[awm]

One of the better players in our district will routinely open a strong 1NT on hands like:

Scoring: IMP

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Scoring: IMP

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He and his regular partners describe their notrump range as "15-17."

What do people think about this?

[ArtK78]

After this happens more than two or three times in a two month period, the partnership has an undisclosed partnership understanding.

If the partnership continues to announce its 1NT range as 15-17 without any qualification, then they are committing an infraction.

[keylime]

Quite bluntly, Adam, this is something for the recorder system to be involved in.

[Apollo81]

For his regular partners "active ethics would be to disclose but laws dont require"
For non-regular partners "unusual but OK"

I think he is upgrading his value by less than 1 point in each case, so I don't see a problem with it. This particular form of upgrading is pretty common in my experience.

edit: if you have a problem with this then you do have the same problem with this guy opening Ax Axx AKQ10xx xx 2NT consistently? Of course you don't. So just play penalty doubles of strong NT when you know there are people in the field that do this.

This post has been edited by Apollo81: 2008-January-08, 12:13

[jdonn]

I don't know exactly what the laws says but I really don't see much problem with this. It seems like a matter of hand evaluation, no different than if someone opens 14 with AKQxx 1NT. I feel when a card is marked 14+-17, for example, that means they are opening something around half the 14 counts 1NT give or take, but that upgrading or downgrading hands of any strength where you can make a reasonable argument about their value is just bridge.

Obviously if the opponents ask about style, you let them know.

[pclayton]

Personally I have a problem with a 1N opening described as '15-17' if he opens 1N every time, even in certain instances, such as NV 1st or 3rd.

I don't think this is a hand evaluation issue at all. It's a frequent semi-psyche.

I'd be curious how aggressive his partner is with inviting on 8's and poor 9's, or transferring with some hands holding a 5 card major.

[hrothgar]

This is a tough one:

1. I think that it is clearly legal to open 1NT with these sorts of hands. This wouldn't be my choice, but I don't see anything wrong with it.

2. Even so, there are requirements to provide adequate disclosure. I have no problems with folks applying judgement and upgrading/down grading hands, but this seems a bit extreme.

Anyone but a walrus has stretched to open a strong NT on an exceptional 14 count. Some folks have (undoubtedly) done so with a 13 count. I have absolutely no problem with someone (occasionally) opening a 14 HCP hand with a 15-17 NT without any special disclosure. Judgement is part and parcel of the game.

However, doing this regularly with a 12 count would seem to be streching it. More-over, lets assume that said partnership also applies this same judgement in the reverse case and treats

♠ KQJ2
♥ KQJ
♦ QJ2
♣ QJ2

as a 15 - 17 NT

This looks like a 6 point range for a 1NT opening, which brings one afoul of

Quote

ALL CALLS AFTER A NATURAL NOTRUMP opening bid or direct
overcall, EXCEPT for natural notrump opening bids or overcalls with a
lower limit of fewer than 10 HCP or with a range of greater than 5 HCP
(including those that have two non-consecutive ranges)

[awm]

K+R evaluator rates these hands as 15.85 and 16.05 hcp respectively.

A totally "normal" Axx Kxx QJxx AQx strong notrump rates as weaker than either of them.

The player in question would say that he evaluates this hand as being "worth a strong notrump." Evidently his evaluation is not totally unreasonable. His partners bid pretty "normally" opposite these openings as far as I can tell, and the games they reach with "22 hcp" or the like seem to make roughly often enough to justify bidding them. I do think his partnerships play takeout doubles and rubensohl after 1NT-(overcall) but otherwise I don't think their followup agreements or style are all that unusual.

[Apollo81]

awm, on Jan 8 2008, 01:21 PM, said:

K+R evaluator

What is this?

[pclayton]

awm, on Jan 8 2008, 10:21 AM, said:

K+R evaluator rates these hands as 15.85 and 16.05 hcp respectively.

A totally "normal" Axx Kxx QJxx AQx strong notrump rates as weaker than either of them.

The player in question would say that he evaluates this hand as being "worth a strong notrump." Evidently his evaluation is not totally unreasonable. His partners bid pretty "normally" opposite these openings as far as I can tell, and the games they reach with "22 hcp" or the like seem to make roughly often enough to justify bidding them. I do think his partnerships play takeout doubles and rubensohl after 1NT-(overcall) but otherwise I don't think their followup agreements or style are all that unusual.

K and R is not a reliable indicator of a hands for NT. We've been over this one.

[jtfanclub]

awm, on Jan 8 2008, 01:21 PM, said:

K+R evaluator rates these hands as 15.85 and 16.05 hcp respectively.

I don't think that matters.

If you describe your opening as 15-17 hcp and balanced, and you actually have 12, you lied. The fact that some evaluation system counts this as being 'worth' more than a 12 count doesn't really matter. 14 is a judgement call. 12 isn't.

If I open 1 spade showing 5+ spades, the opponents should be able to reasonably expect a 5+ card spade suit with a very rare 4. If you start opening 1♠ with the AKQ tight in spades, and your partner knows you do this, you're going to get a whole lot of director calls. Even if some evaluator considers AKQ to be worth more than 5432.

For most suit bids, you can simply explain correctly that your bid shows X HCP or the equivalent strength (with some exceptions, such as fewer than 7 hcp). The ACBL, in its infinite wisdom, has declared that 1NT openings will use HCP ranges.

If we wants to declare his range as 13-17, 13-14 only with a strong 6 card minor, then at least he's disclosing his hand. But when he starts doing it with 12 counts, the ACBL is going to be unhappy because of the 5 point range thing.

[jdonn]

jtfanclub, on Jan 8 2008, 01:46 PM, said:

14 is a judgement call. 12 isn't.

Says who? When you are 1 point outside your announced range you get to use judgment, when you are 2 or more outside you don't? That is the claim you are making?

I see no problem at all with the 5 point range rule (a stupid rule to begin with.) 12 is not in the range, any more than 14 is in the range of someone who opens Jx Axx AKQxx Txx with 1NT.

[pclayton]

jdonn, on Jan 8 2008, 10:52 AM, said:

jtfanclub, on Jan 8 2008, 01:46 PM, said:

14 is a judgement call.  12 isn't.

Says who? When you are 1 point outside your announced range you get to use judgment, when you are 2 or more outside you don't? That is the claim you are making?

I see no problem at all with the 5 point range rule (a stupid rule to begin with.) 12 is not in the range, any more than 14 is in the range of someone who opens Jx Axx AKQxx Txx with 1NT.

I suppose by this same reasoning xx, xx, xx, AKQJxxx is also a 1N opening.

It's a 15.0 in K and R fwiw.

[awm]

K+R is an alternative evaluation scheme for hands, published by Kaplan and Rubens in the bridge world. You can try it out with the tool on Jeff Goldsmith's page.

Whether this is more accurate than high card points is a matter of opinion I suppose.

There are many other evaluation schemes out there too.

The points I'm trying to make with this are:

(1) The person in question really thinks these hands are "worth" a strong notrump in some sense. There are established ways to evaluate hands that agree with him, so while you may or may not agree with his opinion it's not entirely unreasonable. If you don't like K+R, I could also mention that these hands are worth 29 ZAR points as is the 4333 16-count given, or that either of these hands offers good play for game opposite a pair of aces and out.

(2) Related to the first point, it's not obvious that bidding 1NT with these hands will "backfire" if partner bids normally over the strong notrump. Sure, you will reach a lot of games that other people don't reach, but there's no particular reason to think all of these games will be bad ones. In fact some of the good ones are potentially hard to reach if you open 1m and rebid 2m on the hands in question (i.e. partner has two aces).

[jtfanclub]

jdonn, on Jan 8 2008, 01:52 PM, said:

Says who? When you are 1 point outside your announced range you get to use judgment, when you are 2 or more outside you don't? That is the claim you are making?

I see no problem at all with the 5 point range rule (a stupid rule to begin with.) 12 is not in the range, any more than 14 is in the range of someone who opens Jx Axx AKQxx Txx with 1NT.

Pretty much, yes.

If I ask you what your 1NT range is, and you say 15-17, I can reasonably expect the occassional 14 or 18. I'm not expecting 12 or 20 counts.

The question here isn't whether you 'get to use judgement'. The question here is 'are you adequately describing your partnership agreements'. If you and your partner agree to open certain 12 counts with 1NT, then it's no longer a judgement call. It's a partnership agreement.

If you agree with your partner that you open 1NT with 15-17, and your partner is as surprised as your opponents, then sure. Whatever. Open it with a 7 count and two voids, what do I care?

But I don't think that the original premise is anything close to full disclosure.

[MickyB]

This isn't adequate disclosure in my view - it needs to be "15-17 if balanced, could be as light as 12 with a good six-card minor" or wtte

[whereagles]

I've had problems for opening a 15-17 1NT on a 5422 with good 5 carder... by this particular director was an idiot, so that might not be representative.

[kfay]

I would say that they should disclose this sort of agreement but that would suggest that I don't think they deserve some sort of punishment for the current habit, which I do.

[mikeh]

MY view, not based on any reading of the Laws and therefore of even less use than my typical post, is that I have NO problem with opening 1N on out-of-range hands PROVIDED that you announce it. It shouldn't be hard: 'usually 15-17, but we frequently upgrade hands with a good 6 card minor: it might even be a great 12 count'.

Yes, it is a pain to have to announce these agreements, but it is surely a much bigger pain to be on defence, work very hard to count out the cards, and screw up the defence because 'partner can't have that holding unless the opps have lied to me by announcing 15-17' We all know that great 14s will be included and I know of no-one who would take offence at that. But 12?????

The point is that these guys are ANNOUNCING a range for their opening bids while knowing that they are NOT playing that range. This is not simply non-disclosure, it is active mistatement.

There is a word for deliberately telling people something that you know not to be true. If these guys don't 'get it', suggest they switch to poker, where lying is a legal part of the game.

Let me repeat: I would be very much opposed to any effort to bar this kind of hand evaluation, but I would be incensed if these guys tried this against me and I learned that it was a regular approach.

[blackshoe]

I think we can discard what "idiot directors" may do.

The player does this routinely, with a regular partner. Thus, the partner knows he does it. That makes it a disclosable agreement. See Law 40B.

The presumption is that a NT opener shows a balanced hand. These hands are not balanced.. Yes, a player is allowed to use judgement to open the occasional unbalanced hand with 1 or 2 NT. But once you have an implicit agreement to regularly include such hands, you must disclose it. The ACBL alert regulation says

Quote

Systemically unbalanced or conventional 1NT openings or overcalls by an unpassed hand, when permitted... require an Alert.

This 1NT opening is, therefore, alertable, at least in the ACBL. I would tell the pair to alert it, and suggest they explain it as "nominally a balanced 15-17 HCP, but also possibly a semibalanced hand with a good six card minor and as few as 12 HCP."