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1♣-(2♠)-?
Playing 5 card major, here I couldn't see how you are able to bid 3♣ with only
4 cards support.

- just on frequency partner will usually have 4+ clubs. The average length of a club opener playing 5 cd majors is well over 4. RHO having 5-6 spades also increases partner's expected club length.
- if he does have only 3, he can take a stab at 3nt with 15+ bal.

Personally, when playing wkNT/5cM, I am willing to bid 3♣ here on *3* card support & 8-9 pts, not having 4+ hearts, and will usually survive just fine.

1) playing 5CM and strong NT, bid 3♣ on 4 cards is out-of-the-line, your partner
would be VERY mad at you if s/he holding only 3 ♣.

2) playing 5CM and weak NT, Although you may bid 3♣ on 3 cards,
I 'd suggest you do not, because it would cause severe problem
in further competition. Partner will definitely NOT make his judgement
based on only 3 card support from you

[fred]

arrows, on Feb 10 2005, 06:22 PM, said:

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This discussion about 4-card majors has reminded me of one of the truly awful things about weak notrumps:

There is no good way for responder to bid hands in the 6-10 point range that lack a 4-card major after a 1 diamond opener. Your bad choices are:

1) Respond in a 3-card major (this is Kokish's preferred "solution")

2) Play a wide-ranging 1NT response (and endplay opener when he has a strong notrump) not to mention often playing notrump from the wrong side.

3) Play 1D-2C and/or 1D-2D as potentially light and potentially not really natural thereby making it impossible (or at least extremely convoluted) to have a good auction after the auction starts this way and opener does not have a strong notrump.

4) Always open 1C (ie never open 1D) when you have a strong notrump.

I suspect 4) is the least bad choice, but if you do this you are not really playing a "natural system" anymore (yes the same argument could be made but not nearly as strongly to any system based on 5-card majors).

The origin of the problem is not strong NT or weak NT, it's when one opens 1♦
and one's partner has a weak response hand with no major to bid.

strong NT players may deem this is less severe a problem just because
the opener's hand is usually weaker than that of weak NT players, hence it's not
a big deal for the responder to bid 1NT ?

I may also deem this is less severe a problem for me, because when responder
has no major, s/he might be able to raise 2♦ (not available to those playing
inverted minors), or with 8-10 points, ♣ suit only, s/he can bid 2♣(not
available to those playing 2 over 1). With 15-16P, opener rebid 2NT, with 17-18P, opener rebid 3NT.

The chances are: with 6-10P, responder can find a bid of 1M or 2♦ or 2♣,
If s/he cannot, still there's chances 1NT *is* the right decription. For me, it is
really not so frequent that the responder has to call a "bad" 1NT. Besides, with
no descriptive bid in hand, one can always consider Pass.

1D-1NT is not nearly as bad an auction in a strong notrump system as it is in a weak notrump system. Playing strong notrumps the opener can comfortably pass whenever he has a minimum balanced hand and not really care if responder has 6 points or 10 points. The same in not true if you play a weak notrump system (unless you are willing to jump through one of the hoops that I mentioned).

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[keylime]

Fred,

I'm scared to ask what you think then of a 10-12/10-13 NV NT. lolol

[Stephen Tu]

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With 4432 strong opening hand, I'd have already raised 3M, or even I choose not to do so, my 2M raise still guaranteed playing values HCP-wise.

I see, with 15-17 bal, 4-4 M-m, you jump raise to 3M? OK, but I like the K-S approach better, raise only to two, then 2 = strong bal or sound min unbal, which works out to similar playing strength. This avoids going down 1 at 3 when responder only has 5-8 & isn't bidding game, when things break badly.

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The advantage for 4-card majors comes up when responder has 5♣ and around 7-8 hcp. If opener has FOUR clubs, then the 9-card club fit will likely produce tricks, and these 3NTs can easily make (and notice that strong notrumpers won't be able to find them, and will probably pass out 1NT-2S on these hands). But if opener has 3 (or even 2) clubs, the fit is not nearly as effective a source of tricks, and these 23 hcp 3NTs will tend to go down.

The 4 cd major proponents are far too paranoid about opener being on the 3cd minor when playing 5cM. Run a sim. RHO's interference cuts down on the frequency of the 3c minor *a lot*. We aren't losing much here, just assume partner has 4c minor even though we play 5cM. He will the vast majority of the time.

Playing wkNT/5cM in most of my serious partnerships for the past 5 years, I just can't remember these auctions being discussed as being a major source of losses. There are some theoretical issues here, but in practice they don't come up at the table with enough frequency to have a significant impact on your score, not even enough to cause any of the discomfort & stress that Fred thinks saps your energy from other boards. On some of these auctions, the methods can lead to some guessing if you get preempted, but one doesn't always have to guess wrong. When the opponents are bidding a lot, they usually have a big fit, and partner will be most often on the longer side of his suit length range & you usually will guess correctly.

The losses that I do remember coming up with any significant frequency are
- inferior partials, e.g. missing 2S when 1nt passed out
- Opening strong NT hand with a suit, letting 4th hand get in a cheap lead director
that either scuttles 3nt or keeps us out of 3nt, which the field can make on a blind
lead.
- opening strong NT with a suit, letting the opponents find their partial or push us to down 1, when the field plays 1nt making.
- after wk nt, occasional big penalty or down 2 undoubled vul vs. nothing
- random swings both ways from playing a contract from the other side

These of course are offset by many gains in various situations, otherwise we wouldn't be playing it.

[MickyB]

Stephen Tu, on Feb 10 2005, 08:07 PM, said:

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With 4432 strong opening hand, I'd have already raised 3M, or even I choose not to do so, my 2M raise still guaranteed playing values HCP-wise.

I see, with 15-17 bal, 4-4 M-m, you jump raise to 3M? OK, but I like the K-S approach better, raise only to two, then 2 = strong bal or sound min unbal, which works out to similar playing strength. This avoids going down 1 at 3 when responder only has 5-8 & isn't bidding game, when things break badly.

I used to love weak NT for this reason, then realised that if opener makes a 3 card raise on say a 3145 12 count, responder will now expect a fair bit more playing strength. Does KS rebid 2♣ on this hand?

[MickyB]

keylime, on Feb 10 2005, 07:41 PM, said:

Fred,

I'm scared to ask what you think then of a 10-12/10-13 NV NT. lolol

I wouldn't like to say how good a mini NT is, but I'd rather play it 1st NV than Meckwell's 1st+2nd green. In 1st seat, the opponent's know nothing about each others hands; In 2nd seat, RHO can fight for the part-score without his partner thinking they should be in game. In 1st seat, your mean HCP is 10; Once an opp has passed, both you and partner rate to have a bit more than that, which means that you have less to gain by preempting and you are proportionally more likely to have a stronger bal hand than one in your mini NT range.

At a guess, 9-12 1st NV works well playing a 16+ club, 10-13 1st NV is reasonable in a natural 5cM system.

[fred]

keylime, on Feb 10 2005, 07:41 PM, said:

Fred,

I'm scared to ask what you think then of a 10-12/10-13 NV NT. lolol

Most people who play 10-12 notrump in a "natural system" seem to do things like use 1C openings for all balanced 13-15 hands and 1D openings for all 16-18 hands. I have never tried to play such a system myself, but I find it hard to imagine that it would be possible to create an effective system on this basis.

Mini-notrumps probably fit in better with strong club systems, but I have found that regardless of the rest of your system there is a very good reason not to play 10-12:

When your side doesn't buy the contract, it is frequently the case that the declarer can place the missing high cards because of either your 10-12 notrump opening or (especially) your failure to use a 10-12 notrump opening.

System designers often fail to consider things like this.

Mini-notrumps don't fit well with my style as a player (down the middle) and I am sure I would not be comfortable at the table if I had to play them.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Stephen Tu]

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I used to love weak NT for this reason, then realised that if opener makes a 3 card raise on say a 3145 12 count, responder will now expect a fair bit more playing strength. Does KS rebid 2♣ on this hand

K-S is a sound minor opening system, so the min end of these are passed, otherwise you make the 3 cd raise. The 2M raise is a bit too wide ranging if you like to open a lot of these, but one can recover by using a good game-try structure over the 2M raise (often a forcing 2nt to sort out these various hand types).

[Gerben47]

10 - 12 causes a lot of problems, but 1st 2nd NV I like 11 - 13.
Our notrump ladder looks like this:

11 - 13 open 1NT
14 - 16 rebid 1NT
17 - 18 rebid 2NT (this is not forcing)
19 - 20 2♣ then 2NT
21 - 22+ open 2NT
After this we still have 2♣ then 3NT and 2D then 3NT as stronger options. This is more a statement of strength than real HCP ranges.

In other seats and colours: 1NT = 14-16 and the rebid shows 11+ to 13.

I guess if you play 14-16 throughout you can call this 'down the middle minus 1 HCP'. This works well if you want to narrow your range for 1x - 1y - 1NT and still be able to open some/most/all 11-counts. Also your frequency of opening 1NT is significantly higher whilst keeping most of the advantages.

Things might be more complicated in some countries where they don't like the 2minor weak-strong opening bids. This is all in a structure where 2♣ is strong or weak2 in diamonds, 2♦ is strong or weak two in hearts (or the standard multi: strong or weak two in either major). If you are not allowed to mix strong and weak variants you have much less space at the 2-level.

The biggest disadvantage is unsound 2NT contracts when you have 17 opposite 5 (courtesy response to 1 in a minor) and the rest is in 1NT passed out. But you get those back where THEY are in 2NT and you are in 1NT.

I'm very interested in Fred's statement that the weak NT system causes more stupid mistakes. Is this also because you were having doubts about making the bid when it came up, especially when vulnerable?

[pbleighton]

I play 10-13 NV in 1-3. A 1NT rebid shows 14-16, a 2NT rebid shows 17-19. In theory the 17-19 range could cause us some problems, in practice I can't remember the last time it bit us.

10-13 is a little sloppy, though we do upgrade 13 counts with decent 5 card suits, and open them in a suit. The gains of opening flat hands 1NT when the field is passing them are huge.

I understand they would be smaller against world-class opponents

I agree that 10-12 in a natural system would require jumping through some hoops.

Peter

[fred]

Gerben47, on Feb 10 2005, 09:45 PM, said:

I'm very interested in Fred's statement that the weak NT system causes more stupid mistakes. Is this also because you were having doubts about making the bid when it came up, especially when vulnerable?

I found that playing playing a weak notrump system was harder than playing a strong notrump system (because in my opinion you need to make more agreements to play weak notrumps effectively and because you are faced with more frequent and more difficult judgment calls when playing weak notrumps).

I can't prove that the energy expended playing weak notrumps is greater than it is playing strong notrumps or that expending additional energy on such things had an adverse effect on other aspects of my game, but it sure felt that way.

To answer your question, yes I did find some aspects of playing weak notrumps (like opening a 3rd seat vulnerable weak notrump and waiting for RHO's reaction or going for a number on a "nothing hand") to be stressful, but I like to think that I am good at dealing with that sort of adversity at the table. There are situations like these regardless of the system you play and you had better be able to deal with them if you want to be successful.

I suppose that having to deal with stress at the table is another way that our (limited) energy resources can be depleted, but for me at least this factor seems minor compared with the energy I expend when solving bridge problems.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[MickyB]

fred, on Feb 10 2005, 10:27 PM, said:

opening a 3rd seat vulnerable weak notrump

Weak NT in 3rd seat vul is awful, in fact it isn't great 3rd NV or 4th seat either - you want to be able to make lead directing 1 level openings, in 3rd seat you want safety, and in 4th seat 14-16 is more common than 12-14. I play 12-14 1st+2nd, 4 card suits and 14-16 3rd+4th with a few partners.

[whereagles]

fred, on Feb 10 2005, 09:40 PM, said:

Most people who play 10-12 notrump in a "natural system" seem to do things like use 1C openings for all balanced 13-15 hands and 1D openings for all 16-18 hands. I have never tried to play such a system myself, but I find it hard to imagine that it would be possible to create an effective system on this basis.

Mini-notrumps probably fit in better with strong club systems, but I have found that regardless of the rest of your system there is a very good reason not to play 10-12:

When your side doesn't buy the contract, it is frequently the case that the declarer can place the missing high cards because of either your 10-12 notrump opening or (especially) your failure to use a 10-12 notrump opening.

System designers often fail to consider things like this.

I dispute this. (eheh, sorry Fred.) I've been playing a 9-11 NT in 1st/2nd NV for years now and I think it's one of the best openings ever invented in bridge

1. The disruption caused by having to open 1C/D on 12-14/15-17 balanced hands is minimal. After all, opening on 2+ cards is not much different than opening on 3+ cards. Constructive bidding isn't much affected if you refine your methods after the 1NT rebids (I use my home-grown version of keri). Sure this takes some effort, but if you're going to play 9-11 NT you're in a serious partnership anyway, so you sure want to work out stuff with pard.

2. Ease of opponents placing missing high cards is a valid point, and a down side of the mini-NT. However, consider the benefeits: you can open on just about every 9+ hand in 1st/2nd NV. Either 1NT or a 5-card weak 2 (the ideal complement to the 9-11 NT). Opponents, who rate to be stronger than you if they overcall, have to start bidding at the 2 or 3 level instead of the usual 1 level.

Another point is this: when you fail to open 1NT or 2x, you rate to have a 5-7 balanced hand. Thus pard can preempt on marginal hands with relative uncaring because it is very likely you have 2+ cards support, often 3.

[fred]

The point I have been trying to make all along is that the most important thing about the notrump range you play is to be comfortable with it. Sounds like you love your system, Whereagles, and that you think it is working for you so it really shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[whereagles]

Indeed. In the end what matters is if you have fun playing your system

Some people have their fun by matching solid bidding with superb card play. I have my fun butting-in on nothing and trying to escape unscratched

[whereagles]

By the way, did anyone give any thought on the following matter: when one opens a 3rd/4th seat 12-14 NT, why not play..

pass 1NT
2x = sign-off, even 2C.

No stayman, no transfers. Since pard is a passed hand, he's limited to 11 and game is unlikely. Why not then have all bids as weak?

If something, pard can invite with 11 via 1NT-2NT and that's it. If opener accepts, then follow up with 4 card suits up the line in baron style.

[cwiggins]

When playing a five-card major, natural system, is there an interaction between the NT range and how light your openings are?

The reason that a connection might exist is because of the 1NT and raise to 2M after a 1m opening.

If you are playing a weak NT, these two rebids suggest good values. So auctions get driven forward, which means you better have a reasonable opener. In K-S, other than a repeat of opener's suit, it is hard to find a rebid suggests a minimum hand, so almost all auctions drive forward unless responder has responded with a real dog and passes opener's rebid.

On the other hand, if you play a strong NT, the 1NT and 2M rebids suggest minimum values and slow auctions down. So you can open light and have a chance of getting out of the auction one level lower than with K-S.

My second question is: is there a relationship between the opening NT range, how light you open, and 2/1 strength? The thought is that:
* How light you open determines how much strength you need to force to game.
* How much strength you need to force to game determines the maximum strength that needs to be in your 1NT semi-forcing response to a 1M opening.
* The maximum strength that can be in your 1NT semi-forcing response determines the maximum HCP you want opener to hold in a weak balanced hand.

Marty Bergen, who advocates light openers, played a 14-16 NT and opened it when he held a five-card major. The logical consequence: if responder bids 1NT semi-forcing and opener has 14-16 HCP, opener will find a bid because opener is unbalanced. So Bergen could bid a semi-forcing NT with up to a "bad" 12 HCP without much risk. Only with a good 12 HCP did he force to game (in theory). With that much strength behind a 2/1 GF response, opening light is not a problem.

If you use the same style but switch the range to 15-17 HCP, then opener is safe bidding 1NT only with a "bad" 11 HCP. So with 12 HCP hands, presumably responder forces to game, which means that the opener should have 12 (or a good 12) HCP to open.

As an example, consider this hand: AQxxx/Kxx/x/Qxxx. If you use the "rule of 20," this hand is clearly an opener. About half of the time, partner will not have a spade fit, and when I randomly generated 12 HCP hands with fewer than three spades, it do not look like you should be forcing to game. much of the time. Holding those non-fitting hands and playing Bergen style, I would respond a semi-forcing NT with many of them and expect to wind up in the right spot. This would be especially true if I were playing matchpoints where bidding games against the odds is not a winning strategy.

[Stephen Tu]

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No stayman, no transfers. Since pard is a passed hand, he's limited to 11 and game is unlikely. Why not then have all bids as weak?

In my 2-way stm partnerships I do give up the 2d for natural 3rd/4th seat of course. But I still think 2c stayman is useful to use with weak 4+-4+ in the majors, you can get back even with the field on some major suit partial hands. 2c natural won't be able to buy the contract that often anyway.

In some partnerships I've given up on 3rd/4th hand weak NT since the preemption is less effective, it's more dangerous (esp. 3rd seat vul, where Martel/Stansby also have given it up for strong), and it inhibits the ability to make light lead director openings.

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When playing a five-card major, natural system, is there an interaction between the NT range and how light your openings are?

Yes. You should play sound minor suit openings if your major raise suggests extra values in a weak NT system. Major suit openings can still be on the light side. One might be able to get away with lighter 1c openings if you play transfer-walsh, legal in some places, so that you have space to distinguish between a strong 4 cd raise & weak 3cd raise.

Yes, 2/1 strength should be correlated with major suit opening style. In theory if 2/1 is GF you should play a fairly sound style to avoid overloading 1nt and/or overbidding a lot. Unless you think you can play like Meckwell, who are known for opening light, GF light, and playing a lot of 23 pt 3nt, I guess bringing them home enough to show profit against most opposition.

Bergen's 14-16 solution is also reasonable & gaining popularity.

[cherdano]

fred, on Feb 10 2005, 10:27 PM, said:

I suppose that having to deal with stress at the table is another way that our (limited) energy resources can be depleted, but for me at least this factor seems minor compared with the energy I expend when solving bridge problems.

To put this slightly differently: Does this mean you are more worried about making mistakes, than about getting bad results?
I suppose this is a more productive attitude, but I cannot quite get myself to it (yet?).

Arend

[NickToll]

I would like to know your opinions about the following point.

In my partnership we play 12-14 NT with 2way Stayman, trying to develop bidding as naturally as we can. We have a doubt about what is the most convenient development after 1NT - 2♣ - 2♦♥♠: is there a way to describe both weak and invitational distributional hands? And if not, which of the two is better to be shown?

As an example: 1NT - 2♣ - 2♠ - 3♣, weak or invitational with clubs (and probably four hearts)?

Up to you...