good players never downgrade

[bluecalm]

Double downgrade is close. C'mon I have a hand which can't make game opposite 3 aces of my choice :ph34r:

[jdonn]

Double downgrade is close. C'mon I have a hand which can't make game opposite 3 aces of my choice :ph34r:

It can't?

[keylime]

Strong club here. If I hit pard with a positive, it'll likely be in a major.

[lamford]

Reminds me of a hand where someone opened 2NT on KQJ KQJ KQJ KQJT and all passed; declarer made five tricks.

 

I agree with Justin's downgrade, it has 16.5 Binkie points (deduct one sixth for each jack and one third for each queen, add half for each ace).

 

I was criticised for responding 1NT to 1S on QJ QJ xxxxxx KQJ, and was surprised to find that was only 8.5 KR points, and only 8 Kleinmann.

[matmat]

no aces, no 5 card suit... is this even an opener?

[aguahombre]

I think I partially did it just so I could say I downgraded by 2 points at some point in my life heh.

Understandable. I noticed that 14-16 is becoming a popular range among experts. Maybe it is because they want more frequency than 15-17 and more opportunities to upgrade and downgrade. feels like a bad 17 to me.

[dellache]

I would double downgrade without second thought. A bad 16 to me. KQJ is awful (if pard doesn't have the Ace, it's often on ly 2 tricks with 6 HCP, if he has Axx it's 3 tricks with 10 HCP). And 4333 is bad. So open 1NT, wtp ? (the only problem is the 25% of chances when it turns badly, your teammates might bug you at the end of the session. And so again, wtp ?)

[nigel_k]

I ran a simulation assuming partner has a balanced 6-8 HCP and no five card major. With less than 6, you'll play 1NT even if you show 17-19 and with more than 8, he'll invite opposite 14-16 so you always play 3NT. Obviously this doesn't include all relevant hands - if he has a five card major and a stiff club you are going to be sorry you downgraded. But it covers the most common hands where showing 14-16 vs 17-19 will make a difference. I did 10,000 hands for each of 6, 7 and 8 HCP.

 

6 HCP

-------

Less than 7 tricks: 9.72%

7 tricks: 45.54%

8 tricks: 37.54%

9 or more tricks: 7.20%

 

7 HCP

-------

Less than 7 tricks: 3.74%

7 tricks: 24.42%

8 tricks: 52.90%

9 or more tricks: 18.94%

 

8 HCP

-------

Less than 7 tricks: 1.79%

7 tricks: 11.87%

8 tricks: 44.54%

9 or more tricks: 41.80%

 

So if you show 17-19 and partner has 6 and invites you'll play 2NT, breaking even 45% of the time and losing the other 55%. If partner has 7 he might just bid game sometimes opposite 17-19 but let's say he always invites. Then you still play 2NT and break even on 71.84% and lose on 28.16%. Opposite 8, you'll play 1NT if you show 14-16 and 3NT if you show 17-19, so gain on 41.8% of hands and lose on the other 58.2%.

 

Even allowing for the usual caveats about declarer's advantage etc, I'd say that the 14-16 valuation looks like a clear winner. Even more so at matchpoints.

[jdonn]

Even allowing for the usual caveats about declarer's advantage etc, I'd say that the 14-16 valuation looks like a clear winner. Even more so at matchpoints.

I don't think it's a clear winner at all.

- As you say, the usual caveats about declarer advantage.

- As you admit, not including 5 card majors, and if he has one you have a good fit for it.

- Partner will sometimes not invite with 6 (and this will probably tend to be the 6s that did the worst) and sometimes bid game with 7 (and this will probably tend to be the 7s that did the best).

[655321]

and with more than 8, he'll invite opposite 14-16 so you always play 3NT.

As a general rule I don't invite with a balanced 9 opposite 14-16.

[Winstonm]

1NT. WTP?

[xcurt]

- As you admit, not including 5 card majors, and if he has one you have a good fit for it.

Which is why you should super-accept if partner transfers.

[dake50]

Always. But I don't Milton count for opener's, but A=5,K=3,Q=1, and J=1 if supported with A/K in 3+suit or J in 4+suit. Here that's 3x5=15.

[hanp]

I did this double dummy simulation:

 

I gave partner a balanced 9 HCP and us either this hand, a random balanced 16-count or a random balanced 17-count. These were the number of tricks in NT in 500 hands:

 

Original hand: 4,368

 

Random 16-count: 4,364

 

Random 17-count: 4,593

[helene_t]

Thanks Han, great analysis.

 

I would open 1NT if our range is really 14-16. If it means that we open 1NT with quite a few 13-counts and almost no 17-counts, I wouldn't, though.

[awm]

We all know that high card points don't completely capture playing strength. There are two main ways to deal with this, as well as some "in-between" strategies:

 

(1) Upgrade hands with positive features, rarely to never downgrade hands.

(2) Downgrade hands with negative features, rarely to never upgrade hands.

 

This makes a difference of almost a full point in your 1NT openings. Supposing a 14-16 notrump, someone playing approach (1) might open as many as a third of balanced 13s with 1NT, while upgrading as many as a third of balanced 16s out of the range. Someone playing approach (2) will virtually never have a 13-count and might downgrade as many as a third of 17-counts into the range.

 

My experience has been that most good players are a lot closer to approach (1) than approach (2). This somewhat invalidates Han's simulation, since he is comparing this 18-count against all balanced 16-counts, many of which we'd be upgrading out of the 14-16 range in any case. It also might be a poor match for Nigel's simulation, since his assumptions about which hands invite or bid game are probably wrong opposite an opener who upgrades good hands (for example, inviting with a normal 6 opposite 17-19 is probably wrong if opener would upgrade "good" 19s; inviting with a normal 9 opposite 14-16 is probably wrong if opener would upgrade "good" 16s, etc). This is somewhat reflected in Josh's post and 655321's post.

 

This hand is a "very bad 18" and is probably comparable to a "slightly below average 17." Since I play roughly style (1) and almost never downgrade, I'd show a minimum 17-19 on this hand. Certainly there exist some 16-counts which are arguably better than this hand, but I'm not opening a 14-16 notrump on those 16-counts anyway.

 

I guess the conclusion is "if you virtually never downgrade anything (and presumably upgrade pretty frequently), then downgrade this hand by one point" but "if you fairly frequently downgrade by a point when you don't like the hand (and presumably rarely upgrade), then downgrade this hand by two points." Hopefully partner knows what to expect.

[hanp]

My simulation is being invalidated, help!

[Jlall]

FWIW my partner and I do not upgrade very much, especially relative to most experts. I would say I pretty much never downgrade though.

[MickyB]

This somewhat invalidates Han's simulation, since he is comparing this 18-count against all balanced 16-counts, many of which we'd be upgrading out of the 14-16 range in any case.

Han's simulation shows it to be pretty much an average 16-count. Surely this wouldn't fit into the top-third for upgrading purposes?

 

It's somewhat system dependent too - I suspect that, of the pairs not playing strong club, 14-16ers upgrade much less frequently than 15-17ers, because they don't want to have to take another action in competition (or, if applicable, jump to 2NT) on a "good 16 count".

[awm]

The simulation results seem to indicate that:

 

(1) This hand is better than the average 16-count, but worse than the average 17-count.

(2) This hand makes game good opposite 9 hcp, so-so opposite 8 hcp, and bad opposite 6-7 hcp.

 

So if your style is that virtually all 16-counts open 1NT, and partner normally invites with all 9s opposite, then you should open 1NT with this hand.

 

However, if your style is that a lot of the "good" 16-counts upgrade out of the 1NT range, and partner passes with most 9s opposite a 1NT opening (and similarly passes most 6s opposite 17-19) then you should upgrade this hand to 17-19.

 

The latter is a lot more my style.

[rogerclee]

However, if your style is that a lot of the "good" 16-counts upgrade out of the 1NT range, and partner passes with most 9s opposite a 1NT opening (and similarly passes most 6s opposite 17-19) then you should upgrade this hand to 17-19.

Han's simulation shows it to be pretty much an average 16-count.

:P

[helene_t]

Sorry but I don't think it's very interesting to hear people saying that they don't open this hand 1NT because their notrump range is not really 14-16 but rather some shade of 13+ - 16- or whatever. Yeah with some people I play 12-14 so I obviously wouldn't open 1NT and with others I play 15-17 so I obviously would blah blah blah.

 

Han's simulation show that this hand is an average 16-count. Whether is makes game opposite an average 9-count we don't know as it depends how big declarer's advantage relative to DD is. But assuming that declarer's advantage is roughly the same for this hand as it is for an average 16-count, Han's simulation give us valuable insight nonetheless.

[hanp]

I imagine you all know the joke about the biologist, the physicist and the mathematician who see a bunch of white sheep.

 

I think it goes too far to say that my simulation shows that this hand is pretty much an average 16-count (as Mickyb and Helene write) or an above average 16-count/ slightly below average 17-count (as awm has mysteriously written).

 

Keep in mind that I only simulated the expected number of tricks opposite a balanced 9-count. To properly evaluate the hand, one would need to check how well the hand performs opposite all kinds of hands, including, for example, 3-5-4-1 hands, where I expect this hand to play extremely well.

 

Also, this simulation is still double dummy, and 500 hands may be too few.

[gnasher]

If I were doing a simulation like Han's, I'd compare this hand only to 4432 shapes, so that we could say "This hand is as good as a 4432 x-count."

 

In general, a 4432 shape has more playing strength than a 4333, and less playing strength than a 5332. A 4432 shape is also the most common of these three shapes, and is probably what most of us would regard as typical for a balanced hand. It's rare to upgrade or downgrade a 4432 shape, but some 5332s are upgraded and some 4333s are downgraded.

 

I think that if you agree a range of 14-16 but also agree with using judgement, it means that 1NT covers the range of playing strengths from a 4432 14-count to a 4432 16-count. That means that 1NT includes some (but not all) 5332 16-counts, and some 4333 17-counts.

[hanp]

If you were doing the simulation you might get 4,279 for the 16-counts and 4,502 for the 17-counts Andy.