[cherdano]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-06, 04:22, said:

But, thanks for the advice on hand evaluation beyond point count.

Well, unless the OP routinely opens balanced 10-counts, opening the actual hand was horrible evaluation. The OP seems unaware of this. Are we not allowed to point this out?

[aguahombre]

cherdano, on 2013-September-06, 04:41, said:

Well, unless the OP routinely opens balanced 10-counts, opening the actual hand was horrible evaluation. The OP seems unaware of this. Are we not allowed to point this out?

Sure, we are. But, it is not relevant. This North (or this pair) chooses to open with this hand. This South considers his hand to be invitational within their methods, and this North says no. Then this South invites again; we don't have reinvites in our arsenal.

If opener held what we consider a good 11 or 12, we wouldn't be down two in 3H. So, what? We shouldn't be in 3H.

[cherdano]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-06, 05:01, said:

Sure, we are. But, it is not relevant. This North (or this pair) chooses to open with this hand. This South considers his hand to be invitational within their methods, and this North says no. Then this South invites again; we don't have reinvites in our arsenal.

If opener held what we consider a good 11 or 12, we wouldn't be down two in 3H. So, what? We shouldn't be in 3H.

So a horrible mistake that contributed to the problem is not relevant because partner also made a mistake?

[billw55]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-06, 05:01, said:

Sure, we are. But, it is not relevant. This North (or this pair) chooses to open with this hand. This South considers his hand to be invitational within their methods, and this North says no. Then this South invites again; we don't have reinvites in our arsenal.

If opener held what we consider a good 11 or 12, we wouldn't be down two in 3H. So, what? We shouldn't be in 3H.

I understand this, but what muddies the waters is the free 1NT bid, which seems to show more than a bare minimum. How should south interpret north's entire sequence?

[mcphee]

North had a couple of opportunities to pass but chose to open and freely bid after the o/c. I would not even open this pail in third w/r.

[VM1973]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-06, 05:01, said:

Sure, we are. But, it is not relevant. This North (or this pair) chooses to open with this hand. This South considers his hand to be invitational within their methods, and this North says no. Then this South invites again; we don't have reinvites in our arsenal.

If opener held what we consider a good 11 or 12, we wouldn't be down two in 3H. So, what? We shouldn't be in 3H.

To be certain everyone is entitled to have their own agreements. If they choose to open balanced 11 counts as a matter of style, this is not illegal. Nevertheless, this shouldn't stop us from pointing out that it's a spectacularly bad idea.

There are many reasons why people open the bidding. Bidding may lead to a profitable game, or part score. It may have preemptive value. It may suggest a profitable sacrifice. It may also help to guide the defense. Now people don't generally think of all of these reasons when they pick up ♠AKJxx ♥xx ♦ xx ♣KTxx but regardless, they are present.

The reasons why you should have 13 HCPs to open a 4-3-3-3 are probably well known, but I'll review them anyway. Since two 4-3-3-3 hands with 26 points between them generally make 3NT it makes little sense to pass balanced 13 counts as, should both partners do so, a laydown game could easily be missed. Additionally, assuming the balance of the points are evenly divided between the three other hands, your partner will have 9 HCPs and so your combined assets will be more than half the deck, and you will have every reason to believe that the hand belongs to your side.

Accordingly when someone opens a balanced hand with less than 13 HCPs the hand already has one strike against it. As such, there should be other, compensating factors in the hand to make the bid worthwhile. Looking at the hand in question, I really don't see any.

First of all, I don't see that a 1♦ opener has much preemptive value. At least the 10-13 1NT people are consuming the entire first level of bidding space. The same cannot be said for this bid as it will be child's play for East to mention any majors he would like to bring into the mix.

Second, bidding a three-card suit is unlikely to suggest a profitable sacrifice. I should also throw in here that his partner will probably read him for 4+ diamonds and may take unwarranted action should he have a 5-card diamond suit, such as taking a phantom save.

Third, if the opponents buy the contract it is unclear that North really wants to see a diamond lead. How will he feel, for example, if his opponents buy the contract in 3NT and his partner opens the ♦Q from ♦Q4? Won't his ♦7 look like a come-on signal and the bad start to the defense could easily result in overtricks - a costly mistake in matchpoint scoring.

Finally, I strongly deny that all of these problems can be solved just by having the partnership agreement that 4-3-3-3 and 11 can be an opening bid. This decision will skew the entire bidding structure. After all, if partner can have as little as 11, perhaps responder will decide that 6 HCPs and balanced is not enough to keep the bidding open or, if he does bid, he could easily find himself declaring a 17-HCP 1NT while doubled and vulnerable. A nice -500 when his opponents don't have a biddable game will be a bottom board. The partnership decision to not respond unless you have 7 (or even 8) HCPs then may result in shapely 17 HCP hands going 1♦-All pass when makeable games are available.

If we adjust the offensive hand above to the following:

♠K97
♥QT2
♦KQJ7
♣T72

Then maybe a better case could be made for a 1♦ opener, although I, personally, would still not take that action.

The hand in question has no part of a 1♦ opener.

[aguahombre]

Again, none of this matters to the only point I was making. Inviting and then inviting again is not a good thing.

You can even enforce a pass upon North with any of the slightly better hands ---containing 3 or four hearts --- and my point would still apply. North would Drury and get a demur from South; inviting again would be the same silliness. There is no bonus for making 3 when we bid 3, and maybe yu won't make 3.

[beatrix45]

Good heavens! North seems to be somewhat unhinged. The wretched opening bid is bad enough, but the freely bid 1NT is beneath contempt. Find a new partner who has a clue.

[cherdano]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-06, 12:49, said:

Again, none of this matters to the only point I was making. Inviting and then inviting again is not a good thing.

You are welcome to make this point. But your insistence that this was the only point to make on this hand was a bit silly.

[rhm]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-06, 05:01, said:

Sure, we are. But, it is not relevant. This North (or this pair) chooses to open with this hand. This South considers his hand to be invitational within their methods, and this North says no. Then this South invites again; we don't have reinvites in our arsenal.

If opener held what we consider a good 11 or 12, we wouldn't be down two in 3H. So, what? We shouldn't be in 3H.

To some extent this is true.
If this pair plays an opening style where North was maximum for his 1NT rebid, than 2♣ was already an overbid. 100% blame to South.
But what point is there asking people who have no experience with this style and how to reach games in this style to assign blame?
I at least would not feel competent to assign blame why a pair playing a strong pass system got too high or missed game.
If this partnership uses a style detached from what anybody else plays this thread asking other people about their opinion is plain silly!

Rainer Herrmann

[Phil]

I miss the forums sometimes when I come across threads like this.

Tyler, dude this isn't rocket science. You open a hand red that essentially evaluates to a constructive raise in a major. You distort your suit lengths as dealer to get some sort if lead directing value in. And then you post the hand looking for reasons to criticize your partners normal bidding.

Slaying the baby harp seals at the club? Well, OK we all like to win but I think you've got some cognitive bias here. You seem to play ac reasonable game so use club games to develop your partnerships and develop a little internal discipline instead of being the king of bum*****ville.

And switch to 2way NMF. Seriously...

[PhilKing]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-September-04, 15:10, said:

Spade

Rise in dummy, cash five hearts and evaluate. East will encourage diamonds and West has to find two discards - presumably one spade and and a discouraging diamond. Even in Norfolk they would cash out for one down now!

[RSClyde]

I'm amazed at how frequently people claim that hands like the opener's "don't evaluate to 11 HCP". This is fairly easy to test.
I Dealmastered a balanced 11 count opposite a balanced 14 count and found that 3nt made 60% of deals.
Now instead of just any 11 count, I used opener's specific hand opposite a balanced 14 count. The result? 62%.
I used 500 hands each way so this is probably within the margin of error for any reasonable alpha value so it probably isn't true that opener holds an above average 11. But it certainly seems to dispel the notion that this hand "isn't really 11".

No matter what, freely rebidding 1nt at reds is beyond terrible. And whether or not you do open balanced 11's is a matter of style/agreement or possibly just generally unwise. But this hand is a real 11 count, whatever that means.

By the way, on the proposed hand of K97, QT2, KQJ7, T72 (which was suggested as possibly being an opener) 3nt opposite a balanced 14, plummeted to 53%.

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2013-September-08, 12:08, said:

Rise in dummy, cash five hearts and evaluate. East will encourage diamonds and West has to find two discards - presumably one spade and and a discouraging diamond. Even in Norfolk they would cash out for one down now!

Have I missed something ? I only counted 7 winners on a spade lead.

[Cyberyeti]

aguahombre, on 2013-September-06, 04:22, said:

Your analogy is way off. You use a very powerful opening hand (13, not 11 and much stronger than that in reality) which would not be involved in a NMF auction and would be accepting all game invites to make some point about hands which would rebid 1NT and not accept invites in a NMF continuation.

But, thanks for the advice on hand evaluation beyond point count.

Are you deliberately missing the point I'm trying to make.

What I'm saying is that the hand in the OP is as much an 11 count as the other one I posted (AJ109, K1098, AJ10, 109) was a 13 count, it's at least 1 and possibly closer to 2 points off its HCP count. I wasn't suggesting that you would have an issue on THIS hand with the other collection, but that you'd miss a very decent game opposite say Qxx, QJxx, Qxx, Axx as partner wouldn't invite with this opposite 11-13.

[Fluffy]

RSClyde, on 2013-September-08, 18:04, said:

I'm amazed at how frequently people claim that hands like the opener's "don't evaluate to 11 HCP". This is fairly easy to test.
I Dealmastered a balanced 11 count opposite a balanced 14 count and found that 3nt made 60% of deals.
Now instead of just any 11 count, I used opener's specific hand opposite a balanced 14 count. The result? 62%.

Except for the fact that KJx and even more KJ9x combos are greatly favoured by double dummy play

[cherdano]

Fluffy, on 2013-September-08, 18:38, said:

Except for the fact that KJx and even more KJ9x combos are greatly favoured by double dummy play

As well as 4333 shape - somehow double dummy defenders find the lead of declarer's doubleton more often.

[rhm]

RSClyde, on 2013-September-08, 18:04, said:

I'm amazed at how frequently people claim that hands like the opener's "don't evaluate to 11 HCP". This is fairly easy to test.
I Dealmastered a balanced 11 count opposite a balanced 14 count and found that 3nt made 60% of deals.
Now instead of just any 11 count, I used opener's specific hand opposite a balanced 14 count. The result? 62%.
I used 500 hands each way so this is probably within the margin of error for any reasonable alpha value so it probably isn't true that opener holds an above average 11. But it certainly seems to dispel the notion that this hand "isn't really 11".

No matter what, freely rebidding 1nt at reds is beyond terrible. And whether or not you do open balanced 11's is a matter of style/agreement or possibly just generally unwise. But this hand is a real 11 count, whatever that means.

By the way, on the proposed hand of K97, QT2, KQJ7, T72 (which was suggested as possibly being an opener) 3nt opposite a balanced 14, plummeted to 53%.

I agree that K97, QT2, KQJ7, T72 is not a stronger hand, but you might be more interested in getting a diamond lead.
It is fallacy to believe that checking for 3NT is a good test what a hand is worth. That gives too much weight to ace-less flat hands. In suit contracts this is much more of a detriment.
You do not know where you will end up with such hands.

For example I repeated your simulation and used opener's hand opposite a balanced 14 count, but now the opposite hand has 4 spades.
Now you will get to 4♠ and making game drops to 44%, even though I doubt that many would wait for 14 HCP before bidding game when they discover a 4-4 major suit fit. (I used 1000 deals).
The result does not change much, if you manage to get to 3NT if the opposite hand is also 4333.

Rainer Herrmann

[PhilKing]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-September-08, 18:10, said:

Have I missed something ? I only counted 7 winners on a spade lead.

OK - it appears you were posting without having read the thread properly. You came in at the point where we were discussing how the play would go if declarer had the spade jack.

[PhilKing]

RSClyde, on 2013-September-08, 18:04, said:

I'm amazed at how frequently people claim that hands like the opener's "don't evaluate to 11 HCP". This is fairly easy to test.
I Dealmastered .....etc

Sims are not always what they are cracked up to be. My experience tells me that this is a below average 11-count, and so I simply ignore any synthesised evidence to the contrary!