[aguahombre]

Yeh, if you choose to have an opening which includes 4x1's you really need a widely split range for it. Ours is 11-14 or 23+.

[32519]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-January-04, 09:14, said:

In my opinion these hand types are not frequent enough to devote the 2NT opening bid to. I would prefer to switch your 20-22 balanced with the strong 3-suiters (so 2D Multi is a weak 2 in a major or strong 3-suiter) or better yet just use Ryall's scheme where a 2C opening follwed by a 2NT rebid is the strong 3-suiter. Either way gets your 2NT opening back to a reasonable frequency.

BBO has a deal source generator which calculates the odds of being dealt certain hand patterns within a defined HCP range. FWIW I ran both the 4441 hand pattern 17-24 HCP as well as the balanced hand pattern 20-22 HCP through it.

This is what it showed:
4441 = 0.05%
4414 = 0.05%
4144 = 0.05%
1444 = 0.05%
Total = 0.20%

Balanced = 0.85%

I fully support your suggestion to rather remove the strong balanced 20-22 HCP hand from the Multi 2♦ bid and retain the strong 4441 17-24 HCP hand instead. One thing we do appear to have agreement on is dumping the 2NT bid to show 5-5 in the minors and 5-10 HCP. If you still want the 5-5 weak option, adopt the Ryall scheme instead.

Out of curiosity I ran the 5-5 minors 5-10 HCP hand through the deal generator as well. The odds of being dealt this hand pattern = 0.45%. Dumping it from your 2NT bid in exchange for the strong balanced option is a double gain –
1.) You are dumping a poor option for a very useful bid,
2.) And replacing it with a better option which occurs far more frequently

A suggested bidding option to cope with the 4441 hand pattern has already undergone its first round of modification. The game of bridge continues to evolve!

[Zelandakh]

 32519, on 2012-January-05, 01:14, said:

One thing we do appear to have agreement on is dumping the 2NT bid to show 5-5 in the minors and 5-10 HCP. If you still want the 5-5 weak option, adopt the Ryall scheme instead.

Out of curiosity I ran the 5-5 minors 5-10 HCP hand through the deal generator as well. The odds of being dealt this hand pattern = 0.45%. Dumping it from your 2NT bid in exchange for the strong balanced option is a double gain –
1.) You are dumping a poor option for a very useful bid,
2.) And replacing it with a better option which occurs far more frequently

I am afraid I have not agreed to this at all. Within a natural context I do not play 2NT as both minors. However, in a strong club you have enough space to cope with all of the constructive hands and leave the 2NT opening free. Here playing a preemptive 2NT opening makes alot of sense. One of the possibilities for this is minors although there are plenty of alternatives. However, even in this context the strong natural 2NT opening is useful since it makes competition after a 1C opening simpler sometimes.

As it happens, my strong club system does use a 2NT to show a weak hand with minors; not 5-10 though as a 10 point 5-5 hand (even most 9 pointers) falls under the provisions of a 1D opening. I agree it is probably not optimal as it is too easy to defend - the French and CRASH 2NT openings are both probably better, perhaps some others too - but it is simple and such a minor part of the system that I did not want to spend alot of time here. One day I might get around to changing it. If I thought it was a loser I would switch to strong and natural, 21-22, which is already played in 4th seat.