12-14 NT and 5 card majors

[plaur]

Are there any good online text's or discussions that talk about the idea's, the philosophy, pros and cons, pitfalls and strenght of a natural 12-14 NT, 5 card major system?

[dustinst22]

Howard Schutzman has a few good articles on using the weak NT in a 2/1 context.

 

http://www.bridgesights.com/hondobridge/#weaknt

[the hog]

Jeremy Flint's "Tiger Bridge".

[semeai]

There's a recent book "The Weak Notrump" by Andy Stark, available from masterpointpress.com or as an e-book from ebooksbridge.com. I don't know much about it.

 

The bridgematters.com interview of Chip Martel here has some interesting tidbits about playing weak notrump.

[Wayne_LV]

Partner and I have been playing Weak NT (12-14) for sometime now. I just finished a recap of our hands for the previous month along with statistics on our 1NT openers.

 

The results are posted at:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/bboprofile/home

 

.. under the sidebar selection "Statistics"

 

We are well pleased with the results we are getting with this bid. Our 1NT openers are rarely doubled for penalty, but we are well prepared for that eventuality playing Moscow Escapes.

 

I think every serious partnership should consider the Weak NT, but there are some adjustments to be made if you intend to play weak NT with 2/1.

[S2000magic]

There's Edgar Kaplan's and Alfred Sheinwold's How to Play Winning Bridge; it's out of print but you can find used copies at Amazon. The weak NT and 5-card majors are the cornerstones of Kaplan-Sheinwold.

[whereagles]

There's a recent book "The Weak Notrump" by Andy Stark.

 

That book basically sucks. I haven't learned anything from it. The 'defending the weak NT' section was especially disappointing. Don't buy it.

[babalu1997]

There's Edgar Kaplan's and Alfred Sheinwold's How to Play Winning Bridge; it's out of print but you can find used copies at Amazon. The weak NT and 5-card majors are the cornerstones of Kaplan-Sheinwold.

 

this is bridge world linl by edgar kaplan

 

http://www.bridgeworld.com/default.asp?d=editorial_dept&f=edgarkaplan/ksupdated.html

 

i love ks

[S2000magic]

this is bridge world linl by edgar kaplan

 

http://www.bridgewor.../ksupdated.html

I didn't cite that because it sounded as if the poster wanted a text that discusses weak NT and 5-card majors, not just Edgar's system notes. (I have an old hard-copy.)

 

i love ks

As do I; we should partner sometime.

[babalu1997]

I didn't cite that because it sounded as if the poster wanted a text that discusses weak NT and 5-card majors, not just Edgar's system notes. (I have an old hard-copy.)

 

 

As do I; we should partner sometime.

 

we keep a list oh KS players gere at the forum

 

ks players

[S2000magic]

we keep a list oh KS players gere at the forum

 

ks players

Thanks! I just asked to be added to the roster.

[Mbodell]

Partner and I have been playing Weak NT (12-14) for sometime now. I just finished a recap of our hands for the previous month along with statistics on our 1NT openers.

 

The results are posted at:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/bboprofile/home

 

.. under the sidebar selection "Statistics"

 

We are well pleased with the results we are getting with this bid. Our 1NT openers are rarely doubled for penalty, but we are well prepared for that eventuality playing Moscow Escapes.

 

I think every serious partnership should consider the Weak NT, but there are some adjustments to be made if you intend to play weak NT with 2/1.

 

Interesting to see, and not that surprising. I think you should also analyze the hands where one partner would have opened a strong nt and see what that frequency is and if you come out ahead or behind on those boards as well.

 

And if the numbers look promising you might want to try a 10-12 nt. :)

[Siegmund]

K-S is one way to go. If you're open to something that looks a little bit less like Standard American but still very natural, try An Unassuming Club: a Polish style 1C, natural 1D/H/S/2C, with weak 1NT.

 

The Andy Stark book spends a lot of time on the notrump itself; not so much on how it fits in to the rest of your system. The other book that came out around the same time ("How I Became a Life Master Playing the Weak Notrump") does spend a lot of time talking about integrating it into a system - but otherwise has extremely little to recommend it.

[Wayne_LV]

Interesting to see, and not that surprising. I think you should also analyze the hands where one partner would have opened a strong nt and see what that frequency is and if you come out ahead or behind on those boards as well.

 

And if the numbers look promising you might want to try a 10-12 nt. :)

 

I did look at a lot of those boards, but did not recap the results. From a cursory point of view, it appears that we are winning those type hands more often than not. We will generally get back to a 1NT part score, if that is the PAR via a 1NT rebid. And playing Checkback Stayman, we don't often miss the 3-5 major fits.

 

But ...... a very good suggestion, I will identify that type of hand with a code in my data basee and do a similar recap.

 

Unfortunately the opening bid is not shown in BBO MyHands, so each and every board must be reviewed and coded for such an analysis.

 

Wayne

[Wayne_LV]

Interesting to see, and not that surprising. I think you should also analyze the hands where one partner would have opened a strong nt and see what that frequency is and if you come out ahead or behind on those boards as well.

 

And if the numbers look promising you might want to try a 10-12 nt. :)

 

I did the analysis you suggested on strong NT type hands that we usually open with 1 or a minor.

 

We are averaging about +1 IMP per board on those type hands and +2.5 IMP per board on the Weak NT opener.

 

The actual stats and links to the hands can be found at:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/bboprofile/home/statistics

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

[S2000magic]

I did the analysis you suggested on strong NT type hands that we usually open with 1 or a minor.

 

We are averaging about +1 IMP per board on those type hands and +2.5 IMP per board on the Weak NT opener.

As a weak NT aficianado I'm very happy to hear that.

 

How much of the 1 / 2.5 IMPs do you attribute to the weat NT structure, and how much to you simply being better bidders than the competition?

 

(If I did a study like that it would be +2 / +3.5 for the wk NT, -1 for me, net = +1 / +2.5. ;))

[mycroft]

S2000magic - reading your .sig file and giggling. It's December in Calgary, so:

 

"yep, it has a name. it's called *snow*. It comes along with that other reason to have the top up, which is called [expletive deleted] cold."

 

That's assuming it will start without the block heater, of course.

 

OnTopic: count me as another happy-K/Ser. (do NOT, under any circumstances, use that phrase as written in any SFnal fan community without explanation. I know this from experience) However, do note (there's one up there) that a 10-12 NT isn't "just more of the same" - it's actually closer to playing strong NT than weak in what it does(n't do) to the rest of your system.

[Mbodell]

I did the analysis you suggested on strong NT type hands that we usually open with 1 or a minor.

 

We are averaging about +1 IMP per board on those type hands and +2.5 IMP per board on the Weak NT opener.

 

The actual stats and links to the hands can be found at:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/bboprofile/home/statistics

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Neat. Looking at the numbers it suggests that the strong nt type hands you come out about the same as if you played strong NT (because your overall average is around 1 IMP/board).

[Wayne_LV]

Neat. Looking at the numbers it suggests that the strong nt type hands you come out about the same as if you played strong NT (because your overall average is around 1 IMP/board).

 

The statistics for balanced hands has been moved to:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/samagreements/home/bidding-balanced-hands

 

Wayne