[david_c]

NickRW, on Oct 25 2008, 12:48 AM, said:

Acol like responses to 5 card majors are, it seems to me, quite playable with weak NT in the picture - and indeed, that is an option for non vul. But with strong NT - which I want in the system vul - all of the 1x openings have weak fairly balanced options hidden in them - so if you play your 2/1 as 9+ as in Acol or even 10+ as in SA what are you going to bid after say 1♠ - 2♦ with a balancedish min - the natural, Acol like thing to do might well be to bid 2NT - but then you can find yourself in 2NT with barely enough to make 7 tricks sometimes - so that seems like a losing option. Thus I think you simply have to play the 2/1 as inv+ as a minimum.

I would nearly agree with this. If playing 5-card majors and a strong NT I would rebid the 5-card suit with a minimum 5332, rather than bidding 2NT. So you can play in 2M, and this is a perfectly reasonable resting place provided that responder has a doubleton there. So my requirements for an Acol-style 2/1 depend on the holding in partner's suit: if you have shortage there then you need invitational values, but with a doubleton (or more) you can get away with slightly less - maybe a decent 9 HCP.

On the other hand, if you play four-card majors with a strong NT, then you do have to rebid 2NT on some balanced hands (unless you play the ancient Acol style of bidding two suits with a 4-4-3-2), so 2/1 responses have to be at least invitational. And in fact I find it's too difficult to judge invitational hands after the 2NT rebid, so in a strong+4 system I would always play 2/1s as GF or GF-except-rebid.

[NickRW]

david_c, on Oct 25 2008, 12:41 PM, said:

I would nearly agree with this....

Thanks for your (and everyone else's) input.

For the time being we've decided to go with this (I suppose) rather peculiarly British mish mash:

1NT = 14-16
1♣ = 4, unless 4=3=3=3 or 3=4=3=3 and weak NT range
1♠ = 5, unless 17+
1♥ = 5, unless 17+ or 4-4 majors
1♦ = 4

2/1 (over 1♦ and 1♠) = inv+
2/1 (over 1♥) = GF, with IJS and KS inversion. We're doing to this to allow us to play around with both inv+ and GF responses and see which we like. I don't suppose we will stay with this, but it seems playable for now and provides a stepping stone for getting out of weak NT think for imp games

Nick

[fred]

NickRW, on Oct 28 2008, 01:41 PM, said:

david_c, on Oct 25 2008, 12:41 PM, said:

I would nearly agree with this....

Thanks for your (and everyone else's) input.

For the time being we've decided to go with this (I suppose) rather peculiarly British mish mash:

1NT = 14-16
1♣ = 4, unless 4=3=3=3 or 3=4=3=3 and weak NT range
1♠ = 5, unless 17+
1♥ = 5, unless 17+ or 4-4 majors
1♦ = 4

2/1 (over 1♦ and 1♠) = inv+
2/1 (over 1♥) = GF, with IJS and KS inversion. We're doing to this to allow us to play around with both inv+ and GF responses and see which we like. I don't suppose we will stay with this, but it seems playable for now and provides a stepping stone for getting out of weak NT think for imp games

Nick

Nick,

I think you have it backwards.

If you play 4-card majors you should only open 4-card majors with bad hands.

4-card majors and 2/1 do not mix well. Suggest you don't try.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[NickRW]

fred, on Oct 28 2008, 01:55 PM, said:

Nick,

I think you have it backwards.

If you play 4-card majors you should only open 4-card majors with bad hands.

4-card majors and 2/1 do not mix well. Suggest you don't try.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

Thanks Fred. I understand that - well - certain things are not the most comfortable with this compromise solution. I think you also have to understand that strong NT is as foreign to me as weak NT seems foreign to some of you North Americans. It isn't as easy to ditch one's mental baggage as one might hope.

When we moved from counting hands 4321 to a system based around 6421 - well my kids took to it quite easily as they didn't have the mental baggage associated with Milton Work points - but, though I was the driver for the change, it was a real mental wrench to get used to it. I don't necessarily see what we've agreed as a permanent home - merely something to soften a transition.

Nick

[fred]

NickRW, on Oct 28 2008, 02:18 PM, said:

Thanks Fred.  I understand that - well - certain things are not the most comfortable with this compromise solution.  I think you also have to understand that strong NT is as foreign to me as weak NT seems foreign to some of you North Americans.  It isn't as easy to ditch one's mental baggage as one might hope.

I understand, Nick. I went through the same sort of thing during my experiments with Precision during the past few years after 20+ years on only playing natural systems.

But I think that if you are going to make this big a move that you might as well do it right.

Hope your exposure to this new way of bidding/thinking works well and is enjoyable for you

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[helene_t]

NickRW, on Oct 28 2008, 03:18 PM, said:

I think you also have to understand that strong NT is as foreign to me as weak NT seems foreign to some of you North Americans. It isn't as easy to ditch one's mental baggage as one might hope.

You could play weak notrump with 5-card majors and 2/1 GF. It has some problems with the 4441-hands (singleton clubs) but there is also a lot to say in favor of such a system. In fact the notrump range isn't really related to the 2/1 responses in a 5-card major system since many don't (always) open 1NT with 5M332 anyway.

Then again, almost all modern literature (in particular the Bridge World magazine) and most discussions here are based on 5-card majors and strong NT, so it's probably easier to play "standard" all the way through. I think if you try to find some soft transition from Acol to 5-card majors you will have to invent a lot of things yourself and find it difficult to discuss bidding issues with others.

So I would suggest going cold turkey on Acol, and build up a 2/1 style from scratch.

[NickRW]

helene_t, on Oct 28 2008, 02:49 PM, said:

So I would suggest going cold turkey on Acol, and build up a 2/1 style from scratch.

Yes, again, thanks for the advice, and if I was actually sold on the idea of 2/1, then I'd agree with you. But there are other systems that I also like with strong NT that seem like competitors in my eyes anyway - not the least of which is Polish - or even a restructured AUC with strong NT - which seems possible (and isn't or wouldn't quite be the same thing as Polish). The system I want to get to is for use in a setting where EBU level 4 systems are permitted - so I don't have to particularly restrict my choices.

Also 5cM with weak NT I know is a playable system - indeed I played it only a few weeks ago with my brother-in-law who likes it when he was down this way.

5 card majors hold no fear for me as I've played Precision for several years. Mostly 5 card majors as I've proposed holds no fears. 5 card spades only holds no fears. And obviously I am used to 4 card majors. That isn't my problem particularly. At the core of what is my problem is my beliefs and observations about NT ranges. As I see it, nv at imps and vul at mp there probably isn't a lot of difference between weak and strong NT - they both have good points and bad points and they probably roughly balance out. In contrast, nv at mp - well - none of the die hard strong no-trumpers on this board are ever going to convince me that they have the winning option - there are just too many pluses from using the weak range and the downsides are too infrequent to be of concern*. Conversely, however, vul at imps, the risk of a -800 set has to be taken seriously - as does a rather more frequent undoubled -200.

So what I want is some sort of strong NT range for vul at imps. I don't care if it is 14-16 or 15-17 or, as seems to be recommended by a lot of experts on this board, something that is called 15-17 - but is actually more like what one might reasonably call 14 and 2/3rds to 16 and 2/3rds. And I don't really care what sort of majors it goes with either.

But strong NT comes with something else - weak NT hands hidden somewhere (I don't care where) in the 1x openings and the forcing or semi forcing NT response - and I can't tell you how much I absolutely loathe and detest that - that is what I hate.

You might say, hang on a minute, didn't you say you played Precision?! And don't some of the texts on that recommend forcing NT? Yeah, well, that's true. Except that you don't have to respond at all in Precision with anything less than a reasonable 8 count, so the range of the NT response is much more limited and playing it as non forcing is quite tolerable whatever the books say - so that is how I played it. Perhaps unfortuantely in the context of this, I hooked up with an old friend about a month back - someone I know from outside of bridge playing circles and I found out that he too likes to play bridge - but, though he plays in Britain he is self taught from books and learnt Precision years ago - and he read the same texts as I did. So when we met for a late afternoon meal before an evening of bridge I asked for his system notes - and what did I see - Precision from the Ark - but with, you guessed it, a non forcing NT response. So, apparently quite unprompted by advice to the contrary, he decided that forcing NT was rubbish too.

So, that is where I'm at. I want strong NT at least some of the time - but I really really really dislike forcing NT responses - and even semi forcing seems quite yucky. Right or wrong - and I admit that I could be wrong.

Nick

* I have a 1969 book on my shelf called "Do You Play Stayman" written by none other than Samuel M Stayman. In it he recommends weak NT non vul - it seems that the book never got read in the U.S. for some reason. Some say Acol is a system from the dark ages - yeah - true enough - but it seems that some of the strong no-trumpers still haven't caught up with advice they got 40 years ago yet, so the boot is on the other foot as well

[fromageGB]

When I made the switch from Acol to 2/1 we initially tried a semi-forcing 1♠ 1NT where a 2/1 was invitational only, but got into a bit of a mess beyond that when we wanted to force to game. We then changed to 1NT absolutely forcing (or 1♥ 1♠ Kaplan inversion), making a 2/1 a GF (unless responder bids 2 then 3 of the same minor) and life became so much easier. And we seem to have had no problem with invitational hands.

So this makes 1NT an impossible contract to play in, and yes there will be occasions when opponents with an Acol NT will get the better of you. I reckon this is more than countered by the times you get the better of it with game hands, or being able to play in 2 of responder's suit.

If your 1NT semi-forcing hybrid could be a balanced 11 count then opener is obliged to bid again with a 14 count, so most of the time you will not be able to stop in 1NT anyway. So what advantage in it being not forcing? It seems to me you either play a weak NT response (Acol) or a forcing (2/1), your choice, and the halfway house doesn't work.

Incidentally, I am happy with a weak NT and 2/1, even for IMPS. Last team of 8 match I played, opps got 2 game swings using a mini NT and had no adverse results. I think the "big penalty" argument is overdone.

[NickRW]

Your advice is well taken - and indeed it aligns with things that others have said. And I may well come to the same conclusion in the end....

Nick