[jillybean]

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[mike777]

JB first off congrats on a very tough match, you gals did great!


On this one I am going out on a limb and say North x'd because she did not open 1nt and was afraid she had undisclosed extras. If North opens 1nt then they can make an easy pass. or bid 5s if south shows 6s.

Of course 4s could be a wide range, if always very weak then North had an easy pass.

You can make a case that south should pull the x and bid 5s.

[GreenMan]

We were victims of our system and my wimpery at the other table. Over 1NT, E overcalled 2♣ showing a major-minor two-suiter or long diamonds, S transferred, N superaccepted, passed out. I (West) could have bid 4♥ figuring my partner to have them, but took the low road.

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[jillybean]

Thanks.

I tend not to open 1nt when I have 5 of the boss suit, something I have picked up on forums and possibly a change to my style after I was opening 1nt on all 15-17 hands.
I've added a poll

[mike777]

showing 14-16 range hands can be tough, very tough if Icant open 1nt. So I open many off shape 1nt hands.

With this shape(5M332)dont have xx in a side suit, and here we do not, easy 1nt.

I do want to repeat that you lost a very close match and you make all of us on BBO proud by your team's performance.

[JLOGIC]

I would open 1N because I always open 1N with 5332 when I'm in range. But, whatever, either style is playable.

More important was that west passed throughout in the other room knowing partner had an overcall with diamonds or hearts and a minor, that is just incomprehensible.

[GreenMan]

JLOGIC, on 2013-February-24, 00:58, said:

More important was that west passed throughout in the other room knowing partner had an overcall with diamonds or hearts and a minor, that is just incomprehensible.

I'm a wimp. Also some first-board jitters. No excuse, really, but there it is.

[Codo]

As usual Justin hits the nail. There is no excuse to overuse in this hand the green card even if you are green man and not diamond girl...



But besides this: You have no double of 5 ♥. You are in front of an overcaller and you have 1,5 defensive tricks. Partner has not promise any defence, so what do you want to reach? + 100 instead of + 50?

[lesh]

I would open 1nt because it reflects what I have 14-16 bal. If I open 1♠ I would have a rebid problem over 1nt by partner.

[awm]

I like the 1♠ opening. My experience is that opening 1♠ on these usually leads to better partials and occasionally to a good light game (say partner has four card spades and a stiff heart; you could easily make game without partner holding enough to move over 1NT).

Richard Pavlicek's page supports opening 1♠ also, and most of the top Italians seem to bid this way.

The bad result on this board was attributable to two things I think:

1. Bad double on your part. You have very little defense on this hand/auction and no reason not to leave it to partner. At best you are getting +100 here which is hardly a reason to double at IMP scoring.
2. Bad methods/bidding by teammates to not reach a heart contract.

[JLOGIC]

awm, on 2013-February-24, 13:30, said:

Richard Pavlicek's page supports opening 1♠ also, and most of the top Italians seem to bid this way.

I am not sure if this is evidence that supports opening 1M with 5332 and 15-17, many of these hands were 5422 (esp fantoni/nunes who I guess must open 1N with 5422 in their system?), or 6322, or weak NTs (also fantoni/nunes). I would guess a lot of these 1Ns are also swings at the end of matches since they're pretty weird. Many seem to be upgrades that are based on the state of the match.

I looked for the hands that are 15-16 and 5332 that were opened 1N. There were only maybe 2 17 counts so I don't think excluding them mattered, but I think most people would not open 1S with 5332 and 17 (hence there only being 2 of those on the list).

This left 32 hands.

Board number and imps:

5: 1N +3
10: 1N +5
13: 1S +3
17: 1S +2
18: 1S +1
19: 1S +1
20: 1N +10
24: 1N +1
28: 1S +9
31: 1S +3
32: 1S +9
35: 1S +10
36: 1S +10
40: 1S +4
41: 1S +1
42: 1N +4
47: 1N +5
48: 1N +3
53: 1S +5
54: 1N +10
56: 1S +12
57: 1N +1
61: 1N +1
68: 1S +12
73: 1S +6
74: 1N +11
77: 1N +4
81: 1S +1
82: 1N +1
83: 1N +5
84: 1N +10
87: 1S +2

1S 91
1N 74

However, I would not draw much inference from this over such a small sample. For instance, just looking at the 9+ imp swings, board 36 had nothing to do with the bidding, the same contract from the same side was reached with the same lead, and was just a card play guess at trick 3 for a jack (win 10 for 1S).

Board 56, the same contract from the same side was reached with the same lead. One declarer guessed the play better, win 12 for 1S.

Eliminating game swings won completely in the cardplay, 1N would have done slightly better. On top of that, eliminating these hand types from your possible 1M openers can make your 1M auctions better since you have less possible hand types, similar to how multi might be a small loser but it gains in freeing up 2M openers.

Like I said I doubt it matters, from looking at these hands it looks like 1S gets you to more light 4S games and 1N gets you to more light NT games, not a surprise. I do take exception to arguing that opening 1S is better than 1N with a 5332 strong NT hand type based on a data set where 2/3rds of the hands are not that.

[han]

When somebody provides supporting evidence, it is very impolite to read it.

[lalldonn]

Perhaps some of the pairs who opened 1NT in the hands Pavlicek analyzed weren't playing puppet stayman, and therefore the results were less favorable to them than they might have been. Also, although this effect is probably small and hard to measure, perhaps the pairs who open 1NT with a five-card major do better when they open 1NT on all their other hands compared to the 1♠ opener, since the opponents have more shapes to consider.

It's hardly surprising that opening 1♠ works better on 5422 hands on average.

[awm]

Then again, perhaps some of the pairs opening 1♠ were not playing Gazzilli and therefore got a worse result than they could've. Or perhaps some of the pairs opening 1NT benefitted from opponents playing a substandard defense to the 1NT opening. Perhaps there is a bias due to system even among "top flight pairs" where the better card players are more likely to play a system that effectively forces them to open 1NT on these hands (introducing a bias because better players tend to obtain better results in the play regardless of the opening).

Anyway, I don't think Pavlicek's sample size is particularly good here and there are surely many ways to disregard his data. I tend to base my opinion more on personal experience (which heavily favors 1♠, but admittedly has some MP bias) and from watching elite pairs whose system allows them flexibility here (such as the Italians).

Then again, I don't think it's obvious that Pavlicek's data is biased in one direction rather than the other.

[lalldonn]

Adam come on, most of those references have nothing to do with anything. That last one appears unlikely to even be true.

I prefer what Justin had to say about the Pavlicek data because he actually analyzed it and then explained why it was flawed for this purpose, rather than you simply claiming something about its potential bias.

Certainly it is meaningful what top players such as the Italians do. I don't discount that at all.

Of course we all base things on our personal experience (which is not a very accurate method by the way - it tends to just reinforce what we already believed.) Mine has led me from always opening the major, to sometimes opening 1NT, then eventually to always opening 1NT. What I was noticing was that on a double dummy basis opening 1NT was a little inferior on average, but after 1NT I tended to beat double dummy by a lot more than after 1 of a major. I also like the fact that after a major I don't have to include a way to show 15-17 balanced in my system, which clears room for other things (i.e. I play 1M p 2x p 3NT conventional with some partners).

I agree with you that the double of 5♥ was partly to blame for the result, but I think that is connected to the decision about what to open. Opening 1NT more often leads to easy auctions with fewer such decisions to make later. Opening a major on balanced 15 and 16 point hands leave you in an awkward range where you often feel you haven't quite said everything yet but you are light to take further action, which can tempt you to do dangerous things later, such as what happened.