Opening 4NT or above

[ais523]

Occasionally you get a hand that's clearly game-forcing or even
slam-forcing, but based almost entirely on distribution, with only a
limited number of high card points. (The most common example is a hand
with a double void and where one of the two remainings suits is solid.)
One possibility would be to open the hand at the 1 level based on the
near-certainty of an opposing overcall, but given that the overcall in
question is often at the 4 level it becomes hard to make a game /
small slam / grand slam decision, as you won't have the bidding space
to convey the nature of your hand.

Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+); if you want to be able to open it on
less you have to define the bid as a multi, which has its own
restrictions). So if you want a complete system, you need to use some
other bid to describe this sort of hand. The most reasonable choice
seems to be the opening bids of 4NT and above (which are unlikely to
be used for any other purpose).

4NT to 5S seem to be reasonably standardised:

4NT: Ace ask:
5C = no aces, 5x = 1 Ace (in x), 5NT = 2 aces, 6C = 1 Ace (in clubs)
(some systems reverse 5NT and 6C here)
5x: Trump quality ask:
Pass = no A/K/Q of x, 6x = one A/K/Q of x, 7x = two A/K/Q of x
(some systems omit the Queen from this)

However, even though the meanings of those bids seem sensible enough,
the response schemes seem somewhat lacking to me (although I realise
that they have to be simple because they come up so rarely!) The Ace ask
can run into trouble when your partner has the wrong Ace (as an Ace
opposite your void is typically useless, so if you have a club void you
can't use this system unless you have slam in your own hand, because a
6C response would already force your side to slam despite your partner
having nothing useful). The trump quality ask, meanwhile, doesn't give
the information you'd need to find a potential ten-card trump fit
(which makes the Queen irrelevant as it's highly likely to drop).

It seems a pity to have these sorts of anomalies in the responses as it
means you often can't use the bids on the hands that would want them;
the more frequency that can be moved to these very high opening bids,
the less ambiguous your more normal opening bids will be. So I'm
interested in an 4NT+ scheme that can handle as many of these extremely
distributional hands as possible.

One improvement I've been thinking about is the trump ask. There's lots
of unused bidding space there, and there's information that needs
showing (trump length), so why not use one to show the other?:

5x: Trump quality ask:
Pass = no A/K/Q of x
1 step = A of x, but not the K or Q
1 step = relay
1 step = singleton A
2 steps = Ax
3 steps = Axx
4 steps = Axxx, etc.
anything else (even a different suit) = to play
2 steps = singleton K
3 steps = Kx
4 steps = Kxx+
6x = Q of x, but not the A or K
7x = two of A/K/Q of x

It seems like it should be possible to do something more than this,
though, especially with the Ace ask (and with 5NT and 6-of-a-suit
opening bids). Are there any pre-existing schemes for the opening bids
from 4NT upwards that can handle things in more detail?

[a***@yahoo.co.uk]

Post by ais523
Occasionally you get a hand that's clearly game-forcing or even
slam-forcing, but based almost entirely on distribution, with only a
limited number of high card points. (The most common example is a hand
with a double void and where one of the two remainings suits is solid.)
One possibility would be to open the hand at the 1 level based on the
near-certainty of an opposing overcall, but given that the overcall in
question is often at the 4 level it becomes hard to make a game /
small slam / grand slam decision, as you won't have the bidding space
to convey the nature of your hand.
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+); if you want to be able to open it on
less you have to define the bid as a multi, which has its own
restrictions). So if you want a complete system, you need to use some
other bid to describe this sort of hand. The most reasonable choice
seems to be the opening bids of 4NT and above (which are unlikely to
be used for any other purpose).
5C = no aces, 5x = 1 Ace (in x), 5NT = 2 aces, 6C = 1 Ace (in clubs)
(some systems reverse 5NT and 6C here)
Pass = no A/K/Q of x, 6x = one A/K/Q of x, 7x = two A/K/Q of x
(some systems omit the Queen from this)
However, even though the meanings of those bids seem sensible enough,
the response schemes seem somewhat lacking to me (although I realise
that they have to be simple because they come up so rarely!) The Ace ask
can run into trouble when your partner has the wrong Ace (as an Ace
opposite your void is typically useless, so if you have a club void you
can't use this system unless you have slam in your own hand, because a
6C response would already force your side to slam despite your partner
having nothing useful). The trump quality ask, meanwhile, doesn't give
the information you'd need to find a potential ten-card trump fit
(which makes the Queen irrelevant as it's highly likely to drop).
It seems a pity to have these sorts of anomalies in the responses as it
means you often can't use the bids on the hands that would want them;
the more frequency that can be moved to these very high opening bids,
the less ambiguous your more normal opening bids will be. So I'm
interested in an 4NT+ scheme that can handle as many of these extremely
distributional hands as possible.
One improvement I've been thinking about is the trump ask. There's lots
of unused bidding space there, and there's information that needs
Pass = no A/K/Q of x
1 step = A of x, but not the K or Q
1 step = relay
1 step = singleton A
2 steps = Ax
3 steps = Axx
4 steps = Axxx, etc.
anything else (even a different suit) = to play
2 steps = singleton K
3 steps = Kx
4 steps = Kxx+
6x = Q of x, but not the A or K
7x = two of A/K/Q of x
It seems like it should be possible to do something more than this,
though, especially with the Ace ask (and with 5NT and 6-of-a-suit
opening bids). Are there any pre-existing schemes for the opening bids
from 4NT upwards that can handle things in more detail?
--
ais523

My question is why bother worrying about it? How often do you pick up such a hand where you want to use such a system, and if the super-freak is dealt, how likely are you both to remember the bids and responses?

[ais523]

Post by a***@yahoo.co.uk

Post by ais523
Occasionally you get a hand that's clearly game-forcing or even
slam-forcing, but based almost entirely on distribution, with only a
limited number of high card points. (The most common example is a hand
with a double void and where one of the two remainings suits is solid.)
One possibility would be to open the hand at the 1 level based on the
near-certainty of an opposing overcall, but given that the overcall in
question is often at the 4 level it becomes hard to make a game /
small slam / grand slam decision, as you won't have the bidding space
to convey the nature of your hand.
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+); if you want to be able to open it on
less you have to define the bid as a multi, which has its own
restrictions). So if you want a complete system, you need to use some
other bid to describe this sort of hand. The most reasonable choice
seems to be the opening bids of 4NT and above (which are unlikely to
be used for any other purpose).

My question is why bother worrying about it? How often do you pick up
such a hand where you want to use such a system, and if the
super-freak is dealt, how likely are you both to remember the bids and
responses?

Well, partly this is to stop you needing to worry that a 2-level or
1-level opening bid might refer to a super-freak hand, and partly to
stop you getting in trouble when such a hand comes up. Also, I have
something of a theoretical interest in what a perfect system would look
like. (It strikes me that many of the opening bids in question would
work perfectly well as overcalls and even responses or advances, too -
a bidding sequence like 1S, 5H or (1S), 5H is unused in most systems -
so the memory load would give benefit to many different sequences.) I
(and presumably many other bridge players) also remember many bidding
sequences in systems I don't even play, and so remembering something
like this that can plausibly be shared between systems seems fairly
minor in comparison. (Part of my interest in finding the perfect system
for high-level openings is in the hope that it could become fairly
standard cross-system, so that there'd be no need for anyone to remember
two of the things.)

I ran a simulation looking for hands with two suits which run for no
loser (this includes all of solid suits, voids, and things like
doubleton AK), and with at most two losers in total; those seem like
obvious candidates for very high openings. (There might be other
possibilities too.) The frequency of those seems to be in the .03% to
.04% range, so you'll likely get one around once per every 3000 deals
(and your partner will get one at the same rate, meaning once per 1500
deals in total). So if you played 30 boards of bridge every night,
you'd expect to see one every couple of months, and if you played 30
boards of bridge every week, you'd expect to see one around once per
year. (By comparison, the Gambling 3NT, a commonly used convention,
has a frequency of about .15% if you use the common "no outside Ace"
version; so this is only 1/5 as likely.)

In bidding systems, generally speaking higher bids should be more
descriptive than lower bids, and (assuming I've done this calculation
correctly) bids of 4NT and higher should have a combined frequency of
about .01%. If these .03% to .04% of hands can all be bid correctly with
such a system, then, the bids are pulling their weight.

I've posted my generation program and sample hands at
<http://sprunge.us/iDo1Cl>. The program was told to only keep results
where the super-freak hand was with West, but to print out both West's
and East's hands, so you can get some idea of what the bidding
problems would be like.

[Douglas Newlands]

Post by ais523
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+); if you want to be able to open it on
less you have to define the bid as a multi, which has its own
restrictions). So if you want a complete system, you need to use some
other bid to describe this sort of hand. The most reasonable choice
seems to be the opening bids of 4NT and above (which are unlikely to
be used for any other purpose).

If you want to open 2C with 16+ and they won't let you, why not just
interchange your 1C and 2C openers so 1C shows 16+ and 2C shows clubs.
It does away with most problems with reverses for those that don't play
them too!
Has anyone thought of this before? (it's rhetorical, ironic even)

doug

[ais523]

Post by Douglas Newlands

Post by ais523
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+); if you want to be able to open it on
less you have to define the bid as a multi, which has its own
restrictions). So if you want a complete system, you need to use some
other bid to describe this sort of hand. The most reasonable choice
seems to be the opening bids of 4NT and above (which are unlikely to
be used for any other purpose).

If you want to open 2C with 16+ and they won't let you, why not just
interchange your 1C and 2C openers so 1C shows 16+ and 2C shows clubs.
It does away with most problems with reverses for those that don't play
them too!
Has anyone thought of this before? (it's rhetorical, ironic even)

I know this is meant tongue-in-cheek, but taking it seriously for a
moment: most natural systems use 1C as showing either clubs or a
balanced hand with the wrong range for 1NT (often with some club
requirement, as 1D can also be used for balanced hands). In fact, one of
the main constraints on system design is how you split up balanced
hands between 1NT and the four 1-of-a-suit bids. Obviously, if you
swap 1C and 2C, you can't use the new 2C for weak-to-intermediate
balanced hands in case 1NT was the correct stopping point.

Bidding systems which use 1C for strong hands have thus mostly ended up
being divided into two groups: "small club" systems where 1C contains
both strong hands and balanced hands; and "strong club" systems (most
famously Precision) where 1C is always strong and 1D is used for all
the off-range balanced hands (which makes 1D very wide-ranging in
terms of distribution). Both those changes have fairly major impacts on
a bidding system, so a straight swap of 1C and 2C isn't really
compatible with a typical natural bidding system.

Incidentally, small club systems in particular often have to go to a lot
of effort to help distinguish meanings of the 1C bid, so they tend to
want to open something else with the super-freak hands anyway. So the
opening bids from 4NT upwards are still useful even in those systems.

[Lorne]

Post by ais523
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+);

This is not correct - the restriction is the extended rule of 25 which
is defined in the permitted agreement book and copied below. Also you
may not describe the hand as strong if it can be weak and distributional
(ie point (c) below):

*** definition from the EBU permitted agreements book ***
Strong openings are often described as ‘Extended Rule of 25’ or
‘Extended Rule of 24’ which
means the minimum allowed is any one or more of:
(a) any hand of at least 16 HCP, or
(b) any hand meeting the Rule of 25 (or Rule of 24 where applicable), or
(c) subject to proper disclosure, a hand that contains at least 10 HCPs
and at least eight clear
cut tricks.
Clear-cut tricks are defined as tricks expected to make opposite a void
in partner’s hand with
the second best suit break.
 A K Q J x x x x  x x  x x  x does count as 8 clear-cut tricks
 A K Q x x x x x  x x  x x  x does not
Hands conforming to the ‘Extended Rule of 25’ are described as ‘ER25’.
Hands conforming to the ‘Extended Rule of 24’ are described as ‘ER24’.
Further examples:
AKQxxxxx (7CCT), KQJxxxx (5), AQJ98xx (5), KQJTx (3), KQJTxxx (6),
AKT9xxxxx (8), KJTxxx (2)

[ais523]

Post by Lorne

Post by ais523
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+);

This is not correct - the restriction is the extended rule of 25 which
is defined in the permitted agreement book and copied below.

Your information is out of date. The EBU's rules for permitted
methods changed in 2017.

The rules you're describing are the 2015 rules, which are no longer in
force.

Post by Lorne
Please note that new regulations relating to ‘strong’ bids have
replaced the Extended Rule of 25 - see the Blue Book for more details.

[Lorne]

Post by ais523

Post by Lorne

Post by ais523
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+);

This is not correct - the restriction is the extended rule of 25 which
is defined in the permitted agreement book and copied below.

Your information is out of date. The EBU's rules for permitted
methods changed in 2017.
The rules you're describing are the 2015 rules, which are no longer in
force.

Post by Lorne
Please note that new regulations relating to ‘strong’ bids have
replaced the Extended Rule of 25 - see the Blue Book for more details.

So they have - I had not noticed that.

However 7C1 note (5) does say you can open 2C on a weak hand as long as
you describe it correctly and do not use the word strong or imply it is
strong by saying 8 playing tricks or Acol 2 without clarification.

[Player]

Post by ais523
Occasionally you get a hand that's clearly game-forcing or even
slam-forcing, but based almost entirely on distribution, with only a
limited number of high card points. (The most common example is a hand
with a double void and where one of the two remainings suits is solid.)
One possibility would be to open the hand at the 1 level based on the
near-certainty of an opposing overcall, but given that the overcall in
question is often at the 4 level it becomes hard to make a game /
small slam / grand slam decision, as you won't have the bidding space
to convey the nature of your hand.
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+); if you want to be able to open it on
less you have to define the bid as a multi, which has its own
restrictions). So if you want a complete system, you need to use some
other bid to describe this sort of hand. The most reasonable choice
seems to be the opening bids of 4NT and above (which are unlikely to
be used for any other purpose).
5C = no aces, 5x = 1 Ace (in x), 5NT = 2 aces, 6C = 1 Ace (in clubs)
(some systems reverse 5NT and 6C here)
Pass = no A/K/Q of x, 6x = one A/K/Q of x, 7x = two A/K/Q of x
(some systems omit the Queen from this)
However, even though the meanings of those bids seem sensible enough,
the response schemes seem somewhat lacking to me (although I realise
that they have to be simple because they come up so rarely!) The Ace ask
can run into trouble when your partner has the wrong Ace (as an Ace
opposite your void is typically useless, so if you have a club void you
can't use this system unless you have slam in your own hand, because a
6C response would already force your side to slam despite your partner
having nothing useful). The trump quality ask, meanwhile, doesn't give
the information you'd need to find a potential ten-card trump fit
(which makes the Queen irrelevant as it's highly likely to drop).
It seems a pity to have these sorts of anomalies in the responses as it
means you often can't use the bids on the hands that would want them;
the more frequency that can be moved to these very high opening bids,
the less ambiguous your more normal opening bids will be. So I'm
interested in an 4NT+ scheme that can handle as many of these extremely
distributional hands as possible.
One improvement I've been thinking about is the trump ask. There's lots
of unused bidding space there, and there's information that needs
Pass = no A/K/Q of x
1 step = A of x, but not the K or Q
1 step = relay
1 step = singleton A
2 steps = Ax
3 steps = Axx
4 steps = Axxx, etc.
anything else (even a different suit) = to play
2 steps = singleton K
3 steps = Kx
4 steps = Kxx+
6x = Q of x, but not the A or K
7x = two of A/K/Q of x
It seems like it should be possible to do something more than this,
though, especially with the Ace ask (and with 5NT and 6-of-a-suit
opening bids). Are there any pre-existing schemes for the opening bids
from 4NT upwards that can handle things in more detail?
--
ais523

I know of no bridge player, (note I said "bridge player"), who opens 4NT as an Ace ask. A 4NT opening is a big minor suited hand.

[a***@yahoo.co.uk]

Post by Player

Post by ais523
Occasionally you get a hand that's clearly game-forcing or even
slam-forcing, but based almost entirely on distribution, with only a
limited number of high card points. (The most common example is a hand
with a double void and where one of the two remainings suits is solid.)
One possibility would be to open the hand at the 1 level based on the
near-certainty of an opposing overcall, but given that the overcall in
question is often at the 4 level it becomes hard to make a game /
small slam / grand slam decision, as you won't have the bidding space
to convey the nature of your hand.
Strong opening bids (often 2C) are an obvious choice with this sort of
hand, but unfortunately some jurisdictions disallow them (e.g. in most
competitions in England, you can't open a strong bid on less than 16 HCP
unless you have honours which are considered to give sufficient
defence (AAA+, AAKJ+, or AKKK+); if you want to be able to open it on
less you have to define the bid as a multi, which has its own
restrictions). So if you want a complete system, you need to use some
other bid to describe this sort of hand. The most reasonable choice
seems to be the opening bids of 4NT and above (which are unlikely to
be used for any other purpose).
5C = no aces, 5x = 1 Ace (in x), 5NT = 2 aces, 6C = 1 Ace (in clubs)
(some systems reverse 5NT and 6C here)
Pass = no A/K/Q of x, 6x = one A/K/Q of x, 7x = two A/K/Q of x
(some systems omit the Queen from this)
However, even though the meanings of those bids seem sensible enough,
the response schemes seem somewhat lacking to me (although I realise
that they have to be simple because they come up so rarely!) The Ace ask
can run into trouble when your partner has the wrong Ace (as an Ace
opposite your void is typically useless, so if you have a club void you
can't use this system unless you have slam in your own hand, because a
6C response would already force your side to slam despite your partner
having nothing useful). The trump quality ask, meanwhile, doesn't give
the information you'd need to find a potential ten-card trump fit
(which makes the Queen irrelevant as it's highly likely to drop).
It seems a pity to have these sorts of anomalies in the responses as it
means you often can't use the bids on the hands that would want them;
the more frequency that can be moved to these very high opening bids,
the less ambiguous your more normal opening bids will be. So I'm
interested in an 4NT+ scheme that can handle as many of these extremely
distributional hands as possible.
One improvement I've been thinking about is the trump ask. There's lots
of unused bidding space there, and there's information that needs
Pass = no A/K/Q of x
1 step = A of x, but not the K or Q
1 step = relay
1 step = singleton A
2 steps = Ax
3 steps = Axx
4 steps = Axxx, etc.
anything else (even a different suit) = to play
2 steps = singleton K
3 steps = Kx
4 steps = Kxx+
6x = Q of x, but not the A or K
7x = two of A/K/Q of x
It seems like it should be possible to do something more than this,
though, especially with the Ace ask (and with 5NT and 6-of-a-suit
opening bids). Are there any pre-existing schemes for the opening bids
from 4NT upwards that can handle things in more detail?
--
ais523

I know of no bridge player, (note I said "bridge player"), who opens 4NT as an Ace ask. A 4NT opening is a big minor suited hand.

I played with one partner that an opening 4NT means name an ace you hold (5NT response is two aces). It never came up.

[f***@googlemail.com]

Post by Player
I know of no bridge player, (note I said "bridge player"), who opens 4NT as an Ace ask. A 4NT opening is a big minor suited hand.

A very quick google search revealed that the following open 4NT as a specific ace ask:

2/3 of the current England Open team (Robson/Forrester and Jagger/Allerton)
Nystrom/Upmark
Brink Drijver