[miamijd]

The modern trend is to open 1NT with 5332 hands. THe main exception is when you have a good hand at the top of your range (17 if you play 2/1, likely 16 if you play a big club). Then you should consider upgrading the hand so you don't miss a game.

If you do open frequent 5 card majors, then I would suggest you play either 2NT or 3C as a five-card major ask. One common treatment after a 1NT opener is as follows:

2S = range finder or clubs (opener bids 2NT with a minimum and 3C with a max). Use this to invite game in NT or with a strong or weak club hand.

2NT = diamonds

3C = five card major ask (1-2 3-card majors; no 4-card major, else you'd bid 2C not 3C)

3D = no five card major
After this:
3H = 3 hearts; 0-1 spades
3S = 3 spades, 0-1 hearts

3H/3S - five cards in the bid major

By bidding 3D, rather than 3NT, with no five-card major, you allow responder to show a short suit and avoid 3NT off 5 quick ones when 5 of a minor or 4M on a 4/3 fit would play a lot better.

Cheers,
Mike

[ggwhiz]

Proper texture in the other suits such as AQ, AJT even Qx or Kx or even Tx benefit from declaring nt with a little help from pard.

We don't play puppet but after 1nt - 2c - 2M - 2nt if we accept the invite, 3M is forcing showing 5. If not 2nt has always seemed to play equal or better to the major suit since you are too often stuck playing in a 5-2 fit when you open 1M instead and play 1nt forcing.

[pescetom]

miamijd, on 2018-May-31, 09:40, said:

The modern trend is to open 1NT with 5332 hands. THe main exception is when you have a good hand at the top of your range (17 if you play 2/1, likely 16 if you play a big club).

I considered that exception but excluded it, in our system the 1NT declarer will identify top of range (17) in any case whether responding to transfer or a prolonged Stayman.

miamijd, on 2018-May-31, 09:40, said:

If you do open frequent 5 card majors, then I would suggest you play either 2NT or 3C as a five-card major ask.

I wasn't happy with any of the 5cM asks or Puppet Stayman and so invented my own, happy to describe if anyone is curious

[Shugart23]

msjennifer, on 2018-May-31, 06:43, said:

We don't mind that.They can also find it if you open 1NT.These days no one is afraid of RHO or LHO S 1NT.There are many conventions available to obstruct opponents 1NT constructively or destructively.Your fears are therefore unjustified.Even if they come in at one spade level we have the gadgets to cope up that also and Lebensohl is just one of them.(Don’t confuse this with the Lebensohl used when partner opens 1NT and opponents intervene..)There are SIX situations where Lebensohl can be used.

Yeah, we use transfer lebensohl in all kinds of situations...maybe even more than 6 cases...(check out Oliver Clarke's OCP Super-Precision pages).....My point is when you open 1H, it is much easier for me (your opponent) to overcall 1S...,heck, you even allow me to bid it with fairly minimal values especially with good colors... It also gives my partner ands I the opportunity of finding a defensive lead when you get the bid or might help us finding a sacrifice.

When you open 1NT, there is a non-empty set of hands where the opponent must remain silent or take a poor risk of a bid...So there are clearly some disadvantages of opening 1H vs 1NT..

I suppose the advantage of opening 1H is your partner knows you have 5 Hearts and simultaneously, when you open 1NT the table knows you don't have a 5 card Major.....

Not saying what you are doing is wrong ....I simply will always open 1NT when 5332 where my major is Hearts for reasons described above....( my NT range is 12-15 although it used to be 10-13 before we changed from Precision to a version of Blue Team Club)…..

[msjennifer]

Shugart23, on 2018-May-31, 13:21, said:

Yeah, we use transfer lebensohl in all kinds of situations...maybe even more than 6 cases...(check out Oliver Clarke's OCP Super-Precision pages).....My point is when you open 1H, it is much easier for me (your opponent) to overcall 1S...,heck, you even allow me to bid it with fairly minimal values especially with good colors... It also gives my partner ands I the opportunity of finding a defensive lead when you get the bid or might help us finding a sacrifice.

When you open 1NT, there is a non-empty set of hands where the opponent must remain silent or take a poor risk of a bid...So there are clearly some disadvantages of opening 1H vs 1NT..

I suppose the advantage of opening 1H is your partner knows you have 5 Hearts and simultaneously, when you open 1NT the table knows you don't have a 5 card Major.....

Not saying what you are doing is wrong ....I simply will always open 1NT when 5332 where my major is Hearts for reasons described above....( my NT range is 12-15 although it used to be 10-13 before we changed from Precision to a version of Blue Team Club)…..

Sir,your statements are correct But playing Precision and Super Precision (Garozzo and Beladonna with Omar Sharif)we can not deviate as both the systems are aggressive systems and exact to the point..I do play Blue and Roman club also.The advantage therein is one can open a 4 card major and then use the canapé wherever necessary..However,we do not like the time wasting bids by responder over a 1C opened by partner.One can use Precision responses to 1C albeit with marginal adjustments when playing Blue Club system.Good Luck.

[relknes]

System matters a lot, in my opinion.
In a big club or two-way club system it is much easier to get away with allowing 1M or 1N based on opener's judgement. This is one of the subtle benefits of limited openings.
Also, it is easier to get away with if you are playing Standard American than if you are playing 2/1.
With one of my partners (playing 1♣ as 11-13 balanced or any 17+, and 1N as 14-16 balanced) we tend to open the major if we want a lead in the suit, have more aces and kings than quacks, or are at the top of our range. We are more likely to open 1♣ or 1N if we don't want a lead in our suit, have a hand that prefers declaring, or have more losers than our point count would suggest. Also, we are a bit more willing to open spades than hearts.
Playing with another partner (playing Standard American with relatively sound openings) we always open 1M, which is perfectly managable if you are allowed to pass partner's 1N response.
Playing with a different partner (playing 2/1 Game Force) we always open 1N when in range, because otherwise the Forcing NT response would make it impossible to get all our point ranges across.
All of that is a long way of saying that it isn't as simple as "You should always open 1N even with a 5 card major" or "You should always open 1M if you have 5 of them." You have to consider the system as a whole.

[fromageGB]

A simple answer - at IMPs always 1NT. At MPs always the major. Different scoring, different methods, as said by StephenG, but my 1NT is 15/16. I don't think vulnerability matters significantly. What does matter is your strength-defining methods after a 1M open.

[Vampyr]

nekthen, on 2018-May-31, 03:03, said:

I have come down on the side of opening 1N with 5332 and 5422 hands (except with 9 cards in majors)
I think it is important to use 3♣ as Puppet Stayman in this scenario, this generally makes sure you are in the right game.

I think that ordinary 5-card Stayman is a lot better here than Puppet Stayman; if you end up in NT you will have revealed less about the closed hand. But I suppose that those who play Strong NT worry about rightsiding the hand.

[Shugart23]

fromageGB, on 2018-June-01, 12:42, said:

A simple answer - at IMPs always 1NT. At MPs always the major. Different scoring, different methods, as said by StephenG, but my 1NT is 15/16. I don't think vulnerability matters significantly. What does matter is your strength-defining methods after a 1M open.

why is this so ? (at MP, 1NT white , even down 1, tends to be a top something like 80% of the time)

[fromageGB]

Shugart23, on 2018-June-01, 16:29, said:

why is this so ? (at MP, 1NT white , even down 1, tends to be a top something like 80% of the time)

If you are 1 down in NT, you are unlikely to be 2 down in spades, as they have the strength and suits to run in NT, while you have length in spades to ruff them with. Both going 1 down is more likely, or spades making. Why else do people bother to transfer to play in 2M?

All I can say is that your experience is the complete opposite to mine. I commonly find that whether at game or partscore, playing in a major fit is worth a trick, and while meaningless when converted to IMPS, it is huge in matchpoints. Of course there are hands that make the same number of tricks in both, but these are much fewer in frequency. Just checking at random, the last local club night had 12 hands out of 27 where people were playing in both the major and in NT. Of these, 8 hands had better results in the major, 4 better in NT. That's actual results, not the double dummy.

That includes hands where only one pair is in one of the contracts, so it is fairer to restrict it to those with at least two pairs in each. That gave 5 hands, 4 for the major, 1 for NT. Double dummy gave it as 5-0.

[Shugart23]

fromageGB, on 2018-June-02, 06:43, said:

If you are 1 down in NT, you are unlikely to be 2 down in spades, as they have the strength and suits to run in NT, while you have length in spades to ruff them with. Both going 1 down is more likely, or spades making. Why else do people bother to transfer to play in 2M?

All I can say is that your experience is the complete opposite to mine. I commonly find that whether at game or partscore, playing in a major fit is worth a trick, and while meaningless when converted to IMPS, it is huge in matchpoints. Of course there are hands that make the same number of tricks in both, but these are much fewer in frequency. Just checking at random, the last local club night had 12 hands out of 27 where people were playing in both the major and in NT. Of these, 8 hands had better results in the major, 4 better in NT. That's actual results, not the double dummy.

That includes hands where only one pair is in one of the contracts, so it is fairer to restrict it to those with at least two pairs in each. That gave 5 hands, 4 for the major, 1 for NT. Double dummy gave it as 5-0.

I think we might be talking about different things....I am thinking of the situation where we grab the 1NT bid first and where it plays there.....not higher partial or game bids...I do agree that when my partner opens 1NT and I am weak with a 5 +card Major, I move off the 1NT bid..(if I am strong, we start exploring).…

Partner and I actually have an agreement that we will strive to NEVER let opponents play 1NT white against us, if at all possible...My contention is that if we let them have the 1NT bid, we are probably going to get a zero. Conversely (?), I am always happy when the opponents allow me to play 1NT white.....Hence, 5332 hands we open 1NT


Did anyone in your sample play 1NT ?

[rmnka447]

When playing 15-17 NTs, I open 1 NT with any 15-17 5-3-3-2 hand. I have run across some real experts who choose to open 1 of a major with such hands when they hold only 2 cards in the other major. Their thinking, so far as I can discern, is to avoid being transferred into a 5-2 major fit when a 5-3 fit might exist. If they do open 1 of a major, they will rebid 3 NT over a 2/1 response to show the "strong" NT hand.

When playing weak NTs in conjunction with 5 card major openers, I virtually never open 1 NT with a 5 card major. Interestingly, our 1 of a major openers include all the 15-17 5-3-3-2 hands opened 1 NT by the strong NTers. But we've never been aware of any appreciable difference in results from opening in a major versus opening 1 NT. The one sop that we've made is to make a 2 NT rebid over a 2/1 response show 16+ balanced. That simply means we use the simple rebid of 2 of the major as a minimum hand any shape.

[Shugart23]

rmnka447, on 2018-June-02, 18:40, said:

When playing 15-17 NTs, I open 1 NT with any 15-17 5-3-3-2 hand. I have run across some real experts who choose to open 1 of a major with such hands when they hold only 2 cards in the other major. Their thinking, so far as I can discern, is to avoid being transferred into a 5-2 major fit when a 5-3 fit might exist. If they do open 1 of a major, they will rebid 3 NT over a 2/1 response to show the "strong" NT hand.

When playing weak NTs in conjunction with 5 card major openers, I virtually never open 1 NT with a 5 card major. Interestingly, our 1 of a major openers include all the 15-17 5-3-3-2 hands opened 1 NT by the strong NTers. But we've never been aware of any appreciable difference in results from opening in a major versus opening 1 NT. The one sop that we've made is to make a 2 NT rebid over a 2/1 response show 16+ balanced. That simply means we use the simple rebid of 2 of the major as a minimum hand any shape.

It would be nice to see some real data for sure.... We used to play really weak NT (10-13) for years. I think 10-13 HCP hands occur something like 33% of the time whilst 15-17 HCP hands occur 3-5% of the times...So ,instead of having a 1NT opening once or twice per night , we had the opportunity to open it throughout the evening. With 5332 and Hearts, for us, it was a no brainer - open 1NT. With 5332 and Spades, not so clear of a choice (for us). We had our escapes and for sure, very occasionally we got smacked around. However, we found that the preemptive value of opening 1NT (with almost any legal distribution) was quite useful in MP.

[fromageGB]

Shugart23, on 2018-June-02, 15:12, said:

I think we might be talking about different things....I am thinking of the situation where we grab the 1NT bid first and where it plays there.....not higher partial or game bids...I do agree that when my partner opens 1NT and I am weak with a 5 +card Major, I move off the 1NT bid..(if I am strong, we start exploring).…

Did anyone in your sample play 1NT ?

I see what you mean. Maybe you want a method where you start off 1NT and if anyone else bids, you take it back, and say "no, start again, I'm opening 1M" ?

On that night there was only one hand where there were contracts both in 1NT and 2M. I opened 1♠ on a 5332 14 count, partner replied a forcing NT and we ended in 2♠. All hands played by South, the spade players made 9 or 10, the NT players made 8. Of course not a scientific sample.

[Shugart23]

fromageGB, on 2018-June-03, 06:37, said:

I see what you mean. Maybe you want a method where you start off 1NT and if anyone else bids, you take it back, and say "no, start again, I'm opening 1M" ?

On that night there was only one hand where there were contracts both in 1NT and 2M. I opened 1♠ on a 5332 14 count, partner replied a forcing NT and we ended in 2♠. All hands played by South, the spade players made 9 or 10, the NT players made 8. Of course not a scientific sample.

Partner and I do have an agreement where if bidding goes 1S-2S-3S...? I am allowed to go back to 2S and decline the invitation