[kenberg]

I suppose that a thread asking how to deal with the weak NT requires an explanation and perhaps an apology. No doubt the questions are not new.

However, watching a viewgraph show the other day a fine pair went off track because after 1N-X they were not on the same wavelength about subsequent bidding. So maybe it warrants discussiion.

Now a hand, with the weak NT (12-14) on my right:

Scoring: IMP

---

The circumstances: Casual, pard was unfamiliar but announced she wasn't very advanced, I had suggested, and she agreed, that we play natural over the weak NT openings.

(1N) X (2D) Pass
Pass 2N all pass.

I'm not particularly interested in critiquing partner's pass (she had some values and I took ten tricks). I want to focus on what should happen in a regular partnership.


I: Is my hand roughly what one would expect from my bidding?

II: If I double again, is it for take-out or for penalties? (In the viewgraph show one commentator suggested all doubles after the first penalty double are for penalties, another commentator disagreed)

III: What would a double of the 2D bid mean had partner done so? (The 2D was a transfer, although unalerted. If the meaning of partner's action over 2D depends on whether 2D shows Ds or Hs this could be a problem.)



More generally, is there a well thought out plan of how to develop the auction, after 1N-X, available somewhere on the web (or elsewhere)? As often is the case, having agreement is presumably more important than what the agreement is.

[pclayton]

I'll IM Gnome so he'll check in, but with us, pard's pass is forcing over 2♦, and thus our double is penalty. I think.

Your pard is a noob.

[mikeh]

In my partnerships, we play that double shows 15+ (may be a good 14 with a lead), and creates a force through 2♦: the opps can play 2Major undoubled, but not 2minor.

In most of my partnerships, advancer's double of LHO's (natural) bid is takeout, as is doubler's reopening double should that be his call.

Note that many weak notrumpers use 2-suited runouts, but most will include the suit that responder bid.. in my current rescue, when I am playing weak notrump, 2♦ would be the red suits, as an example. Against that method, double of 2♦, by advancer, is takeout, announcing a desire to compete, and permitting doubler to pass for penalties, while if advancer passed, then doubler's double of either 2♦ or opener's run to 2♥ would be takeout.

In one of my partnerships, my partner prefers that doubles be penalty.

We do not have explicit agreements about how to deal with the opps forgetting their methods.

[kenberg]

They didn't forget their methods they just didn't alert their methods. 2D was intended as a trf and taken as a trf. Presumably once we work out some methods, part of the approach will be to always ask for the meaning of 2D if it is not volunteered. This is socially a little messy since more than a few think it is totally obvious that 1NT-X-2D shows hearts only. Of course that is not at all true but them's the breaks. The particular game was such that I was not up for making waves either with pard or opps (as mentioned pard had said she wasn't very adv and asked if that was ok, I said sure).

But I hope in more serious competition no one is offended if we insist before we call that 2D be explained, even if a trf, or even if natural. It's a side issue but there is a great tendency on bbo for players to assume that their methods are completely standard and in no need of explanation.

It occurred to me that when opponents use artificial calls that do not show the bid suit (2C as Stayman or 2 red as a trf) then X might profitably be used to show general values. A double of a trf bid of 2D to show the Ds is useful of course to get us to Ds, but a general strength X would be useful for improving our chances of a penalty. Any thoughts? Maybe it's the company I keep, but I find the trf bids to be fairly common after 1nt-x, even if the nt is weak.

[Echognome]

pclayton, on Sep 30 2008, 07:40 AM, said:

I'll IM Gnome so he'll check in, but with us, pard's pass is forcing over 2♦, and thus our double is penalty. I think.

Your pard is a noob.

Yes. Forcing through 2♦ same as mikeh. I'm not claiming it's best, but seems to work out in practice.

[kenberg]

Echognome, on Sep 30 2008, 06:12 PM, said:

pclayton, on Sep 30 2008, 07:40 AM, said:

I'll IM Gnome so he'll check in, but with us, pard's pass is forcing over 2♦, and thus our double is penalty. I think.

Your pard is a noob.

Yes. Forcing through 2♦ same as mikeh. I'm not claiming it's best, but seems to work out in practice.

Thx. It's certainly a definite agreement and I can believe that it works reasonably in practice.


One of the nice features of bbo is playing against more variations. In f2f bridge in the DC area the weak nt is infrequent enough to hardly be worth the effort of thinking about. Here on bbo that is not so.

Thanks.

[ASkolnick]

Here is what I play:

As soon as partner makes a X of a weak NT, he has "overcalled" a strong NT. Therefore, all of your strong NT systems are on. Since most people's runouts are the same as what they play over a Strong NT, you become in the same position.

[pclayton]

ASkolnick, on Oct 2 2008, 07:38 AM, said:

As soon as partner makes a X of a weak NT, he has "overcalled" a strong NT. Therefore, all of your strong NT systems are on.

I'll put on my flame-retardant suit now.

[jdonn]

ASkolnick, on Oct 2 2008, 10:38 AM, said:

Here is what I play:

As soon as partner makes a X of a weak NT, he has "overcalled" a strong NT. Therefore, all of your strong NT systems are on. Since most people's runouts are the same as what they play over a Strong NT, you become in the same position.

Sorry, this is a somewhat common but completely awful method. The only advantage is it's easy to agree. There is way too big of a difference between 15-17 balanced and 15+ with almost any shape.

[Walddk]

ASkolnick, on Oct 2 2008, 05:38 PM, said:

Here is what I play:

As soon as partner makes a X of a weak NT, he has "overcalled" a strong NT. Therefore, all of your strong NT systems are on. Since most people's runouts are the same as what they play over a Strong NT, you become in the same position.

Unplayable in my view. What if your partner has a very weak hand and wants to take out into 2♣ or 2♦? He can't because your strong NT system is on? So I assume that 2♣ is Stayman and 2♦ a transfer.

Not a method I would ever agree on. He did not open 1NT and he did not overcall 1NT. He penalised a 12-14 NT. He could have different hand types, not necessarily a strong balanced hand.

Roland

[FrancesHinden]

pclayton, on Oct 2 2008, 04:52 PM, said:

ASkolnick, on Oct 2 2008, 07:38 AM, said:

As soon as partner makes a X of a weak NT, he has "overcalled" a strong NT.  Therefore, all of your strong NT systems are on.

I'll put on my flame-retardant suit now.

I think it's Mr Skolnick who needs his special suit, not you.
I'm bored of being rude about that method, I'll let everyone else do it for me.

[pclayton]

FrancesHinden, on Oct 2 2008, 08:20 AM, said:

pclayton, on Oct 2 2008, 04:52 PM, said:

ASkolnick, on Oct 2 2008, 07:38 AM, said:

As soon as partner makes a X of a weak NT, he has "overcalled" a strong NT.  Therefore, all of your strong NT systems are on.

I'll put on my flame-retardant suit now.

I think it's Mr Skolnick who needs his special suit, not you.
I'm bored of being rude about that method, I'll let everyone else do it for me.

Yeah but this one rates to generate collateral damage.

I'm enjoying a latte at a sidewalk cafe across the street from this thread, you see.

[kenberg]

I appreciate this I have had people suggest this method and I have declined mostly on instinct. I will now refer them to this thread.

Nonetheless, I hope I can put out any flames. I hope to hear from other folks with ideas.

[Tcyk]

I personally like all doubles of no trump to be penalty oriented. They don't necessarily show a big hand but usually contain a good suit which I expect to run. Partner's doubles and my repeat doubles are all for penalty. They are not for takeout.

An interesting aside is that, on hands played on the Internet, the weaker the no trump the better the expected results. A 10-12 HCP no trump opening tends to score better than 12-14 NT openings and they score better than 15-17 NT openings. I examined some 20 million hands to obtain these statistics. 8-10 HCP NT openings did very well but the sample size was too small to draw any conclusions.

The only explanations I have for this is that the weak no trump players are better than strong no trump players or opponents don't know how to defend against a weak no trump. Take your pick. The important thing is that you and your partner have a firm understanding of your bid meanings and how to defend against all levels of no trump openings.

[awm]

My preference is to play that subsequent doubles after opponents run from 1NTX are takeout. This helps a lot in constructive bidding, and avoiding doubling making contracts. Occasionally you miss a chance at a lucrative penalty, but you don't play in many silly spots.

The information about weak notrump faring well on BBO is interesting but not particularly meaningful. There are a several points that need to be remembered here. First, the level of play on BBO as a whole is not particularly high. Thus the results of "BBO players" using various conventions on various hands are not likely to reflect the results of "strong players against strong opposition" using similar methods. Second, there is a very high number of "pickup" partnerships on BBO, often with substantially less discussion of methods than even a casual face-to-face pair. Defending weak notrump is a situation where it helps a lot to have agreements (which doubles are takeout vs. penalty, what does it mean if you remove a double, etc) and pickup pairs ("2/1 partner?") are unlikely to have these agreements. Third, partly because of the first two points, any partnership which has detailed agreements has a substantial advantage over the BBO field at large, and a pair playing 10-12 notrump probably has a lot of agreements (including things like carding methods and followups to their openings) that the typical BBO pair does not.

[fred]

In my regular partnerships, after we Double 1NT and they run:

- Double is "takeout" and creates a force should they run somewhere else. "Takeout" appears in quotes because these Doubles tend to be more along the lines of "value-showing without 4 cards in their suit" as opposed to "support for the other suits".
- If, after a "takeout" Double, they run somewhere else, a subsequent Double by the player who made the "takeout" Double is for penalties but a subsequent Double by his partner is for "takeout". In other words, each partner can make only one "takeout" Double.
- Pass in not forcing (I could explain why but I suspect most of you can figure out why from the above).

Some of you may have seen that this scheme worked rather badly on vugraph during this year's USA Team Trials when Michael Rosenberg cleverly psyched 2S after Zia's 1NT got Doubled with something like:

x
xx
xxx
Qxxxxxx

Neither my partner nor I could make a "takeout" Double (because we both had penalty Doubles) and, since we were not in a force, Rosenberg played in 2S undoubled (down 7 I think) for an excellent score (thanks to the vulnerability).

Fortunately most people are not that clever and, even for those who are, it is fortunately rare that they are dealt appropriate hands at the appropriate vulnerability to take this sort of action

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[cherdano]

Did Rosenberg know your agreement? (I bet yes!)
Did Zia alert 2S?

[fred]

cherdano, on Oct 2 2008, 11:51 PM, said:

Did Rosenberg know your agreement? (I bet yes!)
Did Zia alert 2S?

I am not sure if Rosenberg *knew* our agreement, but this sort of agreement is popular among "players like us". Probably he would have been willing to bet that we had an agreement along these lines.

Even if not, he had some safety regardless of what our agreements were thanks to his 7-card club suit.

Zia did not alert.

By the way, my partner was the one who made the penalty Double. He had 4 spades and I had 6 spades (along with a smattering of values). I *knew* at the time I should have made the weird bid of 4S over 2S, but could not bring myself to do it (coward!).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

I have always played all doubles by both players later are penalty. It's not so much to catch an outright psych, but more that players often run to 2♣ planning to redouble and let partner work it out, but if neither of us can double 2♣ they get away.

But then again, Justin has told me that is dumb because if they get to a fit no one can make a takeout double, which makes the next bid of a suit a bit vague since it might even be four. So what the heck do I know.

Parting note. I think it's a very good idea to incorporate lebensohl into a lot of these auctions after you double a weak notrump!

[gnasher]

As others have said, takeout doubles work well as long as one of you is short enough to double; penalty doubles work well if one of you has a penalty double, but less well otherwise.

Playing
   (1nt) dbl (2x) pass
as forcing helps with both of these problems. Playing takeout doubles, it means that you don't get caught when they have psyched or bid a short suit preparatory to redoubling. Playing penalty doubles, when you have values but not a penalty double you can make a forcing pass.

The downside occurs when advancer has a bad balanced hand. Some people play forcing passes only over 2C/D, with the idea that if necessary advancer will just choose to defend and concede -180.

Regarding psyching as responder against people who play takeout doubles, I don't think it needs a player of Rosenberg's calibre to make one - quite ordinary players will psyche in this situation given the right hand. It's more effective with xx or xxx rather than a singleton. When you have a singleton, someone is likely to have enough cards in the suit to work out what's going on - as in Fred's example. What you really want to do is to psyche in their 4-4 fit.