[Gerben42]

Quote

Those that claim that you can stuff this into the takeout double without any adverse consequences are deluding themselves (and others) in my opinion, Fred writes.

Well put.

Roland

I'm not debating that. But watch out for:

Every decent convention works well for the hand it was designed for.

This means that holding a strong NT you expect to win when you can bid that, and if you have a Raptor hand you expect to win when you can bid that. At the other tables they will be better off if you have the "other" hand.

[whereagles]

Walddk, on Jan 31 2006, 10:41 PM, said:

♠ AJ5
♥ KQ2
♦ KJ94
♣ K103

RHO opens 1♠. Playing Raptor, you will either have to pass or double. Let's pretend that you double (either a normal take-out double or 15-17 balanced), and you get 2♣ from partner.

The consequence is that you have to pass now. Reluctantly probably, but pass you must, because you can't risk bidding 2NT opposite what might be a bust.

Not risking a 2NT rebid is one possibility.

The other is to play the odds and split the remaining points (12) through opener, responder and pard. That would place hcps roughly as..

Our line: 17 + 4 = 21
Opps line: 15 + 4 = 19

So, if you bid 2NT, you'll be indeed playing 1 trick higher than you should, on average.

But then again, if you hold..

♠ J65
♥ KQ2
♦ KJ94
♣ AK103

wouldn't you be in the same situation if you double 1♠?

My solution is to bid a natural 1NT on both hands, regardless of having a stopper or not. But for people who care about stoppers, the hand above gives them a problem very similar that those playing Raptor or RUNT or comic or whatever-NT have. Just that Raptor NTers get the problem a bit more often.

Hum.. was that clear? I mean.. do you see my point?

[Walddk]

whereagles, on Jan 31 2006, 11:58 PM, said:

But then again, if you hold..

♠ J65
♥ KQ2
♦ KJ94
♣ AK103

wouldn't you be in the same situation if you double 1♠?

My solution is to bid a natural 1NT on both hands, regardless of having a stopper or not. But for people who care about stoppers, the hand above gives them a problem very similar that those playing Raptor or RUNT or comic or whatever-NT have. Just that Raptor NTers get the problem a bit more often.

Hum.. was that clear? I mean.. do you see my point?

I see your point, but I don't agree. Which side do you want to play 3NT from when responder holds

♠ Ax
♥ xxx
♦ Qxx
♣ Qxxxx

Roland

[han]

Not sure what your point is wereagles, but your example hand has 14 cards.


Although I'm not a big fan of raptor, I don't see any of the proponents in this thread arguing that you don't lose sometimes when the natural 1NT hand comes up. In fact, they seem very much aware of the possible gains and losses and still like the convention.

[whereagles]

Well, what I'm saying is this:

If you require that 1NT overcalls must have a stopper, then, when you DON'T have a stopper, you'll be in the same situation as Raptor NT overcallers when they have a 15-17 balanced hand.

That's why I say losing the natural 1NT overcall doesn't seem that big a deal to me. I do prefer to keep 1NT as natural, but I don't think artificializing it will necessarily lead to systematic bad scores.

As for the 14 cards, well, do away with a low club or so

[Free]

I've been playing FREEWILL overcalls for a while now, which don't include a natural 1NT, and have a Power Dbl starting from 15+HCP. Here are my conclusions so far:
- After overcalls (showing at least 4-4 in 2 suits) we're placed VERY good. We know BOTH suits and the average strength. We still have invitational and GF relays, so no problem to find the good games. Preempting and disturbing opponent's biddings is one of our strengths. Sometimes however we show lots of information to the declarer when we have to defend...
- After the Dbl we might have problems, especially when opps have a fit. Therefor we modified response schemes (we play 1-level responses like the Fantunes system) and everything to limit the problems to a minimum. It works ok, but it's still the weakness of the system imo. With 19+HCP, we have to play at least 2NT where natural systems can play 1NT in some situations (Dbl followed by 1NT = 18-20). And opps usually aren't quiet after a Dbl.

In the end, I think we have an advantage over natural systems, but it's not perfect. It's indeed quite hard to evaluate a system objectively when you're enthousiast about it.

Raptor has another disadvantage, that it doesn't show BOTH suits immediatly. That's why I don't like it as much...

[fred]

whereagles, on Jan 31 2006, 11:29 PM, said:

Well, what I'm saying is this:

If you require that 1NT overcalls must have a stopper, then, when you DON'T have a stopper, you'll be in the same situation as Raptor NT overcallers when they have a 15-17 balanced hand.

That's why I say losing the natural 1NT overcall doesn't seem that big a deal to me. I do prefer to keep 1NT as natural, but I don't think artificializing it will necessarily lead to systematic bad scores.

As for the 14 cards, well, do away with a low club or so

I don't agree with your argument, Mr. Eagles.

Suppose your system does not include a way to describe "a weak 2-bid in hearts".

Unless you play some other fancy convention you won't have an easy way to show this hand:

Jxxxxx
KQJ10xx
x
Void

And you will be in the same position as those that play a 2H opening as weak.

But if you don't use a weak 2H (or multi or whatever) you have no way to bid this (much more common) type of hand:

Jx
KQJ10xx
xxx
xx

Is this a big deal? I think so, but perhaps some people think it is not important to have a way to describe this hand or perhaps they think it is worth giving up on this hand in the interest of describing other types of hands with their 2H openings.

Similarly, just because "natural 1NT overcalls" provide not good way to describe 15-18 (or whatever) HCP balanced hands with no stopper in RHO's suit, that does not imply that it is OK to have no good way to describe (much more common) 15-18 HCP hands that contain a stopper in RHO's suit.

There are 2 types of hands we are considering here:

Type 1: 15-18 balanced hands with no stopper
Type 2: 15-18 balanced hands with a stopper

You are going to have a tough time with type 1 regardless of your methods.

But that doesn't mean that it is not a big deal if your choice of systems results in the type 2 hands becoming a problem as well.

I don't know enough about the "power doubles" that some posters have mentioned to comment on this. My instincts suggest that these methods are a lot more palatable than "raptor 1NT overcalls", but that traditional methods in this area are still superior.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Free]

Power Doubles are just like a strong ♣ opening: strong, unlimited, any distribution. Usually 15+HCP, but some play it stronger.

[inquiry]

There are a couple of issues in this 1NT overcall, should it be raptor or natural that haven't been touched on. I will try to raise a few of these:

MAKING THE FIELD BID. If you are a great player (as Fred clearly is), bidding with the field and then outplaying them is clearly the right strategy. If I was fred (or at least had his abilities), I would overcall 1NT natural and outplay the field in the resulting contract. This is also true of other bis as well.

One thing is clear (no need to do a BridgeBrowser analysis on this), a 1NT overcall with 15-18 balanced is surely going to tend to get you into the “average result” as that will be the field bid for the most part. That is, nearly everyone else will bid 1NT so what happens next will follow a familiar pattern at all the other tables. To separate yourself from the field in the bidding, you will need to have a sound understanding of your follow up auctions. Thus, if perhaps your skills are a little rusty, there are two strategies, play with the field and try to get better or try some anti-field actions and hope for the best. Conventions like raptor give you a chance to go against the field without being crazy about it.

COMFORT ZONE -- BUT DONT SURPRIZE THE UNAWARE. As to the merits of a raptor overcall (and forgetting about the surprise factor if you use it on someone not ready to deal with it... you should prealert and explain possible defenses if they ask). I like raptor, because it fits my view of bidding. I use raptor because it makes me feel comfortable in the bidding. I like to make light-ish shape-specific doubles, and I have trouble finding partners who understand the concept of "equal level conversion" so doubling light without support for all unbid suits has not worked well for me over the years. Raptor allows me to double and then bid new suit to always show GOSH hands (good-one-suited-hands). Others like the comfort of using 1NT natural overcalls and have mastered the equal level conversions with their partners.

INABILITY TO USE NATURAL 1NT OVERCALL .
I have not used natural 1NT overcalls with regular partners for a long, long time. I have to admit, I don't feel disadvantaged not having a natural 1NT overcall, and I track my online bidding at least with BridgeBrowser and keep detailed records. I use to play overcall structure (a painful experience at imps, but very useful at matchpoints) with its POWER DOUBLES. The power double adequately handles the natural 1NT overcall but does not make up for the occasional blood baths when you use the artificial 1NT overcall (nor allow you to catch them with a takeout double converted to penalty double by partner). So I first switched to overcall structure not vul, natural Vul. Then finally left overcall structure all together. Currently I use the response to takeout doubles advocated by Glen Ashton on his bridgematters site. His scheme, combines well with raptor 1NT overcalls, where you might make a takeout double with a balanced hand typical 1NT overcall. So unlike Fred’s view, I happen not to miss the natural 1NT overcall. But that leads us to………..

THE REAL DISADVANTAGE OF RAPTOR. On the other hand, there is a huge disadvantage to raptor that most people overlook (fortunately btw if you play raptor.... but you also probably fail to make a necessary alert that will make this disadvantage problematic… shame on you if true).... that is the information that if you overcall a minor, you ALMOST CERTAINLY lack four cards in a major. This information can become deadly in the hands of your opponents. So deadly in fact, that even if you are comfortable giving up a natural 1NT opening you can easily decide that RAPTOR is too dangerous to use. Play raptor against good opponents, and you will find double dummy declarer play by them and double dummy defense by them more than usual.

Finally there was the comment by Free of a disadvantage of raptor is that one suit is unknown. I will have to disagree on this with him. This is not a disadvantage at all, because it is also unknown to your opponents, and your partner (unlike them) can make use of Paradox raises in many cases without disclosing to your opponents more information about your hand than is necessary to find a good spot. Sure, there is the occasional hand where I might have preempted wildly as advancer if I knew my partner held my long minor, but those are so few and far between, the uncertainty for the opponents tends to make up for the lack of ability to go nuts.

Final analysis. One certainly doesn't need raptor, and there is nothing wrong with overcalling 1NT with the normal kind of hands. In fact, if I was a better player, I would force natural 1NT overcall onto my partner. As it is now, I will play either. I have been experimenting with Misho-Raptor, as explained to me by MishovnBg. I have to admit I enjoy playing it, but the results ahve been sporatic.. .but primarily due to memory problems (ANOTHER PROBLEM with raptor... we all know how to bid after a natural 1NT overcall).

Ben

[joshs]

I also have never played raptor, but have a lot of experience with the overcall structure (at least a sane version of it) and I disagree about the strengths and weaknesses.

a. biggest strength are the roman jumps and cues (4 in higher suit, 5 in lower) these fill a hole in standard constructive bidding, and they are hard to defend against (what really is the best meaning for 1C-(2H)-x when 2H showed 4+S and 5+H? ).

When the auction goes:
(1D)-2C-P-?
Partner does not have a 4 card major. If I cue bid and he has a good hand, he will bid a good 3 card major. I never have to bid a 4 card major. Its really easy to find our major suit fits this way.

There is one big weakness of the roman jumps and cues, you have no bid to show 5-5 in the majors over 1 minor and have to start with a 1S overcall or a roman 2H bid.

b. The biggest weakness is the power x, since it leaves you poorly placed in competative auctions since it says nothing about shape (its like opening a precision 1C bid). Its also a bit awkward sorting out 4 card vs 5 card suits in some gameforcing auctions. But most of us play different followups than the orginal structure (with a herbert negative) that does make these auctions tolerable. It is nice on the balanced hands that didn't actually have a stopper, but they really are not that common... I find these auctions to me slight losers but only slight over normal methods.

c. When NV, the NT for takeout bid is a big winner:
it
A. helps us compete hands
B. Makes it hard for them to find 4-4 major suit fits
C. leaves us much better placed when the auction goes 1M-1N-4M than 1M-P-4M
D. Most importantly, it really helps us with our opening leads!!!!

Going for a number is rare, although when it happens, its bad. (its not just 800 vs 500, its 800 vs the 500 our teammates were unable to get since its hard to x at the 1 level)


Vulnerable, I have rather mixed feeling about 1N for takeout...


In general: in all methods you do well when your descriptive bids come up, and you do poorly when your more nebulous bids comes up, so its a question of having enough gains from the good hands to offset the losses from the bad hands in your methods...


Josh

[Free]

What is Misho-Raptor? Is there a link, or a topic in non-natural (hint hint)?

[MickyB]

joshs, on Feb 1 2006, 05:14 PM, said:

I also have never played raptor, but have a lot of experience with the overcall structure (at least a sane version of it)

How do the sane and insane versions differ?

[inquiry]

Free, on Feb 1 2006, 12:35 PM, said:

What is Misho-Raptor? Is there a link, or a topic in non-natural (hint hint)?

I think I can summarize briefly...

He likes 1NT to be normal raptor (4 in major, longer minor) OR, five or more in a major and five plus in a minor. The normal raptor, any 4M, 5+minor is ok. For the hand with five or more in the major, the two suits are top and bottom. So if neither major is bid, the major is always spades, if neither minor has been bid, the minor is always clubs. Thus, misho-raptor is either normal raptor, or top-bottom two suiter.

There is a few other rules... with the top-bottom cue-bid it is a sound overcall or better, else just bid the major and rebid the minor. This also means that unusual notrump is always the two lowest unbids, and michaels is always the two highest unbid suits.

He also has rules about the 1NT bidders rebids that separate the true-raptor from the sound top/bottom hand. There is a thread somewhere in this forum on this, and a word document somewhere or at least an FD file with misho-raptor on it.

[fred]

inquiry, on Feb 1 2006, 04:06 PM, said:

There are a couple of issues in this 1NT overcall, should it be raptor or natural that haven't been touched on. I will try to raise a few of these:

MAKING THE FIELD BID. If you are a great player (as Fred clearly is), bidding with the field and then outplaying them is clearly the right strategy. If I was fred (or at least had his abilities), I would overcall 1NT natural and outplay the field in the resulting contract. This is also true of other bis as well.

This is a good argument and you are correct that there are many strong players (including me) who prefer systems and conventions that are unlikely to lead to a top or bottom situation as the result of an action in the early rounds of bidding.

However, I don't think you are being fair to yourself if you adopt the attitude "I will never be good enough to win simply by playing well so I will spend my time and energy working on bidding methods that, while against the odds, will give me a chance to win if the right hands come up".

An alternative approach is to spend your time and energy focusing on improving things like your card play, judgment, table feel, partnership skills, and concentration. Perhaps you have the ability to be a great player if you set you mind to becoming one.

Maybe you will never be as good a bridge player as me, but I will never be as good a bridge player as Meckstroth (for example). I am able to play well enough that I have a chance to beat the Meckstroths of the world on my best day. I have no doubt that most of the regular forums posters, through hard work, could develop the necessary skills to beat the Freds of the world on their best day.

It might be the case now that a team of Bens playing a long match against a team of Freds and using the same system might win only 3% of the time. Perhaps randomizing the bidding will increase Team Ben's chances of winning to 5%. It could well be the case that Team Ben will never be a favorite in such a match, but I do believe that the Bens could raise their chances well beyond that 5% by concentrating on the things that I think really matter.

In each generation there are a few special bridge players are born with a gift that makes the game easy for them. The rest of us (and "us" includes me) need to be prepared to spend many years of hard work if they really want to learn to play this game well enough to have a reasonable chance to win every event they enter. I am living proof that this is possible to achieve (as are most of the other highly successful players out there).

I have tried to make this point (more than once) in previous forums post. No doubt some of you don't believe me or don't want to believe me. However, I have been through this process myself and along the way I have looked carefully at the difference between those people who become players and those who remain mired in conventions and systems.

Of course it is possible that I am completely wrong, but everything I have observed in my experience supports the same conclusion:

Spending one's (limited) mental resources focusing on bridge will pay much greater long term dividends than using those resources to experiment with conventions and systems.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[whereagles]

fred, on Feb 1 2006, 02:51 PM, said:

Type 1: 15-18 balanced hands with no stopper
Type 2: 15-18 balanced hands with a stopper

You are going to have a tough time with type 1 regardless of your methods.

But that doesn't mean that it is not a big deal if your choice of systems results in the type 2 hands becoming a problem as well.

eheh.. I knew you were going to argue like this

I see the point, of course. Still, I don't think that making hand type 2 harder to bid causes such a high degree of trouble that overcall systems with artificial 1NT bids become unplayable. And, after all, the trade-off of freeing 1NT will help with other hand types.

That being said, let me play a bit of devil's advocate here The need for Raptor NT is lessened if you play stuff like equal level correction and/or Miles-style 4-card 1M overcalls

[Sigi_BC84]

fred, on Feb 1 2006, 08:49 PM, said:

Spending one's (limited) mental resources focusing on bridge will pay much greater long term dividends than using those resources to experiment with conventions and systems.

Brilliant observations, Fred (yet again).

You should keep it mind, however, that the typical system freak so badly enjoys fiddling with the bids and conventions. Compare it to the computer hacker who simply enjoys Tweaking That Machine as an end in itself. I belong to both groups so I know what I'm talking about :-).

I also often hear stories along the lines of "boy, could he play the cards, but his bidding was atrocious". This is the complement of the problem the system freaks have. Many people will never get appropriate results (matching their card playing abilities), because they refuse to improve their bidding methods.

A good strategy is probably to start with a reasonably simple, but working, system and concentrate on technique, counting, etc. next for at least some years -- if you can resist system esoterica (that's a huge "if" for some of us).

--Sigi (who, of course, does enjoy playing Raptor :-)

[Echognome]

A very nice and interesting post Fred. I do have some follow ups if you care to respond.

If we look at the Bermuda Bowl participants and in particular the top pairs in the world, we find that a large percentage play some type of strong club system. It might vary from 4 card majors or 5 card majors, strong NT or weak NT, but there is some variety out there. There are of course many natural systems being played as well. So what should we conclude from this? Is it that system doesn't really matter or that certain systems suit some people more than others?

For a long time I played a homegrown system that I built from the ground up based upon a strong diamond. There were many of the aspects I liked about it and it was natural for many of the sequences. However, as we developed the system we found that the bidding agreements grew tremendously and the various treatments differed widely based upon the opening bid (both contested and uncontested).

Also, in regards to building a system, I feel like I've learned a lot in the process. I read quite a few books on bidding theory along the way. (Simon's Design for Bidding and Hughes Building a Bidding System are among the better ones in my view.) I believe thinking about a system as a whole and what consequences there are for playing one way or another are very interesting and insightful. I wonder to what extent the field should play a role in any design. Given that we play a wider variety of bridge in England than in the U.S.(not meant to offend), perhaps it is not as important.

I've recently switched to Tarzan club and enjoy it because it requires less memory for me. I chose to switch because several of the very best players in my area play it and I figured it would give me a chance to play with better people, which has been the case. I also think it is better for slam bidding which I feel is especially important in team matches. Note that I don't believe that we will have better judgment on slams than natural players with excellent judgment. I do believe however that we have better judgment than we would playing a natural system. That is I feel the best comparison is with myself. I am constantly looking at deals and comparing to how I might bid the hands playing natural.

I agree whole-heartedly that there are more aspects to the game than bidding. It is true that card play and defense are extremely important. I think it would be interesting to get the opinion of the world class players though on how much they think is lost between bidding, declarer play, and defense (if one thinks they can be broken down as such).

One final thing is that many of our student players start learning about bridge and are taught a very basic system (Acol typically). They start to get an interest in the game and learn of some bidding problems. They then figure out that there is thing called conventions and want to learn more about it. At first I was quite discouraging to them learning many conventions. I believed it was better for their game to focus on natural bidding judgment, card play, and defense. However, now I feel the opposite. The reason for that is that bridge seems more exciting for many of these players as they are learning new things. They are not all playing the same system and are confronted with different types of problems. I found that even though it wasn't necessarily best for their game to experiment, that it kept them with a spark in bridge. And let's face it, the vast majority of us will never make it to the highest levels of bridge anyway. So should we be encouraging players to be the best player they can be or to have the most enjoyment out of bridge that they can?

[fred]

Sigi_BC84, on Feb 3 2006, 02:52 PM, said:

fred, on Feb 1 2006, 08:49 PM, said:

Spending one's (limited) mental resources focusing on bridge will pay much greater long term dividends than using those resources to experiment with conventions and systems.

Brilliant observations, Fred (yet again).

You should keep it mind, however, that the typical system freak so badly enjoys fiddling with the bids and conventions. Compare it to the computer hacker who simply enjoys Tweaking That Machine as an end in itself. I belong to both groups so I know what I'm talking about :-).

I also often hear stories along the lines of "boy, could he play the cards, but his bidding was atrocious". This is the complement of the problem the system freaks have. Many people will never get appropriate results (matching their card playing abilities), because they refuse to improve their bidding methods.

A good strategy is probably to start with a reasonably simple, but working, system and concentrate on technique, counting, etc. next for at least some years -- if you can resist system esoterica (that's a huge "if" for some of us).

--Sigi (who, of course, does enjoy playing Raptor :-)

I fully understand that there are plenty of people who get their primary enjoyment from bridge out of experimenting with system.

The point I was trying to make is that this is not conducive to winning at the highest levels.

And I know plenty of the "great card players but attrocious bidders" types. However, the attrocious nature of their bidding has nothing to do with the methods they play. These people typically bid poorly because lack some combination of judgment, discipline, and partnership skills.

There is no doubt that is pays to study bidding, but studying systems and conventions is not the same thing. For example, I would consider it an extremely valuable exercise to read and reread every edition of the "Master Solvers' Club" in The Bridge World magazine dating back to at least 1970.

You would learn almost nothing about systems or conventions by doing this, but you would become a much better bidder in the process.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[fred]

Echognome, on Feb 3 2006, 03:29 PM, said:

A very nice and interesting post Fred.  I do have some follow ups if you care to respond.

If we look at the Bermuda Bowl participants and in particular the top pairs in the world, we find that a large percentage play some type of strong club system.  It might vary from 4 card majors or 5 card majors, strong NT or weak NT, but there is some variety out there.  There are of course many natural systems being played as well.  So what should we conclude from this?  Is it that system doesn't really matter or that certain systems suit some people more than others?

I think all you can conclude is that the methods played by the world's leading players are at least reasonably good methods. Otherwise these players would either be smart enough to know that their methods were ineffective or their poor methods would give them such a handicap over the rest of the field that they would not be able to be successful in major tournaments.

Yes there are a lot of strong club pairs in the group you describe and several flavors of such systems. There are also a lot of pairs who play natural systems (some weak notrumpers some strong notrumpers some 4-card majors some 5-card majors...). There are some pairs who play Polish or Swedish style 1C systems as well. Some of these pairs include a lot of science in later rounds of the bidding. Others do not.

To me this suggests that basic choice of system is not important (as long as the basic system is not completely absurd).

You will notice that very few (none?) of the pairs at the highest levels use strong diamond systems or Raptor 1NT overcalls. This doesn't necessarily imply that such methods are inherantly bad - perhaps the world's leading players have simply not tried them. However, if such methods offered significant advantage over more "traditional" methods, I am pretty sure that at least some of the world's leading players would have figured this out and that they would be using them. It would not take long for word to spread.

Once you play bridge anywhere close to as well as, say, Fantoni and Nunes, by all means go ahead and try to play a system like theirs if you are so inclined - you will be ready for it.

What I am trying to say is that, until you reach that point, you will be better off spending your time trying to reach that point. My observations suggest that the vast majority of talented players who focus on system "too early" in their bridge careers and refuse to let go of this never become successful at the highest levels.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
ww.bridgebase.com