[ali quarg]

Do I downgrade and open 1♣ or stick with a 15-17 1NT?

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The Director found the cards

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[pescetom]

I would call the Director.
But after a look on the floor we open 1NT.

[mikeh]

1N

Just too much for 1C 1M 1N, where partner will assume 13 plus or minus 1 hcp. I do have two tens and possibly useful spots in clubs

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on 2022-January-28, 12:59, said:

1N

Just too much for 1C 1M 1N, where partner will assume 13 plus or minus 1 hcp. I do have two tens and possibly useful spots in clubs

This was my thought, QJ, KQ32, A52, K642 I can see as a downgrade, but you just have too many intermediates.

[TylerE]

Never downgrade a 15 count out of 1N. Ever.

You should be upgrading many better 14s, if anything.

[blackshoe]

TylerE, on 2022-January-28, 14:51, said:

Never downgrade a 15 count out of 1N. Ever.

Not sure I'd go that far.

TylerE, on 2022-January-28, 14:51, said:

You should be upgrading many better 14s, if anything.

I'd definitely go this far. :-)

[P_Marlowe]

Given this is the B/I:

#1 Stick with the point count, if you have the shape and the HCP open 1NT.
Think about it: The best part of your bidding knowledge are the structures
after your side opened 1NT, you should be happy to open 1NT, you stayman / transfer,
limit raises, Interference by the opponents is also reduced.

#2 If you had a 4 card spade suit, you could think about, opening 1C, intending to
bid 1S, if you have a 44 fit in the majors, you will find it, if you had a 4 card
heart suit, a spade response by partner my bury the fit.

[paulg]

Although QJ doubleton is not worth a full three points, it is better than Qx or a weak doubleton. Not that a weak doubleton should worry you when opening one no trump; most experts feel it is better to show the balanced nature of your hand and your strength in your first call and worry later

So I would always open one no trump here.

[Cyberyeti]

A question that I'm not 100% sure belongs in this thread, but it seems as good a place as any:

If you play a 12-14 no trump, would you open this hand (or the one I posted without the intermediates) 1♣ (intending to show 15 by rebidding 1N) or 1N ? and are there hands which you would open 1N whether it's weak or strong on the upgrade more often than you downgrade principle.

I'm with K&R on this one which gives the OP hand 14.5 and the one I posted 13.5, so I would downgrade the second but not the first.

[DavidKok]

I'm sure you can think of a hand that would open 1NT regardless of whether you're playing 12-14 or "15-17" (which is code for "good 14-bad 17" these days).

A valuable statistic is that, if you play a true 15-17 range and don't up-/downgrade anything, the 15HCP hands are about twice as common as the 17HCP hands. So opposite a strong NT responder should cater to the 15HCP hand more often than the 17HCP hand, especially if responder holds some values themselves. That's why frequently upgrading 14's is not as big of a distortion (nor is upgrading 17's out of the range), since responder was already catering to the 15's more than the 17's.

As far as I know the weak NT is far less slanted in its distribution, and opening 1NT on most/all balanced 14-counts, i.e. not upgrading out of the range, seems sensible.

[pescetom]

DavidKok, on 2022-January-30, 06:01, said:

A valuable statistic is that, if you play a true 15-17 range and don't up-/downgrade anything, the 15HCP hands are about twice as common as the 17HCP hands. So opposite a strong NT responder should cater to the 15HCP hand more often than the 17HCP hand, especially if responder holds some values themselves. That's why frequently upgrading 14's is not as big of a distortion (nor is upgrading 17's out of the range), since responder was already catering to the 15's more than the 17's.

As far as I know the weak NT is far less slanted in its distribution, and opening 1NT on most/all balanced 14-counts, i.e. not upgrading out of the range, seems sensible.

You are right of course, although the slant is not as extreme as might be imagined: assuming all balanced hands open NT, 15 is 1.87 times more likely than 17, whereas 12 is 1.42 times more likely than 14.

Frequency of HCP in balanced hand:
    0	     385
    1	     859
    2	    1449
    3	    2529
    4	    4082
    5	    5274
    6	    6541
    7	    7948
    8	    8738
    9	    9233
   10	    9319
   11	    8820
   12	    7806
   13	    6699
   14	    5758
   15	    4386
   16	    3348
   17	    2498
   18	    1630
   19	    1086
   20	     700
   21	     433
   22	     237
   23	     127
   24	      62
   25	      30
   26	      13
   27	       6
   28	       2
   29	       1
   30	       1
Generated 210949 hands
Produced 100000 hands
Initial random seed 1643567567
Time needed    0.144 sec

[thepossum]

Having been brought up on weak and/or variable no trumps I am very flexible with my 1NT bids - anything 12+ is fair game in some circumstances

I occasionally think some hands are too strong for a strong NT and will bid something else

I also used to be very concerned about stops and correct NT shape. However, a few years ago some people on Bridgebase and possibly even these forums encouraged me to be more flexible on shape too

[Gilithin]

Cyberyeti, on 2022-January-30, 04:42, said:

A question that I'm not 100% sure belongs in this thread, but it seems as good a place as any:

If you play a 12-14 no trump, would you open this hand (or the one I posted without the intermediates) 1♣ (intending to show 15 by rebidding 1N) or 1N ? and are there hands which you would open 1N whether it's weak or strong on the upgrade more often than you downgrade principle.

I'm with K&R on this one which gives the OP hand 14.5 and the one I posted 13.5, so I would downgrade the second but not the first.

I imagine a lot of Weak NT players would open the original pair of hands 1♥, with Swiss Acol and 5cM WNTers going for 1♣. Whether to downgrade your proposed hand to 1NT might depend in part on the choice of response structure.

[wuudturner]

TylerE, on 2022-January-28, 14:51, said:

Never downgrade a 15 count out of 1N. Ever.

You should be upgrading many better 14s, if anything.

While I would usually agree with the statement about never downgrading, can I come up with a hand where I would downgrade? Start with a 4333 hand. No spot cards of any value. Mostly queens and jacks. No aces. A suit like KQJ tight, where you have 6 points that contribute little. KQ tight is another case you won't like. Even AK tight is a bad suit in context, since the AK gives you no flexibility about how you will play the suit, and they are not directly contributing to setting up extra tricks.

Q32
QJ2
KQJ
KJ32

That hand sucks. It counts to 15 points by face value, but if you chose to downgrade it, I'd be happy to agree. If I do open with 1♣ and partner may want to raise me later, I've bid a 4 card suit.

As far as upgrading goes, I do so moderately often. In fact, every time I pick up the cards, if I have 14 points, I look carefully at the hand and make a decision about if the hand is worth an upgrade to open 1NT. As well, I will be willing to upgrade a good 17 point hand to be too strong to open 1NT.

Finally, is the specific hand shown in the question, thus

QJ
KQT5
AT3
K983

worth 1NT? ABSOLUTELY. This is not even remotely close to the line where I would EVER consider that not 1NT. You don't need a stopper in every suit to open 1NT. Yes, that would always be nice. But necessary? No. This hand has a wealth of intermediates that will help in taking tricks. All partner needs in spades to complete a stopper in the suit is the Txx. Even 9xxx might be sufficient on a good day.

[AL78]

Open 1NT. The high intermediates compensate for the ♠QJ doubleton, which might not be useless depending on what partner holds in the suit.