[flametree]

Hi all,

I play in an area with about 50% Acol players (the rest being strong club or 2/1 players), so come across the weak no-trump a lot, but also a lot of other no-trump ranges. I'm trying to develop a better system for my more regular partnerships, where we have a penalty double of a weak no-trump, but abandon it against a strong no-trump opening.

My question is, regardless of the actual defence you choose to play against 1NT, and assuming you play a penalty double of a weak no-trump, at what point of the oppposition's range do you stop playing the penalty double?

10-12 X = penalty (I've never actually encountered someone playing a mini, but just in case)
11-13 X = penalty
12-14 X = penalty
13-15 X = ??
13-16 X = ??
14-16 X = ??
15-17 X = something else.

Also, do you recommend abandoning the penalty double when bidding in fourth seat against any range?

(If there's been a "definitive" defence to 1NT thread previously, feel free to just link me to that.)

Thanks,
Matt

[manudude03]

It's really just down to partnership agreement. For what it's worth, I consider it weak when 1NT may be a non-descript 13 count (13-16 is the strongest on your list). If the convention card says something like (13)14-16 or 13+-16 I consider it strong.

[gwnn]

flametree, when I play penalty doubles nowadays I play regardless of NT range, but it makes sense to play non-penalty doubles against 15-17. 14-16 will often contain 13s, so it's better to keep a strong X available. So basically any time 1NT has officially 14 included, it's a weak NT for these purposes. (14+)15-17 does not qualify (i.e., treat it as a strong NT).

[fromageGB]

While it is "logical" to have a double as more penalty the weaker the NT, in practice I am not keen on having multiple methods. Have 3 different systems depending on whether mini, weak, or strong? I like a double as non-penalty, as it enables better definition of your hand types when you want to bid over the NT, so I keep the same system regardless of NT strength. I play against more 12-14 NTs than 15-17, and have only rarely regretted no penalty. Conversely, I have more times benefitted from my intervention with a double.

A penalty double is over-rated, I think, as everyone has a get-out available, such as playing in 2m when they would not be able to do so otherwise.

Also not to be forgotten is that if you play a direct seat X has a minimumum strength, partner always has the option of passing.

Probably more important than the strength of NT is the method of scoring. I have regretted coming back to score up an IMP match and reporting +140 against teammates -300. In MPs, the frerquency is more important than the magnitude.

[daveharty]

I agree with gwnn about playing penalty all the time, I would rather just consistently play Landy or something and not waste precious space in my limited hard drive. In the one partnership where we do play different systems against weak and strong NT, we draw the line at 15 hcp: if the range includes 15, we treat it as strong, unless it's specifically 12-15 (which I have only encountered once and we were lucky enough to notice the odd range before the round). I think the reason we decided on that line of demarcation was that around here, very few people play the traditional Precision 13-15 range; almost everyone who deviates from a 15-17 NT is playing either 12-14 or 14-16, so there really aren't any borderline cases.

[mycroft]

I'm odd, I guess - I go the other way. My rule is that "if it could be 16, it's strong" - with the exception that "13-15 in a Strong Club context is strong".

I don't have a problem with two systems over NT, because we are in the ACBL so much 15-17 that it's worth the memory of something simple and useful (Landy, say) over the rare weak NTs to be able to play something disruptive over the 95% 15-17. YMMV, of course, and your environment certainly does vary.

[aguahombre]

 mycroft, on 2011-December-29, 10:40, said:

I don't have a problem with two systems over NT, because we are in the ACBL so much 15-17 that it's worth the memory of something simple and useful (Landy, say) over the rare weak NTs to be able to play something disruptive over the 95% 15-17. YMMV, of course, and your environment certainly does vary.

Yes, perhaps on a different thread, the idea of constuctive versus weak NT and disruptive versus strong could be further explored. Here, they are discussing what the optimum use of a double is; and the double doesn't disrupt anything.

Well, not entirely accurate: the double allows partner to do some disruption, but responder to the opening NT has gotten first crack.

[awm]

For me, 13-16 is weak and 14-16 is strong. My general rule is that if the average of the maximum and minimum strength is at least 15, it's strong. So 14-15 would be weak also.

The point of a penalty double isn't really to "get them" for a number. It's to have a strength-showing bid available so that partner knows when to try for game on power. This gains in some unexpected ways; for example after 1NT-2♠-Pass, partner can pass with a non-fitting ten-count (or a slightly weaker fitting hand) if he knows I would double on most 15s. My reasoning for not playing a penalty double against the stronger notrumps is that I'm very unlikely to actually hold a strong enough hand, and that when I do have the points partner is usually bust. Since this is more of a "value-showing" double than a "penalty" double in many ways, I would play the same method in fourth position.

It's similar to how I play a strong notrump overcall when opponents open a natural 1m, but I wouldn't play a strong notrump overcall when they open a precision strong 1♣.

[Phil]

I've played both of:

1. If the range contains a 16, its strong.
2. if the average is equal to or greater than 14.5, its strong.

Locally, there are a few funny ranges you have to adjust to -

a. There some Blue Club pairs that play 12-16.
b. There's a H and W that play a homemade system, and their range is 14-15.

[FrancesHinden]

We say that a minimum of 14 or more is strong.
Although we play a penalty double against all strengths of NT, this affects our forcing pass agreements, and also changes the meaning of a passed hand double.


There's been no definitive 'defence to 1NT' thread, because there is no agreement on these things.

[blackshoe]

Heh. What do you do against players whose 1NT is artificial? For example, 18-21 HCP, either balanced with 6 controls and nominally 19-20 HCP, or unbalanced with 4-5 losers?

[flametree]

 blackshoe, on 2011-December-29, 15:02, said:

Heh. What do you do against players whose 1NT is artificial? For example, 18-21 HCP, either balanced with 6 controls and nominally 19-20 HCP, or unbalanced with 4-5 losers?

Hopefully they'll provide us with the best defence?

[aguahombre]

 blackshoe, on 2011-December-29, 15:02, said:

Heh. What do you do against players whose 1NT is artificial? For example, 18-21 HCP, either balanced with 6 controls and nominally 19-20 HCP, or unbalanced with 4-5 losers?

Would recommend whatever you would play against a Strong Club or strong NT, but definitely not double=strong NT

However, unless it is Dr. Jorge or Bates, the desire to "do" anything might be reduced. They will probably do it to themselves.

[blackshoe]

 flametree, on 2011-December-29, 15:14, said:

Hopefully they'll provide us with the best defence?

This 1NT bid is GCC legal in the ACBL. Nonetheless, when my then partner and I decided to try it, and after we'd been playing it about three months, during which it probably came up three or four times, we were approached by the club director during our next-to-last-round sit out one night. He said "I understand you're playing an artificial 1NT opening." I replied "yes, we are". He said "that bid is banned in this club", and walked away. We were going to take it up with the club's BoD, but my partner passed away before we could do that. So I just quit going to that club. Not the only reason, this was a "last straw" kind of thing.

 aguahombre, on 2011-December-29, 16:02, said:

Would recommend whatever you would play against a Strong Club or strong NT, but definitely not double=strong NT

However, unless it is Dr. Jorge or Bates, the desire to "do" anything might be reduced. They will probably do it to themselves.

Heh. Long story short, another club owner was there the night we were told we couldn't play it. He said we could play it at his club, provided we treated it as a Mid-Chart convention, pre-alerted it, and provided a written defense to it. I agree with you though — had we done that, I would have written "play whatever defense you play against strong NT or strong club, your choice. I would not suggest playing double as penalty".

The couple of times it came up, we didn't have any trouble with it. As I recall, they were fairly obvious hands, though. I suppose we might have "done it to ourselves" on some "edge" hands, had they come up.

BTW, the "ban" was the result of a complaint by a local bridge teacher, who felt that "there might be some players" who couldn't handle defending against it, in spite of its being GCC, and in spite of the fact that no one else complained either to the TD or to us. She, of course, would have had no problem.

It was several years ago, but yeah, it still pisses me off.

[Cyberyeti]

Blackshoe has it about right. Any of the strong club or strong no trump defences will do.

We used to play a big and always unbalanced no trump in a system that was banned at one local club despite me never trying to play it there as I knew it would have been unfair on the LoLs that frequented that establishment. The system was designed to push the licensing regulations for clubs as far as you could at the time, and did cause the county captain to literally fall off his chair when he discovered that this was legal.

[MickyB]

For me, the question is whether to treat 14-16 as weak or strong. I treat it as weak, but then I do love my weak NT defence a ridiculous amount. If forced to play Multi-Landy I would probably treat 14-16 as strong, I dislike not being able to get in with 4S5+minor.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

If the NT includes 15HCP more than 50% of the time, than we handle the NT opening as a strong NT opening.
13-15 NT openers would be considered as weak NT openers, 14-16 would be considered as strong NT openers.

We play the same defence against weak and strong NT, but against strong NTs the calls get destructive.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[jeffford76]

I think it makes more sense to tag the weak/strong distinction on lower end (or average) instead of upper end. No matter what the range the lower values come up more often, so that's what you want your defense to be geared toward. That is, if someone is playing 13-15, the 13's will happen a lot more than the 14's and the 14's will happen a lot more than the 15's.

My preference is to play that if it could be 13 (even 13+-16 -- most people who upgrade enough to add the upgrades to their range upgrade a lot and thus have a lot of 13's) to play my weak defense and otherwise play my strong one.