[benlessard]

when you played 15-17 in reality your playing [15---18[ meaning if the hand is a good 17 lets say 17.7 you open 1nt.


akxx
aqjx
kxx
xx

a very good 17 but not a 18 count.








1200-1499 =12-14

1500---1799 ====`15-17




This is the standard 3 pts range.





a 2.5 range is


1200--1450

1450---1699


playing weak NT
meaning half of the 14 count are too strong to open 1nt


playing strong NT half the 14 pts you will open 1nt and all 17 pts are too strong.


Im wondering if there is some people who play this and if they do are they making invitationnal bid or just blast to game ?



Also im wondering about thos who play wider Nt rebid range like in Romex for instance do they think its better to find the fit instead of finding the level.



i mean rebidding nt with 12-16 seems to need a lot of psychics ability from your partner.



Ben

[hrothgar]

Comment 1: The level of precision that you are trying to apply is fine and dandy for a computer program. I don't think that it maps well onto a bridge match being played by people. In my experience, few players have handy evaluation algorithms with enough granularity to discriminate between a 17.99 HCP and an 18 count.

Comment 2: If you are going to assume this type of precision, you should try to get your math right. More specifically

>a 2.5 range is 1200--1450 / 1450---1699
>playing weak NT
>meaning half of the 14 count are too strong to open 1nt

>playing strong NT half the 14 pts you will open 1nt and all 17 pts are too strong.

The distribution of HCP on the interval 14.00 - 14.99 is not uniform.

As to your actual question:

>I'm wondering if there is some people who play this and if they do are they making >invitational bid or just blast to game?

There has been a fair amount of discussion on this list regarding the utility of different invitational sequences after NT openings and rebids: From my perspective, the critical issue is one of bidding space: You don't have much space available between 1N and 3N and you have a LOT of different goals in bidding (drop dead in various suits, slam exploration, etc).

Personally, I think that quantitative invitational sequences in the majors are critical. I'm less convinced about the utility of quantitative invites in NT. In my experience, range isn't particularly important compared to running tricks/stoppers/etc.

[david_c]

If anything, I think the tendency is to make the no-trump range slightly wider than 3 points. For example you see people playing a 15-17 opening but who upgrade a lot of 14-counts (often described on the convention card as (14)15-17). This makes the range more like 3.2 or so.

[MickyB]

IMO, if your NT range is any narrower than 3 points then an invite in NT is worse than useless.

[benlessard]

Well im gonna use +14 and - 14 for example



so -14 is a weak NT

+14 is a strong NT

Quote

The distribution of HCP on the interval 14.00 - 14.99 is not uniform

If you say between 14 HCP and 15 HCP there is more 14 then 15 ur right... but between a good 14 and a bad 14 its 50% -50% because half of my 14 in consider them below average (so bad) and 50% above average (good) its a judgement call not an HCP quanta. Take your last hundred bal 14 pts count and split them in 2.(14 HCP count upgraded to 15 or downgraded to 13 are not there)


i dont think you need to be a genius to play that. Often holding a bal 16 count we know if its a good 16 or a bad 16 before even bidding 1nt...so its completly natural to evaluate ur hand like good 14 or bad 17... or 13.25





I think what is bad is playing a 3 pts range. Even though its been done since the beginning of bridge.


either you played a smaller range and have no inv sequence or play a wider range so that your inv seq at least come up sometimes...



I also think transfer and bidding 2nt as inv as completly atrocious ...your pulling yourself from the best partscore contract to the worse contract.

and inv with a 6M should endup in 2M not in 3M. And i shouldnt be 4 or 5 Keri style...

My experience tell me that playing 3m, 3M or 2nt in uncontested auction is a big losing proposition and ways to stop there are waste or bidding space.


I agree that a lot of player upgrade good 14.. but that doesnt mean they play 3.2 range ?

axx
QT9xx
AJT
Kx

this 1 is clearly worth 15... its not a good 14...IMHO.

But i must admit that most player upgrade much more then they downgrade.

Me I strive to downgrade as much as i upgrade but im not sure i manage to do it

Ben

[hrothgar]

benlessard, on Feb 15 2006, 06:09 PM, said:

If you say between 14 HCP and 15 HCP there is more 14 then 15 ur right... but between a good 14 and a bad 14 its 50% -50% because half of my 14 in consider them below average (so bad) and 50% above average (good) its a judgement call not an HCP quanta.

Then why did you express the boundary conditions in terms of HCP?
I return to your original quote:

>a 2.5 range is 1200--1450 / 1450---1699
>playing weak NT
>meaning half of the 14 count are too strong to open 1nt

Its entirely possibly that when you're talking about 14.5 HCP, you don't actually mean 14.5 HCP. However, my gut says that this might cause some confusion....

[benlessard]

The difference is that


when we say 12-14 Hcp we think



...12......13......14...

in this case a bad 13 is the middle hand (not average hand)




but in reality its 12......13........14........

meaning its from an ugly 12 that you dont downgrade up to a very good 14 that you dont upgrade.


in that case a average 13 is the medium hand (not the average hand).



When its 14.5 or 1450 its a plain in the middle 14 count not a 14 count + half a jack (extra).


At first it might be confusing that why i tried to introduce the 1200 to make people realise the difference.

In reality we say 12-14 and 15-17 so the hand between 14 and 15 doesnt exist


so its really 1200--1499 and 1500-1799

[han]

I don't agree with your "but in reality" statements. For instance, if I play a 15-17 NT range then I frequently upgrade and rarely downgrade. My guess is that I open 1NT with 1475 to 1750 (trying to use your notation). Medium = 1612


However, when I play a 14-16 NT then I rarely upgrade and sometimes downgrade. I might play 1420-1700. Medium = 1560

So in reality the medium for 14-16 is only 0.52 HCP lighter than for 15-17.

[MickyB]

This is just confusing

A 15-17 NT should be described as 14.50-17.50 if you upgrade and downgrade with equal frequency - it's just a conversion from discrete to continuous. I'm never quite sure what people mean when they say their NT range is something like "11.5-14".

In Siege, I'd say the range for the balanced minimum is about 11.00-13.50.

I think there has some confusion over the median and the midpoint of the range in this thread. [Edited]

[david_c]

MickyB, on Feb 15 2006, 07:13 PM, said:

This is just confusing 

A 15-17 NT should be described as 14.50-17.50 if you upgrade and downgrade with equal frequency

That's if you want an "average" 15-count to have a value of 15.00. I believe Ben was giving this hand a value of 15.50 instead. I have to say I find the latter method more intuitive.

When someone writes "11.5 - 14", they're using Ben's notation for the lower bound and the traditional notation for the upper bound; hence this is a 3.5-point range.

[luis]

When playing 15-17 I upgrade 14 counts with a 5 card suit to 1NT.
I usually also upgrade 17 counts witha 5 card suit to 18-19 and open 1m instead of 1NT the reason for this is not to miss some good games on 17 and 7.
When playing weak NT I upgrade good 11s to 1NT but don't upgrade good 14s beyond 1NT because then it will fall in the 15-17 range and I prefer to open 1NT as much as possible.

[benlessard]

In siege you have a 2.5 range for minimum opener do you need invitationnal sequence... my feeling is no.




Does anyone with bridgebrowser could find out ....

What i would like to know is the % of hand in unconsted auction when responder is invitationnal but the contract is below game (mostly 4m, 3M or 2NT contract.) . I think this is quite a low %

And does these contract goes down often or do they make overtricks (meaning you missed game)



Its very possible that by reducing our range a little bit we might get rid of those inv sequences once for all at least some of them.





For extra clarification.


I dont really care what is the actual HCP count in hand and im sure most players feel the same. What we are talking is the playing strenght of the hand.


Traditionnally 12-14 meant a hand that contain 12 HCP up to a hand that contain 14 HCP. But since i was born 12-14 mean a hand that is worth similar to most hand containing 12-14 HCP.


People still counting HCP by the books add or remove a pts depending of the playing strenght. That is fine by me.


But you have to know that

You can have a hand worth more then 14 pts and open it 12-14.
But you cannot have a hand that is worth less then 12 pts. Therefore the common weak nt 12 -14 range -----is [12-15[ meaning all hand worth 12 up to 15 (15 not included).


Think about it ...is it possible a hand worth 14.5 ...of course it is
for me it look something like this


AJx
AQJ
T9xxx
Qx


ajT8
kjT
kjx
T9x


QJT
Kx
axxx
axxx

None of these hand is closed to being open a strong NT (15-17) but they are worth more then


axx
qjx
qjx
aT9x

wich is a hand that nobody would downgrade to 13 pts.


So if you have those 14.5

what do you open

12-14

15-17 ??


so 12-14 isnt [12-14] its [12-15[ a 3 pts range not a 2 pts range. 12 being the worse possible 12 count that is not downgraded while 14.75 is a 14 count that is closed of being upgraded but its not enough . 14.5 is the middle 14 count


Hope you do understand.

Im french speaking so my english writting is a bit poor in style. If somebody understand clearly what im talking about and could sum it up more simply and elegantly please feel free to do so. It would be greatly appreciated.





Ben

[awm]

I don't think you can get rid of the suit-oriented invitations. No matter how limited openers "point range" might be, there is a question of working cards vs. not working cards, and fitting hands vs. not fitting hands. Even if you suppose that 1NT shows exactly fifteen high card points (for example) there will be hands that accept a minor-suit invite (Hxx in the minor) and hands which reject (xx in the minor). And there will be hands that want to play four of a major opposite a four card suit, and hands that don't (and this is true even if you assume that opener has exactly four cards in that major also, because 4333 hands play worse than 4432 hands in a suit contract, and because weak doubletons are better than doubleton honors and queen of trumps is better than a side queen).

It should be possible to get rid of the "straight notrump invite" (the classic 1NT-2NT bid) by narrowing the point range, but I don't think this is necessarily all that valuable. And you still need a way to bail in 2NT when you try to find that elusive 4-4 major fit and discover you don't have it (so you can't make 2♣ stayman and 2NT rebid some kind of artificial slam try).

I don't think there's much to gain from narrowing the range, and you'll probably end up with issues in other auctions. In fact the tendency among top players seems to be towards wider notrump ranges (we see a lot of good 14 to good 17 notrumps, and good 13 to good 16, and announced 11-14 and 10-13 ranges these days).

[benlessard]

Quote

And you still need a way to bail in 2NT when you try to find that elusive 4-4 major fit and discover you don't have it (so you can't make 2♣ stayman and 2NT rebid some kind of artificial slam try).

Disagree with that 2nt is not really a better contract then 3nt in IMPs even with 23 pts and no major fit.

Quote

I don't think you can get rid of the suit-oriented invitations. No matter how limited openers "point range" might be, there is a question of working cards vs. not working cards, and fitting hands vs. not fitting hands. Even if you suppose that 1NT shows exactly fifteen high card points (for example) there will be hands that accept a minor-suit invite (Hxx in the minor) and hands which reject (xx in the minor).

with a 2pts range there is no need for invitationnal seq for me this is obvious.



Even playing 3pts range its possible to have no inv sequence and do fairly well with blast or pass (in IMPS of course). Reevaluation of nice fitting hand is very important but on the long run its better to blast or pass then play 3M or 2nt. (IMPs of course).


With 3 pts range and in IMPs the only inv hand worth showing are those with 5cM... if you can stop in 2M and not in 2nt. Its mostly because you can make an invitation and play in a contract you are making and you can find a 9 card fit wich is reevaluation nice enough to bid game on thin hcp.



As for playing wider NT range of course its a good idea... like ive said in the beginning of the thread wider or narrower ... anything except 3pts range.

[awm]

Well, if you think it's obvious that no invites are needed with a 2pt range, I'm not sure why you're asking the question. To me it seems clear that:

---

I want to be in 3NT by south at any form of scoring.

---

I have no desire to be in 3NT by south at any form of scoring. Nor do I want to be in 5♣.

Perhaps your hand evaluation considers the two south hands to be radically different values, such that one is worth a 1NT opening and one is not, I have no idea. But they look pretty similar to me (both have three aces and a king) and if anything the second hand seems slightly better (because 4432 is better than 4333 in most cases).

As for 2NT better than 3NT, I disagree with you here too. If I have 23 high and no real suit fit, I'm willing to bet that 3NT will rarely make against good defense. If I have eight tricks, stopping in 2NT is a big win. If I have seven tricks, stopping in 2NT still wins me a bunch of imps. I agree that the "odds of having exactly eight tricks" are not great, but I'd bet that playing all 23 hcp misfit hands in 2NT will give me a better score than playing all 23 hcp misfit hands in 3NT. Keep in mind that going -100 instead of -200 is still win 3 imps.

[hrothgar]

[awm]

To give an example based on major suits:

---

Here 4♠ is pretty good. All that's needed is a couple of heart ruffs.

---

Here I can't imagine what game we can make. We have something like seven tricks in notrump. Perhaps 3♦ plays ok. Certainly I don't want to be in game.

Anyways, I agree that you can eliminate the straight "range ask" but you still need a lot of invitational sequences even if the 1NT opening shows "a balanced hand with three aces and a king" which is a lot more precise than any real range.