[Swammerdam]

I love to open 1NT, and love it when partner opens 1NT. Do others feel the same way? With Stayman and Jacoby the subsequent auction will usually be straightforward and well-directed. Since the 1NT opening often leads so easily to the best contract, I might even like to make the 15 to 17 range slightly broader. I just can't decide between 14+ to 17 or 15 to 18-.

Long ago my friends and I experimented with weak NT. Not just 11-14, but 9-12 ! A problem was that the Stayman/Jacoby tools were lost as enemy interference became more common. It's just Strong NT for me today.

I played bridge long ago; then took a multi-decade hiatus before joining BBO. Invention of new conventions was active then, but most bidding today is familiar to me. PURE Sayc (defined circa 1990?) is almost exactly what was common in San Fran area circa 1970 ... but "Sayc" as defined now at BBO is *not* 1990 Sayc.

One difference is that half a century ago most bridge was rubber bridge played for money. For many of us the monetary stakes were relatively small, but it was still total point scoring, and taken seriously. Go set 1100 and you just get a bottom board at BBO, but playing for money, partner will be throwing things at you!! :-)

I think this may explain why overcalls are MUCH looser today than they were in the olden days. Open a strong 1 NT back then and you can expect the opponents to be too intimidated to do anything but Pass, but at BBO one finds some players happy to jump in with a suit like K9xxx !

So I have a comment and a question about bidding after our side's 1NT has been overcalled.

My comment is that *Jacoby should be OFF*. Can we have a show of hands on this please? Bid the enemy's suit if you want to ask about major(s).

My question is about Doubles. If partner's 1NT is overcalled, is my Double for Penalties? That's how I treat it, but do want to know what's best.
(If the overcall is followed by Pass Pass, the 1NT opener will uually Pass also, but I suppose his Double would be for take-out, right?)

[apollo1201]

There are several schools about this, also distinguishing if the call is low (X/2C) or higher, and also if natural or not.

I prefer to go back to:
- all natural & competitive at the 2-level over 2x overcall
- X take-out (passable by opener, though)
- 2NT and above as transfer
- cue (transfer to their suit) is Stayman with shortage in opp suit
- ignoring X (XX being points) and continuing as if opp had passed

At least you show your suit to partner before it gets too competitive if av’dvabcer supports.

A simpler school is X stolen bid and others is I had bid the same without the interference but it gets less and less useful the higher the overcall is.

[DavidKok]

Swammerdam, on 2025-November-15, 01:40, said:

I love to open 1NT, and love it when partner opens 1NT. Do others feel the same way? With Stayman and Jacoby the subsequent auction will usually be straightforward and well-directed. Since the 1NT opening often leads so easily to the best contract, I might even like to make the 15 to 17 range slightly broader. I just can't decide between 14+ to 17 or 15 to 18-.

I prefer 14-16. Here are some potentially relevant frequencies for you regarding being dealt a traditional balanced (4333, 4432, 5332) hand, sorted by hcp:

• 14: 2.7%
  
• 15: 2.1%
  
• 16: 1.6%
  
• 17: 1.2%
  
• 18: 0.8%

If you want to increase your opening frequency of 1NT it doesn't make sense to add hands at the top of the range. You have to drop lower. I like 14-16, and I wrote about this choice in more detail in https://www.bridgeba...r-nt-agreement/.
That being said I think these days people also overdo the '1NT puts me in such a good spot' enthusiasm a little bit. It is popular to include semibalanced hands in 1NT, but my experience with these has been between 'mixed' and 'poor'. I would recommend exercising judgement if you are going down this route.

Swammerdam, on 2025-November-15, 01:40, said:

I think this may explain why overcalls are MUCH looser today than they were in the olden days. Open a strong 1 NT back then and you can expect the opponents to be too intimidated to do anything but Pass, but at BBO one finds some players happy to jump in with a suit like K9xxx !

Respectfully, I think it's not because of the implication of penalties. I think it's because people were just way worse at bidding back in the day, and people are slowly waking up to the fact that they are leaving free points on the table. Give it 4-5 more decades and people might approach a sensible risk/return ratio.
These -1100 scenarios are extremely rare. In fact, at some point I made a bet with partner to get better at aggressive bidding: if we play normally (no cheating by throwing the board), and we bid aggressively and we go for -1100 (or worse), the person who made the preempt/light overcall gets their drinks for free for the rest of the evening. We wanted to incentivise taking more risk. It took almost two years to claim the reward, at which point we raised the stakes to -1400.

Swammerdam, on 2025-November-15, 01:40, said:

So I have a comment and a question about bidding after our side's 1NT has been overcalled.

My comment is that *Jacoby should be OFF*. Can we have a show of hands on this please? Bid the enemy's suit if you want to ask about major(s).

My question is about Doubles. If partner's 1NT is overcalled, is my Double for Penalties? That's how I treat it, but do want to know what's best.
(If the overcall is followed by Pass Pass, the 1NT opener will uually Pass also, but I suppose his Double would be for take-out, right?)

I agree mostly with apollo, with a minute difference in how I treat their double. But that's a complicated topic, so I'll stay quiet about it for now.
In my opinion takeout doubles are way better than penalty doubles here (and pretty much everywhere). It leads to better partscores and more opportunities to penalise.
Personally I would not play anything like 'stolen bid'/'system on'. Those gadgets don't help solve the imminent problems of a competitive auction very well.

[Swammerdam]

I appreciate all the comments! Assuming "semi-balanced" means 5-4-2-2 pattern, I would open 1NT only very rarely, and was disappointed by a recent thread here where opening 1NT was highly recommended with such a shape.

DavidKok, on 2025-November-15, 04:21, said:

I prefer 14-16. Here are some potentially relevant frequencies for you regarding being dealt a traditional balanced (4333, 4432, 5332) hand, sorted by hcp:

• 14: 2.7%
  
• 15: 2.1%
  
• 16: 1.6%
  
• 17: 1.2%
  
• 18: 0.8%

If you want to increase your opening frequency of 1NT it doesn't make sense to add hands at the top of the range. You have to drop lower. I like 14-16, a ...

Yes, but if increasing frequency were the main goal, why not play it 13-15? :-) Or even 12-14 like Kaplan-Sheinwold and make the 1NT rebid the bigger bid?
I'm fairly conservative and pass with a mediocre 11, so 14-16 1NT would narrow the range for 1NT rebid to an overly-narrow 11+ to 13. (Logically, 1NT rebid should be *broader* than 1NT opening *since you've already exchanged info at the 1-level*.)

In practice I play 1NT as 15-17, but want to also open it with a good 14, if suitable. (A good 14 is usually better than a mediocre 15.) A recent Wolff "Hand of the Day" has Wolff applauding an expert who opened 1NT with a good 14.

[DavidKok]

I do personally not agree with these arguments or these conclusions, and the link in my previous comment goes into more detail on the reasons.

[akwoo]

We need to know how good your opponents are.

One of the reasons that bidding has gotten more competitive is that everyone's constructive bidding has gotten better. It used to be that, if you passed, there was some chance that the opponents would mess up all by themselves. Nowadays, if you let the opponents have the constructive auction they want, they will invariably eat your lunch, even the intermediates.

It's worth risking -1100 coming in against the opponents' 1N opening because, for every (rare) time you get -1100, there will be three or four times that your intervention is the difference between -680 and -1430, because you've taken away the room they need to find their thin but cold slam. Thirty years ago, they weren't finding the thin slam.

This is the reason I'm happy to play 10-13 NT. I'm not getting nice constructive auctions over my 1N opening, but the opponents have been disrupted even more.

I do open 1N on 5422 hands a lot, but in large part that's because I'm frequently playing a Kaplan-Sheinwold 12-14, and the important thing in that system is that your 1m openings have to be up to strength. If I open 1♣, partner is expecting my hand to have at least the playing strength of Axxx xxx x AKxxx if we have a major suit fit. I can't also open 1♣ on QJxx Qx Kx KQxxx because that has significantly less playing strength (and more defensive strength, so overall less reason to compete if the opponents come in, as they usually will these days).

[mikeh]

Answering the OP, I have several arguably curmudgeonly comments and several,I hope, constructive ones…some of which may be echoes of the post to which David linked.

1. Range. It depends on your requirements for opening 1m on a balanced hand. If you require 12+ hcp, then open 1N with 15-17 or a very good 14-17. That means that 1m 1M 1N has the ideal range of 3 hcp…partner can play you for 13 and never be out by more than 1 hcp which helps in close game decisions. If, like me, you open a lot of 11 counts, use 14-16. Not only does that range occur more frequently than does 15-17 but it also means that 1M 1M 1N still has that very useful 3 point range…partner will assume 12 and not be out by more than 1.

2. I think the trend towards 14+-17 is largely because experts, where the trend began as far as I can tell, often upgrade and after much criticism (iirc there were threads in Bridgewinners about this) started more active disclosure. I prefer to state 14-16 along with a general tendency, in my practiced partnerships, to frequently upgrade in many auctions.

3. I think relatively few good players in NA would enjoy David’s attitude towards going -1100. So overcalls on Kxxxx would be extremely rare. Ok, I’d do it nv if I was showing a 2 suiter and my other suit was say AJxxx….or at favourable, Kxxxx Kxxxx. When competing over a strong notrump, shape is FAR more important than is hcp. Indeed, a friend of mine (an advanced but non expert) overcalled my 1N on AKQxx and a 5332 19 count. He didn’t have a penalty double available but the 300 a pass would have collected was a lot better than the 110 he scored in 2H. However, if your xperience is mostly BBO or weak club games you’ll probably see this weak overcalling tactic frequently.

4. In a serious game, where silly bidding is usually rare to non existent, takeout doubles of 2 and 3 level overcalls are pretty much universal. They can be converted to penalty by opener, especially at the 3 level. I’m moderating a bidding panel for the online Canadian Bridge Federation magazine, December issue. One hand had Jx Jxx AQJx AKxx (roughly) and the bidding began 1N (3H) x (P). No one action got a majority of votes from the panel but pass got the largest share.

5. Over a 2 level overcall the simplest artificiality is lebensohl. Googling it should lead you to a good explanation. I usually play a more souped up version of transfer lebensohl.

6. As for 1N (overcall) P P, opener will almost never have a penalty double unless playing against players who enjoy and reward -1100, so it’s common to use opener’s double as showing a good hand with xx or so overcaller’s suit.

7. I’m sure David and his partners disclose their overcalling strategy. I’d be very annoyed at any pair who intentionally adopted a purely destructive method (other than at favourable where most experts think almost anything goes) without disclosure. Now, if the approach were that overcaller could be very wide range….could be purely destructive but could include more normal, sound, overcalls…fine. Such is rolling the dice but if advancer routinely assumes a purely destructive bid and is usually correct, then I think there’s an ethical issue. I may well be being too judgemental here….and I am NOT for one moment being critical of David…my sense from his posts is that he’s a strong proponent of disclosure and my attitude is that you can play any style you like provided that an unorthodox style is disclosed. And maybe where he plays, the destructive approach, either purely destructive or wide range is fairly mainstream, such that no disclosure is needed.

[DavidKok]

These are good points, though I'd rephrase some of them. I'm familiar with your conservative attitude towards overcalls and preempts, and calling the opposite 'rolling the dice' is either ignorant or spiteful. However, I'm more than happy to hear that many very strong players still haven't realised how wide the gap has gotten, especially outside Europe. The Dutch players pride themselves on their aggression in bidding, and it's one of the areas where we consistently profit internationally. Unfortunately this means that we have to endure comments such as "you might do that, but in a serious game, this wouldn't work..." or "at your age I was also bidding recklessly, but now I know not to be so wild". Ah well, may their ignorance be blissful.

Of course we alert our preempts and jump overcalls. My explanation is "natural and weak, frequently a five card suit, can be very aggressive, starting at 0 hcp". In third seat I'll add "up to about a soft 13-count or so, if partner so wishes." Arguably that's still insufficient disclosure, people might mistake my disclosure of the lower limit as a shifted range (e.g. 0-7, when actually it's closer to 0-10). In fact, I think the ACBL might not permit some of these ranges for weak 2 openers, but only for jump overcalls? I don't normally play under ACBL rules, so I haven't had a reason to verify this.

[mycroft]

I, too, play the 12-14 NT in K/S style. Everybody who has told me "oh we take those for 800" - hasn't been able to, somehow, in 15 years. (others have, I will admit, a few times; but none of the braggarts).

What does hurt, badly in fact because I usually play matchpoints, are the -200s and -300s into no game. Sometimes undoubled because they can't resolve their hands starting at the 2 level after "opening a Precision Club" with double (or because they can't afford to double the escape they can get 300 because we have a better landing spot if they do).

Oh, and because ACBL stands for "ACBL's Correct Bidding Lessons", and everybody else (but one) is opening good 14/15-17. the +90s and +120s we get when we miss our 4-4 major fit and everyone else is +110 (or +100 defending) or +140.

I still have my shirt (from the US Junior squad) that says "-1400 is character building". Really, truly, *especially at matchpoints*, revel in it - it's the same zero you get when you "ohnosecond" block yourself and only get 110 instead of the automatic 140. Especially if you notice the times you are quietly going down, maybe even 150 or 300, in 1NT - because they take the same 9 tricks on defence. And frequently you can get that fifth trick because of declarer's advantage :-).

Having said all of that, the main reason for your NT range, whatever it is, is to take those hands out of your other auctions. As you have noticed, you are on average ahead of those who don't when you open 1NT, no matter what range that is (because it's such a well-defined bid). So much so that some pairs have decided it's worth the hit they take to that advantage to add other shapes to it (as David mentions), because they get it back in the more challenging auctions where they don't bid 1NT, and partner can bid "knowing" opener doesn't have that shape and strength.

Sometimes your choice of range impacts your system negatively.

• A 10-12 or 10-13 NT is hard to create a NT ladder around in a standard (limited only by 2♣) system; whether you do it with wide rebid ranges, or structured minor (1♣ is "clubs or 13-15 balanced", 1♦ is "diamonds or 16-18 balanced" or the like), or whatever. And you'd really like to change it to 9-11, because one of the main advantages of the mini-NT is that *you are taking away all the 1 level on hands the field is passing*, and players just don't pass 11s any more. (And some regulators really dislike this strategy, and players will only get to do it "over my dead body". So, yeah).
  
• K/S style 12-14 leaves you passing several minor-oriented unbalanced hands that most of Flight A are now opening.
  
• 15-17 either means that you're also passing weaker hands that most of Flight A are opening, or you have to resolve the "11-14" rebid range.
  
• 14-16 gives you that, but then the 17-21 range is a bit cumbersome to negotiate.
  
• Precision with 14-16 (or 11-13) resolves all of those rebid problems, but at the cost of an unwieldy strong opening (I say "Precision requires you to learn 3 systems. They're all easier than standard, but there are three of them. Two of them start with 1♣.") and a "balanced [other range] or diamonds, or both minors, or ..." nebulous 1♦ call.
  
• And so on ad nauseam.

Like everything else, you have to balance the demands on your system in such a way that you maximize *your* return from it. Like everything else, that doesn't necessarily mean the scores on the page :

• "Having fun" is a goal.
  
• Being able to still think clearly on Saturday having played your system all week is a goal.
  
• Being able to play with your 7 semi-regular partners through the summer and not mix up who plays what (and how) is a goal.
  
• Getting partners who can understand the reason for and effects of the nuances in your system is a goal.
  
• Being able to play with whoever shows up at the door, because you're the director today is a goal.
  
• Not annoying the regulars enough that they don't come back, because that would turn your club's 4 table game into a 3-and-a-half, because then another pair will decide the 4-board sitouts are the last straw, and then... is a goal.

I'm sure I could think of more. Knowing how *you* prioritize these goals is critical part of being a bridge player.

Yeah, considering changing what hands go into 1NT is a tiny little thing without any "ripples in the pond" consequences.</s>

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2025-November-15, 11:54, said:

These are good points, though I'd rephrase some of them. I'm familiar with your conservative attitude towards overcalls and preempts, and calling the opposite 'rolling the dice' is either ignorant or spiteful. However, I'm more than happy to hear that many very strong players still haven't realised how wide the gap has gotten, especially outside Europe. The Dutch players pride themselves on their aggression in bidding, and it's one of the areas where we consistently profit internationally. Unfortunately this means that we have to endure comments such as "you might do that, but in a serious game, this wouldn't work..." or "at your age I was also bidding recklessly, but now I know not to be so wild". Ah well, may their ignorance be blissful.

Of course we alert our preempts and jump overcalls. My explanation is "natural and weak, frequently a five card suit, can be very aggressive, starting at 0 hcp". In third seat I'll add "up to about a soft 13-count or so, if partner so wishes." Arguably that's still insufficient disclosure, people might mistake my disclosure of the lower limit as a shifted range (e.g. 0-7, when actually it's closer to 0-10). In fact, I think the ACBL might not permit some of these ranges for weak 2 openers, but only for jump overcalls? I don't normally play under ACBL rules, so I haven't had a reason to verify this.

Weird response. Do you seriously argue that overcalling on, say, Kxxxx and out, to give the example posited by the OP and also on say AQJxxx and a side king is not gambling?

And do you seriously suggest that actively looking for -1100 as you claimed you do is not a gambling approach? Or were you being facetious when you claimed to seek out and reward such results? I’m an admirer of the Dutch attitude toward aggressive bidding and, I suspect, I’m not quite as conservative as you might think. I doubt you’ve ever gone down 12 in a slam, for example (it was a top board in an A flight Regional pairs).

And then to imply that I’m asserting claims such as ‘now I know not to be so wild’ merely demonstrates that you have no clue about my approach to bidding. Personally, I think that advocating ‘wild’ bidding on this forum is giving poor advice because most of the posters and, I suspect, even more of the non-posting readers don’t have partnerships where such would be effective. I expect your partnership judgement and declarer play expertise is significantly above the average here. I know mine and my partner’s are and we bid accordingly. But we know our methods and our style and we know, usually, what to expect. Telling less experienced players in less finely tuned partnerships to be extremely aggressive is not my idea of trying to help readers here. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re right. But please stop the insults. The fact that I disagree with you is not equivalent to me insulting you.

Feel free to insult me if you wish….my ego is more than adequate to that criticism, lol. But try to understand my posts rather than reacting to what you imagine I was really saying. Oh…and tell me this…before you posted, did you actually read all of my post or where you so intent on being insulting that you chose not to read the last paragraph ? Unfortunately this is not the first time you got angry at me through misunderstanding posts. Hopefully it will be the last.

[DavidKok]

I read the whole post before commenting, of course. I fully understood that your previous post was in good spirits mikeh. Mine was as well!

Yes, I think that calling overcalling on K-fifth and AQJ-sixth 'gambling' is not an apt description. At the very least, it is failing to provide insight into the relative risks and benefits.

The -1100 story contains a nuance, that I hope I was able to convey in my first post. We wanted to incentivise taking more risks and bidding more aggressively. As a metric of this, we wanted to see how often we got severely punished. Going for -1100 wasn't a goal. It was a milestone for evaluating our gains and losses. And, as a bit of a joke, we put an evening worth of drinks on it, to be awarded to the bidder - encouraging more aggressive bidding in the process.

The two quoted rebuttals - the age/maturing comment and the 'serious game' comment - were intended to be a general remarks. I've had to endure these frequently over the years, and for a long time I believed them. I'm sorry if it read as if I attributed those to you.

[mikeh]

DavidKok, on 2025-November-15, 12:46, said:

I read the whole post before commenting, of course. I fully understood that your previous post was in good spirits mikeh. Mine was as well!

Yes, I think that calling overcalling on K-fifth and AQJ-sixth 'gambling' is not an apt description. At the very least, it is failing to provide insight into the relative risks and benefits.

The -1100 story contains a nuance, that I hope I was able to convey in my first post. We wanted to incentivise taking more risks and bidding more aggressively. As a metric of this, we wanted to see how often we got severely punished. Going for -1100 wasn't a goal. It was a milestone for evaluating our gains and losses. And, as a bit of a joke, we put an evening worth of drinks on it, to be awarded to the bidder - encouraging more aggressive bidding in the process.

The two quoted rebuttals - the age/maturing comment and the 'serious game' comment - were intended to be a general remarks. I've had to endure these frequently over the years, and for a long time I believed them. I'm sorry if it read as if I attributed those to you.

Thanks for this post. The odd thing is that, despite the conservative stances I usually recommend here, I am on balance much more aggressive than I was 30 years ago. In a recent KO against a strong team I opened 3C at favourable on a 1=2=4=6 hand that was, iirc, approximately x xx Qxxx 10987xx. I definitely don’t advise doing that if partner doesn’t understand. Partner, at another Regional in a pairs event had done the same but with KJxx x xx 10987xx

The downside is that at an NABC, against a European former world champion and his client, with another FWC and client at the other table, I opened 3S at favourable on KQxxxx x Qxx xx. I felt I needed the spade 109 or maybe 108 to open 4. Partner held the stiff spade Ace and a good 16 count and passed. A 4-1 spade break held us to 10 tricks. Strangely, 170 won 6 imps. At the other table the FWC in my chair also bid 3S but his client bid 6!

We’ve yet to be caught on these preempts though I am probably jinxing myself by saying this. The opps seem never to believe that we could be that weak. We do list our fav seat 1/3 preempts as ‘very light’ and, if asked, make further disclosure that they can range from normal ‘very light’ to really really light.

Btw, I only do this with my main partner. I’d not do this with my more conservative partners, though I warn them that opposite my 1st seat fav 3 bid they need FAR more than they think before bidding game. I’m not sure they believe me😀

[blackshoe]

Some years ago, Marty Bergen published a pamphlet on Hand Evaluation. In it, he described a balanced hand with 14 HCP and a five card "quality" club suit (a quality suit is one with four or more cards headed by three honors). He was appalled when 92% of his class, presented with this hand, and playing a nominal 15-17 1NT opening, opened the hand 1♣. Using his evaluation methods, this hand is worth 16 starting points: 14 HCP plus one for the quality suit plus another one for the fifth club. 14+1+1=16.

He also said that he was told by some "national" TD that given that he would treat some 14 HCP hands and some 18 HCP hands as within the 15-17 range his partnership should announce 1NT as "14+ to 18-". There was apparently no guidance as to how he should indicate that they would also evaluate some 15 HCP hands and some 17 HCP hands as outside the range for a 1NT opening.

[jillybean]

blackshoe, on 2025-November-16, 15:55, said:

Using his evaluation methods, this hand is worth 16 starting points: 14 HCP plus one for the quality suit plus another one for the fifth club. 14+1+1=16.

Off topic. Is this hand evaluation method of "adding points" valid for anyone other than unsure beginners?

[pescetom]

 blackshoe, on 2025-November-16, 15:55, said:

He also said that he was told by some "national" TD that given that he would treat some 14 HCP hands and some 18 HCP hands as within the 15-17 range his partnership should announce 1NT as "14+ to 18-". There was apparently no guidance as to how he should indicate that they would also evaluate some 15 HCP hands and some 17 HCP hands as outside the range for a 1NT opening.

By comparison, in Italy I don't remember any player complaining about an upgrade into NT, only about shape. Nor do I remember any unreasonable upgrades or insincere range announcements come to that.
The only fly in the ointment is that some TDs can be less reasonable than the players and contest an upgrade as evidence of a misleading range explanation. And as "14+" or similar is not legal announcement, one has to choose between 14 and 15, with the added burden that 14 to 18 would be an illegal range here. My compromise as a player is to announce 14 to 17, although my upgrades are really quite infrequent. But as I said at the start, opponents don't worry much anyway.

[mycroft]

The thing is that:

• newer players can't count at the table, and won't notice you have fewer walrus points than you said (but watch out if you might have to put your hand down as dummy!);
  
• those that can count declarer's hand usually are experienced to know that upgrades happen, and can see the reason for the upgrade;
  
• unless you're doing something *they* wouldn't do or "don't think should be legal anyway", like upgrading into a 10-12 NT, in which case the world will cave in (at least in the ACBL).(*)

So it falls into "don't worry much".

Am I happy about this state of affairs? No - I intensely dislike "but we all know" unwritten rules. But they're there, and we do need to get the "not we's yet" to understand it.

(*) For example, many many would complain when I played EHAA. But they wouldn't have batted an eyelid over KQTxxx x Txxx 8x being opened a "6-12" 2♠, despite the fact that technically it was a deviation not permitted with such a wide range (at the time; okay, it would be allowed, but we would no longer be able to play Blackwood over any weak 2, we all remember how the GCC was written (or we don't because it never mattered to "us")), and therefore we didn't do it. They freaked out over the 8-count with ♠86432, though (despite the fact that was *clearly* and *unambiguously* legal, pre-Alerted and Alerted). I am not thrilled either with the way the new convention charts and alert procedures mean that, if I drop my 1-level openers to "all 12s" rather than "12s that look like 13s", I can play EHAA "stealth mode"(**) now; I might just do it in Seattle to make a point if I get a willing partner. I *wouldn't* in general play it stealth mode; not fair to the opponents (if they're not on the committee that made the rules, they deserve their consequences in full :-), but since the same reasons it "wouldn't be fair" are routinely exploited by "aggressive" expert preempters, especially the ones that shark the Stratified Open Pairs, I'm happy to be the lightning rod to Make The Point.

(**) No pre-Alerts, no Alerts (except for 2♣), perfectly legal Basic+ Chart (we can even open that good 5 or even ATxxxx and out now!). "5-11, Natural, Preemptive" unless they specifically ask our style, because that's all that's required, right? Don't say nothing about the 3 bids except "weak" (the specific requirements aren't relevant, right?) And just sit back and wait for the Director calls, to which I will say "but [expert] explained last week that that's all they have to disclose unless we specifically ask about style, why is it different for me opening similar hands?"