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Dealing with weak 1NT and 5 card majors

#1 User is offline   hirowla 

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Posted 2012-April-08, 05:03

Hi, I was wondering how people deal with playing a weak NT (12-14) and 5-card majors (SAYC style, not 2/1)? Basically, do you include 5-card majors in your weak NT opening?

If you don't ever:
  • How do you deal with weak balanced hands with a 5-card major (say, 5, 12 points and 5-3-3-2 shape)? What do you do if your (very) helpful partner decides to bid 1 back at you? What does your partner think you have when you bid 2? Same with any similar hands.


If you do always:
  • How do you extract any 5-3 major suit fits? Do you care about them?
  • If you care about them, how do you fit them into your (and my) NT bidding structure? My current structure involves garbage stayman, and 3-way transfers (2 is either minor)? Can you still extract 4-4 major suit fits easily?
  • Does it have any flow-on effects to the rest of your system? One thing I can think of is playing Bergen raises (which we do) you may end up in 1NT (and probably having opponents intervene) when you could be at 3 of your major because you couldn't see your 5-4 fit quickly enough.


If you do sometimes:

  • What is your criteria for deciding when you do and when you don't?
  • As punishment for your ambiguity, can you answer both sets of questions above? :rolleyes:


I don't want to debate the merits of weak NT and 5-card majors (I'm sure it's been done a million times) but I'm wondering how people deal with it and how they handle the awkward hands? I know the "standard" answer for a strong NT (most seem to say just include it and "suck it up").

Thanks,

Ian
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#2 User is offline   mgoetze 

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Posted 2012-April-08, 05:17

I don't think any of the answers here change when playing 12-14 NT vs. 15-17 NT. Maybe the "rebid 3-card minor" solution becomes less attractive so "rebid 5-card major" should be the default. Personally I would prefer to include all the 5M332 hands in 1NT however.
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#3 User is offline   dcrc2 

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Posted 2012-April-08, 06:04

Nearly always 1 with 5 spades. With hearts it depends a lot on the possible rebid problem over 1:1. Some play 1:1,1NT as wide-ranging. Otherwise, always 1NT with 2=5=3=3; with 5-3 I'll bid 1:1,2, or open 1NT if raising spades is particularly unappealing. 1:1,2 promises six.

This is in complete contrast to playing a strong NT when I'll nearly always open 1NT unless at the top end of the range.

I wouldn't recommend SAYC-style responses. You want to play either Acol-style (in which case opener passes after 1M:1NT with 15-16 balanced, and 1M:2x,2M is non-forcing) or 2/1-GF-except-rebid (in which case opener is expected to rebid a 3-card minor when better than minimum). SAYC seems to get the worst of both worlds.

Irrespective of the strength of our two-level responses, the weak NT hand rebids 2M after 1M:2x. 2NT shows the strong NT type.
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#4 User is offline   hirowla 

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Posted 2012-April-08, 06:16

View Postmgoetze, on 2012-April-08, 05:17, said:

I don't think any of the answers here change when playing 12-14 NT vs. 15-17 NT. Maybe the "rebid 3-card minor" solution becomes less attractive so "rebid 5-card major" should be the default. Personally I would prefer to include all the 5M332 hands in 1NT however.


The question is related to the strong NT - "how do you deal with the awkward hand type?" - it's just a different hand type. It's always easier to deal with when you have more strength in your hand though! So I gather you would live with not being able to extract the major 5-3 fits?
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#5 User is offline   hirowla 

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Posted 2012-April-08, 06:20

View Postdcrc2, on 2012-April-08, 06:04, said:

Nearly always 1 with 5 spades. With hearts it depends a lot on the possible rebid problem over 1:1. Some play 1:1,1NT as wide-ranging. Otherwise, always 1NT with 2=5=3=3; with 5-3 I'll bid 1:1,2, or open 1NT if raising spades is particularly unappealing. 1:1,2 promises six.

This is in complete contrast to playing a strong NT when I'll nearly always open 1NT unless at the top end of the range.

I wouldn't recommend SAYC-style responses. You want to play either Acol-style (in which case opener passes after 1M:1NT with 15-16 balanced, and 1M:2x,2M is non-forcing) or 2/1-GF-except-rebid (in which case opener is expected to rebid a 3-card minor when better than minimum). SAYC seems to get the worst of both worlds.

Irrespective of the strength of our two-level responses, the weak NT hand rebids 2M after 1M:2x. 2NT shows the strong NT type.


I only meant SAYC-style as in not 2/1 responses. Maybe I meant ACOL-style - but I play against lots of people who play "ACOL" and you wouldn't know they played the same system!

So you're saying only include it with (don't do it for ) if you will have rebid problems? I'm also assuming that you don't bother to try and extract the possible 5-3 fit?
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#6 User is offline   mgoetze 

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Posted 2012-April-08, 06:42

View Posthirowla, on 2012-April-08, 06:16, said:

The question is related to the strong NT - "how do you deal with the awkward hand type?" - it's just a different hand type. It's always easier to deal with when you have more strength in your hand though! So I gather you would live with not being able to extract the major 5-3 fits?

I like 3 as puppet stayman but think it's not a big deal to miss some 5-3 fits.
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#7 User is offline   S2000magic 

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Posted 2012-April-08, 13:39

So far, I have never opened a weak NT with a 5-card major. Maybe some day . . . .

After 1 - 1: with 3 spades, 2; with 2 spades, 1NT.

Standard K-S. (Note that in standard K-S, 1 - 1 usually shows 5 spades unless responder is strong.)
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#8 User is offline   the hog 

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Posted 2012-April-08, 17:45

I prefer to include all balanced hands in the 1NT opening, whether it is 12-14 oor 15-17.
The one exception in a 12-14 hnd is if I hold something like AKQTx in a Major and only one other honour card outside.
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Posted 2012-April-08, 20:19

I play a mini-NT (10-12) nonvul in 1st and 2nd seats (and opening 1 bids are 10+). I never have a problem in this situation. I always open 1 of a major suit with 5 unless I choose to treat the 5 card major as a 4 card major (xxxxx typically).

A strong NT is more difficult, as the 15-17 point range is hard to deal with in standard bidding if one does not open 1NT. I try to decide whether my hand is more suit oriented (control rich) or NT oriented in making my decision to open 1NT or one of a suit.
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#10 User is offline   Dark Widow 

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Posted 2012-April-16, 05:45

I have played all 3 methods in a 4 card major context. As a beginner I learned not to include 5M332 ever. Later I started including some 5M332 hands and now I pretty much open any 5332 hand in range with 1NT. I have also sometimes played a 5 card major system where there is absolutely no rebid whatsoever after a 1M opening with a 5332 hand so these have to be opened 1NT if in range.


View Posthirowla, on 2012-April-08, 05:03, said:

If you don't ever:
  • How do you deal with weak balanced hands with a 5-card major (say, 5, 12 points and 5-3-3-2 shape)? What do you do if your (very) helpful partner decides to bid 1 back at you? What does your partner think you have when you bid 2? Same with any similar hands.


In this style 2M is simply a bucket response denying the ability to rebid anything more helpful. If partner responds 1 then you do have the option to raise to 2 if you have 3 of them and it is a part of your agreements.


View Posthirowla, on 2012-April-08, 05:03, said:

If you do always:
  • How do you extract any 5-3 major suit fits? Do you care about them?
  • If you care about them, how do you fit them into your (and my) NT bidding structure? My current structure involves garbage stayman, and 3-way transfers (2 is either minor)? Can you still extract 4-4 major suit fits easily?
  • Does it have any flow-on effects to the rest of your system? One thing I can think of is playing Bergen raises (which we do) you may end up in 1NT (and probably having opponents intervene) when you could be at 3 of your major because you couldn't see your 5-4 fit quickly enough.


There are 2 ways of handling 5-3 fits - either you include some sort of checkback for 5 card majors (usually based on Puppet Stayman) or you simply ignore them. Again I have played both ways with a preference for including Puppet. Even without I think it is advantageous to the rest of your system to open these hands 1NT most of the time though. If you do include Puppet there are 2 mainstream methods, either using a 3 response for this or using the traditional 2 response. The latter means giving up on Crawling Stayman while the former finds fewer fits (because it requires a GF hand).

Opening 1NT tends to bury fits for both sides much more than opening 1 of a suit. This is true for any range. Usually opening a weak NT leaves you better placed than the opponents in the ensuing part-score battle but certainly not always. One of the qualities necessary for playing the style is to be able to live with the odd bad, or even very bad, result. If you cannot then it is (probably) better to play a 14-16 range and get enhanced constructive bidding in other auctions.


View Posthirowla, on 2012-April-08, 05:03, said:

If you do sometimes:

  • What is your criteria for deciding when you do and when you don't?
  • As punishment for your ambiguity, can you answer both sets of questions above? :rolleyes:


If you look at the first answer you will see I mentioned the possibility of rebidding 2 with a 3532 or 3523 hand after 1 - 1. Of course you can also rebid 3 after 1 - 2 with 5332 or 5323. When I played this style I opened 1NT with 2533 and 5233 and 1M otherwise. I think this is a natural progression for a beginner to try out before committing to the "always" approach.
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