[Miron]

Hi,

I have two questions and I am unable to decide the answer. Can you help me please?

Problem 1:
1NT - p - 2♦ - p
2♥ - p - 2♠3♣♦
I am used to play this as game try or slam try (cuebid).
I was now introduced to 5-4 slam try.
I think that it is much more usefull to bid games, when the two hands just play well than to play 6♣♦ on 4-4 fit. The slam is seldomly bid by opponents and it is rare (and also it pays off only when opps bid this and the 6M or 6NT is one down). The sharp games are more often then 4-4 minor slams.
Is it better to play it as game try or slam try with 4-card?

Problem 2:
How much IMP will you use when you don't have possibility to open 11-12 BAL (you can open 5332 on minor and 12)? I think that the bridgebuilder could solve this, but I'm really unable to find out how to use it.

Thanks for any idea.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

1) 2S often shows 5-5 invitational strength,
if I recall it correctly.
3C, 3D: you forgot to mention a 3rd option:
choice of game, which allows you also to probe
for slam, I play it that way
2) no idea

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Chamaco]

Q1.
After 1NT-2D-2H-?

I prefer to play
- 2S = GF relay (artificial) and
- 3X = natural invitational nonforcing (in some pships this shows a canapè with 4H and the longer suit bid at the 3 level)

Q2.
I do not think you lose much by passing 11-12 (semi)balanmced hands without a nice suit.
It is true that today it is important to anticipate opps bids, by introducing our own suits first (sort of an anticipated overcall), but IMO, this is true for hands with shape and/or with good lead directing bid.

Without any of the above, passing flat 11-12 often has turned out well in my experience, by:
a. avoiding that pard got overboard when he had a strong hand
b. when opps ended up buying the hand, the fact we did not open 11-12 bal hands often lead declrare to misguess the honors location.

However, I should add that we tend to upgrade 11-12 flat hands when they contain 2 Aces: in those cases we try to find an excuse to open them (e.g. good intermediates etc etc)

[awm]

I've never been convinced that opening bad balanced hands is really good bridge. In one of my partnerships our style is to pass almost all balanced twelves at vulnerable, while opening virtually all unbalanced ten-counts. Opening bad balanced hands often helps the opponents in the play if they end up declaring. There is also some danger of ending up in a bad contract, since you lack the relative safety of opener's long suit. And one of the main reasons to "get in early" is to try to anticipate a competitive auction; balanced hands have no particular long suit to compete in and often indicate fewer total tricks than an unbalanced opener.

[mike777]

The above is all true. The ongoing debate is in general on all competitive partscore battles, the side that opens has the natural advantage. Example perhaps you will find the 4-4 spade fit when the other team does not. I think the debate is does opening on balanced junk have more pluses than minuses?

QTxx....xx....AKJx..xx open but pass KJx...Qxxx....Qxx...QJx but open anything else?

[Echognome]

awm, on May 28 2006, 04:28 PM, said:

I've never been convinced that opening bad balanced hands is really good bridge. In one of my partnerships our style is to pass almost all balanced twelves at vulnerable, while opening virtually all unbalanced ten-counts. Opening bad balanced hands often helps the opponents in the play if they end up declaring. There is also some danger of ending up in a bad contract, since you lack the relative safety of opener's long suit. And one of the main reasons to "get in early" is to try to anticipate a competitive auction; balanced hands have no particular long suit to compete in and often indicate fewer total tricks than an unbalanced opener.

I'm not making an opinion either way, but Sabine Auken makes the case for the mini in her book. I won't rip off her points, but I'm just saying that she disagrees.

[david_c]

Echognome, on May 28 2006, 05:53 PM, said:

I'm not making an opinion either way, but Sabine Auken makes the case for the mini in her book.  I won't rip off her points, but I'm just saying that she disagrees.

But is it worth opening 11-12 balanced hands if you don't have a mini NT opening available? If you have to open these hands with 1♣ or 1♦ it's a very different question.

[mike777]

"But is it worth opening 11-12 balanced hands if you don't have a mini NT opening available? If you have to open these hands with 1♣ or 1♦ it's a very different question."


Yes that is the question. My guess is winning defense and declarer play trumps the bidding advantage/disadvantage by huge margin.

In reading her book, I got the impression the main advantage of the mini was people did not know how to play against it even at the very top levels. Opp seem to bid when they should pass. Same went for her aggressive preempts, they did not have the tools or judgement to handle it. This was shocking to me since these bids/style have been around since at least 1970 at the tourney level.

[luke warm]

david_c, on May 28 2006, 12:16 PM, said:

Echognome, on May 28 2006, 05:53 PM, said:

I'm not making an opinion either way, but Sabine Auken makes the case for the mini in her book.  I won't rip off her points, but I'm just saying that she disagrees.

But is it worth opening 11-12 balanced hands if you don't have a mini NT opening available? If you have to open these hands with 1♣ or 1♦ it's a very different question.

i agree with this... i'd almost always pass a hand that i'd open a mini nt with

[hotShot]

I don't think that Q2 has a simple answer.
Not opening 11-12 HCP balanced hands in 3rd or 4th seat, is a loosing option.
Not opening 11 HCP balanced hands in 1st or 2nd seat should be the field action. Hands with 12 HCP will be opened by a significant part of the field.

Now if you pass with 11-12 bal. hands in 1st and 2nd seat, how do you act in 3rd and 4th seat?
Think of all the partscores you will miss, where "not opener" has 12 and "not responder" has a 5 card suit and 8-10 HCP.

[Chamaco]

hotShot, on May 28 2006, 10:03 PM, said:

Now if you pass with 11-12 bal. hands in 1st and 2nd seat, how do you act in 3rd and 4th seat?
Think of all the partscores you will miss, where "not opener" has 12 and "not responder" has a 5 card suit and 8-10 HCP.

It depends what is the style of suit openings (light or heavy):

if you open freely 1 of a suit based on "rule of 19 (or 20)", then passing a flat 11/12(-) in 3rd/4rd seat won't miss many partscores because anytime partner has some shape in 1st/2nd seat (opposite our flat 11-12) he will probably have opened.
If he has passed instead, we *might* miss occasional partscores, but not so many, at least in my experience: bridge is a % game after all, and in my limited experience, it will be much more frequent to avoid partner take off or avoid opps play double dummy after we have opened a flat 11-12 count.

However, as I already stressed before, in most of my partnerships we tend to upgrade good 12 counts (2 Aces + good intermediates) to bad 13 counts :-)

[mike777]

I play almost the same in third seat as in first...If we open junky 11 vul in first seat we do the same in third seat....4th seat is often 15 Pearson points, not junky. Basically same system in third seat as in first seat,,,no drury...full Bergen, we even keep our minor suit Criss Cross raises the same. We do raise our NT one point to 15-17 from 14-16.

I guess we should worry about 3 card limit raises with the opp silent and no forcing nt but surprise just not an issue. I guess we would make a nonforce 2/1 and then jump to 3 of major with that hand but in real life the opp are bidding so very very often. Our one major =2 major is still a solid constructive 3 card raise. IT is tough for us to have a 3 card limit raise as a passed hand we do not have 11 hcp and our constructive raises are sound.

Opening on junky 11-12 can give away the cards, I agree. The debate goes on....

[Chamaco]

mike777, on May 29 2006, 02:00 AM, said:

I guess we should worry about 3 card limit raises with the opp silent and no forcing nt but surprise just not an issue.

IMO, playing some form of Drury is a pretty much decent way to solve the 3-card limit raise "problem".

[mike777]

Chamaco, on May 29 2006, 03:26 AM, said:

mike777, on May 29 2006, 02:00 AM, said:

I guess we should worry about 3 card limit raises with the opp silent and no forcing nt but surprise just not an issue.

IMO, playing some form of Drury is a pretty much decent way to solve the 3-card limit raise "problem".

My point is it is not a problem, the loss from Drury is not enough to offset any gain from bidding natural.
Keep in mind how often do you have a 3 card limit raise with a 8-10 hcp hand and the opp are silent and you can make game. Not playing Drury does not mean you miss game or get too high in 3 of a major often.

[mike777]

Just asked Sabine about her Mini NT and why it works for her at the top levels of bridge....

"am not sure what the rational reasons are either. can only say from long experience that it works far more often than not"

[Al_U_Card]

mike777, on May 29 2006, 03:20 PM, said:

Just asked Sabine about her Mini NT and why it works for her at the top levels of bridge....

"am not sure what the rational reasons are either. can only say from long experience that it works far more often than not"

Maybe it is that her opps are not paying attention to their cards?.....

[awm]

It seems like this is an interesting subject for bridge browser, perhaps applied to hands from top level competition. We can consider balanced hands with 11-12 hcp and no 5-card major in first seat, and look for:

(1) Hands where dealer passed.
(2) Hands opened with 1NT (presumably some range of weak NT)
(3) Hands opened with 1m

We can then determine the average IMPs (and/or MPs) for the dealing side. Perhaps it may also pay to divy these up by vulnerability.

Of course, any such bridgebrowser subject is prone to errors. By limiting to top-flight competition we can remove the effect of bidding aggressively "because opponents are bad" and much of the advantage gained because "people don't know how to defend weak notrump." There are still a few issues, for example the potential ripple effect of opening weak NTs on your strong NT hands, but this should give at least some grasp as to whether (against good players) it's better to pass or bid with weak balanced hands.

My own guess would be that opening 1m is bad at all vulnerabilities, and that a weak NT is good at nonvulnerable but worse than pass at vulnerable.