[mgoetze]

MickyB, on 2011-July-06, 18:57, said:

My recollection of Fred's posts on this topic is that, having played weak NT for a while, he now much prefers strong NT, as it is difficult to sort out the 15-17 balanced hands in competitive auctions having opened a suit.

My recollection is that he now prefers strong NT because it is more comfortable to him. He does not claim that strong NT is better, only that for him the problems caused by competitive auctions after opening 1m playing a weak NT are so stressful as to detract from the rest of his game. In other words, YMMV.

[akwoo]

zenko, on 2011-July-07, 12:45, said:

What you really need the most is the structure how to deal with opponents bidding after you open 1 in a suit with 15-17 balanced, you are against the field and your judgement/agrements will very often lose/bring a lot of matchpoints, or create medium size swing in IMPs.

From my experience playing weak NTs, I think as a simple default weak NTers should play negative free bids. (This means the immediate bid of a new suit over interference is non-forcing, showing 8 to a bad 12 at the 2 level, and the double shows 4 in the unbid major OR a game forcing hand.)

[aguahombre]

Not being a weak NT person, I don't know the answers but do have an additional question:

Posters on another thread had migrated to 13-15 as opposed to 12-14 for their WNT. This seems to cause problems with 12 balanced, and I was wondering what the plusses were. If this is truly a hijack of the discussion, forgive....but it seems that the OP questions have already been covered.

[mgoetze]

aguahombre, on 2011-July-15, 19:56, said:

Not being a weak NT person, I don't know the answers but do have an additional question:

Posters on another thread had migrated to 13-15 as opposed to 12-14 for their WNT. This seems to cause problems with 12 balanced, and I was wondering what the plusses were. If this is truly a hijack of the discussion, forgive....but it seems that the OP questions have already been covered.

13-15 is the original precision range, the idea being that it is the 3-point range just below the 16+ you open a strong 1♣. Playing this, you can either include 11-12 balanced in 1♦ or you can simply pass those hands (probably works better at IMPs than at MPs). Nowadays, it is probably more popular to play 1NT as 14-16 and have 11-13 balanced in 1♦.

I don't think 1NT as 13-15 in a standard or 2/1 context would be a very good idea.

[helene_t]

mgoetze, on 2011-July-17, 02:52, said:

I don't think 1NT as 13-15 in a standard or 2/1 context would be a very good idea.

I am not so sure about this, theoretically I can see a lot of advantages of 13-15. But OK, nobody play it so it probably is a bad idea.

For one thing, the 15-16 balanced hands are awkward in competitive auctions and by opening 1NT with 15 you have solved more than half of those problems.

Another thing is that if you play 12-14 in 1st/2nd then you really should be playing 14-16 in 3rd/4th. This is because the whole point of opening a weak NT opposite a passed p is to bid game when p has a maximum pass. But this is complicated, playing 13-15 throughout is easier.

You will obviously lose on the balanced 12-counts this way. But I am not sure the loss is that great. The standard bidders open a nebolous 1m which is of course less vulnerable to preemption than a pass but still quite vulnerable. The weak notrumpers open 1NT which is obviously a winner 1st seat white and probably a winner overall, but when holding a balanced 12 count at red I am not unhappy playing a system that doesn't force me to open 1NT.

[jmcw]

I play 12-14 with 1 partner of modest bridge ability. (he is uncomfortable with strong)

He insists on rebidding 2NT over a 1NT response with 15/17 and 3NT with 18/19 when a minor OR Major is opened, I do not like this and would hearitly support the other posters who suggest rebidding the better minor over a forcing NT.

Some would say playing a weak NT has the beneficial effect of pre=empting the opponents. I think this is a false claim! It may be true in some cases, but, it is also true that when opening 1 minor with 15/17 points the opponents can just as easily overcall because the hand was NOT opened a strong NT. So a net push IMO

Additionally, I would never agree to play weak NT unless a solid agreement is in place to handle interference. I would reccommend modified SWINE or a DONT variation.

[Gerben42]

What many people don't realize is that playing weak NT affects your whole system, for example the maximum values for auctions like
1♣ - 1NT. Playing strong NT, this sequence says: "Pass if you have a weak NT" (i.e. could be an average 10-count). Playing weak NT, it says: If I would be GF vs a strong NT, I would bid something else (i.e. denies a good 9-count).

The whole system is full of such inferences.

[peachy]

It is equally important to make sure you have actions defined when they Dbl or interfere with your weak NT opening. Don't switch until you have adequately discussed the possible, and quite common, sequences with partner. This includes runouts, whether to run out immediately or via forced Rdbl by opener; what later round doubles mean, etc. Adopting weak NT also affects other auctions, for example 1m-1H-2H tends to show stronger hand than when playing strong NT, and many other situations.

However, if you adopt it, agree to open all balanced/ish hands that fit the range, in 1NT, including those with 5-card major. Otherwise your auctions become a guessing game.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

We switched from 15-17 to 12-14, and we do play a 2/1 system. Works ok.

Just to answer the original question

#1 we switched to a widerange 1NT rebid, the rebid now showes 15-19,
so the rebid is basically forcing, ..., responder is allowed to pass,
if he responded on dead min. hands.
This imples of course, that you also need to replace the NMF after the
1 NT rebid with something more sophisticated.
This also freed up the 2NT repid by opener for other purposes.

#2 Assume, that you dont like to open 1NT with a 5 card major?
What is your rebid with 15-17 bal. and a 5 card major? Most make a rebid
in a minor suit, ..., this basically leads to an art. 2C rebid by opener,
if you go the complete way.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[phil_20686]

I cannot understand how wknt+5cM must be inferior to 5cM strng NT because of the extra redundancy. If you do not open a wknt with 5M, then you ahve redundancy, as you need to be able to show a wk nt hand after 1h-1s. If you just go rebidding two hearts you have two major problems, one this auciton no longer shows 6 hearts, and two you will often be in inferior 5-1 fits when the field can rebid 1N. If you rebid 1N as wk nt, then its hard to see what to do with a strong NT and say a 2-5-3-3 shape, you have to start playing artificial 2m opening to sort this out, and will often play in 2N with a strong NT opposite a 5 count for example.

How will you bid 5-1-3-4 opposite 2-5-3-3 when opener (the 2533 hand) is 15-17, and when he is 12-14?

[Flem72]

phil_20686, on 2011-August-04, 03:51, said:

How will you bid 5-1-3-4 opposite 2-5-3-3 when opener (the 2533 hand) is 15-17, and when he is 12-14?

Kaplan Inversion (a/k/a Kaplan Interchange) helps. (Note to ACBL Conventions Committee: Make it GCC!!!!!) But -- for purposes of this exercise-- whether the 1NT rebid shows 15-17 or 12-14 after 1H-1S, how big is your 5-1-3-4?

My tendency has always been to open 5M hands 1WNT when the hand looks NTy, which usually means the suit is poor, and I'm more likely to open a 5H hand 1NT. If the suit is avg+, open 1M and rebid it. Ever notice that 1H-1S auctions create problems for many different systems, and that folks tend to gloss them over?

Regards and Happy Trails,

Scott Needham
Boulder, Colorado, USA

[phil_20686]

Flem72, on 2011-August-04, 07:00, said:

Kaplan Inversion (a/k/a Kaplan Interchange) helps. (Note to ACBL Conventions Committee: Make it GCC!!!!!) But -- for purposes of this exercise-- whether the 1NT rebid shows 15-17 or 12-14 after 1H-1S, how big is your 5-1-3-4?

My tendency has always been to open 5M hands 1WNT when the hand looks NTy, which usually means the suit is poor, and I'm more likely to open a 5H hand 1NT. If the suit is avg+, open 1M and rebid it. Ever notice that 1H-1S auctions create problems for many different systems, and that folks tend to gloss them over?

Regards and Happy Trails,

Scott Needham
Boulder, Colorado, USA

You always need some sophisication on these auctions, but 5cM wkNT is just overloading them further when they are already crowded. I'm confident it must be inferior. However, nearly all such effects are small in the scheme of things.

[Zelandakh]

One option to workaround (some of) these problems is to play 1M as unbalanced and to open 1C on all balanced hands outside of NT range. This arguably works best within a strong or multi-way club system but can be adapted for natural systems too. There was also a thread mentioning this approach on these forums recently.

[aguahombre]

Zelandakh, on 2011-August-15, 09:12, said:

One option to workaround (some of) these problems is to play 1M as unbalanced and to open 1C on all balanced hands outside of NT range.

And the balanced 5-3-3-2 hands within the NT range would pass?

[mgoetze]

aguahombre, on 2011-August-15, 09:18, said:

And the balanced 5-3-3-2 hands within the NT range would pass?

No.

[Zelandakh]

aguahombre, on 2011-August-15, 09:18, said:

And the balanced 5-3-3-2 hands within the NT range would pass?

Do you find it difficult to produce a NT response structure that caters to 5M332 hands?

[aguahombre]

No, I find it difficult to find an opening bid with 5-3-3-2 and 13 HCP if, as you proposed within a weak NT style:

1M is an unbalanced hand, and
1C is opened on all balanced hands OUTSIDE the NT range

[mgoetze]

aguahombre, on 2011-August-16, 09:20, said:

No, I find it difficult to find an opening bid with 5-3-3-2 and 13 HCP if, as you proposed within a weak NT style:

1M is an unbalanced hand, and
1C is opened on all balanced hands OUTSIDE the NT range

We'll give you 3 guesses. Pass is wrong so you've got 2 guesses left.

[the hog]

aguahombre, on 2011-August-16, 09:20, said:

No, I find it difficult to find an opening bid with 5-3-3-2 and 13 HCP if, as you proposed within a weak NT style:

1M is an unbalanced hand, and
1C is opened on all balanced hands OUTSIDE the NT range

Rather than trying to decipher the sarcastic response by mgoezte, look at some of the Swedish systems, where a 1C opening includes a 5332 shape, quite possibly with a 5 card Major.
In Magic Diamond for example,1C is 12-16 unbalanced including 5332 with a major or 15-17 NT.
Similarly in Swan 1C is two-way with 11-13 BAL. 5-c M possible if it is weak or the hand is MIN with notrump values or 17+, any distribution.

[Zelandakh]

What mgoetze was trying to say is that with 13hcp and 5332 shape it is blindingly obfvious in the style suggested to open 1NT when played as 12-14. Agua is too good a player not to know this so I assume he was also being sarcastic here, or at the very least obtuse. The Swedish club systems that the hog is pointing to are similar but with a stronger NT since the weak NT is contained within the 1C opening. You can also open a 14-16 NT with 5332 shape and 15hcp believe it or not!