[jillybean]

I find a frustrating number of balanced hands that I can't bid so I am thinking of playing a weak (12-14) nt overcall in direct seat, not vulnerable.

Your comments, experience and usual unrestrained criticism would be appreciated.

[aguahombre]

Not being able to bid with a balanced 12-14 after an opening bid on your right is a good thing.

[akwoo]

You do realize you're making a bid that is going down more than half the time, and, furthermore, most of those times, you won't have a safer place to run to. When opps haven't bid and you have 12-14, your partnership is more than 50% likely to have more than half the points. When one of them has, that's not true.

Also, a good chunk of the benefit of the 12-14 1N is that you get to play lots of thin 3N contracts with the opponents making a blind opening lead. This isn't happening very often when one opp has opened.

If you want to bid more, let me suggest something else. Make the takeout double on the weak NT type hands (even though they don't have takeout double shape), and use a 1N overcall as a more standard takeout double.

The too strong to overcall hands still double rather than bidding 1N.

When you double with these less suitable hands, you probably want a negative step response to the double (i.e. next step shows any hand 0-5, or 0-7 w/o a five card suit), on which you scramble with the weak NT hand and jump with the too strong to overcall hand (and cue bid opps suit on the really strong hand).

The point is that, with a normal takeout double, you are likely to have LOTT protection to the 2 level, so bidding 1N likely won't be bad, but a lot of the weak NT hands won't have that protection and you want to have the possibility of getting out at the 1 level.

Of course, this matters most when opps open 1♣ and makes almost no difference when opps open 1♠. If you don't mind the memory load, you could play this over a minor opening but go back to usual takeout doubles and strong NT overcalls over a major opening. With most people playing 5 card majors, you're much more likely to have the weak NT hand with a stopper in opps suit over a minor anyway.

I don't particularly like this system, but it allows you to bid all the hands you want and is safer than the 12-14 1N overcall.

[mike777]

 jillybean, on 2013-December-19, 18:53, said:

I find a frustrating number of balanced hands that I can't bid so I am thinking of playing a weak (12-14) nt overcall in direct seat, not vulnerable.

Your comments, experience and usual unrestrained criticism would be appreciated.

prefer double rather than 1nt

edit..ahh see akwoo made same point.

[ArtK78]

A 12-14 balanced 1NT overcall is plain silly.

I could use a stronger word, but silly will have to do.

That is not to say that I have not seen players who play it. But no one who I respect as a bridge player.

[nigel_k]

I don't think it is silly. It is unsound but still could be very effective if you have a good runout mechanism and don't play a lot against strong opponents,

[MrAce]

What Aguaman and Art said.

[helene_t]

If you want to bid more of the weak balanced hands then I think a looser t/o double style, and allowing for more 4-card overcalls, is better. But having to pass when you have a doubleton in an unbid major and the other major is not good enough to overcall is nothing to be worried about imo. The balanced hands with length and strength in opps' suit are better suited for defence. Even when you don't go for 800 you still have the disadvantage of having warned opps about you defensive values.

If you think the strong notrump overcall is too infrequent, you might consider playing raptor. I think that is a lot more useful than a weak nt overcall because the raptor hands are hands with which you actually should be entering the auction.

In any case, if you sacrifice the strong notrump overcall for something else, you will end up making off-shape take-out doubles with many 16 counts, and it is nice catering to that in your responses to t/o doubles, for example:

(1♥)-x-(pass)-?
- 1♠: normal
- 1nt: negative ("this is what I want to play if you have a strong nt overcall")
- 2m: semipositive

[Cthulhu D]

You can definitely play that you can overcall with this stuff. I play 4 card overcalls and 1NT as a wide ranging weak takeout and it rarely gets nailed (though I have definitely got nailed). I you are willing to contemplate that level of aggression, here is what I play, and Jeff goldsmith has a very good writeup on his website as well.


http://www.fernside....lStructure.html

Its a lot of fun, and radically increases the % of time you can take action in the direct seat after an opening. I'm not sure its massively plus style - its probably not, but you can generally take action (the exception is a (32)44 hand when they've opened your short major

[kenberg]

It seems to me that after 1♣-(1NT)(showing 12-14)-?, third hand will often know what to do and after s/he does it, fourth hand won't much know what to do. I don't mean that third hand will always double, but third hand will know that partner has an opening, that there are some scattered values on his right, and will often be pretty clear on what he should do. Another way of saying this: An opening weak nt has bothe a constructive and a pre-emptive values. It seems to me that the pre-emptive effect of a weak nt overcall is much reduced. Imagine 1♣-(1NT)-X. Fourth hand does what with what? It seems likely that neither side has a game anywhere, and that you are guessing where, if anywhere, you have a home.

If you do this, please report back on how it works.

[ggwhiz]

Step away from the bidding box slowly.

You are going to be doubled and down way too often. If you declare OR defend you might as well show the opponents your hand.

As opposed to an upside of...... nothing I can think of.

[jillybean]

This was more or less my partners response when I suggested it. Back to the drawing board.

[gwnn]

While a weak NT overcall is almost certainly unsound, how much sense does it make that most people apparently have the same range at every vulnerability? Maybe we should be playing 14-16 when NV and 15-18 when V. And maybe 12-15 or so is not bad when favourable.

[mycroft]

I play a weak NT by preference and would never even contemplate this. When it goes 1NT-X, we know that sometimes we can scramble a good place, sometimes we can scramble a better than before place, and sometimes they will guess wrong on what to do because the double is so badly defined (and they have the additional load over an opening NT, even if that's what the double can be assumed to show, that they not only want to play their system to the right offensive contract, but double when it's the right defensive contract). Also, the doubler is frequently on lead (especially if we pass it out), and not everybody doubles "with a good lead" as well as points. Oh, of course, sometimes we get burned, but it's still usually a matchpoint burn.

With the overcall all of that goes out the window. When responder doubles, she knows a *lot more* about the hand than when overcaller doubles the opening. They're going to guess wrong a lot less often, and you don't have the safety that your partner has the balance of the rest of the points half-ish of the time. Also, doubler has a great lead - the strong hand's long suit.

One of the benefits of a Raptor NT overcall is that it stops you from bidding 1NT on a random good 15 balanced - and getting doubled by any random 8 on your left. It's only going to get easier if you drop the range.

There are some places and some times where this wins due to the unexpectedness (opponents don't know and misplay). Unfortunately - except for the ethics of it - the ACBL now isn't one of those places and times, that overcall is explicitly Alertable ("Natural 1NT overcalls in the range of 14 to 19 HCP require neither an Alert nor an Announcement. If the top or bottom limit of the natural notrump overcall is out of that range or conventional by an unpassed hand, an Alert is required.")

[wank]

you don't have to be ashamed to pass. if you've got a similar strength hand to your rho with his suit (hence no double), defending will often be your best option.

[Lorne50]

How many experts do you see playing a weak NT overcall? Pass is the winning call most often when weak and balanced - if your side has the balance of power partner will often bid or you will get a chance to protect later.

[aguahombre]

 wank, on 2013-December-20, 11:46, said:

you don't have to be ashamed to pass. if you've got a similar strength hand to your rho with his suit (hence no double), defending will often be your best option.

YES

 Lorne50, on 2013-December-22, 09:19, said:

How many experts do you see playing a weak NT overcall? Pass is the winning call most often when weak and balanced - if your side has the balance of power partner will often bid or you will get a chance to protect later.

And, YES.

As a result of these learned pieces of advice, people who must always "do something" will Double instead,, despite Wank's "hence, no Double". Yet, the same thoughts in the above posts should apply to Doubles.

[gwnn]

Yes, except for the 'how many experts?' part. There are more and more experts you see making very flat first-round doubles with weak NT strength (assuming they have 3+ cards in unbid majors).

[Lurpoa]

What Ace said !

Be The Heart with him !

[aguahombre]

 gwnn, on 2013-December-22, 13:04, said:

Yes, except for the 'how many experts?' part. There are more and more experts you see making very flat first-round doubles with weak NT strength (assuming they have 3+ cards in unbid majors).

And their partners need to adjust how or whether they dare advance these doubles. Their expert partners can figure out the strength across the table without this assistance, and the Double merely gives the other side more tools without taking up any room.

Players do well to learn from experts, but I don't believe so in this case. At least the ill-advised weak NT overcall takes up a bit of the opponents' space on occasion.