weak openings in first or second seat

[Shugart23]

I have just started accumpulating and setting up statistical analysis.Some very preliminary numbers are suggesting that when we open 1D,1H,1S in 1st or second seat we are hitting 62% (matchpoint) and about 53 percent when we open in 3rd seat. I need to acumulate more data so that my results become credible. It's almost seeming like first or second seat could be viewed as a 'home' game and 3rd seat is an 'away' game

 

This preliminary data is starting to make me think that maybe instead of the traditional 11-15 HCP , maybe we ought to stretch first seat opening down to 10,9, or even, 8 HCP.

 

Does anyone have experience playing precision with weaker HCP with the 1 level suit openings (1D, 1H,1S) ?

 

If it's relevant, our 1NT is 10-12 non-Vul hitting 67% in first or second seat on a very small sample

[TylerE]

I would collect a lot more info before I started drawing conclusions. For instance, your 1NT scoring so well either indicates you're in a very weak field (in which case what you play doesn't matter, you're just bunny bashing) or B: small sample size.

[ArtK78]

I would collect a lot more info before I started drawing conclusions. For instance, your 1NT scoring so well either indicates you're in a very weak field (in which case what you play doesn't matter, you're just bunny bashing) or B: small sample size.

I have been playing a 10-12 1NT opening in 1st & 2nd seats nonvul for about 25 years in levels of competiton ranging from club games to the Vanderbilt teams. It does not surprise me that the mini 1NT opening under these conditions results in good scores. While I don't keep records, it does match my experience.

[Shugart23]

I would collect a lot more info before I started drawing conclusions. For instance, your 1NT scoring so well either indicates you're in a very weak field (in which case what you play doesn't matter, you're just bunny bashing) or B: small sample size.

sure, Ineed to gather more data and can report back in , in a few weeks...I really didnt want to get into discussion about merits of mini-NT. I'm really more interested in having a discussion on the 1D,!H, and 1S openings and whether lighter first or second seat openings might have merit.

[TylerE]

I have been playing a 10-12 1NT opening in 1st & 2nd seats nonvul for about 25 years in levels of competiton ranging from club games to the Vanderbilt teams. It does not surprise me that the mini 1NT opening under these conditions results in good scores. While I don't keep records, it does match my experience.

 

Sure, and mine too. But a high-frequency opening scoring at 67% is just a bit rich. I'd buy 55%, maybe 60%.

[Free]

It's not because your current openings give you 62% that lighter openings will do the same. For all you know your entire 1-level structure sucks but there's 1 relatively frequent opening that performs perfectly, giving you 100% each time. The average result can easily be positive while most of your results are below 50%.

 

Working with averages is very dangerous when you want to draw a conclusion. For example: on average a human being has 1 breast, but everyone (small margin of error ofcourse, there are exceptions) has either 2 or 0...

[hrothgar]

Strong pass systems are based on a very similar theory...

[Shugart23]

It's not because your current openings give you 62% that lighter openings will do the same. For all you know your entire 1-level structure sucks but there's 1 relatively frequent opening that performs perfectly, giving you 100% each time. The average result can easily be positive while most of your results are below 50%.

 

Working with averages is very dangerous when you want to draw a conclusion. For example: on average a human being has 1 breast, but everyone (small margin of error ofcourse, there are exceptions) has either 2 or 0...

 

I agree with everyone that I need a larger data sample. I will have that in a few weeks and then I will see what the data says and yes, I am looking at each bid separately (and eventually will expand it to look it it by vulnerability level...)

 

But there does seem to be a very preliminary indication that opening 1D, 1H or 1S bid in first or second seat outperforms 3rd seat opening of 1D,1H.1S.

 

So either this is occuring because my sample size is too small or maybe its occuring because partner is already a passed hand in the latter case and we overcompete or maybe any number of other reasons

 

But let me get back to the question I originally asked. Does anyone have experience with opening light at the 1 level ?

[ArtK78]

It's not because your current openings give you 62% that lighter openings will do the same. For all you know your entire 1-level structure sucks but there's 1 relatively frequent opening that performs perfectly, giving you 100% each time. The average result can easily be positive while most of your results are below 50%.

 

Working with averages is very dangerous when you want to draw a conclusion. For example: on average a human being has 1 breast, but everyone (small margin of error ofcourse, there are exceptions) has either 2 or 0...

Last I checked, even men had breasts. But you may be discussing quality rather than quantity.

[TylerE]

So either this is occuring because my sample size is too small or maybe its occuring because partner is already a passed hand in the latter case and we overcompete or maybe any number of other reasons

 

 

Something else to consider is that non-mainstream methods tend to perform really well for a couple of sessions, and then the good players in your game will figure your out what you're doing (And really, less than that since the way I understand the ACBL interpretation, if you're routinely opening 10 counts or less in 1st and 2nd you should be pre-alerting light openings), and they'll adjust.

[rbforster]

But let me get back to the question I originally asked. Does anyone have experience with opening light at the 1 level ?

Yes, I played precision with light openers. The one level range was 10-15 points, including distribution. 9 counts were included about 1/2 the time, such as a 6 card suit or 5/4, especially with points in their suits. 8 counts were rare but allowed for very shapely hands. We did pre-alert light openings.

 

As for results, well, you bid a lot. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Probably more good than bad, especially NV. The opponents had to use their less precise interference methods a lot more, and got fewer uncontested auctions. There were a bunch of subtle inferences like when you could psych in 3rd seat if you were really weak since they must have game on if partner has at most a bad 9 count. Pass outs almost always meant the opponents made a mistake.

[TylerE]

The opponents had to use their less precise interference methods a lot more, and got fewer uncontested auctions.

 

See, that would work the opposite around here. Maybe the folks around your area are more actively ethical, but here those of less than nobel bent (aka 80% of the field) will take this sort of auction as the perfect time to hem and hesitate their way to game they may well miss if we had just stayed quite.

[glen]

a bunch of us played a system that started as:

 

1♣: 16+

1♦: 8-15, no five card major, not 6+♣s, if balanced 13-15

1M: 8-15, 5+

1NT: 10-12

2♣: 6+♣s, 8-15

 

general rule: if you had 8+ and would overcall something with it, you would open it

 

It ate up poor fields, but it turns out anything would eat up poor fields

 

In strong fields, when holding 8-9 the opponents quite often would end up playing the hand, and would use the information provided by us to make extra tricks

 

The various players and partnerships went in various directions with 10-12 1NT being the base. Here is what one partnership developed and played in the 2007 Bermuda Bowl:

 

http://info.ecatsbridge.com/Systems/2007WorldChampionships-Shanghai/BermudaBowl/canada/jzaluski-smith.pdf

 

Note 10-12 in 1st/2nd except not 10-12 1st unfav, and open almost all 10 point hands

 

One of those players is now in the 2013 Bermuda Bowl and is playing none of this (his partner wrote a book on 2/1)

 

Back to featherweight openings I think that the 2 level is better for weak hands if not against a strong field. For example:

 

1♣: standard 1♣ and 2♣ opening combined, forcing

Rest 1 level: standard

2X: five or longer suit, 6-10, must have singleton if just a five card suit

[mycroft]

One of the reasons that your (still limited) openings are playing badly in third seat is that partner's range of hands is much lower than "standard" - by the time it *gets* to third seat, the counts are much more likely to be fourth-seat heavy than your average 2/1 pair. *And* your opening is limited, which means that fourth seat's interference is much safer with their strongish hand.

 

Effectively, your good results opening weaker hands 1 and 2 are stealing some of the wins from p-p.

[PrecisionL]

a bunch of us played a system that started as:

 

1♣: 16+

1♦: 8-15, no five card major, not 6+♣s, if balanced 13-15

1M: 8-15, 5+

1NT: 10-12

2♣: 6+♣s, 8-15

 

general rule: if you had 8+ and would overcall something with it, you would open it

 

It ate up poor fields, but it turns out anything would eat up poor fields

 

In strong fields, when holding 8-9 the opponents quite often would end up playing the hand, and would use the information provided by us to make extra tricks

 

The various players and partnerships went in various directions with 10-12 1NT being the base. Here is what one partnership developed and played in the 2007 Bermuda Bowl:

 

http://info.ecatsbri...luski-smith.pdf

 

Note 10-12 in 1st/2nd except not 10-12 1st unfav, and open almost all 10 point hands

 

One of those players is now in the 2013 Bermuda Bowl and is playing none of this (his partner wrote a book on 2/1)

 

Back to featherweight openings I think that the 2 level is better for weak hands if not against a strong field. For example:

 

1♣: standard 1♣ and 2♣ opening combined, forcing

Rest 1 level: standard

2X: five or longer suit, 6-10, must have singleton if just a five card suit

 

I have been playing a forcing club system with a 11-14 NT and no weak 2-bids. We open the weak 2-bids with a 1-bid or 3-bid or pass. Opening 2 bids are 10-14 hcp with 5M or 6 minor. This has worked very well in MP Pairs or IMPs. (Somewhat similar to Greco-Hampson). However, some disagree with not playing weak 2-bids, Gittleman has a post somewhere in the forums.

[mikestar13]

<emphasis added>

I would collect a lot more info before I started drawing conclusions. For instance, your 1NT scoring so well either indicates you're in a very weak field (in which case what you play doesn't matter, you're just bunny bashing) or B: small sample size.

 

Part of winning strategy in a weak field games is to bash the bunnies better than the other strong players do. I agree that no inferences can be drawn about how a method that works in a weak field would work in a strong field, but it matters what you play unless you are the only strong pair in the game, which is rare.

[FM75]

Even if you find that by opening lighter for the openings mentioned you win more, it does not follow that you will score better.

1) What does it mean that your winning percentage was higher on those hands? Made contract more? Beat the (imps/mp) field? Independent of vulnerability, or not measured?

2) What would the impact be on all hands?

 

How does partner show a 1 club opener after you have preempted with Jxxxx Qxx Kx Qxx? Will you even reach your best contract? If your 2♦ showed an arbitrary 4441 hand (or any other hand) what would the result be?

 

The results of the system is not the result of a single, or even several components, of the system.

[awm]

I've played a lot of light opening methods in the majors. Our general style was to open 1M on the rule of 18 (so 5-4 9-count, 5-5 8-count). I've also played a lot of 10-12 notrump. My observations from over a decade of playing this style in a number of regular partnerships:

 

1. Opening light on shapely hands is generally a big winner. You are ahead on a lot of competitive auctions and you can find some good games that are otherwise hard to bid. Even good opponents can be put under a lot of pressure and are guessing quite a bit more than they would be if you started with a pass.

 

2. It has the effect of different hands becoming problems, which creates random swings. For example, 1♥-3♠ and you have say KQx xx AQxx Qxxx. If partner had a sound 1♥ opening this is an easy 3NT call. But if partner opens a lot of 9-counts you are very much on a guess (I'd still bid 3NT, but it'd be no surprise for pd to put down xx AQxxx Kxxx xx and I just have no play). Of course, some hands also become easier.

 

3. Your constructive methods will need to be more complicated; if you open a lot of 9-counts then playing 2/1 GF on random 12s is simply dumb, and while you could require 15 hcp for a 2/1 bid this becomes ridiculous on a frequency basis. It's also very handy to have two ways to invite (one where you want to be in game opposite "any sound opening bid" and another just for a real max).

 

4. Opening light on balanced hands is generally a loser against tough competition. They will penalize you when you deserve it and declare hands basically double-dummy against you, and I don't think the gains from the relatively mild preemption can compensate. On the other hand, weak or mini notrump is a massive winner against weak players, especially in countries like the USA where it's well out of the mainstream.

 

5. While the 12-15 point hands are less common than the 8-11s, they are also more likely to be hands where you need to buy the contract. Methods that really significantly lose on the 12-15 point hands in order to open the 8-11s (i.e. 1♣ = 12-15 any, 1♦=16+, others 8-11) are unlikely to really be good methods.

 

6. It's worth considering your options in 3rd/4th seat. For example, if you open most 10s and some 8-9s, then making a strong NT overcall opposite a passed hand becomes higher risk and lower reward. You may want to consider increasing the minimum strength for this call. Opening light in 3rd seat can still be useful for lead/competitive reasons but you probably don't want to open random balanced 11s in 3rd like you might otherwise.

 

7. Keep in mind that frequencies change quite a bit after a pass. It seems that overall, most of our openings were actually 11+ points despite our ability to open lighter.

 

8. It's somewhat annoying having to alert or pre-alert all your bids, and this was the reason that actually convinced Sam and me to stop playing this style! We are really only a point sounder now (so we still open unbalanced 10s and the occasional 9s) but this seems to be more in line with what other strong club players do and we don't feel compelled to alert (no one else who plays this range does).

[TylerE]

We are really only a point sounder now (so we still open unbalanced 10s and the occasional 9s) but this seems to be more in line with what other strong club players do and we don't feel compelled to alert (no one else who plays this range does).

 

Not to be "that guy", but you should be, and they should be too.

 

Sayeth the ACBL

 

If it is your partnership style to routinely open hands with fewer than 11 HCP, preempt with very weak (frequently worse than Qxxxxx) suits, and/or overcalls with fewer than 6 HCP at the one level, the opponents must be pre-Alerted.

 

I think if you're opening say, the top 40% of 10 counts and the top 5% of 9 counts, that would be considered routine.

[dake50]

I have just started accumpulating and setting up statistical analysis.Some very preliminary numbers are suggesting that when we open 1D,1H,1S in 1st or second seat we are hitting 62% (matchpoint) and about 53 percent when we open in 3rd seat. I need to acumulate more data so that my results become credible. It's almost seeming like first or second seat could be viewed as a 'home' game and 3rd seat is an 'away' game

 

This preliminary data is starting to make me think that maybe instead of the traditional 11-15 HCP , maybe we ought to stretch first seat opening down to 10,9, or even, 8 HCP.

 

Does anyone have experience playing precision with weaker HCP with the 1 level suit openings (1D, 1H,1S) ?

 

If it's relevant, our 1NT is 10-12 non-Vul hitting 67% in first or second seat on a very small sample

 

*** Done. Done. And published.

You are onto the forced future of bridge bidding. Light openers win.

They will dominate in comparison to 13+ openers.

Status quo to hold them back.

[rhm]

I have been playing a 10-12 1NT opening in 1st & 2nd seats nonvul for about 25 years in levels of competiton ranging from club games to the Vanderbilt teams. It does not surprise me that the mini 1NT opening under these conditions results in good scores. While I don't keep records, it does match my experience.

http://www.rpbridge.net/9x41.htm

 

To cite from Richard Pavlicek's site:

 

Evidence suggests the kamikaze or mini notrump (10-12) is a losing strategy. While opening 1 NT has a slight edge over 17 years, pass has the edge in more recent time spans. Perhaps this means that defensive measures have caught up and put this rogue bid out to pasture. Note that pass has always worked better in the win-loss column.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[PhilKing]

http://www.rpbridge.net/9x41.htm

 

To cite from Richard Pavlicek's site:

 

Evidence suggests the kamikaze or mini notrump (10-12) is a losing strategy. While opening 1 NT has a slight edge over 17 years, pass has the edge in more recent time spans. Perhaps this means that defensive measures have caught up and put this rogue bid out to pasture. Note that pass has always worked better in the win-loss column.

 

Rainer Herrmann

 

But the data is from top-level imps play.

[benlessard]

IMO The real cost of a 10-12 NT is when you dont open 1nt. When you endup in defense against a good declarer or when you lose precision on your other openings. That why you need 10-12 to have great stats to even think about playing it.

[rhm]

But the data is from top-level imps play.

The vast majority of top-level play in the US are nowadays imps tournaments. I personally consider this trend misguided.

Everything works better against weak players than against strong ones. But I do not like gadgets, if they are sucker devices.

I play mini notrump myself in certain partnerships, but the fabulous results reported here are just overblown.

Note, that most top level partnership do not change their system much, when playing matchpoints or board a match.

I doubt that there are successful bidding gadgets, which are good for matchpoints but not for IMPs or vice versa.

Again the distinction is overblown.

That you adjust your judgment to the scoring is a different matter.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Shugart23]

The vast majority of top-level play in the US are nowadays imps tournaments. I personally consider this trend misguided.

Everything works better against weak players than against strong ones. But I do not like gadgets, if they are sucker devices.

I play mini notrump myself in certain partnerships, but the fabulous results reported here are just overblown.

Note, that most top level partnership do not change their system much, when playing matchpoints or board a match.

I doubt that there are successful bidding gadgets, which are good for matchpoints but not for IMPs or vice versa.

Again the distinction is overblown.

That you adjust your judgment to the scoring is a different matter.

 

Rainer Herrmann

 

The two adjustments that come to mind that we make in bidding match point vs. imps is in matchpoints we will NEVER (or hardly ever) let opponents play 1NT non-vulnerable. Second, we are 1 trick more aggressive in making our preemptive bids in Matchpoint vs IMP..