weak opening
If a player opens eg 2H, their partner does not alert, an opponent makes a level 2S bid and opener then bids 3H and is left to play 3H.
At the end, declarer makes contract and my partner complains that opener showed 6H and was told it was their agreement to open with 2 even if they had more and there was nothing anyone can do about it. My partner should have asked of course but, due to the ops slow play, just bid his suit. My question is " should the td be called for MI" or have the ops given up their rights by not asking for an explanation? I could have asked when it was my turn to bid so I was also at fault.
Comments
Weak twos cover a wide range of hands and styles. If you want more precise information you can ask, but having a 7-card suit is an occasional possibility for a number of players (though not me!)
I think a weak two is an announcement, "weak", even if it always has a 7 card suit in the suit bid. So merely having a 7 card suit as a possibility is even less in need of alerting.
I personally probably bid weak twos with 7-card suits more than anyone else I know (basically, because a 3!h opening and a 2!h…3!h sequence are both available, so why not use them for different hand types)? I find 3!h to be a bit overloaded, so I move hands with 7-card suits which are too strong or weak for 3!h into 2!h (or 4!h if they're much too strong) in order to narrow the range a bit (the "too strong for 3!h" hands will bid 3!h on the next round if that bid would be sufficient). Overloading 2!h doesn't matter as much because there's room for invites over that.
Of course, in practice 2!h is normally a 6-card suit simply because you get dealt 6 hearts much more often than you get dealt 7 hearts, and in general there's no need for partner to be aware of the 7-card suit possibility (I bid 7-card suits as weak twos even in pickup partnerships, either because I think the penalty at the 3 level will be too high or because I think a 3 level opening is too likely to miss game, and in either case partner's "natural" actions are likely to be correct).
It's worth noting that on the flipside of this, some players will bid weak twos on five cards (something that I typically do only in third seat). That isn't alertable either, and I wouldn't typically expect it to be explained without an explicit question. I don't know whether it's less or more common than opening a weak two on seven cards.
The reason for not doing that is because pre-empting is intended to take away bidding space from your opponents, getting the level as high as possible before they have a chance to describe their hands.
My experience tells me it's an order of magnitude more common to open 5-card weak twos than 7-cards ones.
I've opened a 4-card weak 2 before now.
I know a pair who do so by explicit agreement.
And f2f, 4-card weak twos are an alert rather than an announcement.
In a Hubert Philips match, on one board, I opened a 7-card weak two. Opponents complained this was not what the card said, so I changed the card - and don't remember opening a 7-card weak two ever again - in those partnership or any other.
Does that mean that the card is now wrong? Not that I am casting aspersions, I am just curious as to when it should be on the card and when it should not be (but be expected as a variation).
If you open a weak 2 say 100 times, ninety-five are 6 card suits, two are 7 card suits and three are 5 card suits, should the card say weak 2s: 5-7 card suits, or 6 card suits?
How weak is 'weak'?
6-9, 5-10 hcp....... if no information is available I know one COULD ask, but, why should players be forced to ask about every bid? Surely it reasonable to expect a weak opening to be somewhere in the range 5-10, so opening with say 3 hcp is usual.
Disclosure is a constant bane but if a weak opening is often and regularly less than 5 hcp isn't that a systematic partnership understanding but unexpected for the opponents? If unexpected then alertable?
It happen so much without alerts I wonder if we should change our teaching material to 3-10 for such bids.
The WBF definition of ‘Weak’ does not specify a lower limit. Why then should we assume it to be no less than 5 or 6 points.
That’s setting newcomers up to fail. Having looked at many convention cards over last few years they overwhelmingly still state that range.
Yet that is demonstrably no longer the case according to my recent experience.
We can teach new player to play sound pre-empts; while also teaching them that opponents do not bid the way the new players have been taught.
I second that
Yes.... although if I were a beginner again, I am not sure I would like to be told "this is the way to bid... but experienced players bid differently", although I think many lessons would be improved if they were presented as "I am teaching you one way to bid, which is a good starting point, other people bid differently and as you get better you will be able to take your own decisions"
One thing I don't like is when I see bidding judgement/systems being taught as if they are rules. The L&E have had complaints about people "breaking the rules" by e.g. opening a 3-level pre-empt with an 11-count.
When I started to teach bridge I was still relatively new and one of the things I was keen to get across (so I do this regularly) is that there is no 'right way of bidding' other than what you have agreed with your partner.
It may be easier for me, as I only teach improvers, but I know that our beginners teacher does similar.
I know that when my wife and I started to play in the club, it was like a completely different game than what we were taught. So, rather than trying teach perfect bridge, I try to teach people to play bridge in the club. So, we introduce duplicate scoring early on, with a Christmas party mixed the beginners group and improvers group (with simplified pre-dealt hands, no overcalls as the beginners have not done that yet etc) - we are happy that the 2 groups bid differently and we encourage people to ask the meanings of bids so they get used to people doing things differently.
My first lesson is always on the NT structure and I say that I do this because the NT structure is the foundation of any bidding system - we open with 12-14, other people might open with 15-17, 16-18 and maybe even 10-12.
As we go through the course I give them options for their systems. For example I do responses to 1NT and say you have been taught that 1NT - 2H is a weak take out, however, let me show you transfers... you may want to take this on, but even if not, when you play other people will and it is important that you know what it means...
This has meant that people are not surprised when they finally start playing that not everyone does the same thing.
But having no card and giving only a very brief intrusive means you ought be playing a fairly standard system, I believe anyway. And with no explanation of a weak two (or three) I do not think that the onus should be on opponents to ask about each and every bid. To my mind this is a clear intention to deceive.
Deception, in this manner, is not lawful.
Psyche away, deviation fine.... but partnership understandings should be freely available to your opps.
If an experienced partnership open these bids with as little as 3 points regularly, systematically without a clue to opponents. Then I would tend to look favourably on lesser experienced opps claiming damage.
Perhaps if I did this on a laptop rather than my IPhone.....
Part of the trouble with this is that the less experienced players often do not even realise that they have been 'duped' and even less so that they can call the director for recompense.
Exactly, deception complete. In addition mMy recent experience is that my favourable disposition in such circumstances is out of step with the normal response.