[wclass___]

Ok, am enhusiactic about this idea in various situations.

It is hard to get the whole picture and assess, because I don't know how people would defend against this.

How would you defend vs.:

1♦ =bal or 5m+4M 11-15-
..........................1♠ = 4♥+ F1

1♠ (5♥+ 11-15 NV) -

1♠ = 5♥+ 0-3♠ 14+ F1

?

[RMB1]

Can this really be the right forum for a topic where 1S = hearts?

[wclass___]

I would be delighted if this gets moved to non-natural system discussion.

[Zelandakh]

For the first, Double as a spade overcall and otherwise system on would certainly be an option I would expect to see a lot in practise, even if not theoretically the best. For the second, it looks like you have to give up either a cheap spade overcall, a 1NT overcall or the takeout double. I guess the 1NT overcall is the least important of these so a defence based on "X = spades; 1NT = takeout" makes sense to me. I guess that "X = takeout; 1NT = natural" would be more popular in practise though. For the last it seems very clear that the natural 1NT is the least important hand type to show immediately so here the "X = spades; 1NT = takeout" defence looks more likely. Of course, for all of these there may be advantages in playing methods more artificial in nature. I doubt they would be met often enough to represent the make-or-break for the idea though.

[gnasher]

The last time I had to think of a defence to this, we played:
- Double = a spade overcall
- 1NT = a takeout double of hearts
- Pass then double hearts = 15-17 balanced
- Pass then double some other suit = just takeout, but might be 15-17 balanced

If the 1♠ bid is non-forcing, there is a problem with this: what do you do with a very strong hand that would normally make a takeout double? You could end up in 1NT opposite a 3433 9-count. An answer might be to play the 1NT bid as forcing, but that has its own problems.

Instead, it might be better to play double as takeout and 1NT as a spade overcall.