[paulg]

I'd have thought canape overcalls ... though how rubbish can this be when Bocchi/Duboin used to play them?

Paul

[Blofeld]

david_c, on Jun 9 2006, 07:24 PM, said:

Defence to a weak NT: 2♣ overcall shows a weak NT hand. (Yes, there really are people that play this.)

I had to stop myself from cracking up when this was explained to me at the table in a local league match.

[Free]

I've thought about turning everything upside down, since in many situations (like lead directing doubles over opponents' cue in our suit) it's just better. Perhaps you should try to play 5 card minors, longest Major (so with 5m you always open 1m). No reverses (1m-...-2M only 5m-4M since partner didn't support the m / 1M-...-2m just 5M-4m), but you could play inverted Majors on that as well. I wonder if that would work, but system regulations might forbid this...

"4♣ ALWAYS gerber" that's also a poor convention.
Play regular blacky, not RKC or so
Don't forget Flannery
crappeletti over opponents' NT
Every double is penalty
"intervening (and preemptive openings) 1X shows 5+ card suit, 2-level 6+, 3-level 7+, 4-level 8+,..."
Reversed Fishbein - worst convention ever!
Lorenzo two's only when Vulnerable (2X = 0-7hcp, 4+ card suit, Majors first style)

I also like the idea of playing no conventions at all, like in the good old days

[kfgauss]

Free, on Jun 10 2006, 08:16 AM, said:

. . . you could play inverted Majors on that as well . . .

This has been a serious suggestion. I think a writeup appeared a few years ago in the ACBL bulletin. Seems rubbish to me though.

---------

In a sectional game yesterday, my opponents had a lovely Gerber accident against us:

2N - 3H (transfer)
3S - 4C
4N - 5C
5S - 6S

Opener thought 4C..5C was gerber. Not the least likely time to play it, of course, but his partner held Q109xxx x xx A9xx, not that this in any way resembles a 4C bid. I'm not sure what possessed RHO to try 6S, though (or 5C, for that matter), having heard partner either bid a discouraging 4NT and then appear to be 2-2 in their suits, or having heard partner use blackwood (?!) and then sign off.

Andy

[Double !]

www.Bridgeguys.com Convention section has a written description of inverted majors for anyone who is interested.


DHL

[Double !]

If one is looking for unusual bidding systems, if one goes to acbl site, great bridge links, bidding box section, included is a description of a bidding system called "The Smart Blonde System" or some similar name. All I can say is that, upon brief inspection, it is different.


A little over a year ago, a forum member discussed in one of the threads a homegrown bidding system that included something called Tornado Two bids. I recognized the bids and, after correspondence with this forum member, I learned that we had played at the same bridge club many, many years ago. (Although I couldn't recall who he was, I did recognize the name of at least one of his partners- small world.)

As I recall, Tornado Two bids (2D,H,S) showed 11/12-15 hcp, a 4-card suit, no 5-card suit, and no higher ranking 4-card suit. It was what I call a "fix" bid at matchpoints: it works great and might fix the opps on the right types of hands when the bid works, and it can backfire on you when responder has the wrong hand. Part of the system, what little I can recall, was that an opening 1NT bid showed 15/16-18 hcp with just about any shape. I don't recall the response structure to the 1NT openers. I also believe that opening 3-bids showed something like 11/12-15 hcp and a 6-card suit (not sure about this). There was probably more to this, but it was over 25 years when I played this only a few times.
It was an "interesting" matchpoint system when one had the right types of hands and it was fun to play (if I was able to remember all of the bids), but it had many obvious flaws. It could be worked on,though.

DHL

[Codo]

You must add "Hofstein" to your weapons:

This great tool was invited to solve the bidding problem with the following quite common hand:
AKQ, AKQ, AKQ, AKQx.

Now you must find out which jack pd has.

Solution:
A direct 5 NT opening asks pd to show his jacks up the line.

It works quite well if you get the right hand for it....

[helene_t]

Once pd and I forgot our CCs so we decided to play Biedermeijer Groen because it's an alert-free system (it's stone-age Goren except that the notrump range is 15-17).

It turned out to work much better than our usual hi-tech stuff. Of course it's a ridicolous system but since it contains few uncommon elements it is reasonably easy to memorize, at least if you don't have the ambition of knowing the finer details as the forcing character of a call.

Which made me wonder if the worst possible system wouldn't be something like:

                            1st seat       2nd seat      3rd seat      4th seat
White vs White  R-M               Fantunes     Culbertson Tarzan
White vs Red     Mosc96        WJ2000         B-D               Mosc2000
Red vs White     Matula          Blue Club     Crazy D       Bangkong Club
Red vs Red        Dutch Dblt   Magic D         Roman        Biedermeijer Red  

[jchiu]

Back to things that people actually play, believing that they have some value. The F list is essentially things that I would never play, and the D list consists of common conventions that are abused so frequently that I benefit when my opponents use them against me.

The F List

Flannery (or worse, reverse)
Mini Roman 2D (10-14, etc.)
Stolen Bid Doubles
Roman Gerber
MUD Leads
Coded 10s and 9s

The D List

Bergen Raises
Rosenkranz Doubles
Blackwood 4NT always
Two-under preempts (not Namyats)
Showing more than three controls to 2C

To be continued

[Free]

What's wrong with coded 10s and 9s?

[foo]

Free, on Jun 12 2006, 03:36 AM, said:

What's wrong with coded 10s and 9s?

Coded T's and 9's, like J Denies T Implies, are wonderful defensive carding conventions...

...for =Declarer=.

[ArcLight]

>What's wrong with coded 10s and 9s?

I'd like to know this too.

Eddie Kantar likes them. He advocates their use in his Modern Bridge defense.

In Bobby Hammans book "At the Table" he HATES the "Jack Denies" convention, but never said anything about Coded 9s and 10's. He also disliked the ethics of the Smith Echo.

[kfgauss]

ArcLight, on Jun 12 2006, 03:20 PM, said:

In Bobby Hammans book "At the Table" he HATES the "Jack Denies" convention, but never said anything about Coded 9s and 10's. He also disliked the ethics of the Smith Echo.

They sort of go together, don't they?

On the other hand, recently I was made to guess twice in one round whether a 9 lead had been top of nothing or had two higher against opponents playing coded 9's and 10's.

Andy

[awm]

There are occasional positions where declarer is helped immensely by a coded 9/T or a J denies type lead. An example is something like:

Kxx

9x

Suppose LHO leads jack of this suit against 3NT. If this denies a higher honor, then you know playing the king will be wrong. Your best line is surely to hold up the king and hope that the opening leader has 4+ cards in the suit. On the other hand, if the lead is the ten (zero or two higher) then the position must be AJTx(x) on lead and you should put up the king. Without the coded leads, a lead of the jack is ambiguous and either of holding up or flying king could be right (and the wrong choice could be quite bad).

People who hate coded 9s and Ts usually remember a big loss for the convention in a situation like this. On the other hand, there are also many situations where partner is helped by the lead either at trick one or later in the hand. Some (but not all) of the "later in the hand" benefits can be replaced by smith echo though. A simple example:

9xx
-----------Kxx

You are defending 3NT on an uninformative auction, and partner leads the jack of this suit. Do you play the king? If partner's lead is from JT8x, then playing the king has the effect of freezing this suit from partner's side of the table, greatly reducing your side's chance of any tricks in this suit. On the other hand, if partner has lead from AJTx(x) then ducking the king will lead to an embarrassing result! Playing coded 9s/Ts the play will be obvious; playing most other methods it is not. Another situation happens when partner leads the jack of a suit, you and dummy have small cards, declarer wins the first trick with the queen. You get in at trick two and have to decide whether to try and develop your own long suit or continue the suit partner lead. If partner has AJTx(x) you want to continue his suit; if he has KJTx(x) it will also often be right to continue his suit (he's unlikely to have many other cards in this case, say). If he lead from JTx(x) then continuing his suit is horrible. Smith might help with this if you play it, but there are times when partner doesn't have the chance to make the signal at trick two anyway.

Personally I don't mind coded 9s/Ts. I don't lead from these sequences much against suits anyway, but against notrump I've found it to be useful (especially if not playing smith). To each his own I guess.

[foo]

awm makes some good points. Hopefully I can add to them.

Another name for both "J Denies, T implies" and "Coded T's and 9's" is "Zero or 2 Higher"

Zo2H along w/ "low lead promises an honor" often blueprint the board for Declarer.

I've Declared hands where such an Opening Lead told me where every HCP was and virtually everything that I needed to know about the way suits were distributed around the table as well.

Curiously enough, using these sorts of conventions mid-play tends to be far less dangerous to The Defense than using them on opening lead since Declarer is often either committed to a course of action at that point or at least has reduced options compared to at Trick One.


As for the ethics problems with Smith Echo; the issue is that many pairs playing Smith have tempo problems in situations where GOP can figure out what the problem is from the uneven tempo.
This UI issue is one reason that we as modern players are no longer allowed to play odd/even signals except as discards. Unlike the Blue Team who appear to have invented O/E and used it throughout the hand for count, attitude, and suit preference.

[Miron]

I'm going to play this some time (but not sure when):

The standard american plays 5 card major and better minor.

What to play it switched:
5 card MINOR and better major (of cource the minor openning is prefered to the better major)

There is a lot of funny moments:
inverted majors
forsing NT after minor (but not major)
some clever fitting tool for fitting the minor
etc.

You can play here any convention, but do not forget to switch minor-major.

You won't get any good result, but I think you enjoy it a lot

[jdeegan]

You want action? Play the nearly forgotten Woodson Two Way Notrump opening bid. A one notrump opening bid shows a balanced hand with 10-12 or 16-18 HCP. Partner bids 2C to learn more about the holding and strength. Opener bids at the 2-level to show the weak hand, and at the 3 level to show stronger opening.

With 0-7 high card points and a sort of balanced hand, the responder should pass, hoping that the opponents do not decide to balance. With 0-7 high card points and a 5-card plus suit besides Clubs, the responder bids this suit. The 1 No Trump bidder should pass this bid, unless he actually has a maximum in the 16-18 high card point Range. If he does, then trying for game is not out of the question.

If the responder does have 14/15 plus high card points and a balanced hand, then striving for game is the best option, even with the 10-12 high card point range of the No Trump bidder. If the No Trump bidder has 16-18 high card points, then slam is possible.

The sequence: 1 No Trump - 2 No Trump is game invitation

The sequence: 1 No Trump - 2 No Trump - 3 Clubs is slam invitation

As you can see, the responder is put into an unsound position. He does not know the strength of his partner. But Mr. William Woodson compensated for this. He devised the following, if his partner should have 8 plus high card points and would like to find out more about the strength of the 1 No Trump. The following chart clarifies Mr. William Woodson's convention.

1 No Trump Pass 2♣

2 ♦ shows 10-12 HCPs, less than 4 Hearts

2 ♥ shows 10-12 HCPs, 4 Hearts

2 ♠ shows 16HCPs, 4 Spades

2 No Trump shows 16HCPs, less than 4 Spades

3♣ shows 17-18HCPs

From this point on, the responder has to think logically. The responder now has a better clarification of his partner's hand. He combines this knowledge with the length and strength of his own hand, and then makes the appropriate bid.

However, please remember that the Woodson Convention has been targeted and has been banned on the General Convention Chart by the ACBL.

[Gerben42]

If this is your goal here goes:

Opening bids:

4-card majors with 2/1 game forcing.
Benjamin and 2♥ is the F-convention. 2♠ is a strong 3-suiter with any shortage.
Opening 1NT shows 16 - 18.
3NT is 25 - 27 NT or so?

Responses:
Strong jump shifts (16+, even with 5-card suit). 1M - 3M is the strongest raise (16+), with 1M - 4M showing 13 - 15 of course.

No inv. minors, 1m - 2NT is invitational, being sure that you have no way to raise a minor in a forcing way.

4♣ is ALWAYS the G-convention.

2-way Stayman (great after strong NT lol), Baron.

After interference:

Stolen bid. Double is ALWAYS penalty.

Defensive bidding:

Double is ALWAYS penalty.

Strong jump overcalls (not intermediate, I mean STRONG!), Ghestem only if you are likely to forget it. If you tend to remember it, play the cuebid as strong unbalanced hand.

DONT vs weak NT, Capp vs strong NT.

[CarlRitner]

This is getting ridiculous.

4♣ is always Gerber. No exceptions. Show me all of your aces.
3♣ is always mini-Gerber. Show me some of your aces.
2♣ is always negative Gerber. Don't show your aces.

Cheers,
Carl

P.S. I am on vacation until July 1st. All book requests will be processed then.

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