[fromageGB]

I think a weak NT is a bit like a psyche. When you have only 12-14, the expectation is that partner is going to pass, as (unless he has a long suit) he needs to have a hand almost as good as yours if he is going to bid. So you are gambling that this is the right contract. Yes, you preempt the opponents, but you preempt your partner more. I play a 15/16 NT in a typically 12-14 field, and the number of times our 2M contract beats the 1NT is significant.

Like any psyche, sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't.

[dake50]

Responses seem to indicate 1NT to fit into a scheme of bids:
eg. bal 12-14; bal 15-17 now not in 1C.
What if 1NT were intended as a minor preempt?
Hoping for 3C/3D response.
Now 10-12, no 4xM is best.

***
I'm thinking as Chris Ryall's Opening/Competing 1NT.

[Zelandakh]

 fromageGB, on 2012-May-24, 09:06, said:

I think a weak NT is a bit like a psyche.

When you open a weak (12-14) NT the expected strength for your side is 22, so you are bidding what you can expect to make on even splits. On the contrary a 15-17 NT has an expected strength of 24 hcp, almost enough for game (and many would say it actually is enough). It can be argued from this that a strong NT is the conventional (or psyche-like using your parlance) call and a weak NT is completely natural.

[straube]

 benlessard, on 2012-May-24, 06:20, said:

I honestly dont understand here. In this sequence its simply better if you are playing a weak NT, because at least with some of the strong balanced hand you still can find a bid. With all 12-14 you have to pass no matter what is your shape and over your pass partner will still be unsure about your shape. While when you hold a 15-17 bal you can easily pass with the 15 bad 16 and X, bid 3NT or 4H with the good 16-17. There is very little risk at passing a bal 15 without 4H here.

I think he's arguing that if a weak NT gets lost in competition, that it doesn't matter. If a strong NT gets lost in competition, it can be expensive.

[f0rdy]

I think the vulnerability of a weak 1NT to penalty doubles is very dependent on the field. I'm sure in the Bermuda Bowl everyone is on top of their agreements, but at most lower levels there's a lot of potential for mess-ups by the doubling side.

Even if pairs know their agreements about (1N) - X - (2S) - X or (1N) - X - (2S) - P - (P) - X (although we picked up +1070 in the Junior Camrose when the 2nd placed team didn't know whether the first of these was penalty or takeout), a lot of people are less clear about e.g.

6th and 8th seat doubles after
(1N) - X - (XX = two suits, not spades) - P - (2C) - ?

I played a weak NT for a decent period of time at various levels in the UK, and I felt we did well out of a lot of auctions where they doubled our NT. Most of the time, either:
a) They pull from 2mX (heading for -500) to 2M (+170)
b) They double you for a while and keep doubling when you make it to your decent 4-4 fit. +670
c) They have the chance for a reasonable penalty in 1NXX, but get scared and pull.
The number of times we went for a beyond-game penalty is really pretty small.

Apart from doubling, I agree with the advice of the others about the differences. As well as competitive auctions, there's a couple of auctions where playing strong people generally make nebulous rebids to cope with their weak NT, which get easier; notably inverted minors, where if opener doesn't show a 5th card in the suit, they have 15+ and you're in a GF.

[awm]

There are some general problems with weak notrump methods. For example this auction came up for my expert opponents recently:

1c-(3h)-all pass. Opener had 16 balanced 2344 and responder had a 3253 9-count. 3nt and 5d both made for +400, and 3h was two off for +200 on best defense. Who was supposed to bid? Obviously passing did not work, but if responder bids and finds an unbalanced hand with clubs opposite you may not like the result!

[benlessard]

 awm, on 2012-May-24, 17:50, said:

There are some general problems with weak notrump methods. For example this auction came up for my expert opponents recently:

1c-(3h)-all pass. Opener had 16 balanced 2344 and responder had a 3253 9-count. 3nt and 5d both made for +400, and 3h was two off for +200 on best defense. Who was supposed to bid? Obviously passing did not work, but if responder bids and finds an unbalanced hand with clubs opposite you may not like the result!

Once again I think this is a poor counter example. I am of course glad to play a weak Nt here. Clearly responder erred by not doubling wich is safe here. My guess is that responder is a bit lacking experience and had Qx of hearts and didnt count it.

If opener has a strong NT hes going to bid 3S or 4S wich will be in a 4/3 but your going to have a chance to make it because of the extras values. If partner has 4 trumps he can pass easily for a decent penalty or bid 3NT and have at least 24 and not 22 like it happen frequently playing strong NT.

If he doesnt have a strong NT and doesnt have 4S you clearly want to be in 4C unless opener is like 2425,3415 and dont want to pass. If you cant make 4C its highly probable they make 3H anyway unless they have a bigger S fit. Also note that some playing standard better minors are able to open 1D with 44 in the minors making it even safer for them when the suits are reversed (2344 vs 3235)

Its doesnt get really better than this for the Weak Nt, but if you start passing with values, being short in the opponent suit and have trumps support for partner no bridge system is going to do the job for you.

[MickyB]

So an unbalanced minimum with a heart stop can't bid 3NT over the negative double?

[gordontd]

 awm, on 2012-May-24, 17:50, said:

There are some general problems with weak notrump methods. For example this auction came up for my expert opponents recently:

1c-(3h)-all pass. Opener had 16 balanced 2344 and responder had a 3253 9-count. 3nt and 5d both made for +400, and 3h was two off for +200 on best defense. Who was supposed to bid? Obviously passing did not work, but if responder bids and finds an unbalanced hand with clubs opposite you may not like the result!

Would this have been any different if, in a strong NT context, opener had 18 & responder 7 or 8?

[straube]

 gordontd, on 2012-May-25, 02:11, said:

Would this have been any different if, in a strong NT context, opener had 18 & responder 7 or 8?

I disagree with the logic here. awm was giving an example where opening a 15-17 with a minor might have been responsible for a bad result when opening 1N with that same 15-17 would have given a good result. We're not considering 18-19 pt balanced ranges here and yes, in a natural system, this range is occasionally/rarely vulnerable to preemption. Btw, open that 18-19 with a strong club and responder might be able to bid with those 7 or 8 points.

[gordontd]

 straube, on 2012-May-25, 06:48, said:

awm was giving an example where opening a 15-17 with a minor might have been responsible for a bad result when opening 1N with that same 15-17 would have given a good result.

I could give you an example where opening a minor allows you to reach a superior 4-4 major fit, rather than playing in 1NT with 15 opposite 6, and I expect you could give me a counter-example where strong NTers reach their major fit with 12 opposite 10. None of this is really significant.

[straube]

 gordontd, on 2012-May-25, 07:30, said:

I could give you an example where opening a minor allows you to reach a superior 4-4 major fit, rather than playing in 1NT with 15 opposite 6, and I expect you could give me a counter-example where strong NTers reach their major fit with 12 opposite 10. None of this is really significant.

I wasn't arguing that particular point.

I've been arguing that it's more likely to be preempted out of a game or other contract when holding a strong NT but playing weak NTs. There are advantages to both weak and strong NT and I think this is a specific advantage of playing strong NT.

[awm]

It's often difficult to handle hands with mild extras in competition. The general situation is where responder has around 8-9 points and doesn't want to risk bidding game opposite what could easily be a 12-count, whereas opener has a bit extra at around 16 but doesn't want to risk being in game opposite partner's 6-count (or even less).

Obviously this can happen regardless of notrump range, but the frequency of opener holding the annoying 16 or so is obviously much higher if you play weak notrump. Of course, you can decide that responder will just play opener for a strong notrump (rather than playing opener for a 12-count), but this means you will often hang yourself when opener does have a (unbalanced) 12-count. Playing weak notrump, 1m opener has fairly even odds of holding 12-14 (unbalanced), or holding 15-17, which means responder is quite often guessing after a preempt. Playing strong notrump, opener almost always has 12-14 (balanced or unbalanced) so the problems are much rarer.

I'm not the only one who thinks this is an issue -- Meckwell have taken to playing a strong 2NT for much the same reason. Over 1♣-(bid) responder assumes a minimum (here 16, for a strong club) and they sometimes got in trouble when opener had about a king extra.

[Wackojack]

 awm, on 2012-May-21, 19:35, said:

A few thoughts on this:


(2) You may want to consider how opener shows the strong notrump in competition. For example, it is popular to play 1♣-(Pass)-1♠-(2♥)-Dbl as showing the strong notrump rather than as a support double. If you don't use this type of approach, you can easily miss games in competitive sequences like this.

I much prefer playing strong no trump. However, I play 12-14 no trump and support doubles with 2 partners. So taking the example:
1♣-(p)- 1♠-(2♥
p - (p) - ?

As responder you have:
♠ KQJxx
♥ xx
♦xxxx
♣ Kx

You know that partner either has a strong no trump with a doubleton spade or a minimum unbalanced hand with clubs. Clearly game may be missed if you pass. So you double for take-out. Can this go wrong? If partner has a strong no trump,he is well placed to leave the double in for penalties or go for game in no trumps. If partner is min with clubs he is also well placed to play in 2♠or 3♣or even 3♦ if partner opened with 1345 distribution.

So how do I fare if I am weaker, say take away K♣? Yes then I may have missed out on a part score battle if partner has a strong no trump, but this is hardly a crucial disadvantage. In fact I cannot think up any examples where I am really disadvantaged by playing 12-14 no trump and support doubles.

Put me right?

[Lurpoa]

 RunemPard, on 2012-May-21, 19:00, said:

Who cares where I posted..honestly no clue which to put it in. "Natural" is a matter of opinion to begin with! To me "natural" is more of how closely a system is to the original version. Being that a 12-14 NT alters the bidding in various ways, I considered it to be "unnatural". But then again, could this be a "natural" weak NT.

Just want some advice on how to adapt to it.

♥ ♥ ♥



Wrong, I do.


♥ ♥ ♥

[straube]

awm, what do you think about opening a weak NT in fourth seat?

Currently, we play fourth seat is 15-17 and 1D is 12-14 (in the context of a strong club system). Perhaps with 12-14 we might bury our major suit fits in order to prevent the opponents from overcalling cheaply. 1N would usually end our auction, but after 3 passes and holding 12-14, we might hope to make this most of the time. Holding a strong NT, if we opened 1D we might be alerted to a 5-cd major suit that is out against us, plus hopefully they won't have the count to bid anyway. In any case, a fourth suit 1D opening would promise something respectable.

I'd just as soon stick with a strong NT in fourth seat, but...

[awm]

 Wackojack, on 2012-May-27, 10:24, said:

So how do I fare if I am weaker, say take away K♣? Yes then I may have missed out on a part score battle if partner has a strong no trump, but this is hardly a crucial disadvantage. In fact I cannot think up any examples where I am really disadvantaged by playing 12-14 no trump and support doubles.

Put me right?

The more difficult situations come when you have more length in hearts. For example:

♠KJxxx
♥QTxx
♦Kxx
♣x

1♣ - Pass - 1♠ - 2♥ - Pass - Pass to you...

If you pass, you can easily miss a game opposite a strong notrump. If you double, you are fine if partner has a strong notrump (although you might've liked to defend, and now you never can, because partner will not have enough hearts to leave your double in)... but if partner has an unbalanced hand with clubs you could be in serious trouble.

The main issue is that there exist hands in this sort of auction where:
1. You have too many hearts to make a legitimate takeout double.
2. You aren't strong enough to issue a real invite.
3. Your chances in 2NT opposite an unbalanced min are poor as you may hold only 20-22 hcp combined.
4. You are too strong to pass opposite a strong notrump.

There are many slightly-less-bad versions of the hand I gave, with shapes like 5332, 5422, 4342, 4351 (sure, the latter two might be 1♦ responses in an up-the-line approach).

[awm]

 straube, on 2012-May-30, 11:27, said:

awm, what do you think about opening a weak NT in fourth seat?

My friend David Kempe loves this style (weak NT in 4th seat only). I don't agree.

I'd make the following points against it:

1. Strong notrump is actually significantly more frequent in this position.
2. You will lose some partscore swings by missing your best fit, as partner will virtually never have the cards to invite as a PH.
3. If opponents actually find a call over 1NT (which depends a lot on their opening style) you often cannot compete as easily as over 1m-[bid]
4. Opponents are freed from the need to bid constructively, which is one of the things that makes defending weak NT openings difficult.

[Vampyr]

 straube, on 2012-May-30, 11:27, said:

awm, what do you think about opening a weak NT in fourth seat?

Currently, we play fourth seat is 15-17 and 1D is 12-14 (in the context of a strong club system). Perhaps with 12-14 we might bury our major suit fits in order to prevent the opponents from overcalling cheaply. 1N would usually end our auction, but after 3 passes and holding 12-14, we might hope to make this most of the time. Holding a strong NT, if we opened 1D we might be alerted to a 5-cd major suit that is out against us, plus hopefully they won't have the count to bid anyway. In any case, a fourth suit 1D opening would promise something respectable.

I'd just as soon stick with a strong NT in fourth seat, but...

It seems that here you are arguing in favour of the preemptive value of a fourth-seat weak NT and offering no arguments for a strong NT... but saying that you prefer to play the latter. Why?

[straube]

 Vampyr, on 2012-May-30, 20:04, said:

It seems that here you are arguing in favour of the preemptive value of a fourth-seat weak NT and offering no arguments for a strong NT... but saying that you prefer to play the latter. Why?

Good question. I usually see more merit in the strong NT. I like to tell partner I have something decent and I like to be able to invite responder into the auction...which a weak NT doesn't do opposite a passed hand (but 1D would).

In fourth seat, it's annoying to open 1D and then find out that an opponent passed an 11-ct with five spades and it's actually their hand. I'd rather they had to guess at the 2-level.

I think awm is right, that the strong NT frequency is at least a lot higher in fourth seat...but I still see some arguments both ways. I guess my gut feeling is to stay with a strong NT.