[jillybean]

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[Tramticket]

Do 't even think about it.

[mikeh]

As I’ve said many times, it’s not a crime to pass holding hcp

[P_Marlowe]

What bid do you consider?

I may be tempted sometimes, but I fail to see any bid, that comes to mind.

[Cyberyeti]

 P_Marlowe, on 2023-May-14, 11:53, said:

What bid do you consider?

I may be tempted sometimes, but I fail to see any bid, that comes to mind.

I imagine double, which is less far off planet than anything else

[jillybean]

I would like a weak 1nt overcall

[pescetom]

I don't find double unthinkable, but it's bad even at this vulnerability.
Make the ♦6 a ♠6 and things are different.

[TMorris]

Anything other than pass would not cross my mind. Partner is a passed hand. All you are doing by bidding is telling the opposition how to play the hand. Not that I would bid if partner wasn't a passed hand but it might just about cross my mind.

"Careless talk cost lives" applies in bridge as well.

[P_Marlowe]

 jillybean, on 2023-May-14, 13:00, said:

I would like a weak 1nt overcall

Facing a passed hand? Which means your side is outgunned most of the time.

[mikeh]

 jillybean, on 2023-May-14, 13:00, said:

I would like a weak 1nt overcall

Why?

What are the upsides? What are the downsides? How do they compare?

[LBengtsson]

There is nothing wrong in letting the opps. play a contract now and again. They might not bid enough, or they might bid too high and go down

[DavidKok]

I don't hate a 2♣ psych. That's the question, right?

[jillybean]

 mikeh, on 2023-May-14, 14:17, said:

Why?

What are the upsides? What are the downsides? How do they compare?

Partner is a passed hand, however they can have <11 hcp.
RHO has opened 1♦, they don't have a 5 card major unless the hand is very distributional, they don't have a 15-17NT opening.
I don't know how to run simulations but I am guessing that a good percentage of 1m openings are weak nt values. 12-14

When there is no game available often the best contract is 1nt. I am sitting over opener with almost weak nt opening values. We are NV vs. V
We may be able to play 1nt, the race is often won by the first to bid 1nt.

The upside, +90, the downside is when I catch LHO with inviational+ values. If they double for penalties, we do have a run out.
I could still go for a number, I only want to do this is at club bridge (MP) only.

After playing 12-14 NT for a while now, my NT play has improved significantly. 1NT is my favorite contract.

[P_Marlowe]

 jillybean, on 2023-May-15, 12:18, said:

<snip>
The upside, +90, the downside is when I catch LHO with inviational+ values. If they double for penalties, we do have a run out.
I could still go for a number, I only want to do this is at club bridge (MP) only.
<snip>

You are 4333, I dont know your run out system, but I hate it, when they go for blood and I am 4333.
Any hand partner has with more than 4/5 points makes game their side low percentage, and even green wont safe you.
The thing is, if they have 22-24 they will settle for a part score, which is less than 200, if they double you, you are
going for 300, and this is more costly at MP.

[smerriman]

 jillybean, on 2023-May-15, 12:18, said:

We may be able to play 1nt, the race is often won by the first to bid 1nt.

The 'race to 1NT' is that when values are roughly equally divided between the sides, you'd rather be declaring 1NT than defending it. It doesn't apply at all if the values aren't equally divided.

With your hand there's about a 38% chance you have 17 or less points combined, and 53% chance that you have 18 or less points combined, and these alone are going to be very poor scores for you. (You won't only be punished when LHO has invitational values - if you had agreed to play such a system, the opponents surely aren't going to play the same defense as to a strong 1NT overcall; I'd expect RHO would double with extras too, after which LHO could run out if needed.) And that's not including other cases when 1N undoubled is poor too.

[mikeh]

 jillybean, on 2023-May-15, 12:18, said:

Partner is a passed hand, however they can have <11 hcp.
RHO has opened 1♦, they don't have a 5 card major unless the hand is very distributional, they don't have a 15-17NT opening.
I don't know how to run simulations but I am guessing that a good percentage of 1m openings are weak nt values. 12-14

When there is no game available often the best contract is 1nt. I am sitting over opener with almost weak nt opening values. We are NV vs. V
We may be able to play 1nt, the race is often won by the first to bid 1nt.

The upside, +90, the downside is when I catch LHO with inviational+ values. If they double for penalties, we do have a run out.
I could still go for a number, I only want to do this is at club bridge (MP) only.

After playing 12-14 NT for a while now, my NT play has improved significantly. 1NT is my favorite contract.

I now feel guilty for having often stated that getting to 1N is often a winning move. However, let me remind you of the qualifier that always accompanies that statement…..when the hcp between the two sides are roughly equal.

That means, here, that partner holds between 8-11 hcp.

If he were a passed hand, that might seem like a reasonable gamble (imo, it isn’t) but here partner is passed!

Thus his range is not 0-17 as it would be had RHO been dealer….it’s 0-11.

One need not be a statistician to know that this means that his median or mean point count holdings will be lower than had he been unpassed. With a range of 0-17 he will hold 8-17 a trifle more than half the time. When his range is 0-11, he’ll all too often hold 0-5 and, of course, the 12-17 hcp hands, which serve to generate an expectancy of around 8.5 hcp on average are simply not there.

Note that even this relies upon the flawed assumption that RHO has no more than 12 hcp. I’ve played enough…and so have you…to know that it’s silly to assume that RHO has exactly 12 hcp…his average count will be higher.

They probably don’t even need to double you when partner holds even 6 hcp. You have no source of tricks while they have the advantage not only of more values but also likely of being able to play on the suit or suits in which they do have length or good spot card winners.

So you will often fail by more than their partscore

But, of course, there are very good odds that you will be doubled. Of course, if you’re playing extremely weak players that may not happen as often as it should but in my experience competent players beat up on extremely weak players without the need to gamble by terrible bidding.

Think about it this way…..name one expert pair in the entire world who use a weak 1N overcall….to show 11-14 or so in a balanced hand. Obviously I don’t know the methods of anything like all expert pairs but I’ve played quite a bit of high level bridge, have watched more, and read about even more and I’m confident that you won’t find any. Btw, a direct 1N overcall is an entirely different animal than is a balancing 1N after (1x) P (P)….where responder is known to be weak and partner may well have decent values (such as this hand) and been unable to bid.

Why don’t expert players use a weak 1N direct overcall?

Because they don’t play 1N as well as you do?

Or maybe because they know that the occasional good result doesn’t begin to offset the deluge of horrible to catastrophic results that the method is guaranteed to generate, absent abysmally weak opps.

Finally, I earlier asked you about the upsides and downsides. You replied citing only upsides. That’s how players prevent themselves from improving. They get hold of a dubious idea and, when told by more experienced players that the idea is poor, look only at the upsides, thus ignoring whatever advice was being given.

One fundamental rule of bidding theory, which imo has no exception, is that every meaning we assign to an action, either as a stand-alone action or as part of a detailed set of agreements, has a downside. There is no free lunch in bidding theory.

Even something as simple and basic as stayman has a downside. Pick up 3=2=2=6 with 2 hcp and you’d love, on that hand, to be able to bid a natural, weak 2C after partner opens 15-17

That’s a downside to stayman.

We all (well, most of us) play some version of stayman because the numerous upsides far outweigh the downsides, to the point that beginners usually aren’t even told of the downside.

I asked you to consider both the upsides and downsides because that’s one should always do when considering assigning meanings to actions. When one focuses only on one or the other, one is doomed to end up playing poor methods.

[mw64ahw]

 jillybean, on 2023-May-15, 12:18, said:

Partner is a passed hand, however they can have <11 hcp.
RHO has opened 1♦, they don't have a 5 card major unless the hand is very distributional, they don't have a 15-17NT opening.
I don't know how to run simulations but I am guessing that a good percentage of 1m openings are weak nt values. 12-14

When there is no game available often the best contract is 1nt. I am sitting over opener with almost weak nt opening values. We are NV vs. V
We may be able to play 1nt, the race is often won by the first to bid 1nt.

The upside, +90, the downside is when I catch LHO with inviational+ values. If they double for penalties, we do have a run out.
I could still go for a number, I only want to do this is at club bridge (MP) only.

After playing 12-14 NT for a while now, my NT play has improved significantly. 1NT is my favorite contract.

I play Power Xs and NT takeouts and will make the 1NT overcall on a flat hand and 11-13/14hcp. Weaker hands should have more shape This has been described as the weakness in The Overcall Structure, but at a club level the bid has worked well. I don't remember any disasters and the bid has had success as opponents tend not bid well over interference. If opponents have the points then they will generally bid on and the occasions a runout has had to be used is limited.

[mw64ahw]

A similar one from last night
A swallow doesn't make a summer, but can you bid and make 6♦ or even 5♦ to make the top?

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[Tramticket]

 mw64ahw, on 2023-May-16, 03:39, said:

A similar one from last night
A swallow doesn't make a summer, but can you bid and make 6♦ or even 5♦ to make the top?

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If you do the normal thing and pass with the West cards, do you imagine that partner will just fold up the cards and put them back in the bidding box?

[mw64ahw]

 Tramticket, on 2023-May-16, 07:15, said:

If you do the normal thing and pass with the West cards, do you imagine that partner will just fold up the cards and put them back in the bidding box?

No, but only one pair ended up in 5♦ which may say something about the quality of the field.