1NT 12-14

[MickyB]

Just a quick point against Acol in particular -

 

After 1X:1NT, flat 15s and some flat 16s pass. There is no other reasonable option. That means a 2/1 has to be made on 9 counts. Say after 1♠:2♣, 2♥ you have a 1345. You are likely to have a complete misfit, and depending on opening style you could have a combined 19-20 count. This leads to going off in some dodgy partscores and some very inaccurate game bidding.

[Gerben47]

I don't have any experience with Acol myself, I have just observed the weak 2-/1 bids.

 

Playing 5-card majors and weak NT (which was the original question, right?) the only 2/1 bid affected is 1♦ - 2♣ and 1♦ - 1NT is limited to 9 HCP. Worst case you are in 3♦ with only 8-card fit and 21 HCP, but that's not terrible. Others are unlikely to play 2♦ in this case.

[EricK]

Just a quick point against Acol in particular -

 

After 1X:1NT, flat 15s and some flat 16s pass. There is no other reasonable option. That means a 2/1 has to be made on 9 counts. Say after 1♠:2♣, 2♥ you have a 1345. You are likely to have a complete misfit, and depending on opening style you could have a combined 19-20 count. This leads to going off in some dodgy partscores and some very inaccurate game bidding.

This problem isn't really as bad as you say.

 

If partner opens 1♠ and you have a 1-3-4-5 hand (or similar) then it is not too dangerous to make an "underbid" of 1NT when you have 9 or so points. If partner has a strong NT and passes then you might very well be in a good contract.

 

Not all 25 point hands make 3NT! And when you have a singleton in partner's best suit the proportion of making 3NT contracts goes down further.

 

Playing Acol (at the level I do) I have made more dodgy part-scores than I have gone off in! And I don't think my game bidding is less accurate than others of my level. I think that in general Acol auctions tend to give less information to the opposition so one gets worse defense.

 

Eric

[arrows]

Here is the link of some convincing argument made by Dr. Chris Ryall.

http://www.cavendish.demon.co.uk/bridge/1nt-complex.htm#opps

 

And I am convinced :rolleyes:

 

Whoever bid their par first win the auction, and to open 12-14 1NT,

1NT is your expected par, as Chris explained.

 

Also, I believe playing weak NT does give you an edge against

non-world-class players. 99% players do not know how to deal with

it in a correct way, I am not exaggerating at all.

[Stephen Tu]

Back to the original questions:

1. Opening 1NT and using transfer and stayman is useful to let the strong hand play. This is less usefull when playing weak NT and therefor this is an disadvantage of weak NT?

The transfer has more importance in terms of increasing constructive sequences than it does in right-siding, for both strength ranges. The right-siding is not that important for weak NT. In theory, transfers are easier to defend against than direct bids from an opponent competition standpoint. But in my experience, at least in a strong NT dominated country no one seems to have taken the necessary steps to take advantage of this (e.g. make use of differentiating between double of transfer, delayed double of completed transfer, immediate cue-bid, other direct vs. delayed actions); they always just seem to double as lead directing. So if they aren't going to take advantage by defending optimally, it seems right to go ahead and use transfers for their constructive advantages.

 

2. Looking at vue graph I see that a lot of top players play strong NT. Any idea of the % of top players that play some kind of natural system do play weak or strong NT?

No idea. But I think that the statistics of these are completely dominated by the relative popularity of NT range in the country of origin. Experts tend to play what other people play nearby, it's easier to get partners & clients that way.

 

3. Playing weak NT as described above what do you open with 12-14 and:

xxxx=xxxx=xxxx=x with a small ♣

Suppose you open 1♦: what do you bid after 1♦-2♣? 2NT would show 15+?

Playing 5cM, you can agree to either:

- rebid 2d, not promising 5+d

- rebid 2h, not promising extra values

- rebid 2h, artificially showing 4441 ala Kokish's recommendations.

 

If you are really rock min with this shape you can consider passing rather than opening as Kaplan-Sheinwold does.

 

4. What do you bid after 1♣-1♥ with 4 card ♥ and 15 pts..16 pts?

... any other suggestions/remarks welcome.

 

Raise to 2♥.

 

As for the larger question of whether one should play weak NT, I agree with Fred that it probably doesn't matter too much & system comfort is more important. I like the weak NT & am comfortable with it; yes there are some uncomfortable auctions & losses for it, but there are gains also. I think it's a net plus for me, so I continue to use it; if people like Kokish & Martel-Stansby think it's a winner, I feel if I'm wrong I can't be wrong by that much. I also like to be anti-field in pair events since it increases my variance although my expectation is probably the same, I think that makes it easier to win them, better to have 62% games & 54% games than just getting 58% a lot.

[fred]

The transfer has more importance in terms of increasing constructive sequences than it does in right-siding, for both strength ranges. The right-siding is not that important for weak NT. In theory, transfers are easier to defend against than direct bids from an opponent competition standpoint. But in my experience, at least in a strong NT dominated country no one seems to have taken the necessary steps to take advantage of this (e.g. make use of differentiating between double of transfer, delayed double of completed transfer, immediate cue-bid, other direct vs. delayed actions); they always just seem to double as lead directing. So if they aren't going to take advantage by defending optimally, it seems right to go ahead and use transfers for their constructive advantages.

Agree with all of this completely. People are taught that the main benefit of transfers is to get the strong hand on play. That is just plain wrong on in my view. Not only is the increased number of sequences much more important (as Stephen notes), but some deals are harder on the defense if the weak shapely hand is hidden instead of the strong balanced hand.

 

Rosenberg-Zia are the only other top American pair besides Martel-Stanby that I can think of off the top of my head who play a weak notrump system, but that doesn't prove much. Zia and Rosenberg play strong notrumps in some position/vul combinations while Martel Stansby play weak notrumps throughout.

 

Please note that I never claimed that strong notrumps are "better" - just that I find them easier to play and for me comfort at the table is important. Also, the whole issue of notrump ranges is different for a strong club system than it is for a natural system.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Double !]

Please indulge the opinion of a much less accomplished player that most of you on the forum appear to be. But this is in response to a comment that Fred made about the importance of playing a system/ NT range that puts you in your comfort zone (or somethng to that effect). I so strongly agree. What works for some might not be optimal for another.

 

Many years ago, after another horrible performance in a tournament, I looked through numerous hand record sheets to see where I, personnally was losing points (besides frequent inability to follow suit, to remember what cards had been played, not paying attention to partner's card play, and not counting to 13). I found that I was losing most in competitive situations when playing strong NTs. I felt that I needed a way to make it more difficult for the opps to compete, to have less interference. I decided that playing a 13-16 1NT opening might serve this purpose. My f2f regular and other potential partners' initial reactions were that this range was unplayable, but he agreed to try it, and the darned thing seemed to work for us. One effect of this system (that I now play on BBO with one partner) is that it is, with a couple of exceptions, more natural than either 2/1 or sayc due in part to the fact that one almost always has at least 4, and usually 5+ -card suits, or else extra values, when one opens 1m. (Don't have to worry about P holding a balanced minimum with a 3-card suit when 1m is opened:if it's a mini, partner will usually have 5 of the suit.) Yes, the system has some glaring weaknesses including times when close games and some 4-4 partscore fits have been missed that others bid, but we have rarely lost that many imps or gotten very few matchpoints on such boards as there were always some minus scores to compensate. It requires a certain amount of self-discipline to play this approach and openings tend to be slightly more sound with balanced hands, but it is easy to learn, more difficult to defend against than strong NT systems IMO, our competitive decisions improved, and it's fun to do something different. It is still a work in progress, but it is not insane, and it's fun to play, or so I'm told, there's less brain drain, and I believe that the one unusual opening bid is GCC legal. I am not advocating this, I wouldn't dare. It' s just that, for me, since I'm going to mess up and pitch matchpoints away anyway, I might as well do it playing something that's fun for me and my partner and that usually works reasonably well.

[pbleighton]

As someone who prefers weak NT, but who plays a lot of strong NT:

 

I agree with Ron that NT range affects the rest of your system significantly. I play a light Standard American type system with one pd, with 12-14/10-13 NT. When I first started playing it, I didn't realize the impact it would have. Inverted minors, especially, work much differently with weak NT, and of course the knowledge that pd doesn't have a balanced minimum can be huge.

 

Opening strong NT hands 1m in a strong NT field gets a lot of bottoms. Fred's point about interference is excellent, but opps 1M overcall of 1m happens more frequently (at least in the circles I play in), and can be a disaster.

 

Peter

[luke warm]

needless to say, i disagree with the "lot of bottoms" part of that, peter... i don't particularly view 1m (1M) as a disaster when playing 12-14 nt... partner still has 13 cards

 

also, won't you be opening 1nt more often 12-14 than 15-17? the preemptive effect, for what it's worth, does exist

[arrows]

One simple difference between weak NT and strong NT.

 

when you play strong NT, your opponents can resolve to just bid destructively,

esp. in MP game, occasionally lose a game is not a problem at all. Hence, they

would try to jam the auction with almost anything plus some shape..

This approach obviously won't work for them when you play weak NT....

[pbleighton]

"needless to say, i disagree with the "lot of bottoms" part of that, peter... i don't particularly view 1m (1M) as a disaster when playing 12-14 nt... partner still has 13 cards"

 

My point was really that when you play weak NT you lose the preemptive effect of the NT opening on 15-17 hands. I do get a number of bottoms on these hands, though "a lot of" might be an exaggeration. Don't you get bottoms in a strong NT field when your opps have found the only 2S contract their way?

 

"also, won't you be opening 1nt more often 12-14 than 15-17? the preemptive effect, for what it's worth, does exist"

 

Absolutely. That's why I started my post

"As someone who prefers weak NT, but who plays a lot of strong NT"

I play strong NT when I have to. I don't care for it, but it has its advantages.

 

Peter

[Cascade]

In real life there is a big difference between playing the best possible system and the best system possible. Kokish could likely make a convincing theoretical argument as to why weak notrump was a necessary component of the best possible system, but in my opinion, the baggage that necessarily goes along with playing such a system means that it cannot be the best possible system (for me at least).

Thanks Fred for your posts on this topic.

 

I would be curious to know what you considered the baggage that goes along with weak NT.

[Free]

I also play a lot of strong NT, I don't have much problems with it at all. It's just more fun to open with little strength and jam opponent's bidding :rolleyes: . It creates action, and crazy situations, but most problems are for the opponents.

 

These days with my regular f2f partner I play 10-12 (in a strong ♣ system) in 1st and 2nd seat, independent of Vulnerability. We had lots of wins (in imps we'd only have a few big wins and lots of small ones), but we also have small losses, and we were ready to write -800 2 times in a few months. However, for some reason opps just kept bidding and we were out of trouble (note: this was both times with rather weak opponents).

[slothy]

Maybe you are a genius and have no problems switching from one system to another for every match.

Arend

I am not a genius i am afraid :(

Because I don't understand a word of Dean's last post! :)

 

Bene

Ma Chere Bene,

 

es-tu obligé d'etre aussi modeste, huh?

 

il y a des gens tres doués de naissance....tous ceux qui peuvent me comprendre quand je parle en francais, comme toi, encore un peu, doivent etre genies B)

 

Alexandre

 

PS il t'aide se tu es un excellente cuisiniere- en ce cas, ne pas importante que joues SA forte o faible :P

[Free]

tous ceux qui peuvent me comprendre quand je parle en francais, encore un peu, doivent etre genies :P

tnx :(

[luke warm]

tout qui peut comprendre qu'Alex n'importe ce qu'il parle sont les génies

[fred]

In real life there is a big difference between playing the best possible system and the best system possible. Kokish could likely make a convincing theoretical argument as to why weak notrump was a necessary component of the best possible system, but in my opinion, the baggage that necessarily goes along with playing such a system means that it cannot be the best possible system (for me at least).

Thanks Fred for your posts on this topic.

 

I would be curious to know what you considered the baggage that goes along with weak NT.

So time right now to try to justify these claims, but I believe the following examples of "baggage" to be true:

 

- In order for a weak notrump system to be effective, it is necessary to make more agreements and more complicated agreements than you would have to make in building in an effective strong notrump system.

 

- At the table weak notrumpers face more bidding problems and more difficult bidding problems than strong notrumpers do.

 

- If you play in an area in which the majority of the players use strong notrumps and if you think that you have better bridge skills than the majority of the field, you should not welcome the "random swings on normal hands" that your weak notrump system creates.

 

- Despite many weak notrumpers' claims to the contrary, sometimes they go for a big number after opening a weak notrump. Sometimes the opponents don't make a game on these hands. Not all players have the emotional makeup to deal with this sort of adversity.

 

- Lightish shapely openings of 1 of a minor are a bad idea when you play a weak notrump system.

 

- More frequent and more difficult "impossible rebid problems" (on 1435 13-count for example) than you have playing a strong notrump system.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Yzerman]

I have read a few times in this post that the problem hand in many cases is the 9 point hand in response to a hand that opens 1 of a minor while playing weak NT. I would like to add a little commentary and an example of a recent problem hand regarding weak NT vs strong NT argument.

 

I have a real life partner that I play 70% of my F2F bridge with in which we converted to weak NT (11-14) about 4-5 years ago. About 10% of the other time I play, is with partners I play some variety of weak NT/KS style with while the other 20% of time is something else. For 4-5 years we have continually refined our structure (both for the 11-14 balanced and 15-17 balanced) to try and optimize results for the MAJORITY of the deals and problem deals. Fred mentioned earlier in this post the overhead associated with playing weak NT and I tend to agree with him with one exception. The exception in my case is that I play SO much 11-14 NT is that its almost second nature for me to the point where I consider it my "standard" approach to the game.

 

The problem that I have frequently encountered playing 11-14 NT in casual and infrequent partnerships is that there is a LOT of room for disaster in some sequences that require some sound agreements and/or very fine judgement (as is the case w/any system). There are inherently some sequences that are VERY awkward and non-standard with weak NT that leave the partnership in some uncomfortable decision making situations.

 

Having said that, my experience has been once you get past the initial discomfort of weak NT/KS, and can develop some sound agreements that are mutually accepted there is a lot of benefit in playing weak NT. My first and foremost argument for weak NT is as follows;

 

"Just by nature of a 15-17 balanced hand vs 11-14 balanced hand, there is MORE to describe. With hands that you are ALLOWED (non-competitevely) to open 1 of a minor and rebid 1NT, as long as you have sound continuations, you are already one step ahead of your competition that is playing 15-17."

 

The largest gain, in my experience, has been avoiding non-playable 3nt's combined with the ability to find nice minor slams, minor games, 4/3 major fits for game/slam, and occasionally playing a 5-2 major fit.

 

Having said all of this, there remains the prototype problem hand for those that advocate weak NT's. The prototype problem hand is the 9 point hand in response to a 1 minor opening. EVERY partner in which I play weak NT, we must devise special methods to account for this hand (some examples of how to cope with below);

 

1C-1D Walsh style (1C-1D-1N-2N)

1C-2D, 1D-3C Criss-Cross

1D-2C with good 9 counts to avoid partner passing 1NT

etc

 

These are all non-standard and require a LOT of discussion and mutual understanding in order to deal with, once again the overhead/baggage theory comes into play.

 

Now for example! In recent regional team event, we had 6 person team. I played in a rotation of 3 players, my regular partner, a VERY skilled and highly respected player, and myself. The pairings of my regular partner/not regular partner and not regular partner/myself were non-established partnerships. But to try and avoid each person remembering different agreements we all discussed and agreed upon a card that we all played (fyi - the card we agreed to play was a streamlined version of what my regular partner/me play, 11-14 NT).

 

One treatment we agreed to play was Criss-Cross (1C-2D, 1D-3C) invites on minor openings. My regular partner and I have the explicit agreement that the criss-cross invite is defined as follows;

 

"Partner, if your opening is a 15-17 NT I want to play 3NT otherwise if you have the weak minor variant I would prefer to play this in your suit at the prescribed level."

 

As the 3 of us discussed this, we forgot to use this exact phrase as what our definition of criss-cross is. So, playing with the 3rd person, I picked up the following hand;

 

Axx

10xx

J9xx

Axx

 

Partner opened 1D, I judged red vs white teams that since partner opened 1D we cant afford to miss 3nt if partner has 15-17 balanced so I bid 3C invite in D (intending the bid to mean as I defined above). Partner, expecting a little better hand, because we did NOT discuss the exact nature of criss-cross, bid past 3nt in which this led to disaster result. I felt extremely guilty for the sake of the team and my partner (as well as the personal emotional overhead associated with the feeling that you let 5 others down) by making this marginal call in the face of a new partnership.

 

In any event, I still remain a strong advocate of weak NT but I also realize that its not something to sit down and play in casual/infrequent partnerships and expect magic to happen!

[MickyB]

- If you play in an area in which the majority of the players use strong notrumps and if you think that you have better bridge skills than the majority of the field, you should not welcome the "random swings on normal hands" that your weak notrump system creates.

 

- Despite many weak notrumpers' claims to the contrary, sometimes they go for a big number after opening a weak notrump. Sometimes the opponents don't make a game on these hands. Not all players have the emotional makeup to deal with this sort of adversity.

 

- Lightish shapely openings of 1 of a minor are a bad idea when you play a weak notrump system.

 

- More frequent and more difficult "impossible rebid problems" (on 1435 13-count for example) than you have playing a strong notrump system.

In response to Fred's points above -

 

1) You need to be a lot better than the field before your chances of winning an event are decreased by playing an anti-field system. If you are slightly above average then by playing with the field you will receive slightly above average results. If you play anti-field, your MP total will be very slightly lower, but the increase in variance is more than worth it.

 

2) Yup, fair enough.

 

3) They reduce one of the benefits of the weak NT, yes. Personally I think opening a minor because you have a bit of shape is wrong - your main aim is 3NT, if the shape isn't going to help that then it shouldn't have much effect on your decision to open.

 

4) Playing strong NT, would you rebid 1NT over 1♠ with your 1435 13 count? Would you expect your peers to do so also?

[fred]

4) Playing strong NT, would you rebid 1NT over 1♠ with your 1435 13 count? Would you expect your peers to do so also?

That's how I would normally handle a such a hand (unless my clubs were exceptionally strong), but for sure there many many players who would usually rebid 2C with that pattern instead. As far as I can tell, rebidding 1NT with a singleton is becoming increasingly acceptable among experts in America, but most Europeans still prefer to rebid their 5-card minors with such hands.

 

The point I was trying to make is that, when you play strong notrump, you have a choice in the matter. When you play weak notrumps you don't.

 

Note there is an analogous problem when you play a strong notrump system - the 1435 16-count, but this problem is much less serious here because a reverse bid of 2H is now a viable (though not necessarily desirable) alternative.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[Guest Jlall]

weak NT in natural system bases are harder to play for sure. I have done this and would not reccomend it unless you are willing to put in alot of work. Playing a strong club system, weak NT is much easier to handle. Even in that context though, I'm a big chicken and only play it 1st/2nd NV :P I will say that in practice a big advantage that comes from weak NT is that even against strong opposition they are not on "home turf." Meaning you see weak NT auctions all the time because you are playing it, but they don't see them as much so are more likely to misjudge. Against weaker opposition, this advantage is astronomical. Same applies to multi in USA.

[junyi_zhu]

4) Playing strong NT, would you rebid 1NT over 1♠ with your 1435 13 count? Would you expect your peers to do so also?

That's how I would normally handle a such a hand (unless my clubs were exceptionally strong), but for sure there many many players who would usually rebid 2C with that pattern instead. As far as I can tell, rebidding 1NT with a singleton is becoming increasingly acceptable among experts in America, but most Europeans still prefer to rebid their 5-card minors with such hands.

 

The point I was trying to make is that, when you play strong notrump, you have a choice in the matter. When you play weak notrumps you don't.

 

Note there is an analogous problem when you play a strong notrump system - the 1435 16-count, but this problem is much less serious here because a reverse bid of 2H is now a viable (though not necessarily desirable) alternative.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

because of two way checkback, I think I'd rebid 1NT with "off shape" hands whenever possible. I guess that's basically the reason why off shape 1NT rebids become more and more popular. Two way checkback is so powerful that off shape 1NT rebids often set up a very good start for bidding successes.

[bestguru]

What do you think about using canape openings with a weak 1nt. That would seem to solve your rebid problems. Your 1435 becomes a 1♥ with a 2♣ response

[MickyB]

4) Playing strong NT, would you rebid 1NT over 1♠ with your 1435 13 count? Would you expect your peers to do so also?

That's how I would normally handle a such a hand (unless my clubs were exceptionally strong), but for sure there many many players who would usually rebid 2C with that pattern instead. As far as I can tell, rebidding 1NT with a singleton is becoming increasingly acceptable among experts in America, but most Europeans still prefer to rebid their 5-card minors with such hands.

Thanks Fred. I guess how often you rebid 1NT with a singleton in partner's suit should tie in quite strongly with how often you raise with a balanced hand with 3 card support, then partner knows whether to rebid their 5 bagger on a weakish hand. I quite liked a hand in the Master Solvers' Club - after 1♦:1♠, the majority decision with a 1453 minimum was to rebid 2♣.

[MickyB]

What do you think about using canape openings with a weak 1nt. That would seem to solve your rebid problems. Your 1435 becomes a 1♥ with a 2♣ response

I'd be amazed if this didn't create more problems than it solves. 1354 after 1♣:1♠?