[mike777]

What is the minimum hand you will respond to an opening one bid?
1) With a fit?
2) Without a fit?

[awm]

My answer is (as expected) a bit more conservative than Justin's:

6+ points with any hand
4-5 points with a 5cM biddable at the one-level
4-5 points with any singleton/void (even in pd's suit)
4-5 points with a known fit (3+ in a major, 5+ in a minor)
0-3 points with a 7cM biddable at the one-level
0-3 points with 5-5 or better in two suits including at least one biddable 5cM
0-3 points with a HUGE fit (5+ in a major, 7+ in a minor)

[HeartA]

Mine is close to Adam's, but even more conservative.
1) Any hand with 6+ hcp or 2+ controls
2) 4+ hcp with biddable suit at 1 level
3) 4+ hcp with fit
4) Any hand with excellent fit.

[pclayton]

awm, on Oct 25 2006, 03:40 PM, said:

My answer is (as expected) a bit more conservative than Justin's:

6+ points with any hand
4-5 points with a 5cM biddable at the one-level
4-5 points with any singleton/void (even in pd's suit)
4-5 points with a known fit (3+ in a major, 5+ in a minor)
0-3 points with a 7cM biddable at the one-level
0-3 points with 5-5 or better in two suits including at least one biddable 5cM
0-3 points with a HUGE fit (5+ in a major, 7+ in a minor)

Mine is like Adam's.

FWIW, I think Justin's approach should be alertable.

[fifee]

I like light action so someone must be conservative, at least a bit more conservative than Justin.

For the most part, I will keep the bidding open for my partner with an Ace or with a King and a fit and some shape.

The better the shape, the less I have to have. The better the fit, the less I have to have to respond.

With 4-6 dummy points and 3 cd support, I will bid 1NT and then show a preference for partner's opening suit. ( Not enough to raise to 2 immediately for me.)

With 4 card or longer support, depends on agreements. Bergenesque raises are 0 to whatever for jump raises. I prefer the tighter Goldway raises which are mostly 3 point spreads.

With no fit, depends on shape more than count. The shapelier, the less HCP needed to respond.

Be thoughtful, most importantly.

Thanks, Ben, for helping me get back into forum!

[Robert]

Hi everyone

Jlall's bidding is somewhat more conservative than mine in responding to one bids.

I do play a Big Club type system so 'if' partner opens a non 1C bid, my agreement is that I may respond with 0+ HCP.

Partner cannot have a huge hand so it is very unlikely that he can try and bury me. The system is also very souped up so that jump shifts promise 6-5(+) hand shapes plus max. type non 1C values.

We do pre alert(and also alert our suit bids which may have anywhere from 0+HCP upwards) because we 'are trying to steal' and feel that it is only fair to let the other side in on our little joke.

If you happen to hold zero HCP, the odds against holding 'that' hand are something like 1800 - 1 odds. You normally hold a couple of HCP so we normally have 3/4+ HCP for most of our bids.

We do like to think that the 'balancing in direct seat' bidders will have major problems with our choice of values for our bids.

Regards,
Robert

[mikeh]

Jlall, on Oct 25 2006, 09:34 PM, said:

pclayton, on Oct 25 2006, 07:12 PM, said:

FWIW, I think Justin's approach should be alertable.

heh, Grainger and I were pre alerting it in the spingold since the matches are long. It probably should be pre-alertable or on the card somewhere. I think having to alert every response to a 1 bid would be a bad system though.

I cannot imagine not alerting this type of approach, although (for me) one pre-alert would be enough.

I have played against this style and it is effective, altho at some cost in terms of system integrity... but it is far more effective against opps who are unaware of it than against those who are aware of it: and that factor alone should drive a player as ethical as Justin (who deservedly enjoys an excellent reputation in that regard) to alert.

If you think that a pre-alert is appropriate playing against the calibre of player who enters the Spingold, consider how vulnerable the average matchpoint opp is to this sort of undisclosed agreement

If the requirement to alert is so tiresome that it spoils the fun of the method, maybe that says something meaningful about the technical merits.

[sceptic]

I will bid with zero points and lots of the suit opened, I will not respond with less than zero points and I think any one that does is a fool, I do take seating and shape into consideration

[FrancesHinden]

For a 1-level response to 1 minor, I will bid on most hands with an Ace; on many but not all 5-counts, and on pretty much all 6-counts.

Opposite a potentially short club I will respond with many 4/5 counts with a king, a 5+ card major and short clubs.

For a 1NT response to a 5-card major opening, I generally require either 5+ with 3-card support or 6+ without support. NV I may have (much) less, but partner doesn't make allowances: he bids assuming I have my announced values. There are also some very strange hands which might bid with less, but they aren't really systemic.

After P P P 1 something P I will strain to respond as partner often has a very strong hand unsuitabley shaped for a 2C opening; particularly in the partnership that doesn't play strong 2s in 4th seat.

[cherdano]

To me it feels wrong to alert these very light responses. Esp. in North America, many experts agree with Justin's style (including Mikeh's most famous bidding theory countryman...). So I think it's one of the styles you have to expect at the table, and if you need to know, you have to ask. Similar as you need to ask whether a w2 bid can routinely be made on 5332 with a good suit etc.
Alerts seem more helpful when they are reserved for bids with unexpected meaning, not just those that are on the aggressive side of the typical styles for a bid.

Arend

[awm]

Actually, the ACBL alert chart indicates that very light openings (less than 10 hcp) or overcalls (less than 6 hcp) are both a pre-alert and an alert during the auction.

Most directors don't know this, and the official ACBL convention card (which is not an authority on what is/is not alertable) does't have it marked in red.

Responses to a one-level opener that "could be very light" are not alertable or pre-alertable in the official regulations, although they might (or might not, depending who you ask) fall under the category of "highly unexpected strength or range" and therefore be an alert.

I should also mention that this is an area where (as Elianna would say) the rules on the ground are very different from the official rules. Opening light in third seat is considered "normal" and even though the alert charts indicate that an agreement to open on less than 10 hcp in third seat should be both an alert during the auction and a pre-alert, no one ever alerts it and no director will ever rule that there was damage from a failure to alert it. On the other hand, opening light in first seat will often be ruled damaging if not disclosed.

[awm]

A related question to those who sometimes respond on zero points without exceptional shape (like Justin for example):

If you have one of these very light hands, and partner makes a forcing rebid (jump shift, reverse) do you typically pass or bid on? And if you typically bid, how much would you really lose by playing an ehaa-like style without a strong bid, given that 1-suit is being treated as "almost forcing" anyway? There are all kinds of fun and annoying uses that a weak 2♣ bid can be used for, after all.

[hrothgar]

Jlall, on Oct 26 2006, 11:21 PM, said:

As far as this method being far more effective against people who are unaware of the possibility, I definitely disagree. What kind of defense are you going to use against it? Bid more in sandwich seat? Then you will probably go for more penalties. I probably have an abnormal response 1 out of 100 times, so doing something strange to cater to it is just not practical.

The question whether or not to alert this type of light advance style is a very tricky one. I can see arguments on both sides:

Consider the following auction

(1♣) - P - (1♠) - 1NT

Traditionally, this NT bid was treated as natural, showing (roughly) 16 - 18. More recently people switched to a so-called sandwhich NT, where I NT showed some form of 2-suited takeout. Even more recently, I've seen a number of top experts stating that they are switching back to the original natural meaning. They specific cite weak-advance styles as the reason for this move.

I ran a very quick and dirty script to see whether this was reasonable.

North had 11+ HCP (placeholder for an aggressive opening)
East had 0-8 HCP (placeholder for a pass)

I then calculated a frequency distribution for West's HCP's using two different conditions.

Condition 1: South had 6+ HCP (placeholder for a standard advance style)
Condition 2: South had 0+ HCP (placeholder for a highly aggressive advance style

Using condition 1, West held 16-18 HCP 3.84% of the time
Using condition 2, West held 16-18 HCP 6.4% of the time

The question becomes: Is this chance significant? Do you believe that people should make significant changes to their methods based on this subtle a shift in frequency?

I'd probably agree with Justin that modifying the methods is likely to be more trouble than its worth.

[Elianna]

Jlall, on Oct 26 2006, 12:21 PM, said:

"very light overcalls" and "light third seat" openers are black on the card, so as far as I know they aren't alertable, presumably for the same reason.

As Adam said, they're alertable.

(This is not just directed at Justin) The convention card color-coding is not the official alert chart. The alert chart can be found at http://www.acbl.org/...alertChart.html. The cc cc (love those abbreviations!) is just a guide.