[phoenixmj]

Generally we open 15-17 HCP. It has been brought to my attention that this could be 15-17 total points. If we have a partnership understanding to use 15-17 total points - does this have to be announced. I think we just announce 15-17 in general.

[Stephen Tu]

If in ACBL, you are required to announce in HCP. So if you are promoting 14 HCP (e.g. 5 cd suit) with some regularity, then announce "14+ to 17" or "good 14 to 17".

[phoenixmj]

Stephen Tu, on 2024-July-08, 23:23, said:

If in ACBL, you are required to announce in HCP. So if you are promoting 14 HCP (e.g. 5 cd suit) with some regularity, then announce "14+ to 17" or "good 14 to 17".

So to clarify - if this is something that would come up only occasionally and my partner would be assuming 15-17 HCP - then I would not announce. But if we always would make this adjustment - or regularly make this adjustment - then we would say a good 14-17. If we would only do it with a 5 or 6 card minor - then it should still should just say a good 14-17?

Thanks for the help.

[DavidKok]

Well, since this is intermediate/advanced and not novice and beginner, I'll bite.

If you play under ACBL rules I think there is no solution. Over here it is standard that when you announce any range, it is understood that this means that range or hands judged to be of equivalent playing strength. People are allowed to upgrade or downgrade, and if you do so frequently you announce it.
More generally, this goes for all bids. The meaning of a bid isn't so much a Milton Work range or a Kaplan-Rubens range or a Banzai point range or whatever, though you may well wish to stick with one for the sake of disclosure and communication with the opponents. But at the table you should, in my opinion, always be free to evaluate your hand to the best of your judgement - be it a downgrade or an upgrade. Unfortunately, for NT openings under ACBL rules in particular, I think this is illegal.

Personally I have had a bunch of poor experiences with players from the USA in particular, and playing under ACBL rules in general, when it comes to NT announcements. If people announce "good 14 to bad 17", or "good 14 to 17", or "14+ to 17", I will play them for a 13-16 NT, since that's what they tend to have. I have given up on expecting better disclosure under those rules. I think people have to announce the widest possible range that might include their judgement but are scared of including 13, ironically making the disclosure much less accurate. It is cynical of me and annoying, but I would be leaving a lot of IMPs on the table by playing my opponents for anything else.

There's a joke (maybe it's not funny) that in modern times a lot of partnerships are changing their disclosure of their NT range from 15-17 to 14-16.

Lastly I think that frequent upgrades and including a noticeable amount of semibalanced hands in 1NT is a poor idea, and instead it is much more profitable to improve the bidding system over the 1m-openings rather than dumping it all in 1NT.

[phoenixmj]

This came up because I had opened a hand 1m with 14 high card points and a semi balanced hand. The hand was stronger than one would expect from a 1m open, and I was advised that I could/should have opened it 1N. My HCP were 14 but opening with a NT communicates a stronger hand to my partner. And we would have gotten to the proper contract. It would be very unusual for us to open this 1N - so the conclusion I am coming to is that my partner would announce 15-17 since that is our agreement - and this would be an unusual upgrade.

If I were playing online - i would probably say good 14-17 because I am self alerting - but my partner would still believe it was 15-17 and bid on that basis.

Please let me know if you think this is acceptable? Again, I think it would be a rare occasion.

I have in the past with a 5 card suit bid 2N with 19 HCP - so I guess this is really no different.

Thanks in advance.

[DavidKok]

I think there are three different questions here, and it is wise to keep them separate.

• "Is it legal to include hands like this in 1NT or 2NT?" - Yes.
  
• "How do I disclose this to the opponents?" - I don't know, my experience is that people say "good 14 to 17" but it can mean anything under the sun. As far as I'm aware it is standard to not disclose upgrade tendencies at all.
  
• "Is it a good idea to open more semibalanced or unbalanced hands 1NT or 2NT?" - It is popular to do this, though personally I am not a fan. You will have to decide this for yourself. As mentioned previously I personally prefer instead improving the 1m system, so you don't have to show a balanced hand when you have a semibalanced one.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

holding a bal. hand, HCP is a pretty good indicator of the playing strength of the hand,
it does underestimate the power of controls somewhat, but not much.

There is something to be said for opening 1NT, with at most one flaw:

What constitutes as a flaw is up to you, but

#1 5 card major maybe a flaw, you may just say, this is flaw, in case the major is spades
#2 out of agreed strength
#3 shape, mainly due to rebid issue, the 5422 hands with a 5 card minor and a 4 card major,
I would also be wary with 22 in the majors, the standard systems assume, that you have
3+ cards in at least one major to work properly

A semibal. with 14HCP would have two flaws, so it is quite likely, that you dont need to open
the hand with 1 NT, or that you may find strong players, who advice against opening 1NT.

I also dont think, that you should upgrade by more than 1 point, i.e. opening a 13count as 15-17
is not going to work, regardless of disclosure issues, HCP is a pretty good measure.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mikeh]

My experience in ACBLand has been that in recent years expert players have been doing a very good job on disclosure. Non-experts…not so much, although not all experts are good at disclosure and some non-experts are

10 years ago my then regular partner and I agreed to use our weak notrump defence against good players who announced 15-17 and opened nv in third seat. This was because we’d seen too many 13-14 counts and too many responders seemingly catering to it

Those days seem over now…I’m sure some still practice this but I’ve seen a number of pros announce things like ‘15-17 but we often upgrade in this seat’ or ‘15-17 but we sometimes do it with a good 14’

In my current partnership, we play (vul) 14-16 and I announce ‘frequent upgrades into and out of this range’. Same with our 20-21 2N. Our WBF CC announces ‘frequent upgrades, rare downgrades’, which I took from an old Meckwell WBF CC.

Imo, if your partnership routinely opens 1N with 14 while announcing 15-17 then you are actively misleading the opps. We don’t ‘routinely’ treat 14 as 15..there must be some aspect that makes it appear to be worth 15….great spots, especially in a 5 card suit, good controls, concern over rebid issues

As for offshape…count me out on most such hands. I don’t often find that opening 1m causes problems, but we have quite complex methods over 1m. I agree with David that I think that working on one’s methods after 1suit is going to be far better, in the long run, than opening 1N offshape. For example, with 5422 and 4 spades, I’d always open the 5 card suit (ok, if my spades were 9xxx maybe not) because I have no rebid problem. Conversely, with 2452 I usually open 1N precisely because of rebid issues (Gazilli might solve some of those).

The only 4441 pattern I’d open 1N is a stiff spade and the ACBL requires that it be ace or king, iirc. Otherwise 4441 hands, with 4 spades, cause no rebid issues. Not to mention that having partner transfer into my stiff and turn pass rarely works out well

[pescetom]

phoenixmj, on 2024-July-09, 07:51, said:

If I were playing online - i would probably say good 14-17 because I am self alerting - but my partner would still believe it was 15-17 and bid on that basis.

Please let me know if you think this is acceptable?

I fully agree with the first two of Davidkok's three replies, but I think he missed (or ducked) the fourth and most important point here: what you should be saying is what your partner believes it was, it's unacceptable and unethical to explain anything else, however much you deviated or why and whether you are playing online or not.

[phoenixmj]

pescetom, on 2024-July-09, 13:49, said:

I fully agree with the first two of Davidkok's three replies, but I think he missed (or ducked) the fourth and most important point here: what you should be saying is what your partner believes it was, it's unacceptable and unethical to explain anything else, however much you deviated or why and whether you are playing online or not.

Thank you for pointing this out to me. I was thinking it was just the opposite when online and my partner cannot see. In our case, I think it would be extremely rare for us to do this upgrade. In the hand in question, my partner's hand was 6 clubs, 3 diamonds, and 2/2 in majors. 14 HCP. He opened it 1c, opps passed and I bid 1S with a 5 card spade suit and 10 HCP. Partner had 2 kings in the doubletons - so it is beneficial for the lead to come to him. If I had been him, with stoppers in all suits but spades and no singletons ro doubletons, I would have bid 1N. But he bid 2c and I passed.

With a NT open, (partially made to have the lead coming into k doubleton situations), I would have transferred to spades and then said 3N which he would have passed. And 3N makes in this situation.

That said - I know you don't build a bidding system around 1 hand where something works and where something else does not - someone did comment that they would have opened the hand 1N rather than 1C. Then the question came up as to whether 15-17 HCP or total point. And I did remember previously being told and I have done opening 2N with 19 HCP and a 5 card suit.

Again - I think it would be quite rare for us to open 1N with less than 15 hcp so I guess that means we just say 15-17 on those very rare occasions.

[mw64ahw]

I've solved this issue by playing Transfer Walsh with the break of transfer showing the semi-balanced hand of 1NT strength without 4 of the bid Major. Others use the break to show the next NT range up, say 17-19 when 1NT is 14-16. Over the transfer break you know that opener has at least one 5-card minor so a weak (42)33 hand can bid 2♣ pass/correct. With 5+M responder can re-transfer; other bids show the invitational hand. The higher range is then managed via a reverse with 2NT being artificial.

[P_Marlowe]

phoenixmj, on 2024-July-09, 15:46, said:

Thank you for pointing this out to me. I was thinking it was just the opposite when online and my partner cannot see. In our case, I think it would be extremely rare for us to do this upgrade. In the hand in question, my partner's hand was 6 clubs, 3 diamonds, and 2/2 in majors. 14 HCP. He opened it 1c, opps passed and I bid 1S with a 5 card spade suit and 10 HCP. Partner had 2 kings in the doubletons - so it is beneficial for the lead to come to him. If I had been him, with stoppers in all suits but spades and no singletons ro doubletons, I would have bid 1N. But he bid 2c and I passed.
<snip>

So you took a very (overly) conservative approach, and due to this you missed a game.
I am not saying passing was wrong, just that it was pretty conservative to pass with 10HCP.
The 2C rebid by opener could be as strong as 16/17, depending how much you require to make a reverse.

My take is, that lots of peoble would have either raised to 3C, assuming you had 3+ clubs, or would have
bid 2NT with a semibal. hand. 2NT runs the risk of being overboard, if you regular open light.

Opening offshape / outof range will tighten the range of openers suit rebid, but will introduce other issues.

[johnu]

DavidKok, on 2024-July-09, 03:44, said:

If you play under ACBL rules I think there is no solution. Over here it is standard that when you announce any range, it is understood that this means that range or hands judged to be of equivalent playing strength. People are allowed to upgrade or downgrade, and if you do so frequently you announce it.

HCP are an estimation of playing strength, and as a shorthand method of description, I think it works as well as anything. Saying you upgrade or downgrade, what does that mean??? 5 (or 6) card suit? How good of a suit? How much do you upgrade? Adding a point? Two points? 3 points? Would you open a 12 HCP strong playing hand with a 15-17 NT??? A 13 HCP hand? Presumably 14 HCP hands are upgraded.
Sounds like an easy solution in the ACBL. Announce 14-17, or 13-17. Actually, a 6 HCP range is disallowed so 12-17 isn't a legal opening in the ACBL.

DavidKok, on 2024-July-09, 03:44, said:

More generally, this goes for all bids. The meaning of a bid isn't so much a Milton Work range or a Kaplan-Rubens range or a Banzai point range or whatever, though you may well wish to stick with one for the sake of disclosure and communication with the opponents. But at the table you should, in my opinion, always be free to evaluate your hand to the best of your judgement - be it a downgrade or an upgrade. Unfortunately, for NT openings under ACBL rules in particular, I think this is illegal.

I'm partial to BUM-RAP but I would never expect a random opponent to know what the equivalent Work points are. The same for KR points which most people need a spreadsheet to calculate, or something more esoteric like zar points which are not based on a 40 point deck. So, in the interest of full disclosure to the opponents, using Work points while not perfect is something the opponents can understand. I have no real problem with using Work points unless somebody has a better method that the rest of the players can understand.

DavidKok, on 2024-July-09, 03:44, said:

Personally I have had a bunch of poor experiences with players from the USA in particular, and playing under ACBL rules in general, when it comes to NT announcements. If people announce "good 14 to bad 17", or "good 14 to 17", or "14+ to 17", I will play them for a 13-16 NT, since that's what they tend to have. I have given up on expecting better disclosure under those rules. I think people have to announce the widest possible range that might include their judgement but are scared of including 13, ironically making the disclosure much less accurate. It is cynical of me and annoying, but I would be leaving a lot of IMPs on the table by playing my opponents for anything else.

Sounds like the players who are actually playing 13-16 are cheating, and probably give bad/incomplete descriptions of other bids, along with failures to alert. If you play me for 13-16, you'll probably have a number of bad results by assuming I misinformed you of my point range.

[bluenikki]

 johnu, on 2024-July-10, 18:24, said:

I'm partial to BUM-RAP but I would never expect a random opponent to know what the equivalent Work points are. The same for KR points which most people need a spreadsheet to calculate, or something more esoteric like zar points which are not based on a 40 point deck. So, in the interest of full disclosure to the opponents, using Work points while not perfect is something the opponents can understand. I have no real problem with using Work points unless somebody has a better method that the rest of the players can understand.

In the late 50s, Goren mandated subtracting a highcard point in an aceless hand, for deciding the opening call. If you follow that guideline, is your range 15-18 or 15-17?

Analogously, if you believe holding three tens is worth a point ...

[bluenikki]

 johnu, on 2024-July-10, 18:24, said:

I'm partial to BUM-RAP but I would never expect a random opponent to know what the equivalent Work points are. The same for KR points which most people need a spreadsheet to calculate, or something more esoteric like zar points which are not based on a 40 point deck. So, in the interest of full disclosure to the opponents, using Work points while not perfect is something the opponents can understand. I have no real problem with using Work points unless somebody has a better method that the rest of the players can understand.

In the late 50s, Goren mandated subtracting a highcard point in an aceless hand, for deciding the opening call. If you follow that guideline, is your range 15-18 or 15-17?

Analogously, if you believe holding three tens is worth a point ...

[johnu]

bluenikki, on 2024-July-10, 22:11, said:

In the late 50s, Goren mandated subtracting a highcard point in an aceless hand, for deciding the opening call. If you follow that guideline, is your range 15-18 or 15-17?

Analogously, if you believe holding three tens is worth a point ...

Since I will upgrade a good 14 HCP hand with a good 5 card suit to a 15 point hand, I'll put ~14+ to ~17 on my convention card. That evaluation results in upgrading a good 17 HCP with a good 5 card suit to an 18 point hand, so too good for a 1NT. That's what partner will play me for.

I don't play Goren, but the other thing about point counts is that point counts are not created in a vacuum. If I subtracted a point for no aces (ie 1/4 point for each ace), then partner should add value to their hand for having aces, 4 aces = +1 HCP.

I think every good player adjusts for 10's (and 9's and 8's, especially when in some kind of sequence) whether they give a specific point adjustment or not. Nobody is going to read a 3 page summary of what constitutes a 1NT opener, nor is any normal player going to write one up, so just give your honest accurate estimate (and agreement) of your range when filling out a convention card.