Defense for 1NT new?

[Yu18772]

Hi

So, as promised, I will try to describe an idea for a new convention and how I came up with it. Fair criticism will be appreciated, and if this convention already exists - I apologize, no plagiarism is intended. To make it clear - I am not an expert, just a intermediate-advanced player, with few successes, so most people that comment here seem to me smarter and more experienced than I am.

 

For some time I had been playing various conventions to interfere after opponents open 1NT - basically I played Cap/Hamilton/MultiLandy/Granovetter/Meyerson, depends on the partner, and 1NT opening range. It seems to me that the features I like or find useful are:

a. 2♥ and 2♠ bids as natural, and in general one suited hand that can introduce suit immediately.

b. Dbl as penalty (not that I often come upon a suitable hand versus strong NT, but if opponents cant dbl for penalty i open 14HCP or semi balanced 1NT much more often, and its pretty effective)

c. Two suited bids that would make it hard to act over, and give as little as possible info for the responder to 1NT opening.

 

So the scheme I came up with is probably very naive, but rather simple -

1NT-?:

Dbl= strong/penalty

2♦ /♥/♠ = natural suit

2NT=minors

2♣ = major + any (may include both majors or major+minor)

 

1NT-2♣-P-?:

2♦= asks for the lowest major suit

2♥ = we are playing anything but ♥

2♠ = invitational hand (especially in weak NT context by opponents).

 

I understand that the 2♣ bid is very vague also for the partner, especially if responder decides to compete anyway, on the other hand it seems to me that its harder to act after a bid that effectively does not promise any particular suits, just any two of them. In any case, I am pretty sure that there plenty of things wrong with this idea....so your comments please.

Yehudit

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[awm]

This is quite close to what Elianna and I play versus weak notrump; I guess there are a couple small differences. Our 2♣ is either both majors or 4M+longer minor; with 5M/4+m we just bid our major suit. Our advances of 2♣ are also different -- advancer bids 2♦ without a major (which overcaller can pass with diamonds and a 4M, or bid longer major with 5/4 majors), or bids a four-card major (which can be corrected to cheapest suit overcaller holds) or bids 2NT with serious interest in game.

 

This method works okay for us; it's occasionally bad on a misfitty hand or when opponents bid at the three-level over the 2♣ call. It seems to work out slightly better than landy though, in that while we lose a bit when holding both majors (usually when opponents try to bid 3m over 2♣ and there is some ambiguity) we have a way to show the difficult 4M/5+m hand.

 

Anyway, we call our defense "Stayman" but I guess yours has enough differences that this name might not be appropriate.

[Mbodell]

Why wouldn't you switch 2♥ and 2♠ over the 2♣ bid? If 2♥ means "we play anything but ♥" but 2♠ is what you bid with an invite you can get more mileage out of your invite starting with 2♥ (one extra step) and your "anything but ♥" starting with 2♠ which loses no useful ground and is also passable so harder to act over (an opponent can't safely wait and see).

 

You probably also want to make sure you define the meanings in the sequence 1nt-2♣-X(stayman)-?? and 1nt-2♣-X(penalty, values)-?? and 1nt-2♣-X(clubs)-?? as they are likely to come up a lot.

[Free]

It seems to me that the features I like or find useful are:

a. 2♥ and 2♠ bids as natural, and in general one suited hand that can introduce suit immediately.

b. Dbl as penalty (not that I often come upon a suitable hand versus strong NT, but if opponents cant dbl for penalty i open 14HCP or semi balanced 1NT much more often, and its pretty effective)

c. Two suited bids that would make it hard to act over, and give as little as possible info for the responder to 1NT opening.

a. that's definitely a good start imo

b. although I'm not convinced that playing a strong Dbl is a winner, it's played by some world class players, so it must have some merit for sure. It's a choice you can definitely make.

c. that's a bit contradictory imo. If you don't want to give info away, you need ambiguity. But the more ambiguous the bid, the lower it has to be if you want to get to a decent spot yourselves (or you'll need freak hands that can stand the 3-level which means you can't interfere as much as you want). However, the lower you bid, the fewer problems opps have.

 

In your suggestion, I don't like the 2♣ bid. Yes, it doesn't give much info away, but opps just play system on and your partner can hardly compete. So it doesn't comply with your design goal that it must be hard to act over. Imo you need to be able to bid when you have both Majors (your 2♣ can do this). You could for example play 2♣ as ♠+another, making it easy for partner to bid 2♠ (and thus making it more difficult for opener if his partner Doubled as Stayman, or transfered to ♥).

[Yu18772]

Thank you for the ideas!

Actually one of the reasons I would like to try 2♣ as a major + any, is because it is pretty difficult for the responder to ask Stayman, while if our major is defined it is very easy to start looking for the other one or to evaluate the hand. When opponents intervene over 1NT, knowing their suit is imperative for responder hand re-evaluation, and looking for 4-4 card major fits when overcaller promises at least one major but you dont know which starts to be a problem, so I dont think its going to be that easy to play 1NT-2♣-X as stayman. On the other hand if responder holds a long major (to which he transfers) - this also clears the picture for partner (which may for example dbl to show competitive values assuming the other major etc...).

I do like the idea of switching 2♥ and 2♠ bids in the response.

 

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