Should I ditch weak nt, or simply improve hand evaluation?

[jillybean]

I've been playing 12-14nt for a while, and love it. Occasionally we get a bottom board where other pairs have opened a 15-17 nt, other times the 12-14 nt is a winner.

I haven't collected statistics but I generally feel we are not disadvantaged playing 12-14nt.

I think I need some guidance in tweaking the weak nt and understanding to what is "using my judgement" vs "anti-partnership", master minding.

 

 

Case 1, If I open a 3325 12 count and partner responds 2C (non forcing stayman, maximum partner can have is an invitational hand) I sometimes pass 2C. Masterminding?

 

Case 2, A hand today. Partner took my rebid, 1nt would have shown this 15-17 count

 

 

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[Stephen Tu]

case 1. I think passing stayman is terrible. If you are using 2-way stayman, as you seem to imply, partner is going to have a lot of inv 5 card major hands in their range, and you have support for both. Plus partner won't be happy playing a 5-1 or 5-0 when they staymaned with 3451 or 4450, and you had a 5-2 fit available in diamonds. Plus if 2c is forcing you can plug potential holes in your system when not playing transfers, like having a way to show 5-5 inv/forcing major hands over 1nt-2c-2d.

 

case 2. IMO it's best to play 1nt the K-S way, limit to 5-8 so opener can pass comfortably with the entire str NT range. With 9+ bid inverted minor, or 1d-2c not GF if playing that, perhaps a light 2nt response if playing that as not GF, or play some artificial JS 1d-2H or something to take care of such hands. You stay comfortably low with 5-8, you probably play 15 opposite 9 in 3nt which is less than ideal but will make some of the time.

[pigpenz]

I played 10-13 1NT for about 25 yrs, just come to terms with your partner.

you may pass last hand and opps may balance, so many different things happen

with these hands....whats your 1NT bid over 1♦?

 

Put in lead captain bidding desiscions, made 1000 hands

with your hands as south and constraints on north.

if you can bypass 4 card major that changes things too.

2-3♠

2-3♥

2-5♦

2-6♣

6-10hcp

 

no bidding by opps

 

1NT makes 85.9%

2nt makes 59.3%

3NT makes 24.4%

 

Also what does 2NT show over 1♦ 10-12 or 11-12

[mikeh]

Since you say that 2C is non forcing stayman, I infer that you play 2D as game force….and don’t play transfers.

 

If so, you should NEVER pass 2C. Partner could easily hold a 5 card major…depending on system he could be 5-5 in the majors. In my weak notrump partnerships I sometimes (depends on who I’m playing with) play 1N 3M as ‘to play’…6+ less than invitational (could be Jxxxxxx or KQ10xxx…up to a 9 count….putting pressure on the opps) so we could have a 9 card major fit.

 

So just how bad a pass is depends on system, but playing, say, a 5-1 club fit instead of an 8 or 9 card major won’t usually generate good scores whether at imps or mps

 

If you play transfers, then it’s less likely to be disastrous quite as often, but it will be a crap shoot and demoralizing to partner.

 

The second hand is a problem with the weak notrump.

 

It’s not as bad over 1C if you play, as is common, that 1C 1N is 8-10 because with 16 you raise…and can decide what to do with 15 depending on what the 15 looks like, and whether you are vulnerable at imps (stretch to bid) or any vulnerability at mps (pass is more tempting since 2N down 1 opposite a mediocre 8 count won’t score well)

 

But over 1D, 1N is typically wide range…6-10 is common.

 

I’d pass with 15. So you miss a game which may or may not be good or bid….if he has 9, most pairs invite over 15-17 and won’t bid game anyway since this is a minimum 1N. Meanwhile, if he has 6-7 2N may have very little play. Plus…when her range is 6-10, a good 8 count will accept and flat 15 opposite even a nice flat 8 usually won’t make 3N.

 

Hope this helps.

 

I think you can see that basically my advice is to accept that the weak notrump sometimes leads to bad results….if you play it, it’s not because it’s perfect but because it also leads to some good results. Trying to avoid the inevitable and unavoidable occasional bad result by masterminding is imo extremely I’ll advised. Not only will you often turn what was actually going to be an ok result into a bad one but, and I can’t stress this enough, you’re placing a lot of stress on partner (plus you begin to have ethical issues if you’re not alerting)

[thepossum]

I learned to play with a 12-14 Acol (occasionally variable). Most recently been playing 15-17 (5 card majors) but find it terribly restrictive. Occasionally still play 12-14 if partner likes. I think I prefer a variable approach and would tend to err on reducing the ranges by a point or so if possible (oops occasionally) :) Does anyone play 12/13-15 or anything like that

[Cyberyeti]

If your partner has enough to make game good on the second one, he shouldn't be bidding 1N. Weak NT and 2/1 GF is problematic, as long as you 2/1 on 10 or decent 9 you don't have this issue.

 

On the first, you might get a minor win when partner was passing 2♦ with a 4441/(43)42 pile, but you will lose a lot as others have pointed out.

[P_Marlowe]

#2 You have 15HCP, partner has at most 10HCP, pass, sure you could have 25HCP, but this is at best.

Partner should also not have a 4 card diamond suit, maybe 4333, so you may miss game, but rarely.

 

#1 Partner could be 5-4 in the majors?

[thepossum]

#2 You have 15HCP, partner has at most 10HCP, pass, sure you could have 25HCP, but this is at best.

Partner should also not have a 4 card diamond suit, maybe 4333, so you may miss game, but rarely.

 

why not 2NT invite? then responder passes with their minimum. I work on 24-25 for game :) - I am confused by the hand example though. Could not 1NT be 6-9? Maybe I am mixing up my weak and strong NT ranges. I always have to backward engineer my bids

[Tramticket]

#1 I don't play 2-way Stayman and passing 2C doesn't seem a good advert for the method.

 

#2 The range for a 1NT response needs to be narrow, else you will have a rebid problem. Stephen suggests 5-8. In Acol it is 6-9 but any wider range is problematic. This means that a weak NT doesn't work well with a game-forcing response at the two level, because 1NT is needed as a catch-all response for all hands with less than game-forcing values. You ask whether to ditch the weak NT. My advice is to ditch the 2-over1 game-forcing responses.

[Cyberyeti]

why not 2NT invite? then responder passes with their minimum. I work on 24-25 for game :) - I am confused by the hand example though. Could not 1NT be 6-9? Maybe I am mixing up my weak and strong NT ranges. I always have to backward engineer my bids

 

Because 2N opposite 5-6 probably won't play very well, also partner doesn't know whether to raise on 7-8.

 

Acol says you pass 1N with 15-16 and depending on what you respond on, raise to 2N on say 17-bad 18. Modern Acol you 2/1 on 9 with a 5 card suit or 10 so you can GF with 15-16 opposite that.

[DavidKok]

I agree with all the mentions that passing 2♣ is not a good idea.

 

I disagree with the comments that 1NT needs to be a lower or smaller range, or that 2/1 and weak NT do not work well. When I (briefly) played 12-14 NT we agreed to open all strong NT without a 5-card suit in a major or diamonds with 1♣ - 'unbalanced diamond, balanced clubs' style. You can move specific hand types around (such as 5♦332) but the main idea is to open 1♣ almost all the time with a strong NT. Partner will strain to not bid 1NT opposite that, sometimes even bidding a 3-card diamond suit (alertable). This gives more than enough room to sort out major suit fits as well as combined strength, and has the side benefits of right-siding 3NT and cleaning up the auction 1♦-2♣.

 

The truth is I was playing this clubs-diamonds style already in a strong NT system, and it seems to be even better when playing weak NT. You can optionally introduce more sophisticated systems like Transfer Walsh or Dutch Doubleton or Polish over this 1♣, but just agreeing to bid 1♦ sometimes on a three-card suit solves almost all issues.

[helene_t]

As for hand 2, you would like to pass with 15-16, maybe even with 17, but it does raise the question what responder is going to do with 9-10 points. For a direct 2NT you would like to have 11 points, and responding 2♣ with 9 points is also not ideals since it will require 2♣ to be very-much-not-GF, i.e. probably not even promising a rebid.

 

Putting all the 15-19 balanced hands in the 1♣ opening solves this problem. You still have the issue of what to rebid with a 4441 16-count but you have that probably in every system.

 

You might also consider player a raise to 2♦ as something like 8-11 with possibly as little as two diamonds - but it is not something I made up myself, I haven't actually seen it being played.

[Douglas43]

Hand 1: Yes, you are masterminding. Sometimes it will work, but personally I wouldn't do it.

 

Hand 2: Lots of good points made about the range of a 1NT response. Playing Acol where 1NT response shows 6-9, the hand is an easy pass. Over a 2♣ response (good 9 hcp upwards) it's a 2NT rebid (game forcing).

 

I play 2NT over 1D as Jacoby - possibly a minority taste!

[Cyberyeti]

I play 2NT over 1D as Jacoby - possibly a minority taste!

 

We play 2♦ inverted 9+ with 5, 10+ with 4 same as any other 2/1, 2N/3♦ as weaker than that (splitting the range), usually with 5 diamonds but sometimes 4♦/5♣(31).

[mycroft]

Like many, I would recommend looking at the KSU responses to 1♦ (B-18 and following).

 

Like Mike's explanation, I don't play this (but am looking into it, mostly this is reluctance to/no time to practise change). I do the 1♣-sound 1NT and flail with 1♦-1NT instead.

 

But (and some of this has been said by others, too):

• There are hands that are bad for any system. This is one of the ugly ones for 12-14 1NT.
  
• Playing an anti-field system will get you to all-or-nothing contracts, and to all-or-nothing decisions that the field doesn't have. If you're not comfortable with that, and willing to eat the "nothing" when it happens, play the field system (knowing the costs that entails).
  
• 1NT isn't the all - you have to decide whether the change to the rest of the system is worth the benefits from changing 1NT. Yes, this is an ugly auction for K/S people - no matter what your responses are (1♦-2♣ bid "on the same hands as 1♣-1♦" has its own, obvious, problems, to gain "1NT denies game interest opposite BAL 17"). There are other ugly auctions for K/S. But the rest of the time, when you open 1m, you're breaking even or ahead; when you open 1NT in field "1m-(1M)" auctions, you're ahead; when you play 1NT-AP vs 1m-1NT-AP, you're ahead (unless the person that knows what suit to lead is on lead by sheer luck).

 

It's interesting to see, though, that it's not the "1NT is already too high" problem - the one that all the "normal players" scare people with - that is the concern. It's the auctions that actually are bad, and actually come up. Good to see, and good to have another data point to add to my collection. But when you play K/S - any anti-field system, frankly, but K/S in particular, because the "differences" are "all 12-17 BAL opening hands", and that's a pretty wide slice - in North America, you are committing to getting some system tops and some system bottoms right out of the gate. Sure, try to take advantage of the tops and minimize the frequency of the bottoms, but you won't eliminate them, no matter how good a player you are. If you can't live with that, *that is the time* to give up the weak NT. Not when you notice "an impossible situation".

[P_Marlowe]

why not 2NT invite? then responder passes with their minimum. I work on 24-25 for game :) - I am confused by the hand example though. Could not 1NT be 6-9? Maybe I am mixing up my weak and strong NT ranges. I always have to backward engineer my bids

24-25HCP give you a statistical chance of 40% for making 3NT.

Now, how often will 1NT contain a max., how often you will go down.

If you go down twice than you are making, it is at best wash, actually it is - EV.

Game can be made on less, but you need compensation, if you bid those games, you hope

partner is not dead min, and if he is, this is not the end of the world.

Here you need partner to have max.

Besides, lots of weak NT player, like to upgrade good 14 counts, this means your expectations

of having 23+ HCP goes down.

 

But in the end, if you care more about NOT missing a game, go ahead.

With kind regards

Marlowe

[jillybean]

Thanks everyone.

 

I have dropped partner in 2♣ a few times, with perhaps unfortunately, good results. I know this is not a good reason to do it, I will stop fooling around with it.

 

We play

1♣ : 1nt 8-9 (bad 10)

1♦ : 1nt 6-9 (bad 10)

1m - 2nt 10-11

 

I'm not ready to give up 12-14nt, I've got to learn to smile and shrug at the missed games.

 

 

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[sfi]

The only time I've played 12-14 NT seriously was in a Precision(ish) system, where 1D was either diamonds or a strong NT. We would bid 1H/S on a three-card suit with those hands that would invite over a strong NT. Our worst case scenario was where partner had an unbalanced hand with diamonds and the major, where we could wind up in 3M after the response. Not sure it's all that theoretically sound but it worked for us.

 

It really looks like you should be able to bid 2C on the hand you gave above. I have doubts about whether it's workable to keep 1D-2C as game-forcing when playing a weak NT, even if you're playing 2/1 game forcing after a 1M opening.

[mycroft]

I can see your problem - in fact as I said, I agree with it. But:

1. If two aces and a source of tricks with good intermediates is a *bad* 10, I don't know what a good one is. Note that I wouldn't normally call queen-fifth a "source of tricks", because you both have to set them up and be able to run them. However, "two aces"...
   
2. One of my lines is "I don't *want to be* in 24 point games, but I'll happily be there if the alternative is missing 26-pointers". It's bad enough with 6-9; but strong NT + 10 count is *game*, and making a bid that could easily be the last making spot (or the field contract, in case it is the last making spot) but could also be a game force is too dangerous even for me.

Yes, partner could be on 13-and-6-diamonds; partner could have a misfit. But when they open 1♣ or 1♦, assume they have a strong NT or equivalent playing strength (if you find a fit). Playing strong NT, South has an auto-3NT. Therefore, playing a weak NT, you can't make a bid partner will pass with 15 balanced. If your system won't let you, change the system.

 

KSU this is an auto-2♣ (in fact, could be a fair bit weaker than this!); as I said, I don't truly understand how to deal with that auction, so I would bid 2NT and hope. For us it's also 10-12ish "Invitational", but both pairs know that it's "never" passed, and certainly never with a strong NT.

[jillybean]

 

If two aces and a source of tricks with good intermediates is a *bad* 10, I don't know what a good one is.

If I held it, it's a good 10 :). 5+5+QT98x

[Douglas43]

If I held it, it's a good 10 :). 5+5+QT98x

 

That's a 2♣ response for me too. Even with the "bad 10" agreement. Either opener has 5+ diamonds, in which case you can pass a 2♦ rebid, or 15+ points. I'd suggest drop the "bad 10".

[mikeh]

The only time I've played 12-14 NT seriously was in a Precision(ish) system, where 1D was either diamonds or a strong NT. We would bid 1H/S on a three-card suit with those hands that would invite over a strong NT. Our worst case scenario was where partner had an unbalanced hand with diamonds and the major, where we could wind up in 3M after the response. Not sure it's all that theoretically sound but it worked for us.

 

It really looks like you should be able to bid 2C on the hand you gave above. I have doubts about whether it's workable to keep 1D-2C as game-forcing when playing a weak NT, even if you're playing 2/1 game forcing after a 1M opening.

One solution, perhaps unsuitable for this part of the fora, is to open 1C with all balanced hands lacking 5 diamonds and out of range for 1N

 

That’s the style I play in my most detailed partnership. Now responder can raise to 2C, if playing inverted, and opener has an easy 2N, showing a strong notrump.

 

Sounds complicated, I know. But every bidding method has hands with which it struggles….the reason most expert pairs play very complex methods is that the complexity allows them to reduce the number of ‘unbiddable’ hands.

 

The more (coherent) agreements one has, the fewer gaps there are.

 

But if it’s unrealistic to play such methods (and it is for the vast majority of players) then one has to accept the occasional bad result. While playing 1D 2C as not gf is doable (heck it used to be standard and still is in some parts of the world), that causes different but arguably worse problems.

[thepossum]

24-25HCP give you a statistical chance of 40% for making 3NT.

Now, how often will 1NT contain a max., how often you will go down.

If you go down twice than you are making, it is at best wash, actually it is - EV.

Game can be made on less, but you need compensation, if you bid those games, you hope

partner is not dead min, and if he is, this is not the end of the world.

Here you need partner to have max.

Besides, lots of weak NT player, like to upgrade good 14 counts, this means your expectations

of having 23+ HCP goes down.

 

But in the end, if you care more about NOT missing a game, go ahead.

With kind regards

Marlowe

 

EDIT Before reading the rest I did say to invite with 2NT and give responder the option - I accept it should be with max rather than passing with min. Depends on what point ranges they work on. I accept maybe you picked up on possible 23+ but I work on 24+ (9 or 10 pts) :)

 

I don't miss many (in the sense of bidding them accurately) -if anything I find I err on the conservative side and miss some makeable ones:) - but its not just the individual performance - its all about comparison with others _ tend to be less obsessed with games and am happy with part scores by comparison with many. I couldn't tell you my stats but I do ok in the circles in which I play. PS I didn't say 23+. I said 24+ :) I reckon the 50% guide for bidding game in duplicate could easily be reduced to 40% in some circles. As for min and max I am expecting that me and my partner can add up our total to within a point or so most of the time. But for some reason I always worked on 24-25 and was surprised to find I needed more points

 

I am wishing often that I could play Precision which appears to have an intermediate NT option

 

PS Sorry I didn't read your post properly. I suggested a 2NT rebid giving responder the chance to decide whether they had min or max. That adds up to game does it not? - depending on what the 1NT response means (I also expressed that confusion)

[Cyberyeti]

If I held it, it's a good 10 :). 5+5+QT98x

 

K&R gives it more than 11 that is where your problem is

[DavidKok]

I guess I'm out of line here, but I feel like sharing my thoughts anyway.

 

Mikeh's suggestion of opening 1♣ more often is exactly the solution to the problem. The level of detail and complication of the followup system are up to you - it really can be as simple as (for example) "1♦ can be 3 on 3=3=3=4 or (32)=3=5 with soft clubs only", although of course far more complicated schemes exist.

 

By contrast, the suggestion of overloading 1♦-2♣ by introducing many 10+ hands, and then quibbling about what is or is not a 'good 10', sounds to me like turning the clock back by half a century. That particular auction is one of the worst auctions in natural systems, and personally I'd recommend playing artificial continuations just to make up for lost ground. Compared to mikeh's suggestion this 1♦ has more hand types (strong NT) and 2♣ has more hand types (non-GF with 5+ clubs, may be balanced). I don't see how you could ever hope to recover, not without a system more complicated than I'd be willing to play.

 

And sure, your partner made a conservative choice with 1NT, but this is also a systemic weak point. You go low or you go high, and sometimes you guess wrong. I think this is just resulting (especially when someone brings in K&R - or can you consult that at the table?), all systems have weaknesses and intermediate hands with some clubs over a 1♦ opening is one that has been discussed for decades.