[prescot_td]

What is the commonly agreed 'play' of this convention?

After playing this convention with a regular Club partner for many years I played tonight on BBO and an 'Advanced' partner who played it differently.

So, I open a weak 1NT (12-14hcP) (Vul) LHO dbles, p has zero points, playing Wriggle how does the bidding go?

[Cyberyeti]

Depends on the exact wriggle

Often redouble shows a 5+ card suit, bidding a suit shows that suit and a higher suit.

There are variants where pass is forcing to a redouble, in which case bidding immediately is the lower of 2 touching suits, bidding after the XX is a non touching 2 suiter.

[AL78]

I have played a couple of different versions:

1NT - (X) - ?

XX: transfer to clubs.
2♣: Stayman.
2♦/♥/♠: natural.

1NT - (X) - ?

2♣/♦/♥: lowest of two touching suits.
Pass: forces XX then pass is to play; 2♣/♦: lowest of two non-touching suits.
XX: forces 2♣ then pass/2♦/2♥/2♠: to play.

[mikeh]

I’ve no idea whether ‘wriggle’ as an actual, defined convention. However, as someone who has played and still plays a lot of weak notrump (currently 10-13 nv), I think some rescue method is essential.

We play, after a direct double of 1N:

Pass forces a redouble. Responder may be intending to play 1N xx (or to possibly punish them if they run) or has a two suited run out….either minors or a minor and spades or majors with spades better than hearts

xx. Forces 2C…responder has a one suited runout

2C/D shows the bid suit plus hearts

2H is majors, with hearts as good as or better than spades

2S is natural but a good enough hand that opener is allowed to raise in competition, with 4 spades. Redoubling and then 2S tells opener not to compete.

I’ve played this off and on since the mid 1990s.

Some experts don’t like the fact that one can never play 1N doubled….arguing that sometimes -100 or 300 or even 500 is better than whatever happens after redouble.

In one high level match, we went for -1100 when we had no fit and our 4-3 trump suit broke badly. Our teammates had almost the same score…there was basically (a) zero difference….they played safely for 110.

In another, in a Bermuda bowl round robin, I sat for the redouble with a nine count. They could have beaten us 1,000 but they needed to guess a switch at trick 2. When they got that wrong, we made an overtrick!

But my view is that the rare disaster or potential disaster is a price worth paying in order to maximize the ability to run to whatever ‘fit’ one may have. Btw, we have follow ups for the dreaded 4333 responding hand, which haven’t (yet) come up much or led a disaster.

[akwoo]

Everyone has their favorite escape system. In one partnership, I play AL78's second option. In another partnership, I play Meckwell escapes - same as Meckwell over their 1N opening. In a scratch partnership where we're playing a weak NT, for simplicity I propose everything to play (including both P and XX), except 2C is clubs or 3-suited w/o clubs or both majors - but I'm happy to play whatever.

[AL78]

mikeh, on 2023-September-26, 16:56, said:

I’ve no idea whether ‘wriggle’ as an actual, defined convention.

It doesn't AFAIK, it just means get out of 1NTX. When I am playing with a scratch partner and they say they play "Wriggle" I always ask which one. Saying you play Wriggle is like saying you play a defence to a 1NT opening.

[Tramticket]

David Stevenson lists a variety of conventions to escape from 1NT doubled on his site: My linkhttps://www.blakjak.org/dbl_1nt0.htm

Some include the term "Wriggle" in the name, but I have always understood the term "wriggle" to refer to a general approach to finding the best fit with four-card suits rather than a specific convention.

[mw64ahw]

I play
XX 5-card suit asks partner to bid 2♣
2♣/Red that suit and ♠
2♠ natural
2NT minors
PASS asks opener to XX can wriggle further looking for a fit in ♣/Red suits
https://www.bridgebum.com/dig_out.php

I seem to remember a website with the various approaches on it but can't find it at the moment-its in the post above!

[Gilithin]

The best resource on the net for 1NTX (David Stevenson) has 3 different conventions going by the name Wriggle and none of them matches the version I see most often. The simple truth is that you cannot just agree conventions like this by name, you also have to discuss what that actually means. It would probably be easier for the OP to provide his version and the rest of us can try to place it in the larger family of Wriggle conventions.

[bluenikki]

prescot_td, on 2023-September-26, 15:27, said:

What is the commonly agreed 'play' of this convention?

After playing this convention with a regular Club partner for many years I played tonight on BBO and an 'Advanced' partner who played it differently.

So, I open a weak 1NT (12-14hcP) (Vul) LHO dbles, p has zero points, playing Wriggle how does the bidding go?

My wife and I played a home-grown escape for 12-14.

Pass strongly suggested some 4333.
Redouble showed 4+ in one minor, 3- in the other.
2♣ showed 4+ in both minors.
2♦ showed 4+ in both majors.

We were led to this by an embarrassing hand where we escaped to a 4-3 when a 5-5 was available.

[Gilithin]

bluenikki, on 2023-September-28, 15:02, said:

My wife and I played a home-grown escape for 12-14.

Pass strongly suggested some 4333.
Redouble showed 4+ in one minor, 3- in the other.
2♣ showed 4+ in both minors.
2♦ showed 4+ in both majors.

We were led to this by an embarrassing hand where we escaped to a 4-3 when a 5-5 was available.

How do you actually play in 1NT? If you cannot and explain this to opps, they can happily psyche a double on 0hcp knowing they have disrupted your auction and there is no way of taking advantage of it.

[bluenikki]

Gilithin, on 2023-September-28, 17:26, said:

How do you actually play in 1NT? If you cannot and explain this to opps, they can happily psyche a double on 0hcp knowing they have disrupted your auction and there is no way of taking advantage of it.

first, no one thought of it.

Second, although it never came up, we would pass with GAME value, balanced.

As for playing 1NTX with 13 facing 10, no thanks, I'd rather declare a suit.

[Gilithin]

bluenikki, on 2023-September-29, 07:56, said:

first, no one thought of it.

Second, although it never came up, we would pass with GAME value, balanced.

As for playing 1NTX with 13 facing 10, no thanks, I'd rather declare a suit.

If your systemic call is to pass with a game-going hand then the description of any 4333 is misinformation. If I may be so bold, my suggestion to make the method truly playable would be to make Pass a puppet to XX from Opener. Responder can then pass this with a hand that wants to play in 1NT, bid 2♣ with the 4333 hand, and you then have the ability to show some additional hand types to boot. For example, p->2♦ might show ♦ and a major (or both majors if you want ♦+M to be in XX); P->2♥ can be both majors; and P->2♠ or higher can be game-going distributional 2-suiters, which are often awkward hands in many runout methods. The most important thing though is that you have a complete system and explain it correctly to the opps. Finally, the odds favour 1NT making with an even distribution of the points according to practical (not DD) statistics. With 23 vs 17, you should ordinarily be delighted to play 1NTX (or 1NTXX), notwithstanding the possibility of the opps running 7 tricks off the top from a solid suit.

[bluenikki]

To be clear: The convention card said XX = one minor, 2C = both minors, 2D = both majors. The "pass with 4333" was an inference. We always escaped with two 4+ or a 5+. It didn't come up, but we probably would have redoubled with 3=3=4=3.

The premise was that we hoped the opponents would buy the contract, and we tried to minimize the distributional information we revealed.

[mycroft]

In times past, I have played many runouts of weak NT.

In one, we could play 1NTx (but not xx) (DONT rescues, if you care). At MPs, which is where we played most of our games, this gains the benefit over (can play 1NTxx but not x) that 1NTx-1 NV beats all partscores, and 1NTx down not enough beats game; and 1NTx= or +1 rarely cost any matchpoints vs 1NTxx. Plus, they were less likely to run, which meant we had more opportunity to play for that golden -100 (or +180).

In others, we played Guoba rescues (or Moscow escapes, but I'm Canadian); the benefit of more specific 2-suiter escapes gained (especially when we could escape to 2M= where the DONT rescue got to 2m= because we couldn't trust the major) enough that it was basically a wash that we couldn't sit for 1NTx.

Currently I play a system you might even call "Wriggle" (but I call "2♣ Scramble") where I can play both 1NTx (not sure if I can make, but probably our best score) and 1NTxx (forcing over a 2m runout, highly encourages a double even into game, especially at MPs); we pay even more on our "2-suited runouts" than even the DONT rescues.

Swings and roundabouts, always. How much do you prioritise getting to the best rescue (but letting the opponents get several cracks at finding their best option), over pressuring the opponents into an immediate decision (but also limiting the scope of our decision-making)? Both are valid goals.

But more important, no matter the decision you make, that you can explain it well enough that the opponents aren't also fighting that.