[Jinksy]

My partner and I were discussing invites after NT openings, and both thought that the common sentiment among strong players that they wouldn’t miss invites much/at all if they gave them up altogether suggested the normal three-point range was inefficient.

I’ve now switched to an 11-14 NT opening with most partners, which also has the benefit of avoiding those horrible P P 1N (with 12 or a bad 13) auctions, where you dread partner’s inevitable invite – obviously in principle you end up in the same spot, but it means third in you can think about opening 1N on much weaker hands if circumstances look right, and has the usual preemptive value over an opponent in 2nd who might have wanted to compete.

I’ve also been thinking about extending the logic to 1N rebids, which would let us have a 10-13 mini opening and a 14-17 1N rebid, though this seems like it would cause problems for 2/1 bids. (perhaps having a 2/1 GFing system would help here?)

Presumably these possibilities aren’t new… What are people’s experiences with them? Does it make a difference whether you’re playing a strongish or weakish NT?

[helene_t]

I play 12-15 with Agusaris and obviously it gives us some advantages - being able to annoy the opponents with a weak NT more often, and having stronger inference when we don't open 1NT.

And obviously it has some disadvantages, too - sometimes missing a game when opener refuses to accept an invite with a good 13 or bad 14 (because it is quite far from our maximum), sometimes getting too high when opener has a modest 12. Playing more 2NT contracts than the field.

I am not sure how the pros and cons balance, but theoretically there must be situations when the case for a narrow range is relatively strong:

- when opening in 2nd/4th seat (and 3rd if playing a strong or variable nt).
- when being vulnerable, especially at IMPs (how the opps' vulnerability factors in depends on your range; playing an ultra-weak NT it is important to keep them out of game, ie it is more attractive to open 1NT when opps are red; playing an intermediate nt range it is more attractive to preempt when they are green)
- You can probably manage a slightly wider range when rebidding 1nt than when opening 1NT but on the other hand a 1NT rebid has no preemptive value.

Personally I am no fan of weak nt in 3rd/4th although I suppose I could be talked into playing a weak nt in 3rd when green at IMPs. Otherwise I think a 3rd/4th seat 1NT opening should say "bid game if you have a maximum pass". I.e. if we play 11-14 in 1st I would play 15-17 in 3rd. Then again I think a variable NT range in an otherwise standard natural system is really complicated. So for a semi-serious partnership with standard methods I prefer strong NT. A strong club system with variable NT is fine for me.

[Cthulhu D]

Disclaimer, I have no practical experience with this, but I was thinking... A variable NT seems to work better if you are playing 1C includes all balanced hands without a 5cM (or perhaps with), an unbalanced diamond and transfer responses to 1C, because you can avoid horribly mangling your response structure.

Then you can do say:

1st & 2nd: 11-13 opens 1NT, and 14-16 accepts the transfer while 17-19 bids 1NT,
3rd + 4th: 14-16 opens, 11-13 accepts the transfer.

It's not as plug and play with a mini. Say 1NT = 9-12, accepting the transfer is 13-15 bal, 16-18 bids 1NT, and 19-20 opens 2NT. The 2NT is awful, but we can use your range extension concept here. 1NT = 9-12, accepting is 13-15 bal, 1NT is 16-19 and 2NT is 20-21, which works nicely!

Edit: Downside is sometimes you are going to end up playing some rather rubbish 2D contracts after 1S responses and partner's 1NT response must be limited to 9 otherwise the sequence 1C-1NT will be awful. 2NT should probably then be 10-11? 12? bal.. I think you need to play a Fantunes alike then.

Maybe it doesn't work.

[MickyB]

Jinksy, on 2012-April-13, 04:41, said:

My partner and I were discussing invites after NT openings, and both thought that the common sentiment among strong players that they wouldn’t miss invites much/at all if they gave them up altogether suggested the normal three-point range was inefficient.

You have drawn an incorrect conclusion.

Bidding 1N:2N natural invite has only a small upside over a narrow range of hands. When partner rejects, you are playing a risky contract with no upside. Whether partner accepts or rejects, you have given info away [especially if your route for inviting is actually 1N:2C, 2X:2N]. This is why people wouldn't miss their invite if it wasn't available. Playing a four-point range forces you to use your invite more frequently, this is not a good thing.

[Jinksy]

helene_t, on 2012-April-13, 05:13, said:

Personally I am no fan of weak nt in 3rd/4th although I suppose I could be talked into playing a weak nt in 3rd when green at IMPs. Otherwise I think a 3rd/4th seat 1NT opening should say "bid game if you have a maximum pass".

With my most regular p I play this (11-14 1st and second, 15-17 third and fourth, colourblind) and I don’t have anything against it, but I still quite like a weak NT 3rd and 4th – third because you can now chance doing it slightly light (or very light at green), knowing that P won’t invite, and still have a good chance of it getting passed out, fourth because it’s now very likely to be passed out, meaning you might be able to get a +ive score when they have a spade fit.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

see the following thread, it wont cover everything, but it was helpful for us,
and it may also be helpful for you.

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry424309

We think it was a good idea to switch.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[han]

So if you found out that experts don't often find the need to invite, then why exactly would you go and ruin that? Are you trying to play more 2NT contracts?

[Jinksy]

It suggests inefficiency, not that the idea of inviting is fundamentally flawed. I don't see any harm in inviting opposite wide-ranging hands (that's why we have auctions like 1S P 2S P 3C etc), but it seems like either you should have an invitational bid and a range that makes it worthwhile or a small range and no invitational bid. Personally the idea of choosing between P or 3N on a 3-point range scares me too much, but I can see that doing so would sometimes be a winner. Tightening all NT ranges isn't an option, so this seems like a good alternative.

[lalldonn]

I do have experience playing a 4 point notrump range and found it to be too wide to bid accurately. Also as others say, it forces you to invite more often which is a bad thing.

I don't agree with the logic "experts don't invite much, therefore invites are underutilized, therefore our system should allow us to invite more." I think it's more like "experts believe invites are generally a bad idea, therefore they like systems that don't require many invites, therefore they don't invite much."

[CSGibson]

I feel like I'm particularly well-suited to comment on this: Our partnership has also decided that invites are aiming for too small a target, and we play an 11-14 NT NV 1st & 2nd seat.

We feel comfortable with the 11-14 range, and it has not proved too inefficient to use, though that may be luck more than anything else.

Instead of extending our NT range to make more invites practical, we decided to use what are normally invitational bids for other things - slam exploration, dealing with hands that have 4 card majors and 6 card minors in various strengths, differentiating between weak trumps and good trumps in choice of games or slam decisions, etc. In fact, we only have one invitational sequence - stayman, followed by 2♠ is a general min-max ask. We give it up when opener has spades without hearts.

In practice, there have been both gains and losses from not having an invite. The gains and losses from not having an invite are fairly even (staying at 1N, 2M when 2N/3M were going down balancing the instances where an invitational sequence would have made a correct game decision), while the gains from the alternative treatments have been substantial when they have occurred, because other tables just don't have those tools available.

[JLOGIC]

you play 11-14 without invites? wow

[CSGibson]

JLOGIC, on 2012-April-15, 20:00, said:

you play 11-14 without invites? wow

Yes. I would say "its my partner's system", but even though that's true, I feel like we do better with our replacement treatments anyway, so I can't really cry foul about it. We tend to try to use our only invitational sequence with a decent 12, force to game with 13+ opposite, and go low road with 11-. What we give up on the times that an invitational sequence would have been useful, we gain back by making the opening lead harder in our tight games, by staying one level lower on most of the "decline" hands, and by allowing for the use of our specialized treatments. Systemically, we've had a positive net average against comparable pairs for auctions that start 1N, though our variance on any particular hand tends to be fairly large.

[Cyberyeti]

As a veteran of playing (in a previous partnership) a 6 point range 1N and currently playing a 4.5 point range 1N rebid, I know a bit about this subject. I actually enjoyed both, but with 20:20 hindsight would probably play a 4 or 5 point range no trump.

What we did:

Wide range variable no trump 11-16 1st,2nd with 17-19 1N rebid 14-19 3rd,4th with 11-13 1N rebid.

Red suit transfers, inv+ 4+ cards (artificial responses range/fit) with 2♣ as the "bucket bid" that covered lots of possibilities.

We split the responses to the transfers into 3 2 point ranges, and the only issue was that the middle range was awkward to handle so I would narrow that to one point and keep the others at 2 or contract to 4 points and only have 2 range responses.

The biggest surprise benefit we got was the 15-20 1N overcall which worked great, as did the 11-16 protective one.

What I do now:

Weak no trump, 1N rebid 15-bad 19, 2N opener good 19-21 meaning 1x-1y-2N is artificial GF unbalanced. The downside of playing 2N a bit more often on 15 opposite 7 is counterbalanced by playing 1N on 18 opposite 5, and playing 2M in a 4-4 or 4-3 rather than 1N.

[Statto]

Jinksy, on 2012-April-13, 07:35, said:

... but I still quite like a weak NT 3rd and 4th – third because you can now chance doing it slightly light (or very light at green), knowing that P won't invite, and still have a good chance of it getting passed out ...

It's risky to open 1NT light in 3rd seat. 4th seat is the only unlimited hand and is likely to be able to double. Partner has not opened so is limited to about 11 HCP and will quite often be weaker still, such that 1NT has no chance of making. Partner also did not have a weak 2 or other pre-emptive opening, so the chances of finding somewhere good to run to are lowered.

Although the weak NT is semi-preemptive, the seats in which it works best are the opposite of those where normal pre-empts work best. It is most effective in 2nd seat when partner is unlimited but RHO is limited, as for one thing it prevents LHO making a light opener in 3rd seat.

[Cyberyeti]

Statto, on 2012-April-16, 16:50, said:

It's risky to open 1NT light in 3rd seat. 4th seat is the only unlimited hand and is likely to be able to double. Partner has not opened so is limited to about 11 HCP and will quite often be weaker still, such that 1NT has no chance of making. Partner also did not have a weak 2 or other pre-emptive opening, so the chances of finding somewhere good to run to are lowered.

Although the weak NT is semi-preemptive, the seats in which it works best are the opposite of those where normal pre-empts work best. It is most effective in 2nd seat when partner is unlimited but RHO is limited, as for one thing it prevents LHO making a light opener in 3rd seat.

This comment is right, although 1st seat is good too. One from the weekend, I dealt and opened a fairly revolting NV weak NT off xxx, Axxxx, AJ, Kxx and this ended the auction, dummy was x, KQ10x, K9xxx, xxx they cashed 5 spades and 3 clubs for -100 and a huge board as although 3♥ would make for us, 4♠ was on for them so 170/200/420/450 were pretty common, it's easy to overcall 1♠ over 1♥ with a fairly poor 5323 12 count, but less easy to overcall 2♠ over 1N and the 4144 8 count didn't reopen either.

[Vampyr]

Statto, on 2012-April-16, 16:50, said:

It's risky to open 1NT light in 3rd seat.

Yeah, with some of my partners I play strong in 3^rd seat at teams.

[benlessard]

Quote

It suggests inefficiency, not that the idea of inviting is fundamentally flawed. I don't see any harm in inviting opposite wide-ranging hands (that's why we have auctions like 1S P 2S P 3C etc), but it seems like either you should have an invitational bid and a range that makes it worthwhile or a small range and no invitational bid. Personally the idea of choosing between P or 3N on a 3-point range scares me too much, but I can see that doing so would sometimes be a winner. Tightening all NT ranges isn't an option, so this seems like a good alternative.

I agree 100% with this. I think 3 pts ranges are a bad range for a 1Nt opening and are the result of tradition not the result of bridge praxis.

Note that not all invites have the same values. Invite that allow you to play 2M will bring a lot more Imps and MP than invite that lead to 2Nt/3m or 3M.

[mycroft]

I happen to like weak (especially 10-12) NV in third. Yes, it's very likely you will hear a double, but with a decent escape system, you are still frequently better positioned than the opponents once you and they go through the runout dance. It's especially fun favourable because now they're hitting the small target - "we don't have game, so we can win with +300" and "we do have game, so we need to bid it because we're not likely getting +800", plus the small chance that they're having to play very well to avoid giving out -470 (which happened this weekend, with a doubled beer no less). We, at least, know that we're not missing game.

I play weak in fourth, but I don't particularly like it; there the opponents know that it's a partscore fight and are much more willing to try for 200/300.

Now that I'm playing Keri, I find I'm inviting more (especially by a passed hand) opposite 12-14; but we have yet to make the "NT invitation". I don't like those, except in the "I'm playing 14-16 in a 15-17 world" scenario, where the invite is "go on 15". It's worse than the world's 1NT-3NT, and worse than the world's 1NT-p, but it's better than 1NT-3NT into the world's 1NT-p.