weak versus strong NT

[awm]

Lots of different methods can certainly work. And there are a lot of factors that lead to a pair playing a particular set of methods which may not relate directly to the technical merit of the methods.

 

Nonetheless, it seems interesting that so many of the top British pairs are playing a natural system with strong notrumps. Certainly this is not due to those methods being "more familiar" than the four-card major/weak notrump base that's common in their country, nor due to some desire for "field protection" (either of which could be used to explain why such an overwhelming majority of American expert pairs use a natural system with strong notrumps).

 

I wouldn't use Fantoni-Nunes as an example, since their system is based on somewhat different assumptions than others (i.e. very sound one-level openings). I think there is a difference between claiming that "weak notrump is a bad method, anyone who plays weak notrump would do better if they switched to strong" (which is clearly not true) and claiming that "weak notrumps along with a natural, wide-ranging, light opening style is a poor combination" (which seems to be supported by British pairs switching away from their country's standard towards strong notrump methods).

[Stephen Tu]

Weak (12-14) NT works best with ACOL, with a 5 card Majors system, it is much less effective.

 

I don't agree with this. One benefit of 4cM is preemption with weaker hands; with weak NT you already get that preemption, if you open 4cM on 4333/4342 15+ or such you are preempting your own side more often than your opponents. Also, if 1M can be 16/17 balanced, it puts a lot of strain on 1M-1NT auctions. If the 1nt is sharply limited (say 8 pts max), so that the strong NT can comfortably pass, then 2/1s become very light, and you need lots of NF sequences (as in traditional Acol), & your game + slam bidding suffers (which is why I think top British pairs have shown trend to going to stronger 2/1s, 5cM etc.). If 1nt is wider ranging to shore up the 2/1 responses, then the 16/17 hand either misses games or tends to gets too high if partner only has 6-7. I think in a natural system context 4cM works better w/ a strong NT, with the weak balanced hands you can preempt with 1M and pass partner's 1nt comfortably. 5cM works better with the wknt, it shores up the minor suit openings, & you can play forcing NT response to 1M.

 

BTW, it's Acol, not ACOL; it's named after a street not an acronym.

[Badmonster]

I'm a recent convert to 12-14 nt's. But my experience is more theoretical than practical at this point.

[Guest Jlall]

Do you really think that if this was such a disadvantage that there would be world class players playing a weak NT?

Well, on that basis, we can conclude that strong NT is clearly better than weak NT but not substantially so, and not go to the trouble of considering the matter for ourselves!

Exactly! Let me give you the contra-positive. If no world class players played a weak NT, then might we not consider that it was inferior. Let's take as an example a 17-19 NT or an 8-10 NT or even a completely artificial 1NT. How many are playing that? Why not? Can we conclude anything?

I thought this was the best post of the whole thread, well said. This is a very underrated point, and it works very well with something like strong vs wk NT which has been around forever and is very hard (impossible?) to just logically come up with which is better.

[JanM]

My opinion is that the main advantage we get from playing weak nt's is when we don't open one. We get an extra round (sometimes two because we use transfer responses to 1♣) of bidding after 1m on our STR NT hands, and that often helps us find a better contract.

Sorry: I know this is snarky, but I can't resist

 

From the sounds of things, you're using

 

1♣ - (P) - 1♦ as showing 4+ Hearts (potentially in Walsh style where you could have a longer minor)

 

In a similar vein

 

1♣ - (P) - 1♥ shows 4+ Spades, could have a longer minor

 

I assume that 1♣ - (P) - 1♠ shows an unbalanced hand with Diamonds

 

Whats your suggested defense to these nefarious transfer responses? You see, I'm having an amazing amount of trouble getting defenses approved to some transfer opening bids that look to be very similar. It would be very helpful to understand the wonderously simple defense that you have available to these transfer responses. Who knows. It might even help me get a submission through the Conventions Committee.

This has been discussed before, I think Jan has even posted the two possible defenses she suggests if opponents ask.

Richard doesn't really want to know what defense I recommend against a transfer response. He wants to complain that the Midchart does not require an approved defense for transfer responses but does require one for transfer opening bids, right, Richard? You almost sucked me in with this, but I think I'll just leave it alone - there are differences and similarities. Luckily for me, one ACBL committee I haven't ever served on is Competitions and Conventions, so I didn't make the rules. I'm not even sure why some members of C&C are so opposed to transfer opening bids. Oh, and don't assume things - our 1♠ response doesn't promise diamonds, just a hand worth a response that doesn't have a 4-card Major and doesn't fit into other bids. It's very often a balanced hand that wants to be able to pass opener's 1NT rebid, sometimes a decent hand with diamonds, sometimes both minors.

[awm]

Sorry: I know this is snarky, but I can't resist

 

From the sounds of things, you're using

 

1♣ - (P) - 1♦ as showing 4+ Hearts (potentially in Walsh style where you could have a longer minor)

 

In a similar vein

 

1♣ - (P) - 1♥ shows 4+ Spades, could have a longer minor

 

I assume that 1♣ - (P) - 1♠ shows an unbalanced hand with Diamonds

 

Whats your suggested defense to these nefarious transfer responses? You see, I'm having an amazing amount of trouble getting defenses approved to some transfer opening bids that look to be very similar. It would be very helpful to understand the wonderously simple defense that you have available to these transfer responses. Who knows. It might even help me get a submission through the Conventions Committee.

There are actually several significant differences between this scheme and transfer openings. In particular:

 

(1) It's much easier to defend artificial bids when they are forcing. To give an example, suppose I have a good hand with 6♠. If my RHO opens 1♠, I am guaranteed that either opponents will play in spades (likely good result for my side) or that I will get another chance to bid after passing RHO's opening. If my RHO opens 1♥ showing spades the same would be true if it's forcing, but not if LHO will frequently pass holding short spades and a weak hand. Note that 1♣-P-1♥ (transfer to spades) is unlimited and forcing whereas the Moscito-style 1♥ opening (showing spades) is limited and not forcing.

 

(2) One can argue that if a certain defense to a natural bid works well, then a similar defense to the immediate lower bid showing the same hand type will work reasonably well. Since 1♣-P-1♠ showing spades (might have longer minor) is essentially standard, everyone is presumed to have a "pretty good" defense to this. Using the same defense to 1♣-P-1♥ (showing spades, might have longer minor) will not be too great an inconvenience. But we can argue that 1♠ opening showing 4+♠, limited, possibly light, may have longer minor is already non-standard and that defending this as one would defend a 1♠ opening which is essentially unlimited and virtually always opener's longest suit is already substantially sub-optimal. Changing things around further so this hand opens 1♥ instead of 1♠ makes the defense people are using even less effective, at which point they really need some artificial defensive method. You can always get from a standard method to a really weird method via a sequence of seemingly small steps, but this doesn't mean the defense to the standard method will be any good as a defense to the weird method (especially if a lot of these steps were needed), or that the weird method should necessarily be allowed just because the standard method was.

[helene_t]

Do you really think that if this was such a disadvantage that there would be world class players playing a weak NT?

Well, on that basis, we can conclude that strong NT is clearly better than weak NT but not substantially so, and not go to the trouble of considering the matter for ourselves!

Exactly! Let me give you the contra-positive. If no world class players played a weak NT, then might we not consider that it was inferior. Let's take as an example a 17-19 NT or an 8-10 NT or even a completely artificial 1NT. How many are playing that? Why not? Can we conclude anything?

To answer the (retorical?) question: No, I don't think we can conclude anything.

 

Most good typist use the QWERTY layout. A few have tried out dvorak or some such but even among those, many have reverted to qwerty.

 

Even if we could dismiss the majority's tyranny as the decisive factor and conclude that SEF and SA are "better" than KS and Acol, we still don't know how a hypothetical Acol or KS system with gadgets and styles that had evolved through decades of MSC discussions etc. would perform.

 

We know even less about the weak vs strong in the context of other kind of systems. Is Hamway Club better than Auken-von Arnim Club?

[cherdano]

Do you really think that if this was such a disadvantage that there would be world class players playing a weak NT?

Well, on that basis, we can conclude that strong NT is clearly better than weak NT but not substantially so, and not go to the trouble of considering the matter for ourselves!

Exactly! Let me give you the contra-positive. If no world class players played a weak NT, then might we not consider that it was inferior. Let's take as an example a 17-19 NT or an 8-10 NT or even a completely artificial 1NT. How many are playing that? Why not? Can we conclude anything?

To answer the (retorical?) question: No, I don't think we can conclude anything.

 

Most good typist use the QWERTY layout. A few have tried out dvorak or some such but even among those, many have reverted to qwerty.

 

Even if we could dismiss the majority's tyranny as the decisive factor and conclude that SEF and SA are "better" than KS and Acol, we still don't know how a hypothetical Acol or KS system with gadgets and styles that had evolved through decades of MSC discussions etc. would perform.

Well of course your analogy is flawed (I am sure you agree with that), the only question is how flawed. The cost of playing a non-standard system is way lower than the cost of using a non-standard keyboard layout...

Expert/world class partnerships have always tried out a lot of things that aren't standard, and more specifically there used to be a significant minority of top partnerships playing weak NT (in an otherwise standard system). Their systems and styles also have evolved through decades of discussions etc. -- but of course you are right that they didn't have quite the same resources as the strong NT-5-card majors community, at least in the last 20 years.

[hrothgar]

One can argue that if a certain defense to a natural bid works well, then a similar defense to the immediate lower bid showing the same hand type will work reasonably well. Since 1♣-P-1♠ showing spades (might have longer minor) is essentially standard, everyone is presumed to have a "pretty good" defense to this. Using the same defense to 1♣-P-1♥ (showing spades, might have longer minor) will not be too great an inconvenience. But we can argue that 1♠ opening showing 4+♠, limited, possibly light, may have longer minor is already non-standard and that defending this as one would defend a 1♠ opening which is essentially unlimited and virtually always opener's longest suit is already substantially sub-optimal.

A 1♠ opening that promises 4+ Spades is perfectly legal at the GCC level. Hell, this opening is legal if you're using the "Limited Convention Chart" (not that I have ever seen a game that used this)

 

I'm sorry that most of the ACBL believes that they can shove their heads into the sand, pretend that everyone plays exactly the same methods that they do, and glory in their willful ignorance. When I started playing, the Convention Charts made explict mention that players are expected to be prepared to compete against a wide variety of different methods. Now-a-days, the average ACBL seems to need protection against a 4 card major opening.

 

Pathetic. Especially when one is playing a "competitive" game.

[awm]

The point I'm trying to make is just that "is similar to" is not a transitive relation.

 

There are certain assignments of hands which make up a relatively "normal" opening bid. If you want to use a different opening bid to show the same set of hands most people show with a "normal" opening bid, that's generally okay (both in WBF rules and on the ACBL midchart).

 

There are also certain "weird" opening bids that are allowed, like 2♦ multi, or a canape 1♠ opening, or a precision 1♦.

 

However, if you want to use a different opening bid to show the same set of hands that you could've used a "weird" (but legal) opening bid to show, this is not necessarily okay.

 

While WBF has no problems with the transfer opening bids, I don't think they'd be so happy about 2♥ multi......

[the hog]

I think the argument weak vs strong NT is irrelevant on its own. You need to look at the rest of the system. Contrary to Adam's assertion, I believe there is no intrinsic weakness in opening a strong NT hand with 1m and rebidding NT. I also disagree what good/bad does not work as well in a wnt system.

 

I have played both - wnt in a big club, Acol and Flint-Pender context and snt in a Polish Club and 2/1 context. I have no great preference either way, as it is the way in which nt bids fit into the rest of the system that matters.

[chicken]

♣♦♥♠

 

This sounds a bit screwy but it does in my experience work .. player #4 will often pull the double after being informed that responder's pass (which is of course alertable) requires the opener to redouble.

ts.... ts..... my aunt would run after told that pass is forcing to xx, therefore the proper explanation on clublevel would be "forcing to xx with usually a weakhand wanting to initiate DONT". in a normal world nobody runs until the passer has converted into a penalty xx via a 2nd pass.

 

 

 

edit.: saw that this fact has already been mentioned. sry 4 flooding :(

[JanM]

While WBF has no problems with the transfer opening bids, I don't think they'd be so happy about 2♥ multi......

2♥ multi actually came up a few years ago (the Norwegians in the Paris Bermuda Bowl played it). The bid was allowed, obviously as a Brown Sticker bid. It came up once in the finals, I think during the segment where the USA team was having its huge comeback against Norway - I'm too lazy to go find the hand, but my best recollection is that the ambiguity about the Major allowed the US pair to bid and make 3NT when the Norwegian pair didn't after a natural 2M opening - not a disadvantage you'd expect for what is clearly an extremely weird method. In preparing defenses to the 2♥, 3♥ and (1m)-2♥ bids (all of them showing one Major, weak), our worst problem was not knowing how often the bid would be passed and also how often 2♥-DBL would be passed and what that Pass would mean. That was relevant both to help us decide with what hands we could afford to pass and DBL also to help us figure out what hand the opener would have. After all, if responer is going to bid with some random balanced hand with 3-2 in the Majors or something of the sort, the 2♥ opener would have to be prepared to play 3♥. If responder was going to pass on random balanced hands with equal majors, the 2♥ opener wouldn't be eager to open it with a good spade preempt. We never got very good responses to lots of questions about what responder would do with specific hands. The method seems not to have withstood the test of time, so hopefully we won't have to confront it again.

 

2♣ multi, which doesn't have the problems of 2♥ and is "obviously" easier to defend against than 2♦ was actually really hard to devise a defense for. I guess that's because of course no-one can resist all the extra bids they give you, so the defense can be much more complex than that to 2♦ multi. That opening also doesn't seem to have withstood the test of time, so I haven't looked at the defense in some time, but I know that it took Chip and Eric ages to come up with it and it was pages and pages and pages long.

 

Jan, about to start reviewing convention cards for Shanghai to see what new and imaginative things people have come up with this year :D

[glen]

For 2005 I prepared this for the Canuck teams:

 

Countering Vexing Bids

 

Since it was pages and pages, they mostly didn't use it. However it was used by one pair in the Canadian finals the next year, when faced with a whole bunch of unusual stuff. For 2007 we will see how things develop, as we now have some Ottawa-based pairs.

 

This was the match-by-match document for 2005 Open:

 

Defenses by round

 

So, for, example, we have:

 

Defence to 2♥ weak two in ♠s or ♥s & minor:

 

- Doubles of major suit bids are Passable Takeout Doubles.

- 3♣ is natural overcall in ♣s, or takeout double of ♥s with 0-1 ♥s (so has ♣s).

- Natural bidding including bids of majors – in reply new suits forcing if below game

 

--- ----

 

Note that Eric Kokish and Bev Kraft prepare documents about 10 times the size shown here, as part of their professional coaching efforts. These documents are unavailable to the Canadian teams, since the CBF cannot afford to pay for the months of work involved. However Eric does run coaching clinics for the Canadian teams, which have really helped our teams over the years.

[JanM]

Chip and I are somewhere in between you and Eric & Beverly - we try to keep the defenses, especially those that must be memorized, reasonably short, although our BS defenses are fairly long. For instance, our defense to 2♥ = weak in spades or (hearts + minor) is 4 pages long, as compared to your 3 lines. That's partly because we write out all the follow ups carefully so people can find them at the table, partly because the defense is more complicated. That method seems to have disappeared, by the way.

 

Our position is a little different from Eric & Beverly's on dissemination of the defenses, however - we tend to give them to anyone who wants them, because (to be honest) we'd like to see the BS methods go away and the better the available defenses are the sooner they're going to disappear :D

[hrothgar]

Our defense to 2♥ = weak in spades or (hearts + minor) is 4 pages long, as compared to your 3 lines. That's partly because we write out all the follow ups carefully so people can find them at the table, partly because the defense is more complicated. That method seems to have disappeared, by the way.

For the past few years I've scanned the Convention Cards for "Big" events like the World Championships and the like. I normally prepare some summary statistics describing the different break down of bidding methods (how many pairs are playng Strong Club versus Polish Club versus 2/1 Game Force, what does a 2♦ opening show, that sort of thing)

 

I seem to recall a few pairs using 2♦ = Weak in Hearts or Spades and a Minor, 2♥ = weak in Spades or Hearts and a minor last year. I certainly wouldn't claim that its a popular method, but I don't think that it has completely fallen by the wayside.