[han]

rhm, on 2012-May-27, 17:29, said:

But I know I would have a feeling of being ripped off.

You wouldn't call the director, and you think that misrepresenting your hand for tactical reasons is part of the game, but you would feel ripped off. How does that make sense? Do you also feel ripped off when somebody squeezes you?

[han]

By the way, I agree with rhm that the 4333 hand with the many 10's and 9's will probably do better in 3NT than this one. This can easily be checked with a double dummy simulation. It actually surprises me that nobody followed up on gnasher's excellent suggestion in the old thread.

[cherdano]

I have to put in a word for the ♣J, I don't think he is getting the respect he deserves in this thread.

If partner has two clubs, then the club J:
- adds nothing 36% of the time (suit splits 3-3),
- adds one or two tricks 48% of the time (suit splits 4-2, we may ore may not have time to develop the suit)
- adds one trick 17% of the time (5-1 or 6-0)

If partner has 3 clubs, then the club J:
- adds nothing 68% of the time (3-2 split),
- adds one or two tricks 28% of the time, and
- adds one trick 4% of the time.

In the "one or two" cases I think it will be two more often than one - even if we have the tempo to develop an additional trick, we could often use that tempo to develop a trick elsewhere instead.

So let's be conservative and count these as 1.5. Then it adds, on average, 0.9 tricks when partner has two clubs, and 0.46 tricks when partner has three clubs.

That looks like a pretty reasonable workload for one hcp to me!

[mikeh]

han, on 2012-May-30, 06:24, said:

Will you downgrade for having a small doubleton?

You probably will also adowngrade when you have two honors tight.

You will also downgrade when you hold Qx or Jx.

You will also downgrade when your honors are divided evenly, because honors are worth more when working together.

You will also downgrade when your honors are centered in two suits, because then your other suits are too weak.

Sounds like you can safely remove that 14+ from your card.

another typical han post. Ever have anything positive to contribute, han?

[han]

I think I often have something positive to contribute.

[phil_20686]

EricK, on 2012-May-30, 06:03, said:

Is there a difference between bidding 1NT on a 14 point hand because we feel it is "worth 15" in some sense, and bidding 1NT on a 14 pt hand because we feel it is a better tactical opening bid than 1♣? If someone said they upgraded a hand into 1NT I would assume they meant the former, not the latter. So I'm not sure if disclosing that you upgrade hands counts as full disclosure if the bid can be for tactical reasons in a potentially contested auction rather than because you genuinely value the hand as 15 and hope, thereby, for a more accurate constructive auction.

When you say "i did it for tactical reasons" what you mean is essentially that you are violating your agreement. I mean, bridge is a tactical game.

[mikeh]

han, on 2012-May-30, 06:24, said:

Will you downgrade for having a small doubleton?

You probably will also adowngrade when you have two honors tight.

You will also downgrade when you hold Qx or Jx.

You will also downgrade when your honors are divided evenly, because honors are worth more when working together.

You will also downgrade when your honors are centered in two suits, because then your other suits are too weak.

Sounds like you can safely remove that 14+ from your card.

I don't downgrade for a small doubleton. I do downgrade for xx xxx or xxx xx in the majors...not to take it out of a 1N, if I held 15, but as a reason to not upgrade...that point seems to have been lost on han

I don't downgrade when I hold a Qx or Jx, but I don't upgrade for that holding either

I don't downgrade for having honours divided evenly, but I don't upgrade for that reason either

I do upgrade for having a suit containing a sequence or near sequence of honours, counting 10's as honours.

I don't downgrade for having honours in short suits, but I don't upgrade for it either...I will upgrade for honours in long suits, especially if accompanied by 10's and I also like 8's and 9's.

I upgrade for A's and K's and downgrade for lots of Q's and J's, but not to take a hand out of 1N.

I almost never downgrade out of range...I can't recall the last time I did that, even with, say, a QJ tight holding. But when I decide on an upgrade, I look at negatives as well as positives, and think anyone who doesn't, is letting machismo interfere with logic...

That, however, has little to do with the hand in the OP. I understand the 1N bid as a tactical distortion, but not as a 'this hand is a strong 1N opener'.

[han]

mikeh, on 2012-May-30, 08:26, said:

I don't downgrade for a small doubleton. I do downgrade for xx xxx or xxx xx in the majors...not to take it out of a 1N, if I held 15, but as a reason to not upgrade...that point seems to have been lost on han

No, I understood that you downgraded for holding xx xxx in the majors the first time you wrote that. I think that the discussion in this thread was interesting and also entertaining. Some people might look at a strong 5-card minor and see it as a reason to upgrade. Others might also look at the weak majors and see this is a reason not to upgrade. Yet another consider the weak majors as a reason to bid 1NT for tactical reasons.

I don't know exactly what this hand is worth, is the hand worse than Kxx xx KJx AQJxx? Maybe we shouldn't upgrade that hand either, unless we add a few good spots? Perhaps such questions are style issues that have no clear answer. The ethical considerations don't seem so interesting to me, ethical players will be ethical regardless of their style, and the same goes for less ethical players.

I do think that when we open 1NT with such a hand and have a quick auction to 3NT, then we will make that contract more often than we should. For example, RHO might look at two small clubs in the dummy and shift to it at his first opportunity. Maybe that makes such a hand less suitable for a double dummy simulation than I thought earlier.

[TimG]

RunemPard, on 2012-May-24, 10:53, said:

By bidding 1NT, I also have a better chance to find out about 5 card majors from partner directly.

I'd open 1C, but I understand 1N and don't have a problem with it. But, I think the general idea expressed above is a bit dangerous. When planning an auction, there is often a desire to find out about partner's hand so you can make a decision. There should also be a priority put on telling partner what you have so that they can make a decision. I think too few players think about the auction in terms of telling partner instead of in terms of getting information from partner.

[Benoit35]

If I'm talked out of a major game because my opponent opened a 15-17 1NT with this hand... Good bid, you pulled a fast one on us. I won't tell you how to upgrade or downgrade your hand.

Fielding is another story. If your partner has a 9 10-count, you had better not stop below 3NT...

[aguahombre]

Benoit35, on 2012-May-30, 09:41, said:

If I'm talked out of a major game because my opponent opened a 15-17 1NT with this hand... Good bid, you pulled a fast one on us. I won't tell you how to upgrade or downgrade your hand.

Fielding is another story. If your partner has a 9-count, you had better not stop below 3NT...

A nine-count is invitational; I might not accept with this minimum, or I might. But, inviting with a nine is not fielding.

[Benoit35]

aguahombre, on 2012-May-30, 09:47, said:

A nine-count is invitational; I might not accept with this minimum, or I might. But, inviting with a nine is not fielding.

Sorry, I bad math... I should have said 10.

[TimG]

RunemPard, on 2012-May-24, 10:53, said:

♠96
♥985
♦KJ7
♣AKQJ2

There were a lot of inviters with this hand

AJ8
J965
Q974
82

from another recent thread. Some might not have invited with ♥J765?

[aguahombre]

TimG, on 2012-May-30, 10:06, said:

There were a lot of inviters with this hand

AJ8
J965
Q974
82

from another recent thread. Some might not have invited with ♥J765?

And opener will probably decline, And they might be able to make 2S; and we might make 2NT. And, soon the next hand will begin.

[phil_20686]

TimG, on 2012-May-30, 10:06, said:

There were a lot of inviters with this hand

AJ8
J965
Q974
82

from another recent thread. Some might not have invited with ♥J765?

And then leader doesnt want to lead from QTxx AQxx in the majors so leads a nice safe diamond from xxx and you are laughing all the way to the bank....

[han]

I wanted to get back to rhm's question about the relative strengths of the given hand and the hand AJx 109x A1097 AJx from some years ago. I followed up on the double dummy suggestion made by gnasher then.

If partner has a balanced 10-count (no 5-card major) then 3NT will make 115 times out of 400 with the current hand, while it makes 260 times out of 400 with the older hand. By comparison an average balanced 15-count without a 5-card suit will make 3NT 223 times.

While playing 3NT opposite a balanced 10-count is only one way out of many to evaluate a hand, and of course double dummy play is quite different from single dummy play, I would venture that these differences are so large that (a) it certainly seems right to upgrade the old hand, and (b) the tactical advantages of opening 1NT with the solid clubs better be large because otherwise it is not worth it to upgrade this hand.

[EricK]

phil_20686, on 2012-May-30, 07:58, said:

When you say "i did it for tactical reasons" what you mean is essentially that you are violating your agreement. I mean, bridge is a tactical game.

I understand that. But my question is whether you can claim you have disclosed your "tactical" proclivities in this scenario simply because you have mentioned you sometimes upgrade hands into 1NT. And as well as being a tactical game, bridge is also a game of full disclosure (or at least it's meant to be).

[rhm]

han, on 2012-May-30, 06:26, said:

You wouldn't call the director, and you think that misrepresenting your hand for tactical reasons is part of the game, but you would feel ripped off. How does that make sense? Do you also feel ripped off when somebody squeezes you?

I do not feel ripped off if somebody squeezes me.
I may feel differently if somebody chooses a ridiculous line of play against me, which just happens to work on the actual deal. Agreed this is part of the game

Neither would I feel badly if somebody misrepresents his hand intentionally and without implicit knowledge of his partner.
However, if somebody believes seriously this hand is worth a strong notrump and as a completely unforeseen consequence I as an opponent would miss game in a major (which might not have happened if this hand would have been opened as a weak notrump), then I feel I was the victim of a misjudgement by my opponent.

Again part of the game.
No reason to call the director.

By the way there are some jurisdictions, which limit strong bids, for example what can be opened as a game forcing 2♣ bid. EBU for example does this.
I find this problematic, but the rules appeared because some 2♣ bids looked more like a preempt to others and some opponents felt damaged as a result.

Rainer Herrmann