The phantom of the midnights

Wednesday was a whirlwind of ridiculous results. It was also the playground for a new system Lovey and I call "The Phantom 1NT." Read on!

In the morning we played in a compact bracketed KO in the lowest bracket, and somehow managed to get knocked out in the 2nd round. There were a couple of mistakes, but the loss was completely within the margin of one sinister, hilarious, and memorable board.

What do you open in first seat, all red, with this hand?

South
S A5432
H Q8
D AKx
C QT8

I know this is a question of style. If you open a spade, ok. If you open 1NT, do you play a way to reveal 5 card majors? If partner opens 1NT, what do you respond holding this hand:

S KJT
H 65
D Q96
C AKJ65

Are you content to be in 3NT? Lovey chose Puppet Stayman, which more or less gives up on slam but should be fine. We find our excellent 4S game.

The point of the hand is that 4S is a vastly superior contract to 3NT, and makes a good case for puppet over 1NT openings or to have a style where you don't open 1NT when your other major is Qx. For 4S, all you need is a not 5-0 spade break, which is about a 96% game. 3NT is hopeless unless they don't lead hearts, or ON THE LIE OF THE CARDS:

West:
S void
H AJT9(!)
D J8742
C 9732

East:
S Q9876(!)
H K7432
D 4
C 73

So not only does the heart blockage and my Qx make 3NT undefeatable, taking away the system-win from Puppet, the spades are simultaneously breaking 5-0, giving 4S no play. What are the chances, people? This double vulnerable-game fix (we should be making and they shouldn't, and it was vice versa) cost us the match: a 24 IMP swing.

Perhaps because that session was the height of absurdity, and perhaps because I've been thinking about this joke system all week, Lovey and I agreed over dinner to play our new system "The Phantom 1NT" in the midnights. The idea is to that defense to 1NT bids are so fun, and we just don't get to bid them often enough, so why not open them at the one and two level? We worked hard to make the system general-chart - at least we hope it is. Here's the basic structure:

1D: minors, 11-16
1H: hearts and a minor, 11-16
1S: spades and a minor, 11-16
2C: clubs and 11-16
2D: majors and 11-16
2H: 6+ hearts, 11-16
2S: 6+ spades, 11-16
and the evil:
1C: 12-14 or 18-19 balanced, or 17+ unbalanced
1NT: 15-17
Defense against NT for maximum irony: natural
2/1 and forcing 1NT over majors
All doubles by responder are support or value showing

Lovey just can't wait to explain my 2C overcall of 1NT, with an incredulous expression, as: "Natural, of course!"

We play forcing NT and 2/1 over the weird major openings and some thrown together crap over the 1D and 2D bids. You may notice there is no way to bid diamonds... 3-1-6-3, you say? Shuddup.

This system is currently undefeated, as Lovey and made it to the semi-finals of the midnight Zip KO teams with this beast. We were on a six-bagger team, which means that we had to sit out every third round, and our team lost the first round we sat out. Obviously a massive system win.

We did actually get a good result every time we opened, and didn't give up an IMP during the time we were playing. The 2 suited bids worked well: 1D helped us find a good 3NT, and 2D kept us in a 4-4 heart fit at the two level without any interference. The one system loss was when the auction went 1H-pass-2H-pass and I passed with 14 points and a good 5-4 in hearts and clubs. I think it was worth an invite, but Lovey and I need to discuss major raises more if we ever want to make the joke more fleshed out.

Argenta, sadly, left today with her Mom. Otherwise, life is good. Today we play the NABC+ fast pairs, which is another we have of saying we lose faster than usual, by even more than usual. It should be great. Catch you later.