[petergreat]

The problem with me should be competitive bidding and defense.

[CSGibson]

As a beginner, learn Standard American. You have to know standard american to play 2/1 anyway, because that's what the system defaults to in competitive bidding situations. Then, after you've had some experience in standard american, explore 2/1. The conversion between the two is quite simple, really, and shouldn't take too long to understand.

[helene_t]

CSGibson, on Mar 17 2009, 04:39 PM, said:

As a beginner, learn Standard American. You have to know standard american to play 2/1 anyway, because that's what the system defaults to in competitive bidding situations.

I thought it defaults to something like Acol.

1♠-(2♣)-2♦-(p)
?

Now 2♠, 2NT and 3♦ would all be non-forcing while 2♥ would be forcing, I thought.

[keylime]

I agree with Chuck in the full. I've found in most club and sectional situations, playing SAYC is often better at pairs.

[akhare]

CSGibson, on Mar 17 2009, 10:39 AM, said:

As a beginner, learn Standard American.  You have to know standard american to play 2/1 anyway, because that's what the system defaults to in competitive bidding situations.  Then, after you've had some experience in standard american, explore 2/1.  The conversion between the two is quite simple, really, and shouldn't take too long to understand.

I second that -- BTW, I am still not convinced that 2/1 is all that better than SAYC (not the archaic version of course).

Having good partnership agreements is more important than the differences between the two systems...

[P_Marlowe]

Fluffy, on Mar 11 2009, 10:33 AM, said:

I have a teaching friend who says that 2/1 is better for beginners, with 2/1 it is harder to play partscores on 28 HCP wich is kinda frustrating.

The other side is, that to get a 2/1 system to work,
you are forced to play a lot more conventions.
And I find it more frustrating to miss certain contracts
due to mixe ups, because one side forgot what a certain
conventional bid did mean.

And if they happen to play outside their course, than it is
more likely that they will find players, who play Standard
American (=SAYC), than 2/1.
2/1 is certainly your standard expert system, but I am not
sure it is the standard system of the common club member.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

The other side is, that to get a 2/1 system to work,
you are forced to play a lot more conventions.

Huh? People who play 2/1 often do play a lot more conventions, but because they want to, not because they are "forced to". The only convention truly forced on you by playing 2/1 is the 1nt forcing response to a major. Anything else is optional.

[awm]

Stephen Tu, on Mar 17 2009, 12:03 PM, said:

Quote

The other side is, that to get a 2/1 system to work,
you are forced to play a lot more conventions.

Huh? People who play 2/1 often do play a lot more conventions, but because they want to, not because they are "forced to". The only convention truly forced on you by playing 2/1 is the 1nt forcing response to a major. Anything else is optional.

This is not exactly true, because the forcing notrump creates some systemic "holes" that need to be filled. For example:

1♠-1NT-2♥-3m in the Hardy book has a range of 5-11 hcp. This is basically unplayable. The original Lawrence version solves this by playing 2/1 GF except rebid, but that's not what most people think of when they say 2/1. So you more or less need some conventional way to distinguish these types (intermediate jumps are popular).

1♠-1NT-2♣ and there are issues finding your heart fits on invitational hands. Systemically 2♥ shows a weak hand. I think the Hardy book suggests jump-rebidding 3♥ on a five-card suit, but this is somewhat ridiculous and the consensus is to rebid 2NT and accept the bad results when you miss a 5-3 heart fit. Again, this can be solved with a conventional approach (BART).

1♥-1NT-2♣ and you have the potential issue that the 2♣ rebid could be a two card suit. This leaves responder with some hands with ugly rebid problems, where you sort of want to raise clubs but this could also lead to a rather poor contract. A simple example is a shape like 3154 with say 8-9 hcp. You could easily have a game if opener has some extras. But you don't really want to preference to hearts on a singleton, your hand is not really good enough for 2NT, and raising clubs could reach a 4-2 fit at the three-level. You could rebid 2♦, but this is usually a six-card suit (and also potentially a weaker hand) and could lead to some ridiculous contracts (say partner has a 3514 minimum, quite a common hand type, and you get to play your 5-1 fit instead of your 4-4). This sort of situation is to some degree unavoidable in 2/1 (same problem occurs with three-card rebids) but people try to reduce it by playing flannery, or kaplan inversion, or bart, or gazzilli.

So while I agree with the point that people play conventions by choice and that any system can potentially benefit by adding a few carefully chosen methods, I think it's accurate to say that the forcing notrump creates a bunch of problems that need to be addressed (usually by conventional means). The only convention you really need in standard bidding is "fourth suit forcing" because there are so many non-forcing auctions where you need a way to force another bid... but 2/1 players need that convention too because one-over-one auctions are basically the same as in standard.

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

This is not exactly true, because the forcing notrump creates some systemic "holes" that need to be filled

I agree that there are some holes, and that ideally you'd want to fill them, but I'd disagree that they *need* to be filled. Some of these holes just don't occur often enough to have a major impact on your results. And often you can muddle through with suboptimal agreements for the same results.

For example, I've sometimes been in partnerships where partners wanted to play 2/1 as GF always, and also Bergen-type raises. This has the hole with the inv 6+ hands. Well you just GF with these instead, and the vast majority you were going to bid game anyway, and some you are overbid but the game happens to make, so you are only left with a low fraction where you overbid while the more optimal approach would have left you plus. And it's a low fraction of a somewhat rare set of hands to begin with.

And how many sessions on average do you think you have to play before you get two net Bart system wins? Bart can backfire also, can't get to 2d. Sometimes it takes many sessions to even have a 1s-1nt-2c sequence to even come up before you even have opportunity to use it, let alone win a board with it!

[helene_t]

{rant}
Some people have a weird way of using the word "convention".

How is the forcing 1NT response "conventional" any more than the SAYC 6-10 1NT response which doesn't promise a balanced hand either? And how is an intermediate jump shift "conventional" any more than a weak or strong jump shift?

It's like saying that if you want to play the 1NT rebid as 12-14 and the 2NT rebid as 18-19, you have a hole in your system which requires you to play a "convention", namely a 15-17 1NT opening.
{rant}

[Stephen Tu]

helene_t, on Mar 17 2009, 11:28 AM, said:

How is the forcing 1NT response "conventional" any more than the SAYC 6-10 1NT response which doesn't promise a balanced hand either? And how is an intermediate jump shift "conventional" any more than a weak or strong jump shift?

I'm with you on the jump shifts, but not the 1nt response. In SAYC the 1nt is an offer to play, and you will actually play the contract some decent percentage of the time, even when unbalanced. Sometimes to your detriment, sometimes to your benefit. Also the forcing aspect of 1nt in 2/1 begets unnatural 3cd and 2cd rebids. If you play the contract sometimes it should be considered more natural than the forcing variety. It does have fewer hands with 3cd major fit, at least.

Just because a NT bid can be made with an unbalanced hand doesn't make it conventional IMO. If you are offering to play with no trump suit, it's natural. After all we bid 3nt as natural to play with unbalanced hands all the time, like after 1nt-3nt. Is 3nt conventional there even though it doesn't promise a balanced hand?