Wow. Don't remember posting in this thread but gotta say I agree with myself still! I was getting a hernia reading the initial replies.
I guess Frances hit the nail on the head with:
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Mainly seems to be a disagreement about what strength 2NT showed.
We see this in:
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As North, if you are content that 2NT with that hand is within style
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In spite of JLall's disapproval IMO the call meets any normal inference into the strength and card length showed.
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I have no problem with the 2NT call.
OK, fair enough. I guess I should amend what I said to "I think a style where the north hand is consistent with a 2N bid is a complete joke." I cannot imagine it being a winning style or employed by anyone. Apparantly south is with me, since he drove to game (also in a completely misguided way). Despite this thread, I think it is a non standard bid.
2 people described it as a preempt. Why is it a preempt? And don't preempts show sufficient constructive values to preempt to that level anyways? Maybe this is just semantics, but north does not have enough values to "preempt" to the 3 level to me, any more than jack fifth of clubs can overcall 3C.
Overcalling the minors should have a constructive goal since it gives away so much information to the opponents, and is incredibly easy to double, and we often don't end up declaring anyways since minors suck. This is not like a 1 suited preempt which still leaves much of your hand unknown, and can take sufficient tricks on it's own in the suit most of the time, and is much harder to double (they don't have a bid to say "I've got them!"). Doing so on hands this weak just leads to going for a number a fair amount of the time, and the times you don't the opponents get to play double dummy against you. On top of that, partner will never have any idea of whether he can try for game or not, or even save/compete, since your hand can be so bad, so it hurts you on the times when you have a legit 2N overcall.
Here we have a lot of defense, a lot of hearts, and very little offense. I just cannot wrap my head around 2N being a serious bridge bid.
It has become a pet peeve of mine that things like this start when people hear something like "You should play michaels as split range." OK, stupid enough concept already but it became standard through some good marketing, whatever. But then, it becomes "You should play unusual 2N as split range also for the same reasons!" OK, not the same, nor is 1C-2C vs 1S-2S, but fine let's lump them together. But then, we lose common sense and we hear the words WEAK or STRONG, and the weak variety just becomes utterly absurd, simply because WE ARE SPLIT!
I mean no one would bid on -- xxx xxxxx xxxxx, we all know that's kind of retarded, even though it's WEAK. Surely we can comprehend that even a weak variety driving to the 3 level in a MINOR in a dangerous way ought to be more like xx -- QJTxx KQTxxx, and how this hand is much different than that. But no, somehow we've just come to, this is 5-5 weak, standard!
To me it is common sense that bidding 2N with the north hand is ludicrous, and will result in our side losing imps, and that is even if partner knows exactly that we can have this hand and judge perfectly (which of course he will not, since he has no room at all to maneuver). Similarly, if I played a 2N overcall as showing 4-6 balanced, I would expect to lose imps when I bid it, despite it being my "style" or "agreement."
Lastly, as usual, I agree with everything MFA said here.
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cherdano, on 2011-March-01, 15:53, said: