[Phil]

Zelandakh, on 2013-January-03, 05:47, said:

For GCC, the 1NT overcall has to be natural, 3-suited or show at least 5-4 in 2 suits with a known suit by my reading of the chart. The solution would be to take Phil's proposal, remove the 6+ diamond hands from 1NT and play 2♦ as an IJO. Now 1NT becomes Raptor with diamonds as the anchor suit:

(1♣)
X = power
1♦ = weak takeout
1M = natural
1NT = 5+ diamonds, 4M
2♣ = strong takeout

(snip)

Does this work?

This does. I think I might try it with my OS partner the next time we play.

[straube]

Looks pretty attractive to me. There might be a little duplication in that many hands will qualify for both a 1N and 1D overcall. Plus we're missing out on a weak diamond overcall (obviously) and giving up Michaels. OTOH, at such a low level, X as power makes a lot of sense to me. I'm guessing that the Hubert Negative should be used...or you could just use your usual strong club structure.

[straube]

Looked at a few hands and not wild about this. I miss the diamond overcalls. How about...

dbl-takeout shape, could be as light as 8 hcps
1D-natural, expect 4-cd suits more often than 4M overcalls
1M-natural
1N-15-17
2C-strong hand (18+ or so)
.....2D-asking
.....2M-natural
.....2N-natural 18-20 or so
2D-weak two or perhaps Michaels
2M-weak two

What I like about this is that dbl is always takeout shape. It is not confused with other strong meanings. It is also very frequent...much more so than the strong meanings. If the dbl hand bids again, he shows extra and is further clarifying his shape.

Yeah, not comfortable with the 18-20 2N. Looking for workarounds.

[Zelandakh]

straube, on 2013-January-03, 10:30, said:

Looked at a few hands and not wild about this. I miss the diamond overcalls. How about...

I would miss them too, which is why I looked around for alternatives and suggested the two-way 1♦ overcall. If you want Double to be power and still have 2 calls for takeout then you have to give up something though.

straube, on 2013-January-03, 10:30, said:

dbl-takeout shape, could be as light as 8 hcps

Now we are moving away from a Power Double set-up again. Indeed this structure reminds me somewhat of Culbertson, with the cue showing a big hand. And this time I cannot see the attraction. We get to Double with a trick less than normal, not really causing the opponents too much trouble and helping them when they declare (which they will most of the time) and lose out on either a wjo in diamonds or hands with both majors, both of which do cause the opponents problems and are more likely to result in our stealing the contract.

If I was going to go along this route, with 2♣ as a general strong hand, then I think I would probably look at something like X = diamonds or majors and 1♦ as a limited take-out. But I am not exactly wild about that either. I think you are overstimating the upside and underestimating the downside of this.

[kenrexford]

straube, on 2013-January-03, 10:30, said:

Looked at a few hands and not wild about this. I miss the diamond overcalls. How about...

dbl-takeout shape, could be as light as 8 hcps
1D-natural, expect 4-cd suits more often than 4M overcalls
1M-natural
1N-15-17
2C-strong hand (18+ or so)
.....2D-asking
.....2M-natural
.....2N-natural 18-20 or so
2D-weak two or perhaps Michaels
2M-weak two

What I like about this is that dbl is always takeout shape. It is not confused with other strong meanings. It is also very frequent...much more so than the strong meanings. If the dbl hand bids again, he shows extra and is further clarifying his shape.

Yeah, not comfortable with the 18-20 2N. Looking for workarounds.

At the takeout point, what you seem to be doing is saving the strong balanced 1NT overcall and then splitting the takeouts between a wide-ranging double (8-17 HCP) and a power 2♣ cuebid (any shape), with apparently a forfeit of the jump overcall in diamonds for a Flannery-esque 2♦.

This seems like a lot of the same problems with the Overcall Structure that I noticed earlier, but worse.

If you get past the inability to drop the quick description of the balanced intermediatre (15-17) and trust this to be worked out, especially after a 1♣ opening with Herbert Negs (the easiest auctio by far), you should notice some principles.


1A. The 8-17 range is unwieldy. Sure, it is "safer" when you have the light range, but you are prone to interference by the opponents when you have intermediate or strong hands.

1B. Split ranges are mnore easily handled. RUNT offers that, especially the Son-of-RUNT version. X = 0-4 (could skip that one) or 11-18 or 23+; 1NT = 5-10 or 19-22. These ranges could be tweaked, obviously, to maybe 1NT = 8-11 or 17-19, X = 12-16 or 20+ (or 0-4?). But, split-ranging is less prone to opposition meddling.

2. While a weaker 1NT takeout seems more dangerous in the sense of possible penalties, it is also more powerful in its impact on the opposition. The net effect is that the 1NT overcall has a tendency to be penalized less than you might think. When you steal opposition space, they need that double for constructive purposes; with less space stealing, the oppositiuon can dedicate an asset to penalty doubling more easily. Consider, for example, how many play negative doubles after 1NT-(3x)-? but penalty after 1NT-(2x)-? Or, a penalty double in a 1x-(2y)-2x-(3y)-? unless "y" is one under "x." Thus, bidding higher is often safer than bidding lower, if that makes any sense. (Another example might be that a trap pass of a two-level overcall is easy, but you get nervous trap passing a three-level overcall.)

[straube]

Not sure I like my last proposal but let me try to defend it at least a little.

What I like is that the double is frequent and does not blur hand types. It's always takeout shape. I wasn't thinking to double with Axxx Kxx xxx Jxx. Eight would be with something more like AJxx xxx Kxxxx x.
With a hand like that, we want to compete, right? But we don't want to overemphasize diamonds either.

Frequency is a big deal. I mean, try to tabulate the frequency for a takeout double with a power double. The power double is less frequent.

The other thing is that a power double is mixed as well. It has to handle balanced strong NT hands along with big single-suit hands...which means that partner can't reliably pass with QJxx.

I'm not wild about bidding up to 2N with only 18-20 balanced, but I sampled 100 hands (where I dealt myself 8+ hcps) and only had to use this bid once. So I'm thinking that 1C (dbl) P 1H P (1N) could even be used to show a bigger takeout double. Or maybe not. It is rather high.

I wasn't thinking of the cue bid here as takeout or.... I was thinking of it as wanting to announce a good hand that didn't have takeout double shape.