wyman, on 2012-August-02, 07:05, said:
* it seems like it's right to balance here almost anytime LHO has a weak NT, since I doubt that if we hold > half the deck that we're going to get rich playing for 50s
* if LHO holds a 18-19NT, he'll dbl. Do we have a place to run? RHO is unlikely to hold a 4cM (am I wrong about this? Especially white, it seems like people are responding on air pretty frequently). I have tolerance for clubs and hearts, and the only way pard would run out to spades is if he has 5+ (although admittedly if he has 5 spades this could be ugly since his hand is bad enough that he didn't overcall, the fact that he didn't overcall 1S also makes it less likely that he has 5 spades, so this could be kind of moot).
* if LHO holds 12-17 with diamonds, it also seems like we're likely to have a fit and around half the deck.
The -100 v -90 argument is compelling, but it's kind of a narrow range. I wish I had a good sense of the probabilities here. e.g., if I pass it out, what's my expected score? if I bid 1N, what are the probs that LHO hits it and it floats? that LHO hits it and pard bids? that it floats? that LHO passes and pard bids? And what we expect to score up in each case. But I definitely don't think I do. Hell, I don't even know what partner's expected shape is.
I'm really interested in comments.
Suppose for a second that we could prove that on this particular hand, 1NT would work well if everyone at the table followed with their best possible double dummy action. That still doesn't mean that we should do it. What would your 1NT mean then? 10-15? 10-14? I'm not saying that 10-14 is irrational, maybe it's good, but there's definitely a tradeoff here. So even if pass here is "wrong", you have to think about the whole system imo. If you routinely bid 1NT here on 10 counts, it could well be that you will be hurt more when you bid 1NT here on 14 counts.