[Feegle]

When I used to play bridge at a club many years ago it was all Acol 12-14. I guess my partner and I had some fancy system to trot out against it.

Now we face a consistant diet of 15-17 on BBO. Can you advise me on how to compete when vulnerable (playing IMP's). Are overcall gadgets still a good idea (or only for those who don't mind the occasional cricket score against them)?

(P.S. Not if England are batting obviously).

[rogerclee]

There's sort of a lot of literature on the subject (probably more than there should be).

The most common train of thought these days is that since you virtually never have game after an opposing 15-17NT, your bidding against 1NT should be primarily destructive. This is directly the opposite of bidding over a 12-14NT, where you are just trying to find a place to play.

With this in mind, a lot of defenses allow for lots of two-suited overcalls, since this is when you're most likely to have the shape required to overcall against a strong NT.

Red at IMPs, and in my opinion, at any colors, you'd have to be crazy to call 4-4 shape a two-suited overcall. Red at IMPs, I tend to overcall on 5-4 only if the suits are pretty beefy (spot cards are huge!) or 5-5.

Some popular defenses are Woolsey/Robinson (called Multi-Landy in some parts), DONT, and Meckwell.

To answer the question, playing "natural" against strong NTs is fairly unpopular for the reasons above these days. I'd say that at the very least, you need a bid for the majors, so playing Landy makes sense.

Make sure you realize that what you play over their NT is not as important as realizing when you should be bidding and when you shouldn't. I played a KO in San Francisco where my partner opened a 15-17NT, and my RHO thought that being 4-5 in spades and diamonds was good enough to enter at NV. Doubled, down 7, at the two-level, for a rare NV 1700!

[P_Marlowe]

If you dont go once in a while for a number,
you dont compete enough.
Put in another way, if you want to hurt the
enemy, you need to take risks.

To answer your question:
It is necessay to play conventional overcalls,
if you want to fight in an effective way against
the strong NT, because you need to be able
to show 1-suiter (6 card suits !) and 2-suiters
(starting with 4-4 or 5-4).
The vulnerability will indicate, how frisky you
can be.

Dont blame DONT or whatever convention you may
start to play, if you go in, red versus green, with a
4432 shape and go for 1100.

My recommendation would be DONT, because it
is simple, but effective.
A slightly better convention would be Lionel,
which eliminates some of the weaknesses of
DONT, but is more complicate.

With kind regards
Marlowe