[inquiry]

Scoring: IMP

If south (east) opens 1NT, West (north) doubles (natural, 15+ any dist), EW (NS) out of the auction after that. If South opens one of a suit, West overcalls 1NT

This one was added at the last minute in response to an article in ACBL bullentin about running out of 1NT-x. I didn't expect people to have problems with it, and in fact, the field handled this one quite nicely as a whole. In addition, it is not clear that with 4 hcp you need to run out of 1NTx.

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2C=10, 1NSx=5, 3CS=4, 2HS=3, 1NW=2, 2NS=1

2CN ant590 - crayzeejim
2CN bluecalm/redds
2CN East4Evil/sohcahtoa
2CS elianna/awm
2CN Flycycle/Wackojack
2CN gnasher/catch22
2CS jlall/hanp
2CS kfay/jchiu
2CS kristen33/jillybean
2CN olegru - driver733
2CS rogerClee/cherdano
1NW tlgoodwin/timg
2CN tylere / bid_em_up
1NSx hrothgar/Free
1NSx Siegmund/MSchmahl
3CS peachy/lg62
2HS jdonn/gib
2HS karlson/threenobob
2NS sallyally/joylson
1NW lobowolf/bkjswan
1NW mbodell - javabean

[bluecalm]

We were lucky to have fitting agreements here.

1NT - dbl - 2♣ = natural and to play served us well

(we play that only after penalty double)

[Ant590]

Ditto, thanks Frances!

[JavaBean]

Why is 1NT by West (or North or whoever the opponents were) scoring so badly? They are vulnerable and, at least at our table, North will be leading a club (as the 1D opening doesn't show much in diamonds). That gets us 100 for sure, and with West having very few dummy entries, if any, we seem certain to find another trick somewhere for +200. Even if North leads a diamond 50% of the time, that's still ~33% chance at +200, which should come out well above 2 MPs.

[TylerE]

Why can't W have a club stop?

[awm]

JavaBean, on Aug 23 2010, 01:45 PM, said:

Why is 1NT by West (or North or whoever the opponents were) scoring so badly? They are vulnerable and, at least at our table, North will be leading a club (as the 1D opening doesn't show much in diamonds). That gets us 100 for sure, and with West having very few dummy entries, if any, we seem certain to find another trick somewhere for +200. Even if North leads a diamond 50% of the time, that's still ~33% chance at +200, which should come out well above 2 MPs.

I think you're overestimating your tricks.

You have four clubs and two aces. There is no significant chance for another trick in any suit except spades. So assuming best defense, you are defending 1NT= any time declarer (the much stronger of the opponent hands) has ♠AQ, and you are otherwise defending 1NT-1. On a red suit lead of course, you could easily be defending 1NT+1.

Unless you doubled 1NT, +200 is not really in the picture.

[nigel_k]

It's not a great test of skill when you lose 8 just because your 1NT opening doesn't happen to include 15 HCP hands.

[rogerclee]

nigel_k, on Aug 23 2010, 12:43 PM, said:

It's not a great test of skill when you lose 8 just because your 1NT opening doesn't happen to include 15 HCP hands.

I agree, I would prefer to not see hands like this that seem to be basically systemically random (there were two, this one and another where you had to stop in 3D opposite a strong NT).

[JavaBean]

awm, on Aug 23 2010, 02:37 PM, said:

I think you're overestimating your tricks.

You have four clubs and two aces.

Whoops, you're right: I counted something twice - it's not 100 for sure. But I doubt 1NT will make often, even when West has ♠AQ, because he will be endplayed often; and the red-suit spots are strong enough that we might conceivably get a second trick in either of those.