[rr9000]

What are various people's experiences with playing systems on (i.e., the systems you would play as if your side opened 1NT) vs "natural," allowing runouts into 2 of a minor when advancer is bust and has a minor.

Thanks!

RR9000

[Stephen Tu]

Imo, it doesn't make much sense to play systems on. Systems over nt are mainly designed to get to best game, best slams. After opening bid by opp, slam is highly unlikely, and your best score is very often penalizing the opponents by passing. Giving up half the suits to run out at two level doesn't seem a good trade to me.

[TylerE]

New suits natural and dead hands. Anything with values passes.

[Tramticket]

As I indicated in another thread, I believe that you should keep the double up to strength. The advantage is that advancer usually has an easy choice and I would expect advancer to pass 90%+ of the time. If advancer is very weak (say 3 or fewer HCP) and is not completely balanced, they should contemplate removing the double - and a natural bid is best.

Occasionally, advancer will have a shapely hand the vulnerability will suggest playing the hand rather than defending. Three-level bids should be constructive.

It is far more important to decide what to do if responder removes the double. Now you need to agree whether advancer's double is penalty or take-out - either approach can work, but you need to have a firm understanding or the opponents will have an easy time escaping.

[shyams]

For a while, when I was playing serious competitive MPs, my partner and I used to play "system on" styled advances over partner's double of 11-14 1NT. It used to work well enough but we did occasionally score lesser than the potential penalty to 1NTx.

IIRC, the reason we designed the structure was that many adv/exp players had runout sequences after 1NTx. For example, many used to play "pass forces a redouble by opener" usually to show a single suit runout and "bid shows two suited hand". The 1NT opener's side then had the advantage of sharing information freely while the doubler's side was still waiting and guessing on the best outcomes.

[Flem72]

Your advancing structure MUST vary depending upon the WNTers systems after a X. For an authoritative discussion, see http://bridgewinners...notrump-part-1/ and Part 2 a week later.

[rr9000]

Flem72, on 2019-June-05, 08:05, said:

Your advancing structure MUST vary depending upon the WNTers systems after a X. For an authoritative discussion, see http://bridgewinners...notrump-part-1/ and Part 2 a week later.

Yes, I had read the Weinstein-Kaplan piece. My question here was mostly relevant to part I, when the opps pass. It's a very nice discussion. They use 2C as artificial runout, but other runouts natural. Larry Cohen and his partners play systems on. Some people play all the two level bids as natural runouts. IMO, there are surprisingly few online or written discussions of this seemingly important topic.

RR9000

[mikeh]

rr9000, on 2019-June-07, 09:19, said:

Yes, I had read the Weinstein-Kaplan piece. My question here was mostly relevant to part I, when the opps pass. It's a very nice discussion. They use 2C as artificial runout, but other runouts natural. Larry Cohen and his partners play systems on. Some people play all the two level bids as natural runouts. IMO, there are surprisingly few online or written discussions of this seemingly important topic.

RR9000

FWIW, I prefer that partner run naturally, with 2C being suspect. If one has, for example, a 4333 hand, with only 3 clubs, one can try the effect of 2C and then redouble if it is doubled.

My wife likes systems on, but I have real issues with this. On quite a few hands advancer's 'suit' is a minor, and yet he/she cannot get there from here, because 2C is stayman and 2D is a transfer. I have no idea why one would want to foreclose those contracts when running.

Note that when we open 1N, we gladly give up on 2C or 2D as contracts, but in those situations, with silent opps, we have unlimited upward possibilities and it is worth giving up the ability to play 2m in order to enhance our constructive bidding.

When it goes (1N) x (P), and we pull to the 2-level, it is NOT because we have a good hand...it is precisely because we usually have a horrible hand that we bid. So we have rarely have a constructive agenda, and there is little reason to give up on being able to play 2m.

Using system on has the benefit of being simple, and also, on rare occasions, allowing us to start strong auctions at the 2-level rather than either passing with shape or having to preempt our own constructive auction.

If we play that 2m is to play, then we do give up on stayman (not a big loss) and on transfers (more likely to be a loss).

Why would we pull the double with values? Never if balanced, imo, but what if one has a 2-suiter, say KJxxx QJxxx x xx? More than enough to pass, but what if opener has, with modest help from dummy, a 5 card running suit and one or 2 side winners? we may go -180 or +100/200 into our game of we are forced to pass: partner's rarely hit our suits on these sequences

But to my mind, these are low frequency hands where we may still land on our feet by starting at the 3 level, while when we have a piece of crap such as xxx xxx Jxxxx xx, we need to play in 2D.

[nige1]

When an opponent opens a weak notrump, partner doubles, and you have a very poor hand, then a traditional simple agreement is

• Pass = PEN with a balanced hand: because, partner can sometimes defeat 1N without your help. Anyway, your doubled escape might cost more than 1NX making.
• 2♣/♦/♥/♠ = NAT 5+ suit... Usually... but redouble after bidding a suit is SOS so these bids are alertable.

[Tramticket]

mikeh, on 2019-June-07, 17:11, said:

Why would we pull the double with values? Never if balanced, imo

If we are unbalanced with values, then the opponents are likely unbalanced with insufficient values and unlikely to stick in 1NT doubled in my experience. If I have values I am almost never bidding. The only time that I am bidding is when I feel that the vulnerability suggests that we might collect more from game our way than defending.

[rr9000]

Flem72, on 2019-June-05, 08:05, said:

Your advancing structure MUST vary depending upon the WNTers systems after a X. For an authoritative discussion, see http://bridgewinners...notrump-part-1/ and Part 2 a week later.

I'm thinking more about Flem72's excellent "MUST" here, and it's not obvious to me why Weinstein-Kaplan don't take more account of the meaning of XX by responder and whether opener is forced to XX if it's all float back to them. (They mention memory load, but maybe this one's worth it?) If the opps' system means that 1NTX can't be the final contract, why should advancer ever pull without a five card suit, let alone a questionable club suit? Wouldn't it be better to show a balanced hand by passing and let the doubler run?

My first reaction was that these methods by the opening side would mean that overcaller's side could play systems on (to facilitate getting to major suit games, when plausible) *and* allow responder to run out into two of a minor when that's best, but on more reflection, I thought it might be better to allow responder to run immediately when holding a five card minor.

RR9000

PS - Thinking more, I'm realizing that the 2C call is about more than running: it's about defining the hand as weak. That makes pass strong enough to initiate their doubling scheme when the opener's side starts their runouts. So maybe the only time when it might make sense to revise 2C in the Weinstein-Kaplan scheme is when XX is strength-showing, so we know our side is not going to be doubling the opps.