Basic question

[655321]

1♦ - (Pass) - 1♥ - (1♠)

1NT

 

How strong is 1NT?

 

I have always played this as weak NT strength. Recently I was talking with a friend who knows more about bidding theory than I do, and he said it shows 18-19.

[gwnn]

one of the thread searchers :) should track down the topic where everybody agreed that this is 13-14 with a nice double stop. I don't remember if there was controversy on whether it could contain 3card support.

[jdonn]

I think, not knowing who either you or your friend are, and based on your 1553 posts and your friend's 1 post through you, I am in a position to safely declare that he does not know more about bidding theory than you do.

[Jlall]

Playing it shows 18-19 is really superior imo. Or at least showing an unbalanced hand with like 16 if you want, like 6 diamonds and spades stopped. Anything but double stopper with maximum weak NT!

 

That said double stopper with max weak NT is pretty standard.

[andy_h]

I've played both ways and I really do like 1NT as 18-19 and passing with all weak NT's (exception of support X). I don't know how good the gain/losses are, but you get 2NT available for 15/6+ 4♥ support which puts some strain off the 2♠ cue bid. It does mean you do lose the 'race to 1NT' though that hasn't happened to me (yet).

[Finch]

"Standard" is to show a decent weak NT

This is more useful NV at matchpoints than at other forms of scoring.

 

I now play it as about a good 13 to a bad 17, often unbalanced, as that's the hand type that is difficult to show (e.g. 4153). Weak NTs pass (unless they support double).

 

I know that 18-19 is useful, but I never get dealt 18-19 on this auction.

 

By comparison, I play 1C P {1 red transfer response} P 1NT as 18-20, but if RHO overcalls I change to this lighter range.

[Fluffy]

I say this too often, but on my fields I have never ever had 18-19 on this auction :/

[kenrexford]

In the August of 2003 BW magazine, there is an article entitled "Sandwiches with Condiments."

 

Ken Eichenbaum and I had played bridge on Friday night. After the game, we started drinking and talking. At 4:00 in the afternoon, the next day, we fell asleep for a half hour or so and then woke up to play bridge on Saturday night.

 

Somewhere in the middle of all this, while trashed, we decided to devise a complicated set of agreements defining exactly what you should hold for the three options of a support double, a pass, a raise, and a 1NT call, in this auction, different for each of the four vulnerabilities -- favorable, unfavorable, equal but white, and equal but red.

 

It was sick, but BW bought it, or at least the part we could make out from drunken notes later.