IMO, it is highly unlikely you would want to punish the opponent in that auction if the natural 2 overcall is legitimate. They are sitting OVER you. You are not sitting OVER them.

Different story if they are deliberating taking advantage of your bidding system and making the overcall with such heinous quality as xxxxx and 0 HCP - maybe the same type of opponents as Brian mentioned?

My advice is not to play against that type of individual. No one wants to play against someone who interferes just for the sake of disruption. Indeed, these are the same types of folk that would play you on-line while having a telephone connection to their partner. If that is their style of play, so be it; but I will not be regarding them as good players - and I do not think you should be forced to modify your bidding system in order to accommodate such miscreants.

John

For some dumb reason, I was thinking the auction as 1 -(1 )-P-(P)-? Don't ask me why, because after rereading it, Marcus was clear as the dickens it ran as 1 -(P)-1 -(P)-?  Maybe, playing too much rugby as a loosehead prop at age 60+ is having an affect on my big cranium. 

Anyway, if the auction was different - such as 1 -(1 )-P-(P)-? - are we still all going with 1 as rebid? Or X (in case of a trap pass by partner)? Or 1NT to clarify hand type?

How we pushined the ops (playing 2 X) .... or with that scenario.... just we cant ?

The simple 1 responses are geared to make it really hard to miss a 4-4 (or even a viable 4-3) Major fit when we're not strong enough to play beyond the 2-level (which is quite a lot of the time, let's face it).

If I may be forgiven a small amount of advertising, if you want to be sure of finding your major fits and greatly reduce the chances of playing in some silly  contracts, then in 3rd and 4th seats I really do recommend that you give the 1 /1NT scheme from my old system a try. It's in the 'alternative treatments' forum. You should ONLY use this when responder is a passed hand, and cannot have a GF response. Oliver doesn't like the scheme because it means you give up on the pre-emptive 1NT opener (all 11-15 balanced hands are opened 1 , 1NT is reserved for hands with genuine  ) and I absolutely accept that he has a point, but having played the scheme for something in excess of 30 years, I'm firmly convinced that it's a net positive. I did have a scheme for using those NF must-show-a-4CM-even-with-0-HCP responses with an unpassed responder, but I absolutely accept OCP's superiority (yes, both the simple and the complex systems) when responder is unlimited.

One of the major criticisms of the Complex 1 is that it can make it much harder to find a 4-4 Major fit at a low level. Jason and I accepted that (albeit with some reluctance) because of it's perceived advantages in some other areas, but in reality there isn't much to choose between the Simple 1 and the Complex 1 .

I think I'm correct in saying that, apart from Oliver, I'm probably the one in this group with the greatest experience with the Complex 1 , and Oliver is, of course, absolutely correct about the problems. All that I want to add, having now had some experience with the Simple 1 , is that my opinion is that in playing the Complex 1 , you sacrifice something on the weaker part scores in exchange for significant improvements on invitational and GF hands (the Complex 1 is also a much greater load on the memory!). Personally, I think that's a worthwhile exchange.

I would quibble with Oliver's answer - I think 20 times out of 10 is an underestimate! 

Seriously, John, I think it's not only your partner you need to tell about this, I think your 1NT rebid becomes alertable (certainly under BBO regulations, at least) if you say that you're playing Precision but are going to bypass a 4-card major.

You're also going to need to add something like Checkback to the system in order to look for a bypassed 4-4  fit.

I understand your point about wanting to show the balanced hand, but I really do think you're creating more problems than you're solving.

And what happens if your partner has 4=4=1=4 or 3=4=1=5 shape with insufficient HCP for an initial 2 response? Now pard is well and truly stuffed if 2 is Checkback - and particularly if your 1NT rebid is 11-12, your probably decent score on 4=4=1=4 is likely to change to a significant minus.