[Gerben42]

Found one board where they have 5M332 and 16.

Nunes opened, Fantoni bid 1NT and Nunes passed. That's a solution
He made 3 anyway, other table they opened a 15 - 17 1NT, got to 3NT and went down 1. Guess if your teammates defend so well, you don't need to bid 3NT.

[Gerben42]

Found another:

---

1♠ - 1NT
2♣ - 2♥
2NT - Pass

[luis]

Nice writeup Gerben,
As some of you know I've been playing Fantunes with my pd here in Argentina for about 1 year now, we started in November 2004. Both my pd and I used to be too undisciplined to be able to play together, the tight 14+ 1 level openings and 9-13 2 level openings let us bid a lot as we like but we have a better control of what is going on. We are also using Keri over our 12-14 NT openings and some good results must be attributed to Keri.

Some assorted comments I have about this system so far:
- The 2 level openings generate a lot of good results for us, the most typical examples are FAST arrivals to games that work as a save against something they can't find or thet prevent them from saving since they have no way to get in.
- The 1 level openings are very good for slam investigations, we are not using Turbo as F&N just normal cuebidding and keycard, no big difference I think.
- For some strange reason some players can't get used to 2♣ showing clubs, one player actually asked if that was legal, it was quite funny.
- After a 1-level opening showing where your values are is sometimes better than showing the distribution of the hand, specially when deciding between 3NT and 4M.
- From time to time we have missed a game when opening at the 2 level

Luis

[Chamaco]

luis, on Nov 13 2005, 10:24 PM, said:

Some assorted comments I have about this system so far:
- The 2 level openings generate a lot of good results for us, the most typical examples are FAST arrivals to games that work as a save against something they can't find or thet prevent them from saving since they have no way to get in.
- The 1 level openings are very good for slam investigations, we are not using Turbo as F&N just normal cuebidding and keycard, no big difference I think.
- For some strange reason some players can't get used to 2♣ showing clubs, one player actually asked if that was legal, it was quite funny.
- After a 1-level opening showing where your values are is sometimes better than showing the distribution of the hand, specially when deciding between 3NT and 4M.
- From time to time we have missed a game when opening at the 2 level

Luis

I think the original FN system is very good for:

- opening at the 2-level with a high frequency: 9-12/13 (even lower bound if 3rd hand) are most frequent;
- handling big hands without worries for interference;
- finding 14+10 hcp (or equivalent) hands.

Some downsides are:

- close games where we have 12 vs 12 (or bad 13 vs good 10/11) are hard to reach (or otherwise, easy to land in a silly one), especially when the bad 13 is opened at the 2 level;
- 2 level opening might lead to wrong partscores
- the 1C opener encompasses contiguous range of balanced hands, which I find non-optimal in contested auctions (especially 4th hand interference); I wonder whether the Mexican 2D coule be inserted in the system without making it too awkward; that would leave only 1 range of balanced hands in the 1C opener.
Indeed, another solution could be to open 2NT on 18-19 hands so that the 1C opener is (when balanced) 15-17 or 20+.
There are quite a few 1st league italian players who are opening 2NT with 18-19 (and using the Mexican 2D with 20-21 hands), so I guess opening 2NT with 18-19 is not such a crime

===============

To tell the truth about Rosenberg's comment during Vugraph (Fantunes 2-level openings "somewhat unsound but hard to play against"), I suspect that several of his comments were more motivated by emotional reasons rather than anything else: another example of this type of comment was when he stated that he always found the italian cuebidding style as unsound.
And these examples were not the only ones.
But who am I to argue with Rosenberg ?

[Gerben42]

One great success was to find a 7NT with 24 and 4414 opposite 9 (♥KQJT9x and a side K) in our first tournament playing this.

After 1♣ opening I admitted to having a good hand with ♥ and we kept on going until the box was empty I guessed partner must've been strong, and he was...

Luis just a question:

Do you use Gazilli and if so, how do you handle 5M332 hands with 16 points or so?

Quote

For some strange reason some players can't get used to 2♣ showing clubs, one player actually asked if that was legal, it was quite funny.

I've had the same experience... People asking what our 2-bids really are after seeing the CC. Couldn't believe 2x simply shows that suit, esp. 2♣.

[luis]

Yes we use Gazzilli for 5332 hands we just rebid 2M but if we have a nice 3 card minor we rebid 2m for example with KQx in a minor we bid as if it were a 5-4 hand.

Luis

[Chamaco]

Gerben,
I just browsed through your FD version.

I like the idea of opening 18-19 (or 19-20) 2NT (because it avoids the problem of continuous range of the balanced hands included in 1♣), but I think 18-20 is too wide a range for opening 2NT, because responder, if he has, say, 4-5 hcp, would like to be in game vs a balanced 20, but not vs a balanced 18.

Just yesterday, in a team event, some opps missed game because of this.
On the other hand, had they bid 3NT when opener had 18 hcp, they would have had no play at all.

There is simply no room for responder to invite, hence the classic statement that, the higher the opening bid, the narrower the hcp range should be.

[Gerben42]

Let me give the background of the posted files. Having played the system for a while in the league and some tournaments we were playing everything written in the system description except the 1♣ opening, which is new. We were trying to play that the same as F-N do but had some problems figuring it out, and then it turned into a big mess.

I am unfortunately not playing with that partner anymore (we were incompatible from a psychological point of view) but that gave me the liberty to redesign that part of the system

I guess next time I'll give it a try with the 18 - 19 2NT opener, sounds nice. Since we're overcalling 2NT on 17 -counts all the time it'll be allright. And as a bonus opps may look silly when they have a 22-point game on

I will keep the 15 - 17 hands with 5M332 in 1♣, in my experience that wasn't much of a problem. Also it is nice to know that partner has really 5♥ 4♣, or 6♥ when making those Gazilli rebids...

Thanks for all the comments, I guess I've sorta filled all the holes now (for links see earlier post)

[Chamaco]

Gerben42, on Nov 14 2005, 02:48 PM, said:

I will keep the 15 - 17 hands with 5M332 in 1♣, in my experience that wasn't much of a problem. Also it is nice to know that partner has really 5♥ 4♣, or 6♥ when making those Gazilli rebids...

Yes, I like that :-)

When I do play Gazzilli, I use the 2NT rebid as 6M+4bagger, and the 2M rebid as minimum 5M4C hand.

[glen]

For those who have played the Fantunes methods (or close relatives) extensively, which opening bids deliver more net + IMPs? For example is the 2♠ opening more likely to produce IMPs over time than the other two level bids.

Would the system be hindered much by moving the 2♦ opening hand types into the 1♦ opening, freeing up 2♦ for something else?

One opinion I have of the Fantunes methods is that although they are sub-optimal (i.e. in my view) they don't task the players compared to many other sophisticated systems, so the players remain fresh for play and defence challenges. Any comments on this?

[keylime]

I rather like the disciplined nature of the one bids.