After they overcall 1NT

[gnasher]

Assume a natural 5-card major system with a 15-17 notrump, with either short club or longer minor.

 

After your partner opens 1♣, and the next hand overcalls 1NT:

- Do you, or should you, play any artificial methods, and if so what?

- Are these different from what you play after the opponents open 1NT, and if so why?

Edited September 27, 2012 by gnasher

[Gerben42]

Yes, I play 2♣ as both majors and 4-suit transfers. The reason why it's not the same as after we open 1NT is because we didn't open 1NT... Besides with semi-balanced strong hand you can always Dbl.

 

The goal is to get overcaller on lead.

[gnasher]

The reason why it's not the same as after we open 1NT is because we didn't open 1NT.

I was asking why it's not the same as after the opponents open 1NT. I've edited my original post to make this clearer.

[MickyB]

No, it's not the same, because opener's has restricted his possible shapes. Our defence to 1NT allows us to show 5♠4♦, 3♠4♥(51) and 3♠5♥(41). Showing three spades opposite a 1C opening is pretty useless, and showing four diamonds on the side is much less useful than showing tolerance for partner's clubs. We play 2C = majors, 2D = one major, 2M = fit-showing [this can be F1 or NF depending on what hands are included in the opening].

[paulg]

We play our weak notrump defence, ignoring partner's opener. And we didn't need Justin to suggest that playing double as penalty in this situation was a good idea.

[CSGibson]

We play the same method in both cases, suction with pass or correct at all levels (and penalty doubles).

[PhilKing]

I think the situations are sufficiently close enough that we should play the same defence.

 

That may not be theoretically best, but it's easier.

[aguahombre]

I have seen enough and heard enough arguments for using the same methods as responder after a 1NT overcall as we would use over a 1NT opening. Pard and I are convinced that is the way to go, and now we just have to stop procrastinating and change :rolleyes:

 

Edit: was referring to the concept. It would be silly for us to use the actual same methods, since we are CRASH people. But, double to play and something like landy would probably be fine.

[Phil]

Any method that lets opener play the hand and lets you show both majors after you open a minor is best.

 

How you get there seems less important.

[gszes]

there is significantly more safety involved with bidding over the opps 1n overcall than their

1n opener. When it is an overcall the power of our hand plus p opening bid gives us

a fairly decent idea of how high we can go at a minimum. For ex I would x 1n overcall for

penalty with say Kxx Kxx QJx Axxx but I would pass with this hand over a 1n opening bid.

 

With a hand like QJT9xx Kx Ax xxx I would be happy to X 1n overcall for penalty but would prefer

to be able to bid 2s after a 1n opener.

 

With a hand like KQJxxx xx xx xxx it would be nice to be able to bid 2h transfer after a 1n overcall

but i would pass a 1n opening bid unless the vulnerability made a spade bid reasonably safe.

 

Being able to show 2 suits is also important and i use 2c (over opps 1n overcall) to show any 2 suited hand.

The main reason for this is because if I have values opps most likely will rarely be able to compete effectively so

there is no need to rush to show my 2 suits and the fact I did not x limits the overall power of my hand

very effectively.(ie im willing to compete but not strong enough to x).

 

When rho opens 1n (and i have dia and hearts) if I can convey that message in one bid p will have a huge head

start if the opps compete (which they may well be able to do opposite a non opening/passed partner).

[aguahombre]

gszes: that is a good discussion of when we would like to act, and most would agree. I believe the tools we should use after a 1NT overcall are more important to resolve than whether or not we want to bid. And that part of this thread, IMO, needs needs some more participant input.

 

Suction is interesting.

[awm]

Elianna and I play our weak notrump defense, which is basically natural except 2♣ shows either both majors or 4M+longer minor.

 

It seems generally good to play your weak notrump defense here; being able to show majors is important and being able to raise clubs isn't really (partner usually has a weak notrump on this sequence). This also has the advantage of being easier to remember than having a special defense for this auction. Obviously this will depend somewhat on the nature of your weak notrump defense.

[Finch]

We don't play the same methods. We play 2C as both majors and everything else natural. Double is penalties.

I don't really see why I want to play the same methods, because I'm going to double on all decent 9+ HCP hands and I am less likely to want to be in the auction with a much weaker hand unless it has a 6-card suit or both majors.

[nigel_k]

I play 2♣ as two places to play, one of which may be opener's suit. So after 1♣-(1NT) I would bid 2♣ with any of:

 

QJxxx QJxxx xx x

QJxxx xx QJxxx x

xx QJxxx QJxxx x

QJxxx xx xx QJxx

 

This seems to work pretty well. Maybe I play too much against bad opponents who don't lift the bidding to the three level until we have had a chance to sort out what the two places to play actually are. But I would want to bid on all of the above hands without having to take a stab at something and get it wrong.

[han]

We don't play the same methods. We play 2C as both majors and everything else natural. Double is penalties.

 

Ditto.