[dougbennion]

Extending the opening 1NT range to 11-14 from 12-14 increases by 40% or so, the frequency of the opener.

The problem with that wide range is that you will often get too high in invitational sequences. I've been using the following response system and I like it, but maybe someone here can suggest improvements.

The 2C bid is invitational or better, and cannot be used for garbage hands (intending to pass any response). With weak 54 MM hands we simply transfer. With weak 44 MM hands we pass and pray and trot out a rescue system if need be. Opponents don't like doubling 2M contracts ... Actually with a weak chunky 4-bagger maybe KJTx xxxx xxx xx I like to transfer because opps less likely to penalty double without a decent trump holding and they have no idea what's going on anyway.

We play 4-suit transfers as well, with 3C/D slammish and 3H/S showing GF shortness typically the likes of 3145.

The responses to a 2C query:

2D = 11 or 12, with one or two 4-card majors. If responder has one and wants to stop at the two-level he bids his major. If opener sees 2H and he has four spades but not four hearts he will bid 2S (responder might have both) and play there or in 2NT

2H/S = 11 or 12 with five M
2N = 11 or 12 no majors
3C = 13 or 14 with four hearts or both
3D = 13 or 14 with four spades
3H/S = 13 or 14 with five M
3N = 13 or 14 with no majors

It isn't perfect. You cannot garbage. It can quickly eat up a lot of bidding space when responder might want to investigate slam. But it works really well for the majority of hands, we rarely get too high, and we can open 1NT a LOT.

See any tweaks one could make?

[Phil]

I don't care for your 1N - 2♣ - 2N call. It achieves what you are trying to avoid: getting too high on invitational hands, and with 2N you likely do not have a trick source.

Use the search engine on here to look up "Keri" or "Revised Keri", which seems better than your structure.

[benlessard]

We play 10-14 nt (with all 5M332 openned 1NT) so inv and stop at 2 is my specialty.

i suggest readingn this first


http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...0structure&st=0

ive improved a lot of the thing there so ill start a new post with my new ideas in 2 days

[OleBerg]

Just a quick comment, for what it is worth:

I have played 12-14 NT's with "no garbage stayman" for at least 6 years. I don't miss the garbage option.

Knowing 2♣ is at least invitational is also handy when the opponents compete.

[MFA]

Hmm, I like garbage stayman... Also this structure gobbles stayman then 3m.

[Siegmund]

Seems like you're finding hardly any of your partscore 4-4 major fits, and those are the hands that benefit from playing in a suit - even a 4-3 fit - rather than notrump, while the game strength hands are much more likely to survive being in 3NT instead of a suit.

I second the suggestion that Keri is worth a look, as well as a number of non-mainstream but intriguing approaches where 2C asks about hearts and 2D asks about spades - Stayman-split-in-half, or two-under transfers, depending on your viewpoint.

[Cyberyeti]

I used to play an 11-16 1N.

We used to play 4 card red suit transfers at least invitational with 2♣ as the bucket bid, it worked well, but took a lot of remembering.

[wclass___]

*1N-2N GF;,responses: 3♣=no 5M(stayman type rebids); 3♦;3♥ transfers

When 1N opener has to declarer NT, he will have given much less information to opponents about his hand.
Compare 1N-2♣-2N-3N vs. 1N-2N-3♣-3sth-3N
1N-2♣-3♣-eventually3N vs. 1N-2N-3♣-3♠-3N
1N-2♣-3♦-3N vs. 1N-2N-3♣-3♥-3N

But responder will be allowed to declare 4M, (relatively unknown hand)

IMO It is easy, frequent and very powerful method.

This forcing bid should also include some shapish GF++ hands, because there is a free space after 3N+.

*Add 5♠+ INV to your 2♣, and use 1N-2♣-2N+ to show both majors, rest go slowly.

[benlessard]

This is my favorite transfers setup.

2C all inv hands or diamonds to play & GF (no D+C hands)
2D H to play or 4H GF
2H S to play or 4S+ GF
2S GF balanced + some semi balanced hands
2NT + clubs GF, C+D, D+C GF

2C----2H (minimum with 4-5H)

pass = inv at least 3H
2S = inv with 4+S
2NT = inv bal
3C = inv
3D = to play
3H+ = GF with D

2C-----2D (not min with 4H)

2H inv with 5H
2S inv 4+S
2NT = inv bal
3C = inv
3D = inv
3H+ = GF with D

[kenrexford]

I used to play 10-14 and did not find too many problems. 11-14 is hardly worth panicking about.

[dougbennion]

Thanks for your suggestions.

Phil: Can't see how any system can stop short of 2NT, once you initiate the system and don't locate an M fit. I had looked into Kiri, but I'm too old to remember it all.

Oleberg: Agree Garbage Stayman not missed.

MFA: Yes gobbles Mm if opener has max.

Siegmund: Any system, strong NT or weak NT, will lose M fits if responder is less than invitational and you don't play Garbage. I played for awhile what you called a 'split' Stayman, and found it had redundancies, but maybe I hadn't optimized it very well.

wclass__: Thanks I'll take a good look at that.

benlessard: Thanks ditto.

kenrexford: Not at all panicked. I think the system gets good results, just looking to improve if possible.

[Phil]

Doug: Keri allows you to stop in a 44, 43, 53 or even a 54 major fit with a dead minimum opposite an invite. That's the main purpose of the auction: 1N - 2♣ - 2♦ - 2M.

I do agree that if opener has a doubleton you can't play a 5-2 fit.

[dougbennion]

Phil: Right. You can stop at 2M in your 5=3 and 4=4 fits. The clunker I'm playing stops in 2M for the 4=4 fits but not the 5=3 fits. But if I understand Keri properly, you will also be playing your 4=3 rejected invitations in 2M and I'd rather be playing those in 2NT. I think.

Keri also lets you play in 2D, which in theory is nice, but playing a weak notrump the opps will rarely let you settle there.

Thanks.

[Mbodell]

dougbennion, on Aug 21 2010, 09:31 AM, said:

Keri also lets you play in 2D, which in theory is nice, but playing a weak notrump the opps will rarely let you settle there.

You would be quite surprised how often you play there (both how often it comes up and how often that's the final place). I play keri over both weak and mini nt and play 2♦ quite a bit.

[wclass___]

Playing 4-3M fit in 2nd level is absolutely normal.

There are other problems with this method.
2M shows 4+ and opener isn't in a good position to evaluate his hand, because he doesn't really know how many ♠ partner has.

If opener has 4 card support, he still typically wants to keep bidding even with most minimums (at least i would), this game is about fits and not about if you have 24 to bid game.

If he has 3-card support and average+ hand, he wants to bid, but he will need to go past 2N(?! I am not familiar with responses, seems to me like there is quite small place left after 2N with many problematic hands.) And 4-3 in 3rd level isn't all that comfortable.

And yes, you cannot play 5-2 2M.

This method is too HCP based, like if you have points bid, if you don't have points, don't.

[Mbodell]

wclass___, on Aug 22 2010, 02:55 AM, said:

If he has 3-card support and average+ hand, he wants to bid, but he will need to go past 2N(?! I am not familiar with responses, seems to me like there is quite small place left after 2N with many problematic hands.) And 4-3 in 3rd level isn't all that comfortable.

The responses over 1nt-2♣-2♦-2M showing an invite with 4 or 5 cards in the major (and if 5 in the major, at most 3 in the other major, there are other ways to invite when 54 or better in the majors) are:

pass: with a minimum and any of 3 of M or 4 of major in a 4333 or a bad 4432
2♠/2♥: with a minimum and 2 hearts and 4+ spades
2nt: with a minimum and 2 of M (and <4 spades if M was hearts)
3♣: shows a minimum that looks good for M with 4 card support (ie a good 4432 minimum)
3♦: a maximum 4333 (4 or 3 cards in M - if responder cared which can rebid 3M to force 4M with 4 and 3nt with 3)
3M: a maximum with 3 card support and not 4333, if responder bids 3S/3H here he was 44 in majors.
3♥/2♠: with a maximum and 5 hearts and 2 spades
3♠/2♥: with a maximum and 2 hearts and 4+ spades
3nt: with a maximum and 2 of M (and <4 spades if M was hearts, <5 hearts if M was spades)
4M: a maximum with 4 card support not 4333 and also most hands (min or max) with 5 card M

That's enough to work it out whenever you are either a maximum or when ever you are a minimum with no fit or a good fit (and minimum versus maximum can be more than just points, hand evaluation is welcome). The place you get let down is when you are a minimum with a partial (3 card) fit you do play 2M in a 5-3 (fine) or 4-3 (not great) hand.

[dougbennion]

To satisfy my own curiosity, I did a quick and dirty analysis of two balanced hands each with 11 HCP, and a 4=3 spade fit. I played 2S for 5000 hands, then 2NT for 5000 hands.

The 2NT contract makes about 60% of the time, the 2S contract about 55%, on a 'normal' lead and a 12-trick double dummy analysis. For the times they both make, the 2NT contract will score higher in a matchpoint event.

That would confirm my judgment of the merits of the two contracts, so I've not become a big Keri fan.

Thanks all.

[Mbodell]

dougbennion, on Aug 22 2010, 01:08 PM, said:

That would confirm my judgment of the merits of the two contracts, so I've not become a big Keri fan.

Hum, maybe next you'd want to study all the times you have KQJxxx of diamonds and out and are playing a non-weak 2 in diamonds? Or the merits of weak nt by just looking at hands when partner has a balanced hand with <2 HCP.

Seriously, if you focus on the worst of all possible outcomes (and one that is quite uncommon in practice) it isn't surprising if you find out that it isn't the best place to be.

Judging the whole system from that is unwise. Don't play it if you don't want to, but your expressed logic for why is very weak.

[awm]

As someone who used to play Keri, I will comment that one of the major reasons I stopped playing Keri was that the 4-3 major fits did not score particularly well. Being able to stop at 2M on declined invites is (supposedly) a big advantage, but it seemed that as often as not we'd have been better off playing stayman and landing in 2NT.

The ability to sign off in 2♦ is nice obviously, but in exchange you lose garbage stayman which is actually surprisingly useful. I think this is roughly break even.

Another problem with Keri is that it's not so good for finding 4-4 and 5-4 minor fits when you have a pair of balanced hands. This is somewhat masked by the fact that a lot of other notrump systems aren't great at this either, but it's certainly possible to use some sort of relay and solve the problem. This is also less of an issue opposite a weak notrump (where slam hands are rare) than a strong notrump.

The one part of Keri that's produced some incredibly good results for me is the direct splinters at the three level. I've incorporated those into my later notrump systems as well.

[benlessard]

The trouble with Keri is that since invite is 4 or 5 opener with 3 trumps and no ruffing power will be tempted to pass fear of partner having 5/6bad trumps. If you removed all 4333, 2M will score slightly better than 2Nt.

The diamond signoff is worth more than garbage stayman (not close imo). Opponents lets us play 2D fairly often.

These kind of system are really better with a large range NT wich is of course ont everybody cup of tea.

If you want a system without transfers let me know