[blackshoe]

cherdano, on Jan 8 2008, 09:44 PM, said:

I think these 1N openings cross the line where you should add a comment to the announcement.

I agree they cross the line, but technically, at least, if the announcement is not adequate disclosure in itself, the bid should be alerted. Adding a comment to the announcement is not in accordance with the regulation.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the bid should be alerted.

Just ask yourself, which opening would you expect
with the given hand, if a player claims to play 5 card
mayor and 15-17NT.
Choose your level at your likening. I would say, the
majority will open the minor, once in a while they may
open 1NT as some semi psych, and they would see it
as semi psych.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Cascade]

blackshoe, on Jan 9 2008, 06:32 PM, said:

cherdano, on Jan 8 2008, 09:44 PM, said:

I think these 1N openings cross the line where you should add a comment to the announcement.

I agree they cross the line, but technically, at least, if the announcement is not adequate disclosure in itself, the bid should be alerted. Adding a comment to the announcement is not in accordance with the regulation.

What the alert chart states is that you should make an announcement for your 1NT opening as follows : "State Range, if natural, for all 1NT openings"

Is there a regulation somewhere that says more about this.

If not there is a fundamental problem with the statement in the alert chart unless you never upgrade or downgrade hands from within or without the range that you state.

The issue is whether an announcement of 15-17 hcp is better than an announcement of 12-18 or whatever is your actual "range" when you upgrade or downgrade some hands. I don't think there is a good answer to what is the best announcement.

[Gerben42]

Quote

So it's not the 12 points that bothers you, it's the 6 card suit? It would be a huge expert majority that sometimes opens 1NT with a 6 card minor, and I bet it is never alerted at all.

Just because others don't alert it, you shouldn't either. I think EVERYONE should alert opening 1NT where partner is not surprised by a 6322-distribution. The same is true if they choose to open a 15-17 NT on 13 or 12-counts, even though these hands are "worth it".

[blackshoe]

sceptic, on Jan 9 2008, 02:22 AM, said:

Quote

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

If this is the case, do they have to provide an proper defence against it?

Not in the ACBL. Other jurisdictions may have other rules.

[blackshoe]

First, the Alert Chart is not the regulation - it is a summary of the regulation. The chart and the regulation are both available on the ACBL website.

If you might open 1NT on a balanced hand with any point count between 12 and 18 HCP, inclusive, then you should announce 12-18 as your range. If you normally limit the range to 15-17, but might upgrade a good 14 HCP or downgrade a bad 18 HCP, then you should announce it as 15-17. If you might rarely open 1NT with a singleton, or with a long strong minor suit and a couple of doubletons, that is not alertable and does not affect your announcement of range, so long as it's fairly close to 15-17. If you routinely open 1NT with an off shape hand (i.e., not balanced) or with significantly fewer or more HCP than your normal range, then you alert the bid. ("You" refers to the partnership, btw).

[barmar]

IMO, this hand deviates very far from what most players expect a 15-17 NT to show. Yes, most good players will open 1NT with some hands with a 6-card minor; during this weekend's Individual I think I did it more than in the past 6 months, to avoid letting the LOLs declare. But few would consider a hand with two small doubletons appropriate, and many wouldn't do it unless both doubletons were at least Kx.

So the example hands deviate in three ways from what most would expect: 1) they're not in the stated HCP range; 2) they're only borderline balanced; and 3) the suit texture is not NT-appropriate. One flaw is a judgement call, but three doesn't sit right with me.

I suppose they claim that the deviations cancel each other out -- the long suit provides playing strength that makes up for the doubletons. This is presumably what the K&R evaluation reflects. However, as someone pointed out, K&R is known to be a poor way to evaluate balanced hands. I haven't read the description of it, but it apparently awards points for distribution, which is only valuable if you're going to be ruffing.

On the other hand, maybe this should be viewed similarly to the people who open a strong 2♣ on hands with 17-18 HCP and a long, solid suit, because it fits their agreement of "8-1/2 playing tricks." Sure, it fits the description, but it's still a pretty stupid thing to do, because partner won't be able to evaluate his hand properly if a single bid encompasses such a wide variety of hand types.

But the player who does this is supposedly a local expert, so I suspect he hasn't been burned too much by opening these things. Maybe it's because the hands really do play like 15-17 NT's, or maybe it's just because the misinformation causes the opponents to misplay or misdefend.

[blackshoe]

jdonn, on Jan 8 2008, 03:40 PM, said:

blackshoe, on Jan 8 2008, 03:35 PM, said:

it's rather to say that the fact that experts (even a huge majority of them) don't alert something doesn't mean it's not alertable.

Any more than the fact that bridge players (even a huge majority of them) think it's ok to not alert that they might upgrade 14 but must alert if they upgrade 12?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. For one thing, If I say that such-and-such is alertable, I'm not speaking as a player, I'm speaking as a director. For another, as I said earlier, it's not just the point count at issue here - it's the combination of the point count and the off shape distribution.

[oldman5757]

awm, on Jan 8 2008, 12:54 PM, said:

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

Scoring: IMP

♠	Ax
♥	Txx
♦	AKJTxx
♣	xx

 

---

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

What do people think about this?

The operative word is "routinely." If you routinely deviate from your stated agreements without disclosure, you are in violation of the laws, and should be called on it, ESPECIALLY when the routine deviation is by this much, and even more so when the routine deviation occurs with a regular partner or partners.

If someone routinely deviates from the stated 15-17 NT range by this much, what is the point of having a range? A player who did this consistently would likely be barred from most of the clubs I've played in -- and should be.

[mycroft]

I bet for every time he's burned by it, he gets one or two tricks off of it on another hand by people who try to work out his hand and totally misball it. He probably gets one or two tricks off another hand from defenders playing him for that hand after 1D-whatever, and him not having it. He probably gets one or two tricks, or the right contract, on the odd hand from partner who after 1D-whatever, doesn't play him to have this hand.

The last is legal, provided the unusual judgment is available to the opponents. The first two are a function of inadequate disclosure of that unusual judgment.

The ACBL has a policy on conventional bids after wide-range NT openings. I don't *think* this is what they're after (they don't like the Blue Club 12-18 1NT opening, or the Woodson two-way (or Silver two-way) NT opening in random club games), but there's no way to find out while this tendency is "hidden", is there?

Michael.