[Chamaco]

Hi all,
I have read with enthusiasm the thread about Last Train, with quite a few very enlightening contributions about captaincy.

---------

Now, I am curious about one thing:
I play a version of Precision, limited openings to 11-15, and we do play LTTC (and serious 3NT) when a major fit is found.

Now my questions are:
Assume that opener is limited to 11-15, responder has shown a major suit fit and we are in GF.

1. does it make sense to use Last Train by responder, which relinquishes captaincy and as a matter of fact gives captaincy to opener who has at most 15 hcp ?

2. does it make sense to use "serious 3NT " by opener, who, being 11-15, cannot be after all *really serious* ?

[inquiry]

I disagree with the entire premise that the limited opener "can't be that serious".

Let me give an example...using precision auction if you like.

1S - 2NT* (we will assume jacoby)
3S - 3NT
4C - 4H (LTTC)

Here responder has turned captaincy over to opener, and in the process denied a diamond control. So in fact, even with 11 hcp or 15 hcp, opener has control, because only he can look at this diamond suit and tell if he has the king or ace of diamonds (we assume due to 3S he does not have singleton or void).

Notice, captain doesn't have to be the stronger hand, captain just has to be the person in the best situation to make the decision to go or no go.

1S - 2NT *jacoby again
3C - 3S *3S is game force
3N - * serious 3NT

There are a lot of hands between 11 and 15 hcp with short clubs that are good and are bad. The fact that partner bid only 3S suggest slam interest opposite a short club. But there is a lot of different hands opener can hold within the context of 11-15 with a singleton club. He could be horribly minimum (even a, I am really sorry I opened), or he can be super maximum. I think with max on this auction, he will bid 3NT to try to ensure no unstopped suit, and then issue blackwood (or let responder issue blackwood). So captaincy is still up in the air here.

Ben

[kenrexford]

Along the same lines as Fred's post, "Serios" 3NT is vastly more valuable as a contextual tool than as a literally-defined call. "Serious" is a contextual term.

A hand is "serious" if it contains a contextual maximum in a slam-going auction. Thus, for example, holding something like Axx-KQxx-AQxxx-x is certainly a maximum contextually if responder has shown hearts and slam interest.

A case in point, sort of. Meckwell missed slam on this hand. Rodwell held Axx-AKQxx-xxx-Qx; Meckstroth Kx-J10xx-Axx-AKxx. 1D-P-1H-P-2H-P-4H was the auction.

Had Rodwell made a move (2S), Jeff has a clear acceptance. Furthermore, he a "serious" interest IF Eric is actually slammish. At a minimum, Jeff might accept the game try by bidding 3NT, to show "serious" slam interest, in case.

Similarly, even in standard. Suppose 1S-P-2H-P-2NT-P-3S. Opener may be limited to a weak NT or to 18-19. With the latter, he can either take control or keep cuebidding. The best auctions, however, are when Opener has the "right" minimum and shows this via 3NT. Contextually "right" usually means good trumps, good controls. For instance, AKxxx-Kx-Axx-xxx is categorically a hand for showing "serious" interest. Change any factor, and interest reduces.

The same line of thought should apply to LTTC.

Keep in mind that HCP analysis is not the point of LTTC and Serious 3NT. It is not as if 3NT shows 18-19, LTTC 16-17, and regular cuebids 13-15. Serious 3NT shows contextually good holdings, or a desire to force cuebids, usually. LTTC is often an "asking" bid, seeking something sometimes known, sometimes specific, but sometimes general. Context and logic determines what is "asked."

[Chamaco]

inquiry, on Jan 25 2006, 03:06 PM, said:

I disagree with the entire premise that the limited opener "can't be that serious".


...........


Notice, captain doesn't have to be the stronger hand, captain just has to be the person in the best situation to make the decision to go or no go.

..........

There are a lot of hands between 11 and 15 hcp with short clubs that are good and are bad.

Thx a lot, Ben, this is encouraging for me, since it confirms that my choice to adopt LTCC+serious 3NT into a limited opening system is not a complete nonsense

(although I know hardcore relayers surely will suggest a relay method work better- which I won't argue with, but my partners have explicitly banned detailed relays for the next 5 years o system update so this is out of the question)

[hrothgar]

Anyone who plays a limited opening system should be familiar with what a bell curve looks like. More importantly, you should understand the importance of focusing on the center of the distribution and leaving the tails to sort themselves out.

I'm going to post an interesting little frequency distribution: This table documents the percentage chance that North holds X HCP conditional on the fact that South holds 15 HCP

0 .68%
1 1.4%
2 2.4%
3 4.1%
4 6.1%
5 7.8%
6 9.3%
7 10.6%
8 10.8%
9 10.4%
10 9.3%
11 8%
12 6.3%
13 4.7%
14 4.3%
15 2.1%
16 1.3
17 .7%
18 .4%
19 .2%
20 .1%
21+ .02%

Note how rare 16+ HCP hands are: You hold a 14 HCP hand far more often than you hold hands with 16+ HCP. From my perspective, the decision to adopt limited opening bids probably doesn't have all that great an impact on LTTC. I suspect that the optimal break point between "good" and "bad" hands doesn't change significantly regardless of opening structure.

[cherdano]

For most players, "limited opening" means limited in terms of hcp. I.e. they rarely upgrade a 15 hcp hand and open it 1♣. Hence, these "11-15 hcp" cover a lot of ground in terms of playing strength. Certainly opener has to be permitted to show a huge hand in context!

Arend

[mike777]

Please Please Mr. Postman may all my opponents play Last Train to Clarksville combined with Serious 3NT.

[FrancesHinden]

Sorry. In my most regular partnership I play none of

Gerber
LTTC
Serious 3NT
Exclusion RKCB
Any sort of RKCB with a minor agreed (apart from 2 defined Kickback auctions)
Good/Bad 2NT
Puppet Stayman

(probably a few more if I took a bit more time thinking of them)

While we sometimes (sigh, rather too often) end in the wrong contract, it's not because we don't play these conventions. It is 75% of the time due to poor judgement, bad luck, or being pre-empted. It is 24% of the time due to hands being unbiddable without either totally changing our approach (e.g. playing strong club with detailed shape/control relays for that one hand) or without making other, more common, hands unbiddable. It is something under 1% of the time because we don't play some snazzy convention.

[Chamaco]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 25 2006, 04:10 PM, said:

Sorry. In my most regular partnership I play none of

Gerber
LTTC
Serious 3NT
Exclusion RKCB
Any sort of RKCB with a minor agreed (apart from 2 defined Kickback auctions)
Good/Bad 2NT
Puppet Stayman

(probably a few more if I took a bit more time thinking of them)

While we sometimes (sigh, rather too often) end in the wrong contract, it's not because we don't play these conventions.  It is 75% of the time due to poor judgement, bad luck, or being pre-empted.  It is 24% of the time due to hands being unbiddable without either totally changing our approach (e.g. playing strong club with detailed shape/control relays for that one hand) or without making other, more common, hands unbiddable.  It is something under 1% of the time because we don't play some snazzy convention.

Alright, fair enough, fewer conventions and more judgment, I won't argue about that.
Nothing new, must be true, but my question was not that.

I must confess once again (you already did that before) that I find annoying these replies who indeed do not respond to the topic, at least I find it annoying when they come from good players who *could* ( if they wanted to) respond in technical detail to the questions.

IMO there are many categories of posts:
- questions/doubts
- jokes
- contributions
- post that try to be helful for questions /doubts
- posts that do not really try to respond to questions/doubts but just say "jut don't do it" or "I do it this way", without explanation and/or without taking time to use the premises laid down by the original poster.

The latter category of post in my view show lack of will to be helpful to the original posters, and I find it sad, to say the least.
However, I guess I'll have to put up with that.

(Luckily, the really strong players who do that are really few and most of them here on the Forum are really helpful, and I am really grateful about that)

[FrancesHinden]

Well, for one thing I was replying to Mike777 not to you. Sorry he hijacked your thread.

For another, you can probably deduce from the fact I've never played LTTC that I'm not going to be able to give a detailed technical response.

Maybe it's something about your questions.... I never seem to have much trouble giving sensible answers to other posters!

[Chamaco]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 25 2006, 04:43 PM, said:

Maybe it's something about your questions.... I never seem to have much trouble giving sensible answers to other posters!

This is possible, I never claimed to be a good player, let alone to formulate good questions.

But I seldom get these kind of replies from other strong players here on the BBF (e.h. Mikeh, Jlall, and others).

[hrothgar]

Chamaco, on Jan 25 2006, 07:45 PM, said:

FrancesHinden, on Jan 25 2006, 04:43 PM, said:

Maybe it's something about your questions.... I never seem to have much trouble giving sensible answers to other posters!

This is possible, I never claimed to be a good player, let alone to formulate good questions.

But I seldom get these kind of replies from other strong players here on the BBF (e.h. Mikeh, Jlall, and others).

Then again, there are lots of other strong players who ignore you completely...

[Chamaco]

hrothgar, on Jan 25 2006, 04:51 PM, said:

Then again, there are lots of other strong players who ignore you completely...

This is reasonable, of course but I prefer to be ignored rather than this specific kind of reply that does not try to help, from which I have little to learn.

If a reply does not try to be helpful, it is just showoff, in my opinion.

[Rebound]

Back to the topic at hand. I appreciate this post since I play 2/1 with one partner (with Serious 3NT & LTTC) and precision with another with whom I was entertaining bringing up this convention. I believe it may be useful and I am interested in the comments on this thread.

On the other hand, I have made a point of watching the hands I have been playing with my precision partner to determine if LTTC or S-3NT would have been of use and frankly, unless I completely misunderstand it (which I grant may be possible) it appears to be of limited usefulness except after a 1♣ opening followed by a positive.

[han]

FrancesHinden, on Jan 25 2006, 11:10 AM, said:

Sorry. In my most regular partnership I play none of

Gerber
LTTC
Serious 3NT
Exclusion RKCB
Any sort of RKCB with a minor agreed (apart from 2 defined Kickback auctions)
Good/Bad 2NT
Puppet Stayman

(probably a few more if I took a bit more time thinking of them)

While we sometimes (sigh, rather too often) end in the wrong contract, it's not because we don't play these conventions. It is 75% of the time due to poor judgement, bad luck, or being pre-empted. It is 24% of the time due to hands being unbiddable without either totally changing our approach (e.g. playing strong club with detailed shape/control relays for that one hand) or without making other, more common, hands unbiddable. It is something under 1% of the time because we don't play some snazzy convention.

Your post is food for thought Frances. I wonder how you can be so certain about this. How do you know that in these 75% cases where your judgement was poor, you might not have done better with one of these conventions? If you can describe your potential better using a convention like G/B 2NT or serious 3NT, perhaps your partner will be better able to judge the situation?

Although I am not in the same league as you are, I am a bit sceptical about these numbers.

[FrancesHinden]

Most of the replies have taken your questions together, and implied that the same logic applies to one as to the other. I don't think that's the case, and here's why.

1. "Serious" 3NT. Once you have a major suit fit and some slam potential, it's rare to want to land in 3NT instead. That's why the serious 3NT was invented, as a use for a bid that was otherwise more or less unused. When people don't play it, it's not usually so much because they think the natural use of 3NT is more important, but because they'd rather concentrate on other things and/or think it can get confusing when a 3NT bid is serious or not. So if you are happy using it, and understand it, then as others have said it's quite feasible for opener to want to distinguish his range.

2. LTTC. The premise behind this is slightly different. Now the alternative use of the bid, as a cue bid, is also relevant and by playing LTTC you are consciously giving up an alternative and helpful use for the bid. It is a trade off between what you gain by having the distinction given by LTTC, and what you lose by not having a natural cue bid available. That trade-off is most useful when both opener and responder are virtually unlimited (e.g. in a 2/1 FG auction) as it allows one of the hands to limit itself. It will certainly be different - less useful - when opener is already limited by the auction so far. (As I don't think the trade-off is worth it playing unlimited openers, I'm not going to say it is here....)

So it is logically consistent to use the serious 3NT, but not LTTC.

By the way, I dispute one of your premises. LTTC does not have to give up captaincy. It is a continuing part of a dialogue. If you could explain the LTTC bid in words, you would say something like "I'm still interested in a slam if you are suitable, but I don't really want to go beyond game. What do you think?" Opener can take over captaincy by bidding blackwood (probably rare in a Precision auction), or by signing off in game. But opener can also cue above game, to say "I think I have a good hand for the auction so far, and if you are interested in slam I'm happy to go to the five level. What do you think?" Then it's responder's problem again. And (depending how high we've got) responder may be able to cue yet again to say "I really am not certain, but I do have a control in this suit as well. Have another look and decide yourself."

[FrancesHinden]

Hannie, on Jan 25 2006, 07:01 PM, said:

Although I am not in the same league as you are, I am a bit sceptical about these numbers.

Well, for one thing I obviously made them up (I don't keep detailed records of every hand I play). But I was thinking about post-mortems, particularly the ones when you discuss how an auction went with team-mates. Every now and then you say "well this would have been easier had we been playing 2/1" or "if we played decent methods here we wouldn't have had the problem" or "if only we played exclusion it would have solved it". Those hands are very rare, compared to the much more common "you misbid/showed no judgement/forgot to look at your cards/miscounted your aces" type of hand. I play in two fairly regular partnerships, which have differing amounts of system and agreements, and it's really very very rare that a hand comes up where we can say "oh well the other partnership would have found it easy because they have the methods for that hand"

There's a balance somewhere: if I stopped playing negative doubles I imagine my results would be noticeably worse. I suppose I wanted to make the point that there seem to be a large number of conventions that some people (and I'm not referring to the OP here) seem to think are virtually indispensible, but they really are only the icing on the cake. The self-raising flour and butter is about having really sound detailed agreements about what things mean in competitive auctions.

Anyway, time for my Dutch lesson.

[keylime]

In my method, Serious 3NT just isn't serious - it's quite NATURAL.

There are enough minuses to serious 3NT to warrant this view. I don't agree to the philosophy that if a 4-4 major fit that 3NT is no longer an option -> I want that choice available.

Especially over 1M-2NT (Swedish with me), 3NT as natural gains more than it loses.

The bell curve confirmed my views about "game-before-slam".

[kenrexford]

I find it most entertaining when people claim to have had little to no problem finding slams. In my own research on cuebidding theory, done over the course of about eight months, I reviewed vugraph records from all major ACBL events, WBF championships, and some additional international play events where the bestof the best competed, for about the last six years. This included, of course, quite a sample of hands. I found a huge number of slams missed, or non-slams bid too high, where ideal cuebidding theory and practice would have landed the pairs in the right/best contract. Vast exchanges of IMP's resulted, or potential swings missed by both teams, in a huge number of hands.

Some early event results (round of 16) allowed reviews of a multitude of approaches, sometime with only one or no pair reaching the ideal contract, despite available tools to logically do so. These were not "impossible to bid" slams. These were good, reachable slams. All of the judgment in the world failed.

And, despite a great lack of ability at, for example, the Bermuda Bowl Finals, some people maintain that their gut instinct and judgment results in a 99% success ratio without all the fancy tools. Wow!!! That's some ability!!!

Revisit the example I posted earlier. Eric Rodwell and Jeff Meckstroth missed this slam, as did their opponents. The contract is about 100%. Yet, no one even sniffed it. What judgment tools do y'all have that Jeff and Eric lack?

Technique? Let us see. Their auction was 1D(nebulous)-P-1H-P-2H to start. Eric's judgment said 4H. Tools would allow for Jeff to possibly have that magic hand, with Eric sniffing with a 2S cuebid. Jeff, having the magic hand, should be able to cuebid 3C to show 2 top club honors (a "fix" to the Nebulous Diamond problem). This enables Eric to sniff again with a 4C cuebid, clearing up that he was slammish and showing the missing club honor. Jeff should now realize that he has an absolute maximum, placed well, giving him "serious" interest despite the limited HCP's; this enables the slam to be bid.

Again, I ask, what judgment does someone have which enables them to get to the slam without LTTC and Serious 3NT, or the equivalent, when these powerhouses miss tons of slams, as do the Italians, and the others?

Chamaco is asking a good question here.

[hrothgar]

kenrexford, on Jan 25 2006, 10:39 PM, said:

I find it most entertaining when people claim to have had little to no problem finding slams. In my own research on cuebidding theory, done over the course of about eight months, I reviewed vugraph records from all major ACBL events, WBF championships, and some additional international play events where the bestof the best competed, for about the last six years. This included, of course, quite a sample of hands. I found a huge number of slams missed, or non-slams bid too high, where ideal cuebidding theory and practice would have landed the pairs in the right/best contract. Vast exchanges of IMP's resulted, or potential swings missed by both teams, in a huge number of hands.

Again, I ask, what judgment does someone have which enables them to get to the slam without LTTC and Serious 3NT, or the equivalent, when these powerhouses miss tons of slams, as do the Italians, and the others?

My father once told me the following joke:

A man and his son were walking in the woods and they stumbled upon a hungry bear.
The bear started ambling towards them and the man immediately sat down, took off his bulky boots and started lacing up and pair of sneakers (trainers for you "Brits"). The young man laughed at his father and asked "What are you doing? You can't out run a bear". The man replied that he didn't need to outrun the bear...

I bring this up because you already answered your own question. Of course at the table results are going to pale compared to double dummy analysis. At the table, people don't have perfect information. At the table, people get tired and make mistakes. At the table, people can't delude themselves that rather dubious calls are obvious. However, bridge players don't compete against par, they compete against other bridge players.