[bravejason]

When evaluating your hand for assessing if an opening bid of one no trump is appropriate, do you use the same methodology that you use for assessing if an opening bid of one of a suit is appropriate? If you use different methodologies, which one takes priority and what are the key differences between the two?

For one no trump opening bid hand evaluation, does your evaluation methodology include an adjustment for doubleton honors such as KQ or QJ? Do you make an adjustment if you have all four aces or have an aceless hand? Do you make any other adjustments (e.g., long suits, quality suits, presence of intermediates, etc)?

Does your no trump hand evaluation methodology change if you are contemplating opening with no trump versus responding in no trump versus rebidding in no trump?

I've been using the same methodology for both suit bids and no trump bids, but was thinking that the methodologies should be different since the play of the hand is different.

[Liversidge]

I will be very interested to read the answers to this question.
Last week partner and I had two hands where we opened a weak 1NT with Axxx AJx Axx xxx (me) and Axxx AJx Axx Jxx (partner). Both went off and we got a bad score. Partner said his normal rule is not to open 1NT with nine losers but he reluctantly broke his own rule because he had 14 HCP, and says he won't do so again.
I am not sure.. I would open with AJT8 AT9 A97 xxx any vulnerability but would probably pass with A653 A83 AJ2 J76 if vulnerable, but await comments.

[Liversidge]

Just come across this in my notes. I saved it some time ago and forgot I had it. Can't remember the source. It applies to Weak No Trump openers.

The 12-14 HCP limit is quite precise. You can only deviate from it if you think you have a poor 12 HCP hand or a very good 14 HCP hand.
A poor 12-14 balanced hand is one that has several of the following features:
 A 12 HCP flat (4-3-3-3) hand
 No aces
 Three Aces
 No 10’s
 Isolated honours
 Two suits without stops
 No runnable suits (e.g. ♥QJT9)
With most of these deficiencies you can downgrade your hand by 1 – 1 ½ HCPs. With none of them you can upgrade your hand by the same amount.

Using that list, my 13 point hand of last week 4333, 3 aces, no 10's, isolated honours, and no runnable suits. Downgrade it by 1 ½ HCP and it's not an opening hand, but partner's hand, identical except for an extra Jack, would have been just about worth a bid.

I suspect vulnerability and seat (fourth?) might be factors too.

[helene_t]

With balanced and semibalanced hands, and with minor-suit oriented 5431 and 6331 hands, the answer is yes.

With more wild distributions, especially with length in one or both majors, I will assume that we are going to play in a suit contract so the evaluation becomes different - features that are important in suit contracts (aces, quality of the longest suit) become more important.

It is not a radical difference - I will basically use the rule of 20, but with pure, major-suit oriented control rich hands, a rule of 19 hands will often be ok, and sometimes a rule of 18 hand.

[Cyberyeti]

There is another consideration, what will everybody else do ? Very few people will pass a flat 12 count these days, certainly not more, so you're going against the field if you do.

It's embarrassing to pass your 4333 hand with 3 bare aces in second seat and find partner passed his xx, xx, Axx, KQJxxx in 4th seat (probably correct, not enough spades) so team mates sign for -600 to go with your passed out.

Unless there's something seriously wrong with the hand (and aces aren't particularly), just open 1N on almost all 12-14s (if playing weak) in 1st, 2nd and 4th, you can be a little more careful in 3rd, particularly vulnerable. Yes I can bear to pass KJ, Qxxx, KJx, Qxxx or AK, KJx, Jxxx, xxxx with tiny intermediates, but I might open them anyway anywhere other than 3rd.

[1eyedjack]

I am often bemused by those who say that the possession of at least one Ace adds some magical additional component to the value of a hand. I think it was first spouted by Culbertson, which is hardly a ringing endorsement but has not stopped all and sundry tacking it on as a compulsory afterthought.

[Stephen Tu]

In answer to liversidge, it would be insane to pass with 13 hcp including 3 aces. You'd miss slams since partner can't visualize this good. You'll miss a lot of good partials as well when partner has a moderate 8-11 count and it gets passed out. Sure, every now and then partner is going to be flat and broke and it would have been better not to open. But playing in a predominately weak nt field you should have protection, most other pairs in the same bad position.

Sometimes if you go down a lot opps didn't find the double. Or had game on their way. If you are too afraid of the down two vul vs partial, you could always switch to a variable nt.

[mikestar13]

Holding 3 aces is not a bad thing for a 12-14 NT. They promote whatever random kings and queens partner may hold. It is true that Axxx Axx Axx xxx or the like will get hurt worse than 12 poinits made up of a more diverse set of honors if partner lacks those king and queens--but if partner has a worthless hand and and no long suit to run to, you will be murdered in 1NTx anyway--but if this happened often, no one would play 12-14. if have heard too many 15-17 NT player decrying a 16 count with 4 aces as if it were a terrible calamity, saying "aces and spaces"with a vocal inflection approaching the one most people would use to say "murder, mayhem, and rape." An ace is worth more than 4 points, even in NT. It's just not wrth as quite as much more than it would be in a suit contract. Culbertson valued a ace the same as a king and a queen, which is IMHO too high, but 4 points is clearly too low. Nothing magical about it. 4-3-2-1 count is not fine grained enough to capture the average value of the honors exactly. It virtue is its simplicity which make it easy to use at the table. In most cases the inaccuracies cancel--lets say you have a 10 count including an ace, a king, a queen, a jack, and a ten. Now 3 point for a king is plenty accurate (true average value is 3.0+- 0.1 at most). The 4-3-2-1 count undervalues the ace and ten, but also overvalues the queen and jack--and on the example hand these cancel, so on this hand,4-3-2-1 will give the same results as a more accurate count. Danny Kleinman has a useful article on the subject here.

[Stefan_O]

 Liversidge, on 2016-July-17, 11:10, said:

I will be very interested to read the answers to this question.
Last week partner and I had two hands where we opened a weak 1NT with Axxx AJx Axx xxx (me) and Axxx AJx Axx Jxx (partner). Both went off and we got a bad score. Partner said his normal rule is not to open 1NT with nine losers but he reluctantly broke his own rule because he had 14 HCP, and says he won't do so again.
I am not sure.. I would open with AJT8 AT9 A97 xxx any vulnerability but would probably pass with A653 A83 AJ2 J76 if vulnerable, but await comments.

One needs to see the FULL hands to answer this.
Exactly WHY did you get those bad scores?

Highly doubtful if these opening-bids, per se, was the main culprit behind your results.
There is usually a series of decisions made during a single bridge-hand, all of which could go more or less wrong

[1eyedjack]

added to which, "2 bad results do not a significant statistical population make." (Yoda)

[Stefan_O]

 Liversidge, on 2016-July-17, 12:08, said:

Just come across this in my notes. I saved it some time ago and forgot I had it. Can't remember the source. It applies to Weak No Trump openers.

The 12-14 HCP limit is quite precise. You can only deviate from it if you think you have a poor 12 HCP hand or a very good 14 HCP hand.
A poor 12-14 balanced hand is one that has several of the following features:
 A 12 HCP flat (4-3-3-3) hand
 No aces
 Three Aces
 No 10’s
 Isolated honours
 Two suits without stops
 No runnable suits (e.g. ♥QJT9)
With most of these deficiencies you can downgrade your hand by 1 – 1 ½ HCPs. With none of them you can upgrade your hand by the same amount.

Using that list, my 13 point hand of last week 4333, 3 aces, no 10's, isolated honours, and no runnable suits. Downgrade it by 1 ½ HCP and it's not an opening hand, but partner's hand, identical except for an extra Jack, would have been just about worth a bid.

I suspect vulnerability and seat (fourth?) might be factors too.

"Three aces" you can cross out from your list. it's not a bad thing.

"Two suits without stops", is statistically quite negative if the final contract is NT.
But if you then find a trump-suit, it switches to a positive. These are also hands where a 4-3 (or 5-2) major contract is often better than NT. But you need advanced methods to find out such things during the auction.

[The_Badger]

Hi Jason,

You can construct millions of NT hands opposite millions of other hands, and what fits for one does not fit for another. A general rule is that hands with primarily aces and kings usually play better in a suit contract, whereas those with a mix of honours and intermediates will usually play better in no trump - but it all depends how they fit, suit or no trump contract, of course.

My personal general rule is if a NT sort of hand looks anaemic, that is lack of intermediates and many small cards in a balanced or semi-balanced shape, dock a point from the high point count. The more you play bridge, the more you will get a gut feeling about what is right, and where caution is necessary.

There's also an extra consideration when you open 1NT. Due to Stayman and Transfers, the NT opening hand will invariably be hidden, and the lead will come towards it. That may guarantee an extra trick, and certainly makes the defence a little more difficult for the opponents.

So, if it looks and smells like a 1NT opener, then don't hesitate, because you hold KQ or a QJ doubleton in a suit. You have no knowing what partner has opposite you until the bidding is finished.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

the standard point count 4321 was developed for balanced hands using statistical
methods.
If you assume, that suits are distributed evenly between two partner hands,
it is quite obvious, that the trick taking power of the two hands is depende
only on the amount of high cards both hands contain.

There are better values out there, but 4321 is good a compromise.

With kind regards
Uwe Gebhardt

[helene_t]

Two suits without stops is actually a good thing. It means that your honours are in the long suits. It may be a reason for opening in a suit instead but with 4432 the system does not allow you to open a suit. It can't be a reason for not opening.

[Zelandakh]

I am not quite sure what you mean by which takes priority. If we have a different methodology for a balanced hand than from an unbalanced one then they take priority on the hand type for which they are designed. As a general rule, aces are slightly undervalued and should be regarded as positive features whilst unsupported queens and jacks or singleton/doubleton honours are negative aspects. Similarly, a supported ten is a plus. A 5 card suit is also a positive feature within the context of a balanced hand, not so much for an unbalanced one. I make no specific adjustment for having no aces other than the lack of upgrades that entails.

For me personally, I believe fairly strongly in opening unbalanced hands aggressively, meaning the majority of 10 counts. Against that, I prefer to be much more conservative with balanced hands with many 11 counts being passed. For both hand types, I upgrade fairly aggressively and also downgrade sometimes if with a partner that accommodates that, somewhat less aggressively with a random partner. I also believe in bidding shape rather aggressively, which obviously leads to a difference of attitude on unbalanced hands to balanced ones. For opening bids, that only really shows itself with preempts though, for which I am probably fairly in line with other BBFers, most of which are considerably more aggressive than the average club player.

Finally, it tends to be easier to upgrade later in the auction once a fit is found than to put the brakes on having shown extras early that turn out not to be worth anything. As such it is not a bad idea to work on the basis that NT is a likely contract until such time as you are confident that is not the case. Once you are sure, you can afford to add in the adjustments that seem relevant for a suit contract, such as additional bonuses for side suit shortages.

[bravejason]

 Zelandakh, on 2016-July-18, 09:23, said:

I am not quite sure what you mean by which takes priority. If we have a different methodology for a balanced hand than from an unbalanced one then they take priority on the hand type for which they are designed. As a general rule, aces are slightly undervalued and should be regarded as positive features whilst unsupported queens and jacks or singleton/doubleton honours are negative aspects. Similarly, a supported ten is a plus. A 5 card suit is also a positive feature within the context of a balanced hand, not so much for an unbalanced one. I make no specific adjustment for having no aces other than the lack of upgrades that entails.

For me personally, I believe fairly strongly in opening unbalanced hands aggressively, meaning the majority of 10 counts. Against that, I prefer to be much more conservative with balanced hands with many 11 counts being passed. For both hand types, I upgrade fairly aggressively and also downgrade sometimes if with a partner that accommodates that, somewhat less aggressively with a random partner. I also believe in bidding shape rather aggressively, which obviously leads to a difference of attitude on unbalanced hands to balanced ones. For opening bids, that only really shows itself with preempts though, for which I am probably fairly in line with other BBFers, most of which are considerably more aggressive than the average club player.

Finally, it tends to be easier to upgrade later in the auction once a fit is found than to put the brakes on having shown extras early that turn out not to be worth anything. As such it is not a bad idea to work on the basis that NT is a likely contract until such time as you are confident that is not the case. Once you are sure, you can afford to add in the adjustments that seem relevant for a suit contract, such as additional bonuses for side suit shortages.

By priority, I meant if one evaluation says you have values for bidding no trump and one says you do not (too many or too few) which evaluation are you going to base your decision? For example, If suit methodology says the hand is a touch strong for NT but NT methodology says the hand is a NT strength, would you bid the NT? On the flip side, if NT evaluation says the hand is a touch weak for NT but suit evaluation says it is NT strength hand, would you bid NT?

It would be possible to have a multiple point difference between the methodologies, depending on the factors you consider.

The question is most relevant for hands that could play well in either contract type. Consider too not just opening bids, but responses to partners bids. If partner opens 1NT and you have 4432, you might prefer NT over exploring for a suit fit in some instances. So a multiple evaluation difference could determine if you invite game, bid game, or play a part score depending on if you choose to pursue a suit contract or stay in NT.

[nekthen]

I use the banzai count. This means A=5 to T=1. Add 1 for a 5 card suit
Total available is 60 so divide by 1.5 to get back to Milton Count Equivalent.
12 -14 is 18-21 etc
I do not open three ace only hands. Others may be 17 counts in banzai, but I open them to stay in line with the field. Once we have established the hand belongs in NT then I use banzai to determine whether to go an extra level or not. So up to 19 points I decline invite, 20 - 21 I accept.
Also a raise to 2N is generally, 11 -12 hcp. This converts to 16-18 banzai points

I know others dislike banzai, but I find it to be a worthwhile adjustment when evaluating NT contract levels

[Zelandakh]

 bravejason, on 2016-July-18, 10:21, said:

By priority, I meant if one evaluation says you have values for bidding no trump and one says you do not (too many or too few) which evaluation are you going to base your decision?

If we have an evaluation method for balanced hands and another for unbalanced hands, we use the balanced one when we hold a balanced hand and the unbalanced one when we do not. I do not see that there is a priority here, just a difference in methodology for different hand types. In theory you could have a different set of evaluation criteria for every shape but that would be rather impractical. What you do not do is create an evaluation method for a specific situation and then try to use it in a completely different one. An example of that from this thread is the use of LTC for NT openings.

 bravejason, on 2016-July-18, 10:21, said:

If partner opens 1NT and you have 4432, you might prefer NT over exploring for a suit fit in some instances. So a multiple evaluation difference could determine if you invite game, bid game, or play a part score depending on if you choose to pursue a suit contract or stay in NT.

This is one of the reasons I choose to have all of my invites with both majors finish with 2NT rather than 2M, which would have been possible:-

1NT - 2♣; 2♦ - 2NT = invite with 4-4 majors (NB: 2♦ denied a 5 card major)
1NT - 2♦; 2♥ - 2NT = invite with 5♥4♠
1NT - 2NT = invite with 5♠4♥

On the one hand it means sometimes playing a level higher, on the other it allows Responder to convert a fit to game should they have a hand that was an invite on power but worth more playing in a major. This works on the same principle I gave in the previous post, that it is easy to show extras later after a fit is found.

[NickRW]

 nekthen, on 2016-July-18, 10:45, said:

I know others dislike banzai...

It will work OK for low level NT contracts OK (1, 2 and at a stretch 3NT). For suit contracts and higher level NT contracts, it downgrades aces too much IMO.

In general with this whole question, there are evaluation methods for NT and suits and also for higher level versus lower level contracts. They are not the same thing and when picking an opening bid, you can use one method or another or a compromise. All of the choices will work sometimes and none of them will always give the right answer on a particular deal.

[rhm]

 NickRW, on 2016-July-19, 05:13, said:

It will work OK for low level NT contracts OK (1, 2 and at a stretch 3NT). For suit contracts and higher level NT contracts, it downgrades aces too much IMO.

In general with this whole question, there are evaluation methods for NT and suits and also for higher level versus lower level contracts. They are not the same thing and when picking an opening bid, you can use one method or another or a compromise. All of the choices will work sometimes and none of them will always give the right answer on a particular deal.

How any serious player can believe that 2 jacks and a ten are equivalent to an ace escapes me even for notrump contracts.
In the book the example deals, mostly from actual play, the hands either mash perfectly or not at all.
I have done double dummy simulations with many of the example hands, randomly dealing out the remaining 39 cards.
The result was no surprise to me but would be sobering to Banzai fans.

I agree though that notrump evaluation is not the same as suit evaluation, and changes with the level of contract.

But irrespective whether you open in notrumps or in a suit you do not know where you end up as a final contract.
Using Banzai, certain hands, which are weak notrumps in standard (mostly quacks hands), will be strong notrump in Banzai and strong notrumps hands consisting of a preponderance of aces will be a weak notrump according to Banzai.

Using an extreme method to evaluate your hand for notrumps showing a certain range strength for notrumps, but will certainly be misleading if you end up in a trump
contract, is very dubious.
How partners bidding is supposed to cater for that escapes me completely.
This certainly gets worse if opponents interfere, say after a 1NT opening.

Rainer Herrmann