In fact, this was a sample hand from Quiz #1:

 

AKJ96

A95

AQT

A8

 

He says to open it 2NT, and yet no reasonable person would argue that the spades are of poor quality, or that the spades look to be useless as trump.

 

By all means, grab an older source and quote me something.

[foo]

Find Bridge books from before Rapee (on this side of the puddle) and Marx (English player.) independently developed Stayman in the 1930's.

 

Stayman, and Transfers (developed by David Carter of Missouri, not Oswald Jacoby as most think. Carter also invented 2 Way AKA "Double Barreled" Stayman.) literally revolutionalized the use and popularity of NT openings.

 

From that point on, NT openings evolved from being Something Best Avoided (thus having requirements like "it must be a 4333 or 4432 with scattered values in all suits and exactly <mumble range> honor tricks.") to Something We Use at Every Opportunity We Can.

 

Goren is showing the effect of being at a relatively early stage of that evolution.

 

Bergen talks about opening NT with =any= balanced or semi-balanced hand in the right HCP range that would have rebid problems if opened 1ofasuit.

and specifically says not to worry about opening NT with a small doubleton.

 

That's a considerable change.

[helene_t]

It's also completely ridiculous, because they also make some statement like "if it's judgment, it's OK, but if it's systemic, it's not".  That's stupid because if your judgment is at all consistent, that automatically means you'll open a class of hands with a singleton, if you ever open with a singleton, since if you change small spots surely you wouldn't change your mind.  And inherently that will become an implicit agreement with partner even if he doesn't cater to it and has no way to anyway.

Presumably it means that you are only allowed to play it with partners who are not regular and smart enough to follow your judgement.

 

I think the spirit of any law that constrains partnership agreements (if such constrains are desirable at all) should be that opps should be allowed to use their normal defense without that making them play grossly inferior methods. Since I think DONT, Capp etc. are approximately as good against a 2%-stiff-NT as against a 1%-stiff-NT I think this rule is unnecesary.

 

Presumably ACBL thinks that disallowing all "conventional" openings that are not explicitly allowed (according to some bureacratic definition of "conventional") is a practical proxy for whatever the spirit of the law is in ACBL land.

[blackshoe]

Thus the =original= and therefore most "natural" definition of a NT Opening...

This contains an unstated, and therefore suspect, assumption. Why should an "original" meaning (in what system? I should point out that the Vanderbilt Club is as old as Contract) necessarily be "natural"?

[SoTired]

I think the "1%" rule was an estimate. I think "1%" is a euphanism for "not very often." I don't think anybody actually sat down and computed how often reasonable 1N hands with a signleton actually came up. I think that people that would always open certain singleton honor hands with 1NT when that is the best description are within the rules even if those hands would comprise 2 or 3 % of the 1N bids.

 

Finally, I think that if you consider x AQJxx Kxx AQxx a 1N opener, then you will get in trouble with the TD.

[Fluffy]

Finally, I think that if you consider x AQJxx Kxx AQxx a 1N opener, then you will get in trouble with the TD.

You might get in trouble with your partner also :)

[foo]

Thus the =original= and therefore most "natural" definition of a NT Opening...

This contains an unstated, and therefore suspect, assumption. Why should an "original" meaning (in what system? I should point out that the Vanderbilt Club is as old as Contract) necessarily be "natural"?

Mr Vanderbilt himself used the words "artificial and forcing" to describe his improvement on bidding that involved opening 1C with all strong hands rather than using Strong Twos or opening them at the 1level.

 

Prior to the development of the Vanderbilt Club (the 1st Forcing 1C System), a 1♣ opening promised 4+♣'s (remember people played 4cM's).

 

Thus a "natural" 1ofasuit opening originally showed 4+ cards in the suit. After the advent of 5cM's, the definition of a "natural" 1m opening was tweaked to 3+ cards in that suit. Even today, a 1m opening that systemically could be on < 3 cards requires an announcement, and of course if it has nothing to do with the minor opened, it is considered conventional and alertable.

[mycroft]

JT:

 

If you're asking me to justify the GCC, or convention regulation in the ACBL in general, I can't. View my history, here and elsewhere - I have longstanding, well known issues with it. In particular, I hate the fact that I don't know from one event to the next whether I will be able to play my preferred system, or whether I have to bastardize it; because of that, I don't play it - too much work remembering both. Because there's more like me around, the kinds of things that are Mid-Chart legal don't get played much, so don't get seen much, so are still "rare and scary", and so stay on the Mid-Chart.

 

But I think there are bigger fish to fry on the GCC than this vague regulation that says that "you normally won't have a singleton for 1NT. However, if you do, and if it looks to reasonable people like a 1NT opener, and there's nothing in either your system or your style that caters for that specific case, then it's a valid judgement call, same as thinking that AKT8 AQJ9 932 T5 is a 15-count." Much bigger.

 

2) On that note, one of the major influences on the GCC is history - sometimes long-dead history. You can still see the influences of the Good Old Days when convention regulation was by name - and if you think today is legalistic, read a lawyer's (now a judge's) take on The World of the time - Amalya Kearse's "Bridge Conventions Complete". And it was, in North America - if it wasn't in there, you couldn't play it. Even if it was in there, you could play it only at the right category. They moved away from that 30 years ago to "this call can mean these conventional options", but you can still see "you can play Roman or Flannery or Mexican or Benjamin 2D", "you can play Drury", "you can play Precision/Schenken 1D, but not generic Herbert Negatives", "you can't play Breakthrough", and so on in there, if you look closely. You can also see the influence of "prominent" or rich players, like all the stuff that allows you to play the way C.C. Wei or George Rosenkranz wanted to, and the gentle discouragement of partnerships the ACBL were unsure of, like the Breakthrough-crippling "forcing 1NT can't promise GI values" inclusion. It's also interesting to note that Kaplan Inversion was GCC until very late in Kaplan's life...

 

So if you read the GCC as "you can play these conventions, but we can't say that because nobody plays them the same way, so we're writing them as any bid that shows..." you'll know how it works. Like all legacy systems, it's very much due for a complete overhaul. Like all legacy systems, what's going to happen is incremental changes to "make it work", because actually doing the rewrite would open such a can of worms that the ACBL would never be able to close it. And given the complaints that came from the last time the ACBL did a complete overhaul of something (the Alert Procedure) - sorry, that should be read "the complaints that still come, 15 years later" - my guess is that it ain't happening soon.

 

As always, speaking only for myself.

Michael.

[jtfanclub]

Mycroft:

 

That was well written indeed, thank you.

 

I certainly agree that the 1NT regulation isn't one of the bigger problems of the GCC.

 

I've never had any trouble with the INV+ of 1NT forcing. I just include weak 5-5 in a minor as one of the possible hands, and it's legal (and it actually fits). We've been known to do it with 9 counts anyways, so it was unnecessary.

[foo]

I happen to agree with Mycroft that there is a need to reevaluate and rebuild from the ground up the laws and regulations on allowed bidding methods.

 

Petty politics and personal influence peddling have to be rejected in favor of a completely logical apporach based on deductive extension of a few well stated and easy to understand axioms.

 

At the least, whether you agree with what comes out of such a process or not, it will "start off" inherently fair and set the stage for any further discussion or debate to occur in a much better fashion than how we currently deal with these things.

[pbleighton]

Petty politics and personal influence peddling have to be rejected in favor of a completely logical apporach based on deductive extension of a few well stated and easy to understand axioms.

 

I'd like to move to the alternate universe where this will happen...

 

Peter