[semeai]

han, on 2012-September-03, 03:52, said:

I think everybody also agrees that a limited 1M works better than an unlimited 1M.

glen, on 2012-September-03, 06:01, said:

Fantunes disagrees

I'm pretty sure Han meant when you make the bid itself, not the whole system that will necessarily surround it.

That said, Fantunes 1-level openings are themselves "limited" in a way, since they don't include the weakest end of the spectrum, which are the most common hands for a standard 1-level opening.

If we believe, as seems quite reasonable, that more definition in a particular bid is better for hands you then actually make the bid on, we'd have that a precision 1M opening > standard 1M opening, and Fantunes 1M opening > standard 1M opening, but precision 1M opening and Fantunes 1M opening are incomparable by this criterion since Fantunes leaves out the weakest hands and precision leaves out the strong hands. This ignores the effect on the rest of the system, of course, and so is not a claim that standard is a worse system.

[Okay, Fantunes 1M opening contains very strong hands not in a standard 1M opening, so technically they're incomparable by the reasoning above.]

[daveharty]

the hog, on 2012-September-03, 02:20, said:

1NT works equally well in a limited opening system as it does in an unlimited system. A balanced hand should be treated as one.

So if you were playing (say) a Swedish Club with a 14-16 NT and you picked up ♠QTxxx ♥AJ ♦KTx ♣QTx, you would open 1♣ planning to show a balanced 11-13? Or is this approach so vulnerable to preemption and losing the spade suit that you would start with 1♠? This is what I'm really curious about. My inclination is the same as yours seems to be, namely to convey the "essential nature" of any given hand regardless of whether it has a 5cM, but I don't have enough experience playing this type of system to know whether it's right in the long run to do this. One of the oft-cited reasons for opening 1NT as often as possible is its preemptive effect, but obviously if you have to start with 1♣ to show a weak-NT type of hand, that's out the window.

[lalldonn]

I have been opening 1NT on all 5332 hands for probably a decade, except with one partner who asked me not to (and he has changed his mind since then). Yes, there are definitely times you lose out by missing a major suit fit. However you gain so much by hiding your shape and by preempting the opponents (it's definitely more preemptive than opening a major even though it doesn't take up so much space, since they can't make a takeout double, overcall 1S, overcall 1NT, overcall 2C...) The thing with people who open the major is they don't tend to notice most of the times opening 1NT would have worked better. It goes 1S p 2S p p X on the 1444 7 count and the opponents make three of something instead of 1NT p p p making on the wrong lead. It goes 1H 1S p 2C p p p instead of 1NT p p p which could go down on a club lead but makes on the spade lead. It goes 1H 2S p p p instead of 1NT 2S 2NT p 3C p p p etc. In all these cases, if you had opened the major it probably would just look like a normal result. It wouldn't even occur to you that you made your opponents' lives really easy.

There are other factors too. If you open 1NT it often goes p p something and you can bid your major now. But if you open the major try to stop in 1NT if that's right. And you can design the rest of your system after 1M better if a certain balanced range is eliminated. But really the main reason I do it is the first paragraph. Hiding your hand plus preempting the opponents works so well in practice, and getting to the wrong strain is random anyway. It's far from being a close decision. Opening 1NT has been a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge win for me in the long run no matter what the range.

[daveharty]

I agree with everything lalldonn wrote, but I'm still a little in the dark about what to do in the specific case I mentioned: playing a system where 1♣ is either any 17+ or 11-13 balanced, 1NT is 14-16, and you pick up a 5332 hand with a 5cM in the 11-13 range. Is this type of hand best opened 1♣ with the plan of showing a balanced 11-13 next time around, thus guaranteeing that your 1M openings are unbalanced, or is it better to open 1M, because the preemptive effect of bidding 1NT is no longer valid when you need to do a two-step to show the weak NT type hand? Obviously, with a 14-16 5332 hand, I would just open 1NT; my own (admittedly limited) experience has been the same as that of those who claim it is a big winner in the long run. But I'm just not sure how to balance the positives of treating the slightly weaker hand as a NT hand (describes the essential nature of the hand, possibly conceals the major from the defense, 5cM openings become unbalanced and thus more useful) with the negative (opening 1♣ with such hands is obviously not very preemptive, and a 5-3 major suit fit could more easily be lost in competition).

Maybe this is an argument not to play a two-way club system...

[MickyB]

1N [14-16] shows your strength better than 1M [11-16]. 1C [assumed to be 11-13] doesn't have this advantage, because if you open 1M partner will start with the assumption that you are minimum anyway.

1N (2H) P (P); 2S is a reasonable way to bid a 5233. 1C (2H) P (P); 2S obviously isn't an option on the equivalent 11-13 NT.

These reasons tip the balance for me. I could be persuaded to open 1C with five hearts if it improved our auctions after a 1H opening, but giving up opening 1S on a weak NT with five spades is quite a loss IMO.

[ulven]

Might want to check out The Bridge World, 2009, Nov issue.

[the hog]

han, on 2012-September-03, 03:52, said:

I think everybody agrees with that. I think everybody also agrees that a limited 1M works better than an unlimited 1M. Therefore it seems obvious that opening 1M is more appealing in a limited system than in an unlimited system.

I would still open 1NT pretty much all the time fwiw.

I also disagree.

[MickyB]

I think you can assume that, by "limited", Han meant "same lower bound, but a lower upper bound". Maybe, in ten years' time, "limited" will imply 11-20 rather than 14+, but that's not the case yet. While there are auctions where I've felt I was at an advantage knowing that my oppo was limited to 15, I think Han's statement (if read as intended) is rather uncontroversial.

[glen]

MickyB, on 2012-September-03, 18:38, said:

I think you can assume that, by "limited", Han meant "same lower bound, but a lower upper bound". Maybe, in ten years' time, "limited" will imply 11-20 rather than 14+, but that's not the case yet. While there are auctions where I've felt I was at an advantage knowing that my oppo was limited to 15, I think Han's statement (if read as intended) is rather uncontroversial.

Fantunes 1M starts at 10/11, but not for all hand types. Perhaps then Han's statement, if read as intended, means "same lower bound, and hand types bound the same, but a lower upper bound"?

[Mbodell]

daveharty, on 2012-September-03, 13:05, said:

I agree with everything lalldonn wrote, but I'm still a little in the dark about what to do in the specific case I mentioned: playing a system where 1♣ is either any 17+ or 11-13 balanced, 1NT is 14-16, and you pick up a 5332 hand with a 5cM in the 11-13 range. Is this type of hand best opened 1♣ with the plan of showing a balanced 11-13 next time around, thus guaranteeing that your 1M openings are unbalanced, or is it better to open 1M, because the preemptive effect of bidding 1NT is no longer valid when you need to do a two-step to show the weak NT type hand? Obviously, with a 14-16 5332 hand, I would just open 1NT; my own (admittedly limited) experience has been the same as that of those who claim it is a big winner in the long run. But I'm just not sure how to balance the positives of treating the slightly weaker hand as a NT hand (describes the essential nature of the hand, possibly conceals the major from the defense, 5cM openings become unbalanced and thus more useful) with the negative (opening 1♣ with such hands is obviously not very preemptive, and a 5-3 major suit fit could more easily be lost in competition).

Maybe this is an argument not to play a two-way club system...

It depends a bit to me on what 1M-1nt is. If that is semi-forcing NT then opening the 11-13 1M planning to pass the semi-forcing NT isn't so bad, although I'd still consider opening 1♣ instead. If it is forcing I'd definitely open 1♣. FWIW I sometimes play 1♦ in a strong club system as either 15-17 balanced or 10-15 unbalanced (always 2+♦), and there I bid that was with 15-17 and 5M332 (although with 15 I can choose to bid 1M occasionally). I also sometimes play 1♣ as 2+ and either natural clubs or 15-19 balanced (with an opening 11+/12-14 nt) and here again I tend to open more than half my 15-17 5M332 hands 1♣ (with 17+/18-19 I tend to usually open 1M planning to raise 1NT F to 2NT). In all of these cases I haven't felt disadvantaged hiding the 1M initially (it loses some of the time and wins some of the time and seems winning overall to me).

[Zelandakh]

I think it is normal to open 1♠ with this hand type in vanilla Swedish Club (but it is not a system I play so take it with a pinch). However, in a comparable multi-way club system with a weak NT (12-14 NT and 1♣ = 15-17 bal/nat or 18+ any) I would open even ♠AKQJT/♥KQx/♦xxx/♣xx or ♠KQJTx/♥AKQ/♦xxx/♣xx with 1♣ and not consider it strange. Micky's point about being able to compete for the part-score in common auctions seems like a decent yardstick to use unless you can get bigger gains elsewhere even when giving up some small swings here.

[32519]

I still think your biggest loss comes from losing, a) the ability to make a fit jump, or b) a pre-emptive jump to 3M with a weak hand but plenty of trump support (LOTT). The ability to make a direct jump to 4M is similarly lost with a hand containing a few additional HCP and plenty of trumps.

[bluecalm]

My feeling is that opening 1NT is inferior style, however very surprisingly (to me !) Pavlicek's numbers show that to be true only for hands with spades and reverse for hands with hearts. He also has quite a sample:
http://www.rpbridge.net/9x13.htm
http://www.rpbridge.net/9x14.htm

It might well be that people suck at bidding with those hands and especially so after 1H or maybe preempting spades out of bidding is in fact that important.
Anyway I plan to run this query on my db later and include only reasonable players (ie top ones) in the search to see if that confirms Pavlicek's results.

[FM75]

In the strong club system that I am using, 1NT = 10-12 NV, 13-15 vul. (If dealer, you open just over 50% of hands NV, just under V)

The 1 club bid is 16+, So there is no overlap. 1M = 11-15. That said, we could bid 1N on xxxxx (maybe even Txxxx?) in a major. I have not seen that happen yet though (about 1 year of play), sometimes because someone has already opened.

[Gerben42]

bluecalm, on 2012-September-28, 16:13, said:

My feeling is that opening 1NT is inferior style, however very surprisingly (to me !) Pavlicek's numbers show that to be true only for hands with spades and reverse for hands with hearts. He also has quite a sample:
http://www.rpbridge.net/9x13.htm
http://www.rpbridge.net/9x14.htm

It might well be that people suck at bidding with those hands and especially so after 1H or maybe preempting spades out of bidding is in fact that important.
Anyway I plan to run this query on my db later and include only reasonable players (ie top ones) in the search to see if that confirms Pavlicek's results.

I am not surprised about Pavlicek's numbers that opening 1NT with 5♥ is a winner but with 5♠ not. There are two points here that apply to ♥ only.

1. If you open 1NT, they cannot overcall 1♠
2. If you open 1♥ and partner responds 1♠, 1NT can not show 12 - 17 NT, so whatever your NT range, you are stuck with the other range to rebid something non-natural.

This is why I play exactly this (1NT frequently with 5♥ but not with 5♠), in fact you can use 2NT response to Stayman to show 5♥.