Upgrade to 1NT, playing 15-17 no special agreements #1

[AreyHakaal]

positively NO. Because there are only 14 HCP and most importantly two suits are WIDE open.One internationally known playing 14-16 NT opened one NT on a similar hand against me in Vulnerable position and played right there going down three for minus 300 when opponents even double dummy could have scored only three of a suit.Clean ZERO.The point is whether you like to preempt opponents or partner by wrong openings.My advice is 'Do Open one NT if playing Precision and then if you are as brilliant as Garozzo or Hamman'

[tfoerster]

No! But change the K of hearts to the K of clubs and I would, since you now have a promising source of tricks.

[gszes]

if the minor suits were reversed rebidding 1n is not overly flexible and

pretending I had 15 might be more palatable. There is no rebid problem here

after the 1c opener with all strains/levels available so why strain to

upgrade?

[Cthulhu D]

This hand has 14.7 Kaplan and Rubens points. For balanced hands, are roughly comparable in number to the 40 hcp per 52 card hand. pluses that make this a very good hand for 14 HCP: Surplus Ace; 3 quick tricks, a surplus of over 1/2 qt from normal 14 hcp hand,86% of high card strength in the 2 long suits, good placement of 9 with j and higher honor. Neutral factor: only slightly greater than average intermediate spot cards for a hand with this many honors. Negative factor: bad 10 placement. Positive factor not measured in Kaplan and Rubens points: majority of cards in majors.

 

Reason for aggressive upgrading: Our side is vulnerable. At IMPS vulnerable we gain 10 imps if game is bid and made and they underbid, and lose only 6 imps if we bid to game, and they bid a trick short and both sides make 8 tricks, From this math at the scoring table all authorities agree that games should be bid more aggressively vulnerable than not. Sorry Ggwhiz, your argument for upgrading more NV for third seat preempting fourth is unsound. Strong NTs are for efficient game bidding, not preemption. Thomas Andrews, a major bridge simulator and the author of the free Bridge dealing program Deal, has derived from simulation that game should be bid on average vulnerable at IMPS with 24 hcp between the side when both partners hold balanced hands; versus the 25 hcp generally held necessary not vulnerable when we want a minimum 50% shot at game.

 

I am my friend Hermann, another fellow simulator, joined me in selecting the upgrade on this hand. It feels much better only being outvoted 13 to 1 rather than 26 to 1.

 

I am glad that none of my fellow BBO forum members upgraded the other 14 HCP hand. It had sterile distribution and few pluses. I think it is only worth 14.0 Kaplan and Rubens points at most. No where near 15.

 

How aggressively does your partner respond to your 1NT openers?

[overruff42]

Would you open this 1NT? No special agreements, 15-17 assumed. Does this fall into a "just bridge judgement 1NT" for you?

 

 

[hv=pc=n&http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?s=SQ87HAK62DT4CAJ92&d=n&v=b&a=PP?]200|300[/hv]

 

I would upgrade if the club nine were the ten, particularly with one partner with whom I play 14.5 to 17. These very close adjustments also need to take into account the form of scoring and (if known to you) the skills and tendencies of the opponents.

[yunling]

A 14.5 hand for me, very close and I will.

[the hog]

A 14.5 hand for me, very close and I will.

 

So you announce that you play a 14-17 NT?

[kenrexford]

So you announce that you play a 14-17 NT?

I find it humorous that many people ask this question in discussions like the current one. The question seems neutral but oozes passive accusation. This is funny to me because of the great love adjusters have for making known their penchant for adjustment. Convention cards all over the world feature"14+" with great pride. And yet, the 14 plussers are often passive-aggressively questioned on whether they are secret about that which they tell everyone about at every opportunity. This, of course, feeds the disclosure preference to extreme levels, where 14.5 replaces 14 plus, perhaps even 14.75 or 14.25 or other insanity. 17 becomes 17 minus, or maybe 17 minus minus. And yet, these nuances only serve to increase the number of accusations, as some 14-card might be 14.22 when 14.34 was the supposed bottom of the range, or arguably 14.22 at least. Oh, then we get to shape. God help us if a person who plays 14.25 to 16.75 happens to have 1435 shape!

[the hog]

"This is funny to me because of the great love adjusters have for making known their penchant for adjustment."

I have not perceived this to be the case at all. Further, how many people state their reasons for adjusting? Some base it on the posession of conjoining honours, others on the posession of a 5 card suit others still on both together. How often is this information divulged?

"Convention cards all over the world feature"14+" with great pride". Can you provide evidence for this assertion please? The card shows 15-17 and hands like the 14 pointer shown are upgraded. In order to answer your rather fatuous post, the 1 point can make a difference to those who count points in defence and try to work out the opponents' possible holdings.

[Charlie06]

*Never lie to your partner* P will count on you for the promised 15 - 17 HCP

[BillPatch]

How aggressively does your partner respond to your 1NT openers?

Directed to me.

I would hope that he would bid here like Kantar, who would invite over a 15-17 NT only with 9 hcp with bal hands, except 8 would suffice with both 4 card majors, or Kleinman, who would require 9 hcp. But I must admit that my partners rarely play as well as these world class players, so I probably should come to an agreement with partner whether the opening notrumper or responder should be more aggressive especially vulnerable. Another Bridge World witness that ordinary 8 hcp responders to 1 NT was Ed Manfield. He used a 15.00 to 17.99 NT, so he would frequently downgrade some 15 hcp hands. Even with this agreement, he showed that responder have at least 8.4 hcp strength to invite in NT not vulnerable, and 8.2 vulnerable at IMPS. Another proponent of 15.00 plus definition for the stronger NT hand was Edgar Kaplan though he normally use this with the weak NT, except he would play the strong NT vulnerable with Norman Kay.

[kenrexford]

"This is funny to me because of the great love adjusters have for making known their penchant for adjustment."

I have not perceived this to be the case at all. Further, how many people state their reasons for adjusting? Some base it on the posession of conjoining honours, others on the posession of a 5 card suit others still on both together. How often is this information divulged?

"Convention cards all over the world feature"14+" with great pride". Can you provide evidence for this assertion please? The card shows 15-17 and hands like the 14 pointer shown are upgraded. In order to answer your rather fatuous post, the 1 point can make a difference to those who count points in defence and try to work out the opponents' possible holdings.

I have tried for an hour, but I still cannot find an app to upload my memory.

[Vampyr]

*Never lie to your partner* P will count on you for the promised 15 - 17 HCP

 

Lying to your partner is not an offence though; lying to your opponents is.

[NickRW]

the 1 point can make a difference to those who count points in defence and try to work out the opponents' possible holdings.

 

Hmm. Some defenders seem to think your point count shown in the bidding is some sort of contract with them that you hold exactly that and never ever use judgement. For example, last night, playing in a partnership where we do not open every last balanced crappy 12 count I passed with a 4333 shape and 4 kings, no spot card higher than a 7. Partner opened, eventually I showed an invite and we staggered into 3NT from my side. When the hand was over, LHO blurted out "but you had 12 points, you can't possibly have held the ♠K, my partner should have had it", and more blah blah on a similar vein. I countered it was a 12 count that was only worth 11 and RHO, to his credit, agreed - which fortunately shut his partner up.

 

But, I am afraid that my unspoken thought to LHO was, 'if you expect opponents to behave like robots, don't be surprised if you've become one yourself". I mean, give us a break.

[TMorris]

But in the case of the original post it is a matter of correctly describing your agreements to your opponents as you are obliged to do. If you regularly open 14 counts 1NT you should say so and both these hands if opened 1NT are IMO clear evidence of that.

[diana_eva]

But in the case of the original post it is a matter of correctly describing your agreements to your opponents as you are obliged to do. If you regularly open 14 counts 1NT you should say so and both these hands if opened 1NT are IMO clear evidence of that.

 

No, the hands were opened at two different tables, by two different players, each playing with a random partner. The post was about hand evaluation, not about disclosure. I just wanted to know how close it is to upgrade, that's all.

[NickRW]

But in the case of the original post it is a matter of correctly describing your agreements to your opponents as you are obliged to do. If you regularly open 14 counts 1NT you should say so and both these hands if opened 1NT are IMO clear evidence of that.

 

I agree that if you upgrade 14 counts with any sort of regularity (say more than 15/20% or so) then your card should say 14+-17 and your announcement should be good 14 to 17 or something similar.

 

Contrawise, if it takes holding something like:

 

Ax

KQx

Txx

AJT9x

 

before you upgrade, then you're doing it so rarely that you're tripping over the foibles of the incurable point counters.

 

Nick