[Chamaco]

Jlall, on Sep 25 2005, 07:13 PM, said:

Well my view (and experience was this). Let's take a 1S opener. Give me various shapes:

1435
2425
3415

Justin, I definitely agree with you for the analysis of 5431 shapes, but when Raptor becomes indeed great is when you get dealt a 64 shape.

What's more, with Raptor you can compete, at favourable, with those 9-10 hcp hands that do not provide the defensive strength needed for a takeout double.

Tradeoffs, tradeoffs :-)

[DelfinoD]

This convenction was designed by strong-pass authors, sometimes it's called strong pass NT.

Anyway it's really great because when you overcall with suit eg. 1d-2c-pas-? now new suit is 5+ because pd. denied 4 card major.

[Chamaco]

Jlall, on Sep 26 2005, 12:38 PM, said:

Not sure that pard denies a 4 card suit when he overcalls 2m. Surely with 7-4 it's sensible to bid the minor?

My policy with 74 so far has been to bid Raptor and later rebid my minor, to show "extra shape".

Not sure how it would work vs serious opponents, though.

[han]

DelfinoD, on Sep 26 2005, 06:59 AM, said:

This convenction was designed by strong-pass authors, sometimes it's called strong pass NT.

Anyway it's really great because when you overcall with suit eg. 1d-2c-pas-? now new suit is 5+ because pd. denied 4 card major.

A new suit shows 5+ even when not playing raptor.

[keylime]

I would use Raptor myself if it wasn't for the fact I prefer 1NT as a 3 suited t/o that is attack-oriented.

[SoTired]

Playing Raptor more easily finds partials, but not playing natural 1N overcalls may miss games.

I play natural 1N overcalls even in sandwich 1N poisiton. This is needed because of lite openers adn lite responders,, esp by strong 1C systems.

Showing a balanced 15-18 is very difficult without the natural 1N.

[DelfinoD]

SoTired, on Sep 26 2005, 10:13 AM, said:

Showing a balanced 15-18 is very difficult without the natural 1N.

And how do you show 15-18 bal without proper stoper in opp. suit?

1) How often do you open 1nt?
2) How often do you have 15-18pc bal on defence?
3) How often do you have 15-18pc bal with a stoper on defence?
4) How often do you get doubled after such an overcall?

IMHO natural 1nt overcall is not worth it.

And if such a hand really comes I can always double or pass.

[SoTired]

one world-class expert told me against Meckstroth-Rodwell, the auction went 1D p 1H 1N p 3N
If they did not play nat 1N in that position, they might have missed their 27hc p game. opener had 10,, responder had 3.

[Chamaco]

DelfinoD, on Sep 26 2005, 03:38 PM, said:

SoTired, on Sep 26 2005, 10:13 AM, said:

Showing a balanced 15-18 is very  difficult without the  natural 1N.

And how do you show 15-18 bal without proper stoper in opp. suit?

1) How often do you open 1nt?
2) How often do you have 15-18pc bal on defence?
3) How often do you have 15-18pc bal with a stoper on defence?
4) How often do you get doubled after such an overcall?

IMHO natural 1nt overcall is not worth it.

And if such a hand really comes I can always double or pass.

As I said, I think it's a frequency - magnitude issue.

there are indeed close games that are hard to bid without the 1NT overcall.
Similarly, there are hands where overcalling 1NT is caught under big penalties.

I think a lot of the personal evaluations are due to everyones "biased" views of the previous experiences;
it's like for active or passive opening leads:
- there are people who only remember the times where underleading a tenace blows a trick, but they tend to forget/dismiss the times where underleading a tenace would have defeatd the contract.
- on the other hands, there are people who will remember the times where a pasive lead lost the tempo to defeat the contract but they tend to forget the times where a passive lead would have been best.

I suppose this depends on one's own personality: we want to remember what we like best

A similar thing will happen for such cases as natural vs 1NT overcall:
- some people will tend to remember the missed game but not the severe penalties where 1NT overcall was busted, nor the times where the availability of Raptor would hav allowed a good sacrifice or a good game or a partscore.
- some other will tend to remember the times when bidding Raptor will make it easier to bid sghapely hands, but forget the times when they get stolen blind by frisky opps.

[Al_U_Card]

You say tomatto and I say tomayto.......indeed all methods come down to personal use preferences especially where continuations and extra memory baggage are concerned. Using systems on after the 1NT overcall makes it easy to remember continuations, not that I have a problem with Raptor for the memory mavens

[mycroft]

Hmm, my friend and web-hoster is probably "enjoying" this thread and the resultant extra web traffic. It's probably safe to assume where I stand on this one...

If I play (as I do here, there's nobody who is willing to learn Raptor, and my two regulars are already playing edge-of-conventionitis) strong NT overcalls, I want them 16-18. And I still have to fight for that +90 as I did Saturday night. Sure, you don't get punished often, but I think that's more because most people don't know when to pull out the axe (Lall^2 are in a different world on that score, of course).

Agree with Justin - the 435s are just fine with a takeout double, and most Raptor players would double just like everybody else. That's why my explanation always ends with "wrong shape to double". Acutally, that's one of the hidden advantages of Raptor - I've taken a couple of juicy penalty doubles when opener rebids the suit, because I know I'm not facing a void.

The thing that tips my scale is that whenever I overcall 1NT naturally, my heart is always in my mouth waiting for Big Red to appear on my left. When it doesn't happen, I'm happy I had a natural NT overcall, of course.

On the other hand, when I get a Raptor hand, I never feel worried when I bid 1NT - we're headed for a sensible and quick auction to the right compete place. It's a comfort thing - like most good conventions, it solves a hard problem, and what's being given up is frankly, more of a crapshoot than anything else. If you're a great declarer, then I'm sure the odds are with you on the +5/-5 dice throw; even if you're an average declarer, the odds are probably with you given how hard it is to defend 1NT. But it's still a crapshoot.

It's not perfect, there is a big down side. The problem is that all the other ways of handling that hand in Standard are worse.

Michael.

[inquiry]

Well, of course justin is right with 1435 hands where you have one in the suit they opened. This is a three suiter.... even playing RAPTOR, I don't bid 1NT with this one. However, with 1435 hands and THREE in their suit, hello RAPTOR.

I am not aware of others using RAPTOR on 5-5 hands like I do (only constructive or better, only upper and lower suit with 5-5). Once again, I owe this one to MishoVnBg... I don;t know if he came up with it or it is something common in Bulgaria. As usual, I was hesitant at first to play this way, as I was use to normal RAPTOR. I will say, however, that in my (albeit limited experience), this two way raptor (reminder... two way, either normal raptor, ore equivalent to top and bottom cue-bid), works very well.