[Shugart23]

I'm really just looking for comments and insight. In ACBL world and match point scoring, Partner and I strive to open in 1st or second seat. Opening 11-15 HCP but if Rule of 20 or 19 with a quick trick allows it, we open . Doesn't matter the color.

As many of you know we open a weak NT ( 10-13) in 1st or 2nd seat and in 3rd seat, if red 1NT is 13-15). It just seems to risky to be opening 1NT in 3rd (red) seat with a 10 or 11 HCP hand with two passes to me

I'm wondering if the same should be said for other 1-level openings in 3rd seat (red) with two passes in front of you. Would you open , say 1H with 10 HCPs ?

I am interested in how you modify your style of opening in 1st or 2nd seat vs 3rd (or 4th) and does it matter if you are red or white?

[DavidKok]

Conventional wisdom is to open more aggressively, not less aggressively, in third seat.

In fourth seath you want to be more conservative, especially if your second seat opening style is light. You can get a zero score by passing in fourth seat, so you should only bid when you think going positive is more likely than going negative. In modern bridge it doesn't happen much that you have a tough decision in fourth seat - the other three hands are limited to about 10-11 hcp each and no preempt, so we almost always have a sound opening in fourth simply from the bean counting.

The vulnerability matters a lot for this. I think it is good to debate how much exactly, but I think everybody is in agreement that this is extremely important.


As for my personal approach, I don't change the limits of my bidding system by any meaningful amount, though I sometimes open some 11's in third seat that I'd pass in first, second or fourth. One thing I did play is that I combined the 10-13 NT in first and second with a 10-15 or even 9-15 NT in third, and a 14-16 NT in fourth. The idea is that, now that partner has passed, we can increase the range in third without giving partner a difficult decision - all those difficult hands are ruled out by failure to open. And in fourth seat there's limited ways to gain by opening a Kamikaze NT. Similarly, I played a 9-12 NT (1st/2nd) with 9-16 (3rd) and 14-16 (4th) for a bit, but I think these ranges are not legal in the ACBL due to both the lower limit (requires at least 10 hcp under ACBL rules) and the width in third seat (which I think is legal but bars you from playing artificial continuations, but don't quote me on that - though these particular openings would actually be fine without artificial followups).

One very important thing is that I do open drastically more wide ranging 2-level openings in third seat. Partner being a passed hand makes it completely sound to open 2♠ on both a 3-count and a 12-count, for example. In this I strongly believe in Jan Eric Larsson's ideas on preempting that 1-level openings preserve bidding space and help us explore, while 2-level (and higher) openings consume bidding space and should be used to apply pressure. I think 'can we still make game' is a much more important consideration than 'what is traditionally considered the strength range for preempts', and my bidding reflects that. In fact, here it's somewhat common to poke a bit of fun at the 'American' tradition to have really light third seat 1M openings (say, a 9-count with a 4 card suit) in combination with the we-are-legally-not-allowed-to-call-it-a-psychic-control Drury, especially if this is not disclosed ahead of time. Personally I believe opening at the 2-level with these borderline hands, also with a five card suit (but not a four card suit), is more effective.
In case there's any confusion: Drury is a fine convention, it's specifically 'Drury to reign in the light third seat openers' that I think is wasteful. If your third seat 2M opening has a range of 'whatever I please, do not make a game try with your passed hand because we will not make it' that severely cuts down on the need to have Drury, but they can comfortably be combined as well.

[Shugart23]

DavidKok, on 2026-February-14, 07:29, said:

Conventional wisdom is to open more aggressively, not less aggressively, in third seat.

In fourth seath you want to be more conservative, especially if your second seat opening style is light. You can get a zero score by passing in fourth seat, so you should only bid when you think going positive is more likely than going negative. In modern bridge it doesn't happen much that you have a tough decision in fourth seat - the other three hands are limited to about 10-11 hcp each and no preempt, so we almost always have a sound opening in fourth simply from the bean counting.

The vulnerability matters a lot for this. I think it is good to debate how much exactly, but I think everybody is in agreement that this is extremely important.


As for my personal approach, I don't change the limits of my bidding system by any meaningful amount, though I sometimes open some 11's in third seat that I'd pass in first, second or fourth. One thing I did play is that I combined the 10-13 NT in first and second with a 10-15 or even 9-15 NT in third, and a 14-16 NT in fourth. The idea is that, now that partner has passed, we can increase the range in third without giving partner a difficult decision - all those difficult hands are ruled out by failure to open. And in fourth seat there's limited ways to gain by opening a Kamikaze NT. Similarly, I played a 9-12 NT (1st/2nd) with 9-16 (3rd) and 14-16 (4th) for a bit, but I think these ranges are not legal in the ACBL due to both the lower limit (requires at least 10 hcp under ACBL rules) and the width in third seat (which I think is legal but bars you from playing artificial continuations, but don't quote me on that - though these particular openings would actually be fine without artificial followups).

One very important thing is that I do open drastically more wide ranging 2-level openings in third seat. Partner being a passed hand makes it completely sound to open 2♠ on both a 3-count and a 12-count, for example. In this I strongly believe in Jan Eric Larsson's ideas on preempting that 1-level openings preserve bidding space and help us explore, while 2-level (and higher) openings consume bidding space and should be used to apply pressure. I think 'can we still make game' is a much more important consideration than 'what is traditionally considered the strength range for preempts', and my bidding reflects that. In fact, here it's somewhat common to poke a bit of fun at the 'American' tradition to have really light third seat 1M openings (say, a 9-count with a 4 card suit) in combination with the we-are-legally-not-allowed-to-call-it-a-psychic-control Drury, especially if this is not disclosed ahead of time. Personally I believe opening at the 2-level with these borderline hands, also with a five card suit (but not a four card suit), is more effective.
In case there's any confusion: Drury is a fine convention, it's specifically 'Drury to reign in the light third seat openers' that I think is wasteful. If your third seat 2M opening has a range of 'whatever I please, do not make a game try with your passed hand because we will not make it' that severely cuts down on the need to have Drury, but they can comfortably be combined as well.

I'm not so concerned about the 1NT openings or 4th seat openings, but mostly red in 3rd seat (esp. with non-vulnerable opponents). You are saying it's more common to not be conservative ?
Qx AJxxx Jx QJxx you open 1H playing matchpoint in 3rd seat red ?

BTW, my data base now had close to 600 hands played and 60 percent of the time, someone is openong in 1st seat

[DavidKok]

Shugart23, on 2026-February-14, 07:43, said:

I'm not so concerned about the 1NT openings or 4th seat openings, but mostly red in 3rd seat (esp. with non-vulnerable opponents). You are saying it's more common to not be conservative ?
Qx AJxxx Jx QJxx you open 1H playing matchpoint in 3rd seat red ?

I am saying that third seat openings are normally more aggressive than second and first seat. Opening a 10-13 NT vulnerable when the opponents are not vulnerable in first or second seat is a higher risk still than the third seat opening, I think.
For what it's worth, in my opinion trying to optimise your opening ranges by seating and vulnerability has too low a payoff compared to learning the nuances of your system with a fixed NT ladder in the first place. Over here a non-vulnerable Kamikaze (10-13) NT is very popular, and even the top players here are honestly struggling to deal with interference over their 1♣ opening at those vulnerabilities.

Shugart23, on 2026-February-14, 07:43, said:

BTW, my data base now had close to 600 hands played and 60 percent of the time, someone is openong in 1st seat

Very nice to hear that it's going so well!
This is a little higher than my expectation - opening about 50-55% of all hands is about normal, with a similar fraction of the remainder in second seat and a higher fraction in third (partly because of the aggression, but mostly because the conditional chance of holding an opening strength hand in third seat is meaningfully impacted by the two earlier passes). Fewer than 2% of deals are passed out. This puts my expectations approximately as follows:

• First seat opens: ~55%
  
• Second seat opens: ~25%
  
• Third seat opens: ~10-15%
  
• Fourth seat opens: ~5-8%
  
• All pass: <2%

Your Kamikaze NT system is more aggressive, shifting some of that third and fourth seat probability to first and second. Also, for what it's worth, around 55-60% of all auctions are competitive, 40% are split evenly (on average) between 'we have a constructive auction' and 'we pass throughout', and the remaining 0-5% is a grey area where one side only doubles but never bids, which can be competitive, constructive or something else entirely depending on the meaning of the doubles.

[Shugart23]

DavidKok, on 2026-February-14, 07:59, said:

I am saying that third seat openings are normally more aggressive than second and first seat. Opening a 10-13 NT vulnerable when the opponents are not vulnerable in first or second seat is a higher risk still than the third seat opening, I think.
For what it's worth, in my opinion trying to optimise your opening ranges by seating and vulnerability has too low a payoff compared to learning the nuances of your system with a fixed NT ladder in the first place. Over here a non-vulnerable Kamikaze (10-13) NT is very popular, and even the top players here are honestly struggling to deal with interference over their 1♣ opening at those vulnerabilities.

Very nice to hear that it's going so well!
This is a little higher than my expectation - opening about 50-55% of all hands is about normal, with a similar fraction of the remainder in second seat and a higher fraction in third (partly because of the aggression, but mostly because the conditional chance of holding an opening strength hand in third seat is meaningfully impacted by the two earlier passes). Less than 2% of deals are passed out. This puts my expectations approximately as follows:

• First seat opens: ~55%
  
• Second seat opens: ~25%
  
• Third seat opens: ~10-15%
  
• Fourth seat opens: ~5-8%
  
• All pass: <2%

Your Kamikaze NT system is more aggressive, shifting some of that third and fourth seat probability to first and second. Also, for what it's worth, around 55-60% of all auctions are competitive, 40% are split evenly (on average) between 'we have a constructive auction' and 'we pass throughout', and the remaining 0-5% is a grey area where one side only doubles but never bids, which can be competitive, constructive or something else entirely depending on the meaning of the doubles.

I am starting to capture many interesting statistics- many of which are a function of my agreements . Once I get up to 1000 or 2000 hands, if there's something worth sharing, I will post

Right now we have changed our agreement in a couple ways as a result of what I see...we have expanded out 1NT range to 10-14 and 11-15 depending on where we sit and our color (making it more difficult for opponents to overcall) Secondly, for us, our pre-empting at the 4 and 5 level has been a loser...1 good board out of 6 occurrences so we are adjusting our method

So , would you open that hand 1H 3rd seat red , matchpoint ?

Thanks as usual

[DavidKok]

Shugart23, on 2026-February-14, 07:43, said:

Qx AJxxx Jx QJxx you open 1H playing matchpoint in 3rd seat red?

Sorry, I forgot to answer the question. Yes, I would open 1♥, though it's very close.

Shugart23, on 2026-February-14, 08:21, said:

I am starting to capture many interesting statistics- many of which are a function of my agreements . Once I get up to 1000 or 2000 hands, if there's something worth sharing, I will post

Many agreements win or lose no more than 0.02 IMPs per board on average, according to my interpretation of "Good, Better, Best" (for example, WNT vs SNT, arguably a whole system design, matters around 0.08 IMPs per board on average according to the book). I don't have a conversion to matchpoints, but if such an agreement (changing your result by 0.02 IMPs per board) is carefully tracked for 2,000 boards that's still only 40 IMPs in the aggregate, and this relies on accurately counting what would have happened if you played a different agreement. I think the sample sizes required to get statistically significant conclusions about bridge bidding agreements are truly intimidating.

[Shugart23]

Thanks. As a retired health actuary, sometimes you gotta go with what you got. I’m still surprised to think that consensus is to be more aggressive in 3rd seat red ( matchpoint) I don’t see the logic in it

[mike777]

Very interesting thread. I only understand bits of it.

Actuary people are super smart
From what I understand
2 grades
Super smart :Associate
Super duper smart :Fellow
🤓

[Shugart23]

I am a Fellow. ( or was), actually). Peter is an Assiciate and has two exams left to become a Fellow. Bridge is a lot harder than pricing insurance

[mike777]

 Shugart23, on 2026-February-15, 00:44, said:

I am a Fellow. ( or was), actually). Peter is an Assiciate and has two exams left to become a Fellow. Bridge is a lot harder than pricing insurance

Very impressive
Very..

[Shugart23]

mike777, on 2026-February-15, 07:48, said:

Very impressive
Very..

TY. The exams were tough. Boring trivia about me: Besides son Peter, I married an Associate and one daughter is a Fellow and her husband is a Fellow. We have had unusual dinner conversations in the past.

[mike777]

Seating rights in team games are a small thing most of us very never think about.

It gives you a small edge to put your strongest bidding pair at the table where they have an opportunity to sit in first seat, most often.

It may not be an equal opportunity..

[Shugart23]

mike777, on 2026-February-15, 08:09, said:

Seating rights in team games are a small thing most of us very never think about.

It gives you a small edge to put your strongest bidding pair at the table where they have an opportunity to sit in first seat, most often.

It may not be an equal opportunity..

That's a really good thought, although I rarely play team games. What do you think of David's assertion that one should tend to be more aggressive vs conservative in 3rd seat red ? David , if I misread what you said, holler.

If true, what is the rationale for having such a belief; I am flummoxed

[mike777]

Shugart23, on 2026-February-15, 08:13, said:

That's a really good thought, although I rarely play team games. What do you think of David's assertion that one should tend to be more aggressive vs conservative in 3rd seat red ? David , if I misread what you said, holler.

If true, what is the rationale for having such a belief; I am flummoxed

In several Posts, David, has advocated being more aggressive when red with your preempts in first, second and third seat.
The vast majority of players, when red, are pretty darn conservative.
I hope he writes more on this subject.

I know I am getting tremendous push back from my partner in being more aggressive with 5 card weak two bids, preempting more aggressively, in general, at all vuls.
I don't feel as if I am explaining the rationale very well. I am not explaining what hands to bid on or not, very well.


Gavin Wolpert is not a fan of 5 card weak two bids. That is not helping my case...smile

[DavidKok]

Sorry if there's been any confusion, but I just want to clarify:

Third seat suggests bidding more aggressively than other seats.
Unfavourable vulnerability suggests bidding less aggressively than other vulnerabilities.

I was primarily comparing unfavourable third with unfavourable first and second. You've already decided to play the Kamikaze NT in those seats, so the doubts to play it in third came as a surprise to me. I understand that there is a great chance that fourth seat is strong, but that sword cuts both ways (to some extent, at least): they might punish us or use the opening information against us, but we want to take away their space and make partner captain of the deal in the process.

[DavidKok]

mike777, on 2026-February-15, 08:49, said:

In several Posts, David, has advocated being more aggressive when red with your preempts in first, second and third seat.
The vast majority of players, when red, are pretty darn conservative.
I hope he writes more on this subject.

I know I am getting tremendous push back from my partner in being more aggressive with 5 card weak two bids, preempting more aggressively, in general, at all vuls.
I don't feel as if I am explaining the rationale very well. I am not explaining what hands to bid on or not, very well.


Gavin Wolpert is not a fan of 5 card weak two bids. That is not helping my case...smile

It is a very rich topic, far too extensive for me to discuss most of it. What's more, I don't know most of it, though I have some thoughts and opinions!
Two things that might help with this in particular are:

• Whatever preemptive style you play, it is necessary to be on the same page as partner. Actions that are winning in a vacuum become losing if partner is not receptive to them, and sometimes vice versa. If your partner really is unhappy with, for example, vulnerable five card weak two's, the (possibly unpleasant) conclusion is to stop playing them. Being on the same page is more important than having the best methods, normally.
  
• If we confine ourselves to weak hands with a long major - say 4-10 hcp and either 6 or 5 cards in spades - you'll be dealt around 2.5-3 hands with a five card suit for every 1 hand with a six card suit. This means that you can impose extra restrictions on the five card suit hands - some examples are suit quality, lack of outside major suit length, not many values outside - and still have a very significant percentage of candidate five card preempts compared to the traditional six card preempts. This might give your partnership room to identify what sort of hands you might be comfortable with, without immediately opening the floodgates and bidding with every weak hand you see.

Personally I do think there is room for more aggression when vulnerable, and that people are overdoing it (at least here) when not vulnerable. However, I think there are also less extreme versions of my position that might be more palatable, while still illustrating the point.

[mike777]

 DavidKok, on 2026-February-15, 14:28, said:

It is a very rich topic, far too extensive for me to discuss most of it. What's more, I don't know most of it, though I have some thoughts and opinions!
Two things that might help with this in particular are:

• Whatever preemptive style you play, it is necessary to be on the same page as partner. Actions that are winning in a vacuum become losing if partner is not receptive to them, and sometimes vice versa. If your partner really is unhappy with, for example, vulnerable five card weak two's, the (possibly unpleasant) conclusion is to stop playing them. Being on the same page is more important than having the best methods, normally.
  
• If we confine ourselves to weak hands with a long major - say 4-10 hcp and either 6 or 5 cards in spades - you'll be dealt around 2.5-3 hands with a five card suit for every 1 hand with a six card suit. This means that you can impose extra restrictions on the five card suit hands - some examples are suit quality, lack of outside major suit length, not many values outside - and still have a very significant percentage of candidate five card preempts compared to the traditional six card preempts. This might give your partnership room to identify what sort of hands you might be comfortable with, without immediately opening the floodgates and bidding with every weak hand you see.

Personally I do think there is room for more aggression when vulnerable, and that people are overdoing it (at least here) when not vulnerable. However, I think there are also less extreme versions of my position that might be more palatable, while still illustrating the point.

Ty very helpful

[Zelandakh]

Shugart23, on 2026-February-14, 07:19, said:

I'm really just looking for comments and insight. In ACBL world and match point scoring, Partner and I strive to open in 1st or second seat. Opening 11-15 HCP but if Rule of 20 or 19 with a quick trick allows it, we open . Doesn't matter the color.

As many of you know we open a weak NT ( 10-13) in 1st or 2nd seat and in 3rd seat, if red 1NT is 13-15). It just seems to risky to be opening 1NT in 3rd (red) seat with a 10 or 11 HCP hand with two passes to me

I'm wondering if the same should be said for other 1-level openings in 3rd seat (red) with two passes in front of you. Would you open , say 1H with 10 HCPs ?

I am interested in how you modify your style of opening in 1st or 2nd seat vs 3rd (or 4th) and does it matter if you are red or white?

My current BBO partner and I play a fairly aggressive form of English Acol with a weak NT. Not precisely what you want but there are some similarities. So I checked my 3rd seat decisions of the last month after 2 passes:
Pass: 3 times with 6, 6 and 9hcp
1♣: Once (8hcp)
1♦: 4 times with 5, 11, 16 and 18
1♥: 4 times (11, 12, 17 and 19hcp)
1♠: Twice (5 and 16)
1nt: 5 times (11, 11, 13, 13 and 14hcp)

Now what might surprise you in this distribution is that the 1♣ opening was 3433, whereas the 1NT openers were 2245, 2425, 2533, 3442 and 4252. So quite a different pattern from 1st seat. My view of the 3rd seat weak 1NT opening is that it is a preempt. I very often open a suit instead with a balanced hand intending to pass any response. But where I want to preempt spades (occasionally hearts as in the 4252) a 1NT opening is to be preferred. On the baby-psyches and flat out bluffs, vulnerability is of course very important. I don't psyche at all in 1st or 2nd seat.
Real preempts, which somehow didn't show up in the last month, are slightly more aggressive in 3rd than 1st but we also preempt very aggressively in 1st so not massively. But 2nd seat preempts are classic, so a major difference. Colours are important here too but not more so than position.
So now to my suggestion on how to approach 3rd seat opening strategy. Put your partner on a balanced hand a point or two below your opening range. Visualise that hand and calculate what you think your opponents can make. Then imagine the auction if your partner makes the most awkward response to whichever opening(s) you are considering. If the result is to make life difficult for the opps without too much risk, open, even if you are under strength. If not, pass. But if you find this exercise too tricky, or you don't have an understanding partner who can take the joke, just play your usual system with full discipline. Don't second guess yourself. If you deviate from system, do it because you have a strong basis for doing so, not just from general fear. Hope that helps!