Landy, Multi-Landy and Cappelletti

As a strategic principle, it is a bad idea to allow the opponents to open 1NT and play there, especially when they are not vulnerable. Research has shown that on average, you lose. Therefore, you should intervene whenever possible, to push the opponents out of this contract. Some pairs take this to extremes, overcalling on almost any hand. I don’t recommend that as an approach, but I do advocate an overcall of even a strong no-trump when holding 10+hcp and moderate distribution.

At the moment, agent 99 and I play simple Landy. An overcall of 2C shows both majors, at least 5-4 distribution, 10+hcp. If responder (opener’s partner) passes, advancer (overcaller’s partner) gives preference in the majors or bids 2D to ask overcaller to bid his better major. Passing 2C is possible, but only with long clubs (declarer may be void), no tolerance for either major, and a weak hand. It seems reasonable to play 2NT as natural, showing 12-13 points in a hand tilted towards the minors, while 3C would be a forcing advance, strongly interested in game.

If responder doubles, then advancer has more options. We play
Pass – showing clubs. At least 5, willing to play there if overcaller happens to have 3 clubs
Redouble – please bid your best suit, equivalent to the 2D bid if there were no double
2D – natural, 5+ cards, suggesting a place to play if overcaller has 3 diamonds
2H/2S – preference

Using simple Landy, other suit overcalls are natural, suggesting a 6-card suit and (again) probably 10+hcp.

A 2NT overcall is the Unusual No Trump, showing both minors at least 5-5. Advancer gives a simple preference to 3C or 3D unless he feels adventurous and wants to play at the 4 or 5 level. Needless to say, that would depend on a number of factors, including the strength of the opening 1NT, the quality of fit, vulnerability, whether you are trying to make or are going for a sacrifice, etc.

When agent 99 is ready to upgrade, we will move to Multi-Landy. In this convention, the 2C and 2NT overcalls remain the same, but some other overcalls are also used to show two-suiters.

The odd call out is 2D, showing a 6-card overcall in an unspecified major. Bidding proceeds as after a Multi 2D opening: advancer will ordinarily bid 2H, allowing overcaller to pass or correct to 2S. With good support for hearts (willing to play at least 3H), advancer can respond 2S. Again overcaller passes or corrects, this time the correction being to 3H. With a hand interested in game whichever suit overcaller has, advancer bids 2NT. Overcaller bids 3C with hearts and a maximum, 3H with hearts and a minimum, 3D with spades and a maximum, 3S with spades and a minimum.

If responder doubles the 2D overcall, advancer can pass to show a diamond suit, redouble to show diamond shortage, while the other bids remain the same. If responder bids 2NT as Lebensohl, double from advancer should indicate a willingness to play at the 3-level in overcaller’s suit (that is, he has support for both hearts and spades).

With single-suited hands handled by the overcall of 2D, overcalls of 2H or 2S now show the bid major and an unspecified minor, at least 5-4 and probably 5-5. Advancer can bid 2NT to ask for the minor suit in constructive fashion, or bid 3C for pass or correct with no interest in going further.

Against a weak 1NT, double can be for penalties, 15+hcp. Against a strong 1NT, and also against weak if you don’t want the straight penalty double, double can be used for another type of two-suiter: to show a hand with a 4-card major and a 5-card minor, 11+hcp. Advancer has choices:
Pass – 11+hcp, converting the double for penalties
2C – asking overcaller to pass or correct to 2D, whichever is his minor
2D – asking overcaller to bid his major (advancer usually 4-4 or better in the majors)
2H or 2S – natural, 6-card suit of his own
It may seem unusual to consider doubling a strong no-trump for penalties, but the basic reasoning is sound. If we have 12 points each, and opener has the other 16, not only do we have him out-gunned, the hand should play much better for us than him. If advancer has a useful card or two in each minor, we can expect the opening lead from the 5-card suit to get the defence off to a good start, and declarer is unlikely to have a good day.

The only hands not covered by this scheme are single-suited overcalls in the minors. For those you have to jump-overcall 3C or 3D, which means you aren’t going to do it very often, especially when vulnerable. But natural 2C and 2D overcalls are the least effective interference anyway, and the least problematic to lose.

The most popular defence against 1NT (in the US) is Cappelletti. The Multi-Landy defence described above is substantially similar, the only real difference being that the 2C and 2D bids are swapped around. However, that is a major improvement, since advancer thus has room to discover opener’s five-card suit, making overcalls on 5-4 distribution much more attractive. I also like the minor-major treatment of the double described above. Dealing random hands where a 1NT opening was followed by a hand strong enough to overcall, this was a common distribution, and it’s one that is commonly not handled at all.

Jacoby 2NT

The use of a 2NT response to a 1 major opening has evolved over the years. Typically it would have been somewhat natural 60 or so years ago, either 10-12 and invitational in Acol style, or stronger and game-forcing in old-fashioned American style. If your system includes 5-card majors with 1NT forcing, you don’t need the bid in such a natural mode (you can always respond 1NT and then follow-up with 2NT to show an invitational hand). Jacoby invented a new use for it – to show a game-forcing raise of the major suit, including 4-card support, with the idea of facilitating slam investigation.

The original rebids by the opener showed singletons at the three level and voids at the four level. Using all those bids just to show shortage is obviously very inefficient, and nobody plays that way these days. The modern version taught to beginners uses 3-level bids to show shortages, while rebidding a new suit at the 4-level indicates a good second suit, a source of tricks. That’s clearly better, but still not great. It does have the virtue of being easy to remember, but experts (who are prepared to pay the price in memory strain) usually go for more information. The version described by Larry Cohen (at larryco.com) is fairly typical, I think:
After 1 major – 2NT;

• 4 major = absolutely awful minimum (always 5-3-3-2)
  
• 3C = any other minimum (could be 5-3-3-2, but at least some redeeming feature)
  
• 3D = non-minimum, with a side singleton or void somewhere
  
• 3H = non-minimum, any 5-4-2-2 distribution
  
• 3S = non-minimum, 6+ trumps (no singletons or voids)
  
• 3NT = non-min., 5-3-3-2 (can be defined range eg 18-19)
  
• 4 new suit = decent 5-card side suit (should have ace or king)
  

After opener’s 3-level rebid, responder can bid the next step as a relay, and there are step 2nd rebids by the opener to locate shortages or second suits. Larry says that the memory strain isn’t too bad, but I don’t think I want to take it on.

At Bobby Knows Bridge (www.bobbybridge.com, a site well worth visiting) there is something a bit different. This is called Jacoby-Roman 2NT, and it concentrates on discovering opener’s shape with mostly natural bidding. In addition, the recommendation is to have the original 2NT response promise only 3+ cards in support of opener’s major. While there is therefore a known fit, there is also the possibility of discovering a 4-4 fit in another suit and playing there.
After 1 major – 2NT; opener has five types of rebid:

• 4 major = minimum with 6+cards, no side suit or singleton
  
• 4x = splinter with 6+card suit, no side suit
  
• 3NT = minimum with 5-3-3-2, not forcing
  
• 3 major = 15+ 5-3-3-2 or 6-3-2-2 or 7-2-2-2
  
• 3x = natural side suit
  

Of course, bidding a side suit will be the commonest rebid for the opener. After that, responder in turn has five possible continuations:

• 3NT = good stoppers, only 3-card support for the major. Opener will often pass, and should have a shortage or substantial extras to go on.
  
• 4 major = minimum response with 4-card support.
  
• 4x = 4-card support for opener’s second suit, suggesting slam.
  
• Cheapest bid other than 3NT = relay.
  
• Not the cheapest bid = control cue-bid with 4+card support for the major.
  

The relay bid asks opener to further clarify his shape. Opener continues in a natural style:

• 3NT = 5-4-2-2, not too much extra since 3NT can be passed
  
• repeating the major = 6-4 shape
  
• repeating the side suit = 5-5 shape
  
• new suit = natural, probably 3 cards in a 5-4-3-1 distribution
  

This all looks quite attractive to me. Memory strain is negligible, since all the bidding is essentially natural – there is only one artificial bid to recognize, the relay asking for more shape info. And responding 2NT on 3-card support makes sense to me also, since it increases the frequency of occurrence – the usual Jacoby 2NT really doesn’t come up very often – and allows you the inference that a 2-over-1 response followed by raising opener’s major will show a decent 5-card suit as well as 3-card support. (There is no longer any need to fudge the initial response on a poor suit).

I realize it is far from perfect. There are a number of distributions where the full sequence will take you past 3NT when ideally you might want to stop there. But that isn’t disastrous, because 4major should always be playable. I would be interested to give it a try.

70%

I’ve been taking it easy since STaC week, only playing a couple of times a week. And wouldn’t you know it, the first three sessions that weren’t worth silver points ran at 71%, 57% and 61%, with both the 71% and the 61% being good enough to win. I know some different people show up for silver points, so maybe the opposition hasn’t been as strong, but I’m disappointed anyway. I know my own play has been better these past two weeks.

It’s not the first time I’ve scored 70%, by any means, but it still was a bit of a thrill. To score that high, you have to be playing in luck, as well as not making many mistakes. One example: on one hand, my partner realized at trick 12 that he had only one card left. Under the director’s watchful eye, we discovered the extra card in the quitted tricks – apparently two cards had stuck together. The rule in this situation is that the card is deemed to have been in your hand all along. Naturally, if you have played half a dozen tricks since “losing” it, there is a fair chance that you will have revoked. In fact, my partner hadn’t, and there was no penalty assessed - lucky.

The other news, such as it is, is that I’ve taken the Tournament Director test from the ACBL. They promise to take weeks to return a verdict as to whether I’ve passed or not. But maybe, someday, I’ll actually get to direct a game or two. Won’t that be fun.