Simple opening bid - part 1 of 2 or 3

[paulg]

Love All, IMPs, 48-board knockout match

[hv=pc=n&s=sahk64dq654cak752]200|150[/hv]

Playing standard methods with a strong no-trump, what do you open? Your methods are such that a reverse is not game forcing, with 1♣-1♠-2♦-2♥ being Lebensohl for weak, misfitting hands. Whether this hand is worth a reverse, even with these methods, is up to you.

 

If you open one club or one diamond, what is your planned rebid over the likely one spade response?

 

This is a familiar problem, but there are a number of questions I want to ask about the auction as it develops so will try to set them in the context of the majority.

[helene_t]

1nt. With a stiff ace this is not a problem

[billw55]

I think I would rather lie about one or two high card points than distribution. So I will open 1♣ and reverse 2♦.

[Zelandakh]

The reverse seems clear to me. If we put partner on that weak hand with long spades they are just going to transfer to 2♠ over 1NT so we did not gain anything. Meanwhile partner might be able to find a better part score with that hand with a little more information about our shape. And if partner has a stronger hand we are much better placed having shown our suits.

[the_clown]

For me this is clearly not strong enough for reverse. And neither 1♣ -2♣, nor 1♦-2♣ is better than 1N. So 1N it is.

[mikeh]

Nothing fits well, which is why it is a problem hand for standard.

 

I choose the popular 1N on the grounds that it represents the closest approximation to my hand.

 

I won't make a minimum reverse into a Qxxx suit. Unless one has no choice, imo one's second suit should have some texture. Partners tend to get excited when holding, say, opening values with K10xx or A9xx in one's second suit, once one reverses, and this wouldn't be a good thing here.

 

Even I won't be comfortable opening and rebidding clubs, even tho for me a 2♣ rebid doesn't promise more than 5 cards in the suit. The rebid is usually 6, and usually less than this strong, so while neither the suit length nor the hand strength are 'out of range', I think the combination of them would be difficult to deal with and thus more misleading than the simple 1 card distortion of 1N.

 

Thank you for not making this x AKx Qxxx AKxxx, since I wouldn't open that 1N.

[aguahombre]

And, if partner transfers to Spades, I bid Spades.

[Zelandakh]

Nothing fits well, which is why it is a problem hand for standard.

You play strong reverses by choice though Mike. Would you still consider it a problem hand for the light reversing style? My understanding of the OP is that lighter reverses are in play.

[helene_t]

I don't really understand this distinction between light and strong reverses. OK, in Dutch Doubleton a reverse is GF and in Precision you barely need extra honour strength, and in a weak NT system you can put the marginal reverses into the 1NT rebid if you want. But in standard methods, isn't it so that a reverse is forcing to 3-of-whatever opposite a minimum (5 HCP misfitting) response and hence forcing to game opposite a responder who just has a little bit extras? I can understand that some people decide to reverse with a modest 16-count because they consider the alternative to be worse. But surely nobody can be happy about it?

 

This hand is not a terrible 16-count. But it is an absolutely minimum both in HCPs and in shape, and there are no intermediates. I don't think reversing is criminal. But I am quite happy about 1NT. After a texax transfer to spades we are probably in the right contract.

[paulg]

I think the distinction between the reverses is small, but perhaps this hand or even more Mike's x AKx Qxxx AKxxx is an example of a light reverse that would not be made in standard. In essence it is not game forcing opposite a normal 6 HCP opposite.

[paulg]

At the table I chose 1♣. I did strongly consider one no-trump but it's not really my style even with a singleton ace and these days I have the attitude that the worst will not necessarily happen in the auction.

 

The follow up question can be seen here.

[Zelandakh]

I don't really understand this distinction between light and strong reverses.

I think the distinction is really quite important, especially given the limited bidding space available. When I look at Mike's examples they are generally what I would think of as 18 counts including upgrades. Coming from an Acol background the norm for a reverse is for me a 16 count and you often enough see the Brits willing to reverse on good 15 counts here. And these decisions have knock-on effects for the 1X - 1Y; 2X and 3X rebids.

 

In addition, for this sequence (1♣ - 1M; 2♦) it is not uncommon to use 2♦ conventionally, including some additional hands beyond the normal reverse, since the extra space makes this an appealing solution. So this is also the sequence where reversing light seems to me to have the most going for it when 2♦ is strictly natural. So I think style is really a major factor and my impression is that it is often the deciding factor in many of these threads on BBF.

[kenrexford]

I am a 1NT bidder here. As a possible related aside, however, I would open 1C with the same hand but 3145 pattern, planning a delayed canapé sequence. Same if 1453.

[mikeh]

You play strong reverses by choice though Mike. Would you still consider it a problem hand for the light reversing style? My understanding of the OP is that lighter reverses are in play.

Part of the problem of putting one's thoughts into writing is that, on occasion, they will become almost permanent. I didn't write my post on reverses intending that it would be pinned. I wrote it in March 2007!

 

I have played and thought about this game for more than 40 years now, and my approach has rarely stayed exactly the same for any great stretch of time. Thus I now reverse somewhat lighter than I did at the time of my reverse primer post.

 

I am still not what one might call a 'light' reverser, but I am definitely more flexible than I used to be.

 

Having said that, I really believe, strongly, that hand pattern and, critically, honour location are factors that don't get the attention, from most players, that they deserve.

 

A stiff Ace is NOT a desirable feature.

 

I cited x AKx Qxxx AKxxx as a more problematic hand than the actual hand, but that was only because I can open 1N with the stiff Ace without feeling that I have made a huge distortion. The second hand, with x AKx in the majors, is actually a stronger hand than the OP, because of the honour location. However, opposite a 1♠ response, I really don't feel that the hand and the suit textures are quite good enough to reverse, even with the lighter approach I now use. Make it x AKx Q10xx AK108x and I would probably hold my nose and reverse, hating it all the way.

 

Take away those spots, and I feel that 1♣ then 2♣ is the least distortion available.

[rhm]

I think the distinction is really quite important, especially given the limited bidding space available. When I look at Mike's examples they are generally what I would think of as 18 counts including upgrades. Coming from an Acol background the norm for a reverse is for me a 16 count and you often enough see the Brits willing to reverse on good 15 counts here. And these decisions have knock-on effects for the 1X - 1Y; 2X and 3X rebids.

 

In addition, for this sequence (1♣ - 1M; 2♦) it is not uncommon to use 2♦ conventionally, including some additional hands beyond the normal reverse, since the extra space makes this an appealing solution. So this is also the sequence where reversing light seems to me to have the most going for it when 2♦ is strictly natural. So I think style is really a major factor and my impression is that it is often the deciding factor in many of these threads on BBF.

Part of the problem of putting one's thoughts into writing is that, on occasion, they will become almost permanent. I didn't write my post on reverses intending that it would be pinned. I wrote it in March 2007!

 

I have played and thought about this game for more than 40 years now, and my approach has rarely stayed exactly the same for any great stretch of time. Thus I now reverse somewhat lighter than I did at the time of my reverse primer post.

 

I am still not what one might call a 'light' reverser, but I am definitely more flexible than I used to be.

 

Having said that, I really believe, strongly, that hand pattern and, critically, honour location are factors that don't get the attention, from most players, that they deserve.

 

A stiff Ace is NOT a desirable feature.

 

I cited x AKx Qxxx AKxxx as a more problematic hand than the actual hand, but that was only because I can open 1N with the stiff Ace without feeling that I have made a huge distortion. The second hand, with x AKx in the majors, is actually a stronger hand than the OP, because of the honour location. However, opposite a 1♠ response, I really don't feel that the hand and the suit textures are quite good enough to reverse, even with the lighter approach I now use. Make it x AKx Q10xx AK108x and I would probably hold my nose and reverse, hating it all the way.

 

Take away those spots, and I feel that 1♣ then 2♣ is the least distortion available.

I think modern standard natural bidding is simply flawed.

Why should a reverse require more strength in high card values than a strong notrump opening?

Sure that is convenient when you do have these values, but the truth is it simply leaves a big hole in your system, because such hands are quite frequent.

I would switch immediately to 16-18 notrump openings if balanced hands with 15 HCP would never occur.

Why people have lowered their strong notrump ranges but at the same time tightened the requirements for reverses escapes me.

Sure reversing the order of your suit bids require some extra strength and the reverse should be forcing in case opener has more values, but there is plenty of bidding room left to sort things out if opener has at least 15 HCP.

Some require more strength for a reverse than for a jump rebid of your opened suit, even though a reverse obviously consumes less bidding space.

Whatever the minimum strength of the reverse is, few play it as game forcing. So you will require methods thereafter to stop below game anyway.

 

This is much more a futile exercise in current bidding orthodoxy than in anything else.

I have never ever heard convincing arguments why the minimum values for a reverse has to be higher than the minimum values for a strong notrump.

The current requirements for a reverse seems to me an accepted dogma with a dubious rationale.

 

Of course I am not claiming that I resolve all problems by lowering the strength requirements of a reverse.

But I think the whole current concept of reverse is seriously flawed.

Modern bidding theorists usually agree on the principle that shape should come before strength.

Even without sophisticated methods I would rather show my shape and risk the very occasional condition getting too high than distorting my shape.

But if you simply align your minimum HCP requirement for your reverse to that of your strong notrump opening these problems disappear.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[helene_t]

Coming from an Acol background the norm for a reverse is for me a 16 count and you often enough see the Brits willing to reverse on good 15 counts here.

Obv it makes some sense that rebidding the opening suit is 10-14 when responder has promised a decent 6-count and 12-16 when responder has promised a decent 4-count.

 

But in a way it is paradoxal. Playing a weak NT should allow the 1NT rebid to cover a lot of ground. I think that with a 1(43)5 you could rebid 1NT with as much as 17 points, thereby making the reverses sounder in Acol than in SA.

[Zelandakh]

I have never ever heard convincing arguments why the minimum values for a reverse should be higher than the minimum values for a strong notrump.

The original rationale is that a weak responding hand is 6-9 so 16-18 was regarded as invitational. Hence 16+ is the strong rebid range. As far as I know the same logic is used here in Acol, SA, SEF, Forum D, etc. As I understand it, what happened is that a system in which the minimum for a reverse went up became popular and others started to adopt this, leading to the "strong reverse" camp. I agree that I have never heard convincing arguments for that approach but it cannot be bad if Mike was convinced by it (even if not any more). So the fundamental basis is that the hand be worth an invite, irrespective of the NT range. Can you think of any convincing counter-arguments why using the minimum for a strong NT (whatever that NT range might be) as the minimum reversing strength should be more important?

[PhilKing]

You can solve the problem of reverses almost entirely with transfers.

 

After 1♣-1♥(spades)-1♠ can be played as forcing, including all hands with 4♦5♣. This in turn frees up 2♦ to show a heart reverse and 2♥ to show a spade raise, making both way more efficient.

 

Come to think of it, you solve all the frequently quoted death hands. B-)

[Zelandakh]

You can solve the problem of reverses almost entirely with transfers.

You can also "solve" them using limited openings - you still have to decide whether a given hand is worth an invite or not.

[PhilKing]

You can also "solve" them using limited openings - you still have to decide whether a given hand is worth an invite or not.

 

I don't think that follows. For instance, on this hand, many strong clubbers would open a 14-16 NT, since the alternatives of opening 1♣ and rebidding two (or opening 1♦) are even more flawed.

 

The transfer approach give much greater depth - on this type you may get to show 45 with 15 to a bad 17 on the third round and still stop in 2♣, so partner's decision whether to invite over that will be trivial.

[rhm]

Can you think of any convincing counter-arguments why using the minimum for a strong NT (whatever that NT range might be) as the minimum reversing strength should be more important?

Well I do not have a rebid problem when holding strong notrump values with the shape for a reverse, the whole point why this threat was opened in the first place.

Opening such hands with 1NT or opening 1♦ and rebidding 2♣ or opening 1♣ and rebidding 2♣ is obviously seriously flawed.

 

If I have weak notrump values I will open 1♣ and rebid 1NT with a singleton spade.

If I have 5♣-4♦-1♥-3♠ and weak notrump values I open 1♣ and rebid 1♠ over 1♥ and this has shown a profit over the years even though partner assumes I have 4 cards in spades.

 

Also reversing with say 15 HCP shows more advantages than disadvantages in my experience.

Opening requirements have come down for distributional hands.

I try to avoid making the same rebid with hands, which might be at least one ace apart, about 1.5 tricks in the play.

If I bid 1♣ followed by 2♣ I tend to have a six card suit and if I bid 1♦ followed by 2♣ I have distributional hand with at least 5 diamonds and 4 clubs.

Making the same non forcing rebid with 11 HCP or less and with 15 HCP and distorting your distribution at the same time is anything but ideal.

It is the mark of a flawed system.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Zelandakh]

I don't think that follows. For instance, on this hand, many strong clubbers would open a 14-16 NT, since the alternatives of opening 1♣ and rebidding two (or opening 1♦) are even more flawed.

 

The transfer approach give much greater depth - on this type you may get to show 45 with 15 to a bad 17 on the third round and still stop in 2♣, so partner's decision whether to invite over that will be trivial.

There are many different ways of playing limited openings. So for me a normal reverse shows ~16-17 hcp and is specifically an invitational hand. That makes it really easy for responder (who has by this stage already shown a weak hand) and an ideal auction for using transfers on Responder's rebid.

 

Similarly, 1♣ - 1♦; 2♣ shows precisely 15-17, which does not strike me as such a bad description. That is obviously not as good as being able to show 4 spades along the way but it is a reasonable compromise against gains elsewhere.

 

 

Also reversing with say 15 HCP shows more advantages than disadvantages in my experience.

This seems to be the only direct argument for a lower limit of 15 rather than 16 and it carries about as much weight as "Reversing with 16hcp shows more diadvantages than advantages in my experience."

 

Of course you also write:

Making the same non forcing rebid with 11 HCP or less and with 15 HCP and distorting your distribution at the same time is anything but ideal.

It is the mark of a flawed system.

But one could just as easily say that forcing the bidding to the 3 level without a fit and without even having enough to invite game is the mark of a flawed system. Basically what we are weighing up here is how often we miss a 15-9 game versus how often we miss a 16-8 game or get overboard. There are some other small factors around the edges but these strike me as the ones that are going to have the largest impact on expected score.

[PhilKing]

FWIW there is a workaround that is "superior" to modified blackout that makes light 2♦ reverses viable. It allows responder 3 ranges rather than the usual 2 at the cost of an immediate spade rebid. After (say) 1♣-1♠-2♦:

 

2♥ artificial - in principle a weak hand with at most six points (plus a few COG hands). Note that the bidding can stop in 2♠ and 2NT

 

2♠ artificial - specifically an invitational hand (circa 7 to a bad 9)

 

2NT - nat, misfitting bad hand, promises 5♠

 

3♣+ GF

[whereagles]

Open 1C, reverse afterwards. Really a no-brainer to me, because I'm a systemic guy.

[mikeh]

I think modern standard natural bidding is simply flawed.

Why should a reverse require more strength in high card values than a strong notrump opening?

Sure that is convenient when you do have these values, but the truth is it simply leaves a big hole in your system, because such hands are quite frequent.

I would switch immediately to 16-18 notrump openings if balanced hands with 15 HCP would never occur.

Why people have lowered their strong notrump ranges but at the same time tightened the requirements for reverses escapes me.

Sure reversing the order of your suit bids require some extra strength and the reverse should be forcing in case opener has more values, but there is plenty of bidding room left to sort things out if opener has at least 15 HCP.

Some require more strength for a reverse than for a jump rebid of your opened suit, even though a reverse obviously consumes less bidding space.

Whatever the minimum strength of the reverse is, few play it as game forcing. So you will require methods thereafter to stop below game anyway.

 

This is much more a futile exercise in current bidding orthodoxy than in anything else.

I have never ever heard convincing arguments why the minimum values for a reverse has to be higher than the minimum values for a strong notrump.

The current requirements for a reverse seems to me an accepted dogma with a dubious rationale.

 

Of course I am not claiming that I resolve all problems by lowering the strength requirements of a reverse.

But I think the whole current concept of reverse is seriously flawed.

Modern bidding theorists usually agree on the principle that shape should come before strength.

Even without sophisticated methods I would rather show my shape and risk the very occasional condition getting too high than distorting my shape.

But if you simply align your minimum HCP requirement for your reverse to that of your strong notrump opening these problems disappear.

 

Rainer Herrmann

 

 

This is a complex topic, and not one that I think can be adequately addressed in this format.

 

To me, as I adverted to in another current thread, I think that a very important part of system design, especially in a method that uses very wide range 1-level openings, is to begin strength differentiation as early as possible. I suspect you agree.

 

That factor doesn't in itself help much with the question of reverses and where they start, provided that one has 'some' strength dividing line. For you that line would be lower than for me.

 

However, the lower the line for the first 'cut', the wider is the range contained in the reverse hand.

 

If you drew the line at 14...(almost) all hands with 15 start with 1N, if balanced, and with a reverse if unbalanced (and a 1-level bid isn't available)...then your reverse hands have a huge range....15-21 or so.

 

That in turn means that responder has to find out more strength information on a wide range of hands.

 

Indeed, on weak misfitting hands he can't pass since opener might hold 20 or so and have game on sheer power, but when opener has the far more common 15 or 16 count, there is no safety at 2N or higher. I think that issue is a huge negative for very weak reverses.

 

Note that this doesn't make it silly to reverse on some 15 counts. AQx KQxx Axxxx x, 1♦1♠ now of course many would want to reverse but apart from rare walruses amongst us, this hand is no 15 count anymore. x KQxx Axxxx AQx is another story altogether.

 

The idea of reversing on the latter hand opposite KJxxx xxx Qx xxx makes me ill. And responder could have a less suitable hand.

 

It's not just or even mostly about the weak hands for responder. One benefit from strong(ish) reverses is that responder is in an excellent position to gauge the chances for game and slam at a low level.

 

With a wide range reverse, both players have to focus on using the next round of bidding as strength defining rather than, as for stronger reverses, more subtle assessments/descriptions of degree of fit.

 

Obviously when one has a narrow range for the reverse hand, one increases the range for the non-reverses, and this is a problem. Wide range reverses have better definition on their non-reverse auctions, and one might think that this offsets the cost on the reverse hands.

 

However, this isn't so imo, at least not fully. Reverses consume bidding space. Non-reverses conserve bidding space. We use bidding space to exchange information, so conserved sequences are inherently more efficient. One should try to put more sequences into conserved auctions than into space-consuming auctions. Sequences that consume space should be relatively tightly defined.

 

No matter where one draws the line, btw, there will always be hands that are going to be guesses. My belief is that in the long run, if one accepts that the number of game misses, due to range issues, is the same regardless of where the lines are drawn, then there is a benefit to the strong, narrower range type of reverse over the almost anything goes school in that the latter will go down at the 3-level, when responder has to cater to the very wide range reverse, while in the former, responder can allow the auction to end at the 2 or even 1 level.

 

I think there is a lot more that could be said on these issues. Everything is a tradeoff or compromise of some kind. The very strong reverse school to which I used to belong allowed for some truly easy and effective game and (especially) slam bidding when one knew what one was doing. This was because responder could very early on decide that slam was in the picture and could start with slam tries at a low level, and opener, having already shown lots of values, wouldn't be worrying about limiting his hand at his next turn.

 

The problem with the very strong reverse school is, imo now, that it left the non-reverse hand as too widely constrained.....it created too many missed games when responder swung low with an 8 or 9 count, and got too high when responder was aggressive.

 

Balancing these issues out requires an assessment of where the optimum dividing line should be. I personally don't find that reference to a notrump range is at all useful. Notrump hands are narrowly constrained as to shape as well as strength, and (ignoring transfers for the moment) the bidding structures used over 1N are fundamentally different, and have different objectives, than the methods used over a 1m opening. I think it flat out wrong to apply ideas from notrump bidding to suit bidding, at least in the early rounds.

 

To me, as I currently see things, the dividing line for reverses is more of a blur than a sharp line. Wonderful 15 counts, with 3 card support for partner, can reverse...personally, for me it would be a terrific 15 count. Misfitting 16's....not so much.

 

At the end of the day, what matters most is that partner knows what to expect and that the pair have very good methods over the reverse hand. I think one would find that the lighter the reverse, the less effective those methods will be and the question becomes at what point does this growing inefficiency become too problematic. Every partnership has to answer that for themselves, but to do so intelligently, they need to be aware of all of the relevant factors, which include non-reverse hands just as much as they include reverse hands. I am not pretending that I have covered all of the factors in this post.