[Cyberyeti]

Has anybody done a sim as to what the average 3rd/4th seat hand is given that people in front of them have passed ? Presumably it's >10 points, but by how much ?

I ask because having reevaluated our 2 bids in the first 2 seats, we were wondering whether the conventional wisdom of intermediate or similar in 4th is most efficient or whether Acol 2s become frequent enough to consider, and whether it's worth considering a strong option in our multi in 3rd when it's weak only in the first 2 seats.

[DavidKok]

I haven't seen such a sim, but I did want to share a few simple thoughts.

The fact that several hands have passed doesn't just mean they are below opening strength, but also that they did not have a preemptive bid. In fourth hand especially it is really damning when third hand passes. I expect the passed hands to be (semi)balanced most of the time - this is not only most likely a priori, but compatible with passing. You will not frequently hold an Acol strong 2 conditional on the others not having a preemptive hand.

In third hand there is a lot to be said for bidding with a set of weaker hands which you would pass in other seats. If you also add strong options to your system (for example, adding strong options to a multi, or replacing some weak bids at the 2-level with strong ones), you either lose out on this or have to take more risk at the 3-level, as well as making it more difficult for partner to support your preemptive action. I think you would need to have a strong hand a rather large fraction of the time to make up for these losses.

In fourth hand it is generally bad to open the auction on marginal values, so it is common to swap out all preemptive bids for some other range instead. The advantage of intermediate 2 bids in fourth seat is that partner doesn't have to strain to make a game try if you do open at the 1-level, which is especially important since partner will frequently have 9-11 points and a (semi)balanced hand. If you choose to cater to stronger hand types instead you need a good solution for responder over your fourth seat 1-level openings.

[Cyberyeti]

DavidKok, on 2022-December-06, 04:53, said:

In third hand there is a lot to be said for bidding with a set of weaker hands which you would pass in other seats. If you also add strong options to your system (for example, adding strong options to a multi, or replacing some weak bids at the 2-level with strong ones), you either lose out on this or have to take more risk at the 3-level, as well as making it more difficult for partner to support your preemptive action. I think you would need to have a strong hand a rather large fraction of the time to make up for these losses.

In fourth hand it is generally bad to open the auction on marginal values, so it is common to swap out all preemptive bids for some other range instead. The advantage of intermediate 2 bids in fourth seat is that partner doesn't have to strain to make a game try if you do open at the 1-level, which is especially important since partner will frequently have 9-11 points and a (semi)balanced hand. If you choose to cater to stronger hand types instead you need a good solution for responder over your fourth seat 1-level openings.

I fundamentally disagree with this. We open all the weak hands in the previous seats anyway, we don't open any less of them in 3rd. The point is that a weak only multi in 3rd gives a green light to 4th seat to bid with marginal hands knowing there's little jeopardy, the possibility of running into a flat 20 count may cause more caution, what I'm not sure of is whether that's desirable.

I really don't see what intermediate 2s do for the problem you outline.

[mikeh]

I don’t like multi with a strong option. The strong hands are very rare and can be difficult to handle when responder has both majors and wants to get to the 4-level right away.

As for intermediate openings, in both of my partnerships we now play 2D as 5-9 and 2M as 10-13. We’re still gathering data as to how effective this is. It’s not just that 2M is stronger than most but also that opening 1M and rebidding it in situations where that shows 6+ now means opener is showing 14+

We enhance this by playing that after a 2C response (could be 2+) to a 1st or 2nd seat opening bid, opener can bid an artificial 2D to deny a 6 card major or a 2N rebid (which promises positional cards for notrump).

So far, this seems to be more helpful than does the range for 2M, but the sample size is fairly small.

As for bumping up the 2 bids to an old fashioned Acol two bid….I just don’t think that they arise frequently enough to make it worthwhile. Plus frankly there are reasons why the rest of the world doesn’t play Acol two bids. They’re cumbersome, rare, and imo unnecessary, especially in the majors and a good drury method.

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on 2022-December-06, 07:01, said:

I don’t like multi with a strong option. The strong hands are very rare and can be difficult to handle when responder has both majors and wants to get to the 4-level right away.

As for intermediate openings, in both of my partnerships we now play 2D as 5-9 and 2M as 10-13. We’re still gathering data as to how effective this is. It’s not just that 2M is stronger than most but also that opening 1M and rebidding it in situations where that shows 6+ now means opener is showing 14+

We enhance this by playing that after a 2C response (could be 2+) to a 1st or 2nd seat opening bid, opener can bid an artificial 2D to deny a 6 card major or a 2N rebid (which promises positional cards for notrump).

So far, this seems to be more helpful than does the range for 2M, but the sample size is fairly small.

As for bumping up the 2 bids to an old fashioned Acol two bid….I just don’t think that they arise frequently enough to make it worthwhile. Plus frankly there are reasons why the rest of the world doesn’t play Acol two bids. They’re cumbersome, rare, and imo unnecessary, especially in the majors and a good drury method.

A lot of this is true in 5 card major land, but I'm not there, very few people play 4 card majors and Drury for example.

The only strong option we would have is strong bal, and 2♦-3N says "enough to play game but not slam opposite strong balanced, 4-4 in the majors", if opener pulls to 4♥ you don't actually know if he has a 3 count with hearts or a 20 count with 4 of them.

The intermediate openings would only be in 4th seat.

[DavidKok]

If you add more hand types to your bids you do lose something, there is no free lunch here. In the case of a might-be-strong multi you restrict what partner may do with intermediate values and law protection compared to a weak-only multi, as well as limiting partner's ability to pass. You also may or may not lose bidding space compared to partnerships with other treatments for the strong hands. Lastly you've lost preemptive raises when partner can support your long suit but not the other major, and given the opponents more space for interference. Whether these are all worth the benefits of the convention (freeing up the 2M opening bids and some traditionally strong sequences) is a separate matter entirely, and not one I was trying to address. By attempting to reserve bidding sequences for strong hands in third and fourth seat you are putting your normal system under pressure, and there is some cost to that.

Your philosophy of opening the same hands in first, second and third seat seems highly unusual. Please be careful to notice that I said 'weaker', as in 'slightly outside your normal range, be that a preempt or a 1-level opening'.

I think the Drury bit is mostly a distraction. Drury is one of multiple methods for dealing with adjusted opening ranges in third seat, but there are plenty of alternatives. The intermediate range 2M openings in fourth seat, for example, guarantee that 1M-1/2X; 2M is weak enough to not accept an invitation. Therefore responder doesn't have to make a game try with a so-so 11 count. At some point I played fourth hand "2M, can be a 5-card suit, would not accept a game try" - slightly more extreme than the previous suggestion.

Like mikeh I am not a fan of 'preemptive-or-strong' bids. It makes it hard to raise the weak option, and the strong hands tend to pattern out higher than over bids that are simply strong.

Adding strong hands to a multi in order to scare the opponents is a really outdated strategy. I would be very surprised if that scares people out of bidding, or conversely if it lets you catch them speeding with any noticeable frequency.

[Cyberyeti]

DavidKok, on 2022-December-06, 08:38, said:

Your philosophy of opening the same hands in first, second and third seat seems highly unusual. Please be careful to notice that I said 'weaker', as in 'slightly outside your normal range, be that a preempt or a 1-level opening'.

We treat first seat as a gun preempting position, 2/3 chance the guy with the strong hand isn't partner, so already opening 5 card suits with a zero count there is no lower to go in 3rd. This is a step down from the 4 card suit andd a zero count we used to be able to open.

2nd seat we require a 6 card suit, but can still be a zero count.

[hrothgar]

I've done a lot of studies on this, however, its been in a MOSCITO context