[akwoo]

Just mildly annoyed.

Sectional Swiss on Sunday - 7th out of 20, 1st in C Strat.

We gained 2 game swings from our 10-13 1N openings purely because the opponents didn't know what they were doing. Once because our opponents were playing DONT - they didn't know another system and didn't want to think about one. A second time because they didn't have their 2nd round agreements straight.

Now, the first one was against the folks who were 2nd in C, and the second was against folks playing a variable NT, so I don't feel as bad, but I really don't particularly want to win this way...

Of course we could've played better and gotten better opponents.

[jillybean]

Why aren’t you playing in AX?

[jdiana]

akwoo, on 2025-March-04, 12:18, said:

I really don't particularly want to win this way...

I think that ship sailed when you decided to play a weak NT.

Seriously, once you announced your range, that's all you can do. Most lower-level club players almost never encounter weak notrump openings (at least they were very rare when and where I was playing several years ago*) and so don't have separate systems for strong and weak NTs. (We had a very simple system on our card but it never came up.) If they see if often enough, they'll learn to deal with it. The only other thing you can do is play up but I take it from your OP that you were playing against these opponents because of your results in earlier rounds.

*If I get back to playing in the club later this year as planned, it will be interesting to see what's changed. Maybe weak notrump openings have filtered down to the masses. I expect to see more aggressive openings, overcalls and preempts.

[akwoo]

jillybean, on 2025-March-04, 19:37, said:

Why aren’t you playing in AX?

What AX? 20 teams total, all in one Swiss. We were 7th, and in the 6 rounds we faced the teams who were 3rd, 4th, one of the ones tied for 5th, 8th, 9th, and 10th.

[jillybean]

Well done.

[blackshoe]

Far as I'm concerned, any pair who are too damned lazy to prepare for situations they might legitimately face at the table deserves whatever they get.

That said, there are defenses to 1NT that work reasonably well whatever the range of the bid. DONT is not one of them.