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Mini-Roman Opening Mini-Roman Opening

#1 User is offline   pbleighton 

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Posted 2004-February-15, 17:12

Does anyone have experience playing this (2D = 11-15 any 4441 shape)? I am considering this in conjunction with a very light opening 5cM, 5cD strong club system with 9-14 opening bids (I would have play this as 10-14 for the GCC). It would have to also include (440)5 shapes as well. I'm aware that some play that it guarantees 4 spades - this wouldn't work for me.

I'm interested in how well it bids the hands overall versus the field (5cM in my case), rather than whether it would be a good use of the 2D bid in a standardish system.

Peter
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#2 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2004-February-17, 18:38

i played it for a longggg time... i'd still be playing it but it seems to have fallen out of favor... i played it in conjuncture with flannery.. 2 was mini, 2 flannery

i had good luck when i played that way, which was also a strong club system, mainly because it does have a slight preemptive effect.. i'd have no qualms about using it in a 2/1 structure... though the hand is limited (11-15 or so), it can still be strong enough to make ops worry about whose hand it is, at least until partner bids.. and sometimes it's too late by then

the worst thing i can say about mini roman is, some usages for 2 may work as well
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#3 User is offline   Gerben47 

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Posted 2004-February-18, 03:43

I wouldn't play that. Three of the four shapes in Mini-Roman can be opened 1 without any problem. The fourth shape, 4414, is a problem. It is however rare enough to ignore. I would treat 4414 as a balanced hand and open 1 on 4405, but ignore this option in the rest of the bidding.

2 is much better used for hands below opening strength.
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#4 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2004-February-18, 05:44

have you ever used it? i liked it a lot and found it to be a good weapon... but to each his own
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#5 User is offline   mikestar 

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Posted 2004-February-18, 14:57

Speaking about Mini-Roman 2 in general, I've never understood why some players have it promise . If you are going to guarantee one suit it should be : then partner can pass. This puts more pressure on the opponents.
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#6 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2004-February-18, 15:19

mikestar, on Feb 18 2004, 10:57 PM, said:

Speaking about Mini-Roman 2 in general, I've never understood why some players have it promise . If you are going to guarantee one suit it should be : then partner can pass. This puts more pressure on the opponents.

yeah, that seems more logical.. the way i played it, it promised nothing more than 4441 or 4450 (no 5 card major).. we did play mini/maxi tho, with opener rebidding 2nt to show the maxi.. i'm not too sure that's a great treatment
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#7 User is offline   inquiry 

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Posted 2004-February-18, 15:54

I have never played mini-roman (did play maxi roman at one time), but I did experience a hand against a pair playing mini-roman when they had a disaster that lead them to decide to promise 4 when they opened the suit. The bidding went.....

2 - 2NT
3 - oh darn.... (2NT game try/force asking for short suit, 3 was short and responder had been hoping for a fit for his bid.)

The 2NT bidder had a fairly nice hand with , but now there was no longer a safe landing space. Not sure how having a promise 4 helped, but they eventually had some 2-P-2 auctions against me where the 2 bidder had 3 only s with some mixed results....

Now, I don't know why others promise s (this wasn't their original idea), maybe it has more to do with 1m-auction starts.

ben
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#8 User is offline   the hog 

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Posted 2004-February-18, 16:15

I have never played mini Roman and probably never will. There are far better uses for a 2D opening, than for a hand shape that can be opened naturally. Why bother?

Now if you decide to use 2D for Ekrens.... :P
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#9 User is offline   keylime 

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Posted 2004-February-18, 16:53

I dabbled with this opening and found that when it came up, far too often, they lead trump and lead it often because the shortage is known. It got dropped after six weeks with my 2/1 pard in AL because we kept getting bad boards at MPs. Can't remember what we used instead but it wasn't Flannery 2D.
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#10 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2004-February-18, 20:38

interesting thread... i don't recall ever having had a disaster using it, and i found it to work just the opposite... but like i said, to each his own
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#11 User is offline   Gerben47 

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Posted 2004-February-19, 03:08

In the not so frequent occasions I played precision, it worked very well to find our fit, and then we went down after they led trumps. Great...
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#12 User is offline   Trpltrbl 

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Posted 2004-February-24, 22:17

I think there are better ways to use 2, but when I played it, we always had 4.

Mike :)
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#13 User is offline   Shrike 

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Posted 2004-March-21, 14:59

Partner and I, playing a relay-heavy canape-based strong club system, play 2D = 4-4-4-1, four diamonds, range 11-16 HCP. I have played normal mini-Roman quite a bit, and this is far more effective, not so much because partner can pass 2D, which never works too well, but because partner can raise preemptively, usually to just 3. Raises to 5 are murder on the opponents in IMP games, too, as it could be to make, but often is an advance sacrifice.

We have toyed with various response structures, and in my opinion it is not too important what you do, but is very important that you know it cold. It's pretty clear that 2H and 2S should be pass or correct, but beyond that, go nuts.

Incidentally, we don't play this way so much because it's good as because it helps the system work (in our case, allowing opener's new-suit rebid to promise a canape, or potentially a reverse canape when the second suit is clubs). The convention is, as others have opined, not valuable on its own, as it's too easy to show the mini-Roman hand using standard methods and too easy to defend aginst the final contract when it is used. The original Roman is theoretically valuable but rarely comes up; a multi system incorporating strong three-suiters is also technically sound. If you must play it, the range should probably be slightly higher than the standard 11-15 -- four-by-ones are not happy shapes, and as we've said the defense will be good. 11+ to 16 is more sensible. I've never seen a reason to promise spades, but it would take many, many hands to know what's best.

I'd enjoy trying a weaker range, maybe 7-10, but that ain't kosher.

If anyone cares, with exactly 4=4=1=4 we open a major and rebid clubs, if the other major is horrible; occasionally one notrump with a stiff diamond honor if that is in range; otherwise (normally) one diamond.
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#14 User is offline   goodjava 

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Posted 2004-March-31, 09:19

I use mini roman in my 2/1 structure. I used to use it promising a 4 card spade for the basic premise that we all, or shall I say, most of us, bid aggressively.

Since 2nt is the only game forcing bid, if your singleton was spades, the bidding would go... 2d 2nt 3s
There are a series of hands which could then make this an awkward auction. Opener could be on the light side and although responder has 14, can't make any game bid. Responder cannot shut off at this point since opener is game-forced.
Responder could be 4234 or 3334 headed by the Qs -- scratch 3nt with an 11-12 pt opener hand.

I've recently employed using mini roman with having any 4441 and either 4405 or 4450. Furthermore, I use the submarine method for identifying the singleton/void (bidding suit below), which offers more room to bid. Responder can make a cue bid asking what range and if you have a void.
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#15 User is offline   bglover 

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Posted 2004-March-31, 10:18

Mini-roman... FEH!
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#16 User is offline   JRG 

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Posted 2004-March-31, 10:36

Well it has been many, MANY, years since I played Roman Club, but we played both 2!C and 2!D showed the three-suited hands (different ranges - our 2 club opening would have been the same as your Mini-Roman).

My reason for posting, though, is that I am positive the rebid after the asking response (which I also seem to remember was not 2NT but the cheapest bid - 2 diamonds over 2 clubs; 2 hearts over 2 diamonds) was the suit BELOW the singleton, not the suit of the singleton.

The reason for this was so the responder could make asking bids by then bidding the suit of the singleton; with anything else being natural. I don't remember the whole structure, but I do remember we could NEVER play in opener's singleton (or void) as all bids in that suit asked something or other.

My only recollection of problems with opening 2 diamonds (or 2 clubs) was that we tended to preempt our own auction as well as the opponents! [Well, I do remember we constantly got into trouble, that is got bottom boards, because one or the other of us forgot the meanings of various bids.]
JRG
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