Playing Weak NT what to open with a 5 card major and balanced?

[ArtK78]

No. Weak NT made most of its gains versus 1m before 2005.

 

Because it is so overloaded, the Fantunes 1NT does not appear to be a winner, but it aids cohesion elsewhere. My subjective impression is that 1NT might even be a loser for them. Anyway, the gain from weak NT versus 1m is small, whereas the gain of ANY no trump versus 1♥ is huge - 157 imps over 249 boards. I would say the sample size is still rather small though.

 

67. 2009 Bermuda Bowl Qualifying

 

None Vul

Q J 7

Q 10 9 6 4

K 6 3

A 3

 

A K 9 8 6 5 2

A

Q J 7 4

9

 

Fantunes bid:

1NT 2♣

2♥ 2♠(relay)

2NT 3♠

4♣ 4♥

5♣ (x) 6♠

 

In the other room:

1♥ 1♠

1NT 3♠

4♣ 4♥

4♠

 

Essentially the auctions were in an identical situation when South bid 3♠ but Fantoni bid better than his counterpart by committing to the five level and thus showing the diamond king by inference. It doesn't take many results like this to give 1♥ an unwarranted bad name.

Isn't this result due to South (in the other room) passing 4♠ rather than continuing on with 5♠ (asking for diamond control)? I really think that South was very timid in passing 4♠ after his partner made a forward going move by bidding 4♣. Clearly, 3♠ was forcing, but this is a powerful hand needing only xxx xxxxx Kx Axx from opener to make 6♠ extremely good (needing only 2-1 spades), and opener promised a lot more than that.

 

So, at least for this hand, and probably many others, you may have a cause and effect problem in the analysis.

[Cthulhu D]

This was by far the most interesting to me....prevailing/traditional wisdom would seem to be the opposite.... open light in the majors but solid in the minors. I guess the big win is finding the 4-4 with like 11 vs 6?

 

Note of caution - this is 1st and 2nd seat only. But with that said opening 1D light is about 55% vs 45% against pass, whereas 1C has only a 2% edge, so I suspect it's more complex than that, but it might just be that a more aggressive 1D opening gives better positioning in competitive auctions.

[Free]

The issue with playing ACOL with weak NT is that a 2/1 can be very light (8+) after which we may get into trouble. So I'd advise to just open 1NT and have a system to find out if opener has a 5 card M (for example 3♣ Puppet Stayman).