Phil, on 2012-April-07, 10:29, said:
No one has a problem with jacking around a 1N opening with Woolsey, and a lot of players think that the 2♦ multi overcall is what creates the most havoc in strong NT bidding.
lol, funny because this is another great example of a convention people overuse way too much and go for numbers. Think about it, if the opponents play one of the two common methods of dealing with multi over your NT, which is double with stayman hands to create a force, then you are in penalty X mode, then effectively they can make both a penalty X and a takeout double of your 2 of a major overcall. As opposed to if you could just bid 2M, they would no longer have a penalty X and would usually bid 3N (or if they passed, often they would hear all pass). You give them the best of both worlds and become much more exposed, since your downside is much greater you should obviously logically be overcalling SOUNDER because you have to bid 2D rahter than 2M. On top of that, your upside is lower since you are not showing your suit immediately which is inferior in competitive auctions obviously. I honestly think of woolsey vs NT and suction vs strong club as 2 examples of bids that opponents make retardedly vs me very often and just go for numbers. Woolsey 2D must be the worst, it's so easy to just double then double (or double then pass and let partner double). I did not know there was a group of people who thought that the "2d bid creates the most havoc in strong NT bidding" but that makes sense.
It is just like a multi 2D opening, you should LOSE when you are opening the convention compared to opening a weak 2, but you should gain enough by freeing up both 2M openings vs having some other meaning for 2D that you gain.
In reality, people thinking multi 2D, or multi over their NT being a winning convention on its own cannot logically follow unless the opponents are so unfamiliar/incompetent at defending against it compared to their competency level of defending vs natural bidding that you are gaining a ton just based on that. So, no doubt these local wizards who do well beating up on fish have gotten most of their experience doing just that, and thus conventions where the opponents don't know how to defend and have accidents have a lot of value. But if you think logically about specifically woolsey 2D, I think you would realize it's a horrible example since it uses up no bidding room and the opponents can just play transfer lebensohl and double for stayman/penalty X hands, and pass then double with light takeouts, etc. And it's really not a hard bid to defend against, and you will pre-alert it in the ACBL so they will likely discuss their defense even if they are bad players.
Similarly, having a philosophy of "jacking around all the time" COMBINED with playing two suited overcalls over a strong club is just a complete disaster if the opponents know what to do when you bid against their strong club. Playing this way your vig is really going to be gaining from confusing them and them having accidents. And, incidentally, these players are also often not smart enough to take full advantage of the information you give them in the auction when they declare.
I mean, seriously, think about an auction like 1C* (strong) 1D(suction) 2D (natural GF) 3H (p/c). This auction is a pretty good auction for suction, luckily advancer had a big enough fit in 2 possible suits to preempt to the 3 level immediately and the pressure is on. This auction has gone well for suction, but 1C 1H 2C 3H would have been much better. Why is that? Because assuming I play the hand, I know a ton about responders hand. 3H really says "I want to play 3H if you have hearts, or at least 3S, or at least 4D". He's probably got 4 hearts and 5 clubs or 4 hearts and 4 spades at least, and I really know even more than that (many 4432 hands would just bid 2S not 3H for instance, etc). He might have 5 hearts, but if he does I know he doesn't have 5 clubs, with 5-5 he would bid 4C at least. If he had 5 hearts, I would bet a lot on him being 4522 exactly. Maybe they will lead a heart at trick one and I will get the heart count, and play double dummy and get written up cuz I played for 4522 at trick one. Of course 4522 might just bid 2S, maybe I'll play him for good spades and bad hearts as well. And if the overcaller has spades and clubs, the auction has gone well for him, his partner was able to preempt early in the auction, nice, but I am going to be able to pick off the play easily, esp if I get to 4H.
Basically, you are simply gambling a ton that you ***** them in the auction, because they will often know your shape. And what is the best way to ***** them? It's either to preempt to a high level with your first bid, OR TO MAKE A BID THAT ENABLES PARTNER TO PREEMPT TO A HIGH LEVEL. If opener has to make his first bid at a high level, that's great. But wait, playing these "either/or" bids not only means that the pass or correct bids give a way a ton of info about the shape, it also severely hampers your partners ability to preempt to a high level which is one of the main ways of achieving your dream of ***** them in the auction! I see you play crash, so over 2 suits of the same rank for instance, for your partner to preempt aggressively he needs a good fit in both a minor and a major, otherwise he has to be more cautious. If you could have just shown the majors, your partner would be free to jump immediately. Also, think about this stupid style of bidding super aggressively to begin with. What happens? Oh, partner can't really preempt THAT aggressively, even with 2 fits in possible suits, you might be 4-4 or have a 4 card suit overcall or something stupid. Better be cautious. Oh you had a real 5/5 this time? Too bad, unlucky! The get in every time style is very poor in that respect, it just runs counter to your goal of getting in their auctions a lot. If responder makes a GF bid and the next guy cant jump to at least the 3 level, their auction isn't hurt too much. They have forcing passes, cuebids, they are in a GF and can bid suits. Oh, yeah, they can double you too.
Your GOAL when you overcall over a strong club should be:
--Always to possibly play it. You are bidding to try and play the hand. This means a making partial or game, or obviously finding a good save.
If you DON'T play it your goal should be to:
-- Distruct their auction effectively, while not giving them too much info in the play if you fail at that goal (as you almost always will unless you find a big fit.
The most likely way to disrupt their auction effectively is to preempt them early. The best ways to do this are:
1) Overcall with a preempt obv, this hurts their auction immediately. Even something like 2S. Well, to overcall soemthing at the 2 level, you're much mroe likely to have a 1 suiter. One suiters have more safety for less. And no, artificial 2 bids are not good. For instance multi 2D overcall would be hopeless, you take away you biggest advantage by allowing LHO to double, to show some cards and then make another bid, he can make 2 bids at the 2 level often. You must overcall in a suit that you might have even if its a 2 suited bid (spades and a minor could work, psycho suction is much superior to suction because youre bidding your possible suit, etc).
2) Overcall at the 1 level, enabling partner to at least raise, but hopefully to make a big jump immediately if you hit a big fit. Even if you have a spade and club 2 suiter, overcalling spades is not that bad, if you're going to make a big splash it's probably in spades and if you have a save or a make somewhere you're unlikely to win in clubs, spades is far more important (goign to my theory that majors is the only important 2 suiter over 1C). Yes, obviously some bid that showed both suits exactly would be better. But I would submit that if I have 5 spades and 5 clubs and my option is to DOUBLE as a crash bid, or bid 1S, 1S is far better. 1S at least enables partner to jump raise if he has a good fit whereas crash means he has to have a good fit in 2 suits. It also is far more preemptive than X or 1D, it's funny that crashers want to disrupt and 2 of their 3 bids are X and 1D, those are much easier for strong clubbers to deal with.
Also it's worth noting that even 1S is a pretty effective preempt even if your partner can just raise to 2S.
All of these things argue for natural bids, not either/or bids and not 2 suited bids, and that is just on top of the main point that we do not want to tell them so much about shape every single time when we are unlikely to declare the hand! They also argue for not bidding super aggro and just bidding normally at the 1 level, because WHEN you bid, you want your partner to be able to bid very aggressively. You can argue whether you should be preempting aggressively, this is more random and has a lot more upside but you will just get doubled a lot. IMO this is the same thing, people just preempt too much. Yes maybe novice strong clubbers don't know what to do over 1C 3S X(GF no bid) p ? with xxx AJx AKJx Axx but any good player is just going to pass and let you play it, so good luck to you if you have a retarded hand. Yes, 3S is a very effective preempt, but if you are bidding it too often they can counter it by just defending 3S X when they have game going points and no super long suit. And that is a common battle these days. But that is a totally different argument about best style for preempting over a strong club, it's way different than best methods and style on 1 level bids imo.
Also Remember that even overcalling a preempt like 2S with 6 spades gives them far less info about the shape than 2 suited bids.
This post is going on and on, but I would say that you should devise your system/methods for playing against people who are competent. Even if they are incompetent, they might have no idea what they're doing in their uncontested auctions anyways that you are risking a lot to gain not a ton. I admit there is a class of players who knows their auctions very well if you don't bid, but has very poor judgement in competitive auctions. For instance, I used to play against some relay guys and I would always bid, because they were hopeless at bridge but they knew their relays 100 %. But that is just exploiting their particular weaknesses, it should not be your general strategy. When people play vs meckwell, they often freak out and think they're getting fixed or something if they let them have an uncontested 1C auction. That couldn't be farther from the truth, yes they are in a +EV spot vs natural, but sometimes natural works better, usually it doesn't matter at all it's just a normal whatever contract. Let's say 90 % of the time it doesn't matter what system you play in an uncontested auction, you're just going to get to the same spot. In those auctions, do I want to risk going for a number for no reason, or even worse, do I want to tell meckwell a ton about the shape and let them pick me clean in the play? And for what gain, because I'm going to screw meckwell really hard by overcalling 1D CRASH and then my partner can bust out 3D, pass or correct? What percentage of the time do you think that stops natures course of them playing a routine game or something? It is just a really bad strategy and this conventional wisdom comes out of some fear of strong clubbers having a strong club auction like you will always get burned, combined with how inept bad strong clubbers are at dealing with competition, combined with people not considering the implications of the play after these auctions, only the bidding.