[WrecksVee]

Is anyone playing any form of Romex these days?

I am reading "Improve Your Bidding Judgment" by Neil Kimelman. The author mentioned that he had played Romex for 20 years earlier in his playing career.

I had not thought about this system in ages until this reminded me. So I am curious if there are any system users on BBO.

WrecksVee

still dazed from spending a week at the NABC in DC.

[mikegill]

There is a pair in DC who plays Romex and gets reasonable results (although I do not know to what extent that is a reflection on them and to what extent it's a reflection of the system). I do not think either of them are on the forums tho.

[Apollo81]

I don't understand how a system that has an ARTIFICIAL 1NT opener can be good.

[goodwintr]

Appollo81: I don't understand how a system that has an ARTIFICIAL 1NT opener can be good.


I guess that depends on a number of things, including (a) whether a natural 1NT opener is "good" in practice; ( whether the artificial usage, whatever it is, is "better" than a natural 1NT in practice; and © whether the system falls apart if you don't have a natural 1NT opening.

Some of this could be tested fairly readily. For example, you could collect all of the deals where somebody opened a natural 1NT, regardless of range, while at the other table the corresponding player opened something else. Just add up the results, and you should have a winner, either 1NT or "something else." You can easily see how the study could be refined. Maybe someone has done this. (It sounds like something Jean-Rene Vernes may have done. His first published system, La Majeure D'Abord, featured an artificial 1NT opener. It showed five or more hearts.)

Also, note that some people have been successful with very weak mini-notrump openings, such as 10-12 or even weaker. Presumably these are hands that are passed in most systems. If that method works, it means you can get along without a natural 1NT opening bid that shows more than the mini notrump.

I don't know what conclusions to draw from these thoughts, except that it surely isn't obvious that an artificial 1NT opener is unplayable.

TLG

[benlessard]

Im sure that learning Romex today is a poor WORKLOAD/result gamble. But Rosenkraz books contains real gems espicially for slam bidding.

Spirals scan wich is IMO the best slam method.
How to respond over a partner preempt.
Importance of controls (A or K) instead of HCP
Romex stayman
etc.

There is also very good small gadget all over the books like

3C------(P)--------3D is asking for a 3 card M
(so that when you bid 3M its always a good suit.
A 1Nt artificial is playable if you have a stayman that can handle a wide NT rebid wich isnt too hard to have. The downside is that you lose the preemptive power of 1Nt and that in competition its tough for opener to show extras.

[ArtK78]

The Romex pair in the DC area - Barry Falgout and Rusty Krauss - are long-term friends of mine. I went to high school with Barry, and he met Rusty at the University of Delaware. Barry and I studied Romex from the original Romex book, and we won our first regional title together playing Romex - the Saturday Open Pairs at the Philadelphia Regional in June, 1978.

Romex is a very sound system. Not only that, but in his first book, George Rosenkranz presented a very nice hand evaluation system for suit bidding - modified loser count. I don't claim (and I am sure that George does not claim) that he invented modified loser count, but it is incorporated into the major suit raise structure in the original Romex system and in most other bidding of unbalanced hands.

Barry and Rusty are good players. I note that they won one of the Compact KOs in Washington - playing with my best man and his wife as teammates.

Barry came up with one of the best descriptions of Meckwell's playing ability that I have heard to date. In last year's regional in Bethesda, he played against Meckwell in two KOs - winning one and losing one. He told me that the only time Meckwell touched a wrong card was on the way to the right card.

[dake50]

benlessard nailed this one.

Romex did have scan -SUPER concept. Should be common expert practice
Controls w hcp for NT-ladder -SUPER concept. Extend to any auction should have controls promise, not hcp.
Win With Romex an excellent read for those concepts (missed Geo.R later books), not for Romex system.

[NickRW]

Can't comment specifically about Romex as I've never played it. I have played around with the idea of a strong artificial NT system on paper - my general feeling was that although you could make such a system work and although it seemed to give a lot of freedom compared to both strong club and "natural systems" with the two level openers, the cost of losing a natural 1NT in the opening structure was quite high. So my feeling was that it looked workable, but did not seem to have a clear overall advantage - so I ceased pursuing it.

Nick

[ArtK78]

Having played Romex (although not in the last 28 years) I can state that the loss of a natural 1NT opening is not that big of a deal. Natural notrump openings can be handled quite nicely with 1 level opening bids and notrump rebids. In fact, in many instances you gain by not opening 1NT.

Of course, at matchpoints, you are definitely going against the field. But if you believe your methods are superior, that should not be a problem. Anyone who plays a weak 1NT opening is going against the field. But I don't believe that it bothers them.

The Dynamic 1NT opening of the Romex System handles all unbalanced hands not strong enough for a game forcing 2♣ opening but stronger than a maximum 1 level opening bid. If I remember correctly, the technical requirements for a Dynamic 1NT opening are 4 losers (modified loser count) and about 19-21 HCP. There is also a control requirement - a 1NT opening must have 5 or more controls. The nice thing about the 1NT opening is that it takes these "super-maximum" hands out of the 1 of a suit equation. This is similar to the treatment of one-level opening bids in strong club systems, except that the upper limit of a one-level opening bid in Romex is higher than in most strong club systems. The hands that are opened 1NT in Romex are notoriously difficult to deal with in standard systems.

Very strong balanced hands are handled with the Mexican 2♦ opening bid.

I apologize if any of this is not quite accurate. It has been a long time since I played Romex, and the requirements for the bids may have changed since the system was introduced in the mid-1970s. The spiral scan ace asking bids were not part of the original Romex system.

[mycroft]

Never played it, read the book.

It looks like the Dynamic NT takes out effectively the hands that Polish Club takes out of the one-of-a-suit openers. In exchange for the complexity of handling the "clubs, or balanced 11-14, or strong" Polish 1C opener, you get the complexity of handling the "could be balanced, 11-18(19), or natural" one-of-a-suit openers.

Blackshoe plays Romex by preference - I'm surprised he hasn't popped in yet.

[inquiry]

ArtK78, on Aug 7 2009, 10:56 AM, said:

Having played Romex (although not in the last 28 years) I can state that the loss of a natural 1NT opening is not that big of a deal. Natural notrump openings can be handled quite nicely with 1 level opening bids and notrump rebids. In fact, in many instances you gain by not opening 1NT.

Of course, at matchpoints, you are definitely going against the field. But if you believe your methods are superior, that should not be a problem. Anyone who plays a weak 1NT opening is going against the field. But I don't believe that it bothers them.

The Dynamic 1NT opening of the Romex System handles all unbalanced hands not strong enough for a game forcing 2♣ opening but stronger than a maximum 1 level opening bid. If I remember correctly, the technical requirements for a Dynamic 1NT opening are 4 losers (modified loser count) and about 19-21 HCP. There is also a control requirement - a 1NT opening must have 5 or more controls. The nice thing about the 1NT opening is that it takes these "super-maximum" hands out of the 1 of a suit equation. This is similar to the treatment of one-level opening bids in strong club systems, except that the upper limit of a one-level opening bid in Romex is higher than in most strong club systems. The hands that are opened 1NT in Romex are notoriously difficult to deal with in standard systems.

Very strong balanced hands are handled with the Mexican 2♦ opening bid.

I apologize if any of this is not quite accurate. It has been a long time since I played Romex, and the requirements for the bids may have changed since the system was introduced in the mid-1970s. The spiral scan ace asking bids were not part of the original Romex system.

Your descriptions are quite accurate. I played on a ROMEX team, six members played it. Within the confines of the system, I never really suffered from the lack a natural 1NT bid either.

[blackshoe]

The latest wrinkle in Romex is that Rosenkranz and his posse concluded about ten years ago that the way forward, or at least a way forward, in bidding systems theory is "two card" systems, specifically a good "natural" system at adverse vulnerabilities, and a good "forcing club" system at favorable ones. So now, in the Romex context, at matchpoints it's "natural" Romex (which is really basically a 2/1 GF variant) when vulnerable, and "Romex Forcing Club" (RFC) when not vulnerable. At IMPs, RFC at favorable, Romex otherwise. I have not tried this myself (yet) so I don't know how well it works in practice, but the theory seems sound. IIRC Hamman-Soloway played a similar two-card system, based on 2/1 and Precision, for a time. I think they called it "Attack".

Dynamic NT: 4-5 losers, 6+ controls, (18)19-21 HCP. Basically, a hand that in "standard" would open 1suit, and reverse or jump shift on the second round. If balanced, the hand will have 6 controls and 19-20, usually. A hand with 21-22 HCP and 7 controls would normally open 2♦. With 6 controls and only 21 HCP, it would be downgraded and opened 1NT. A hand with only 5 controls should rarely be opened 1NT.

One effect of this is that opener's jump shift shows shape, and a maximum of 18 HCP.

Once you learn how to deal with balanced hands in the 13-18 HCP range (basically, two way checkback and a modified Walsh approach to 1♣ openings, there are rarely problems with these hands.

There are, as someone pointed out, several "wrinkles" in the system, and many of them are useful even if you don't play Romex.

I wrote a description of sorts a while back on My Webpage. It's incomplete. Maybe I'll get around to updating it someday.

[hrothgar]

blackshoe, on Aug 8 2009, 12:35 AM, said:

IIRC Hamman-Soloway played a similar two-card system, based on 2/1 and Precision, for a time. I think they called it "Attack".

Goldman and Soloway actually

[blackshoe]

Ah. I sit corrected.

[Tola18]

One extras included in Romex is the invite-situations in 1M-2M auctions.
There are two classical schools (and some modern schools too):
Trial suit bidding, 1: real sidesuit OR 2. short suit, usually singelton.

Romex - and also the polish theoretician Zbigniew Szurig, manage to combine these two different variations. Although they switch their solutions, and I never remember which is which...

The receipt is basically simple although surely confusing for a beginner*:

You bid the one immediately*, and the other - by a double relay.
(work this out for yourself - and dont forget to decide if you bid a real suit immediately, or if you do bid the singelton immediately).


*The difficulty: The bid immediately above you must bid one step extra, and thus, 3M is sometimes instead of the lowest bid. Confusing?? Work this out for yourself.

[blackshoe]

Romex trial bids:

1♥-2♥:
2♠ - I want to make a long suit trial, please bid 2NT
........ 2NT - okay.
..................3♣ - long suit trial in clubs
..................3♦ - long suit trial in diamonds
..................3♥ - long suit trial in spades
2NT - short suit trial in clubs or a "power" try
3♣ - short suit trial in diamonds
3♦ - short suit trial in spades
3♥ - obstructive

1♠-2♠:
2NT - I want to make a long suit trial, please bid 3♣
........ 3♣ - okay.
..................3♦ - long suit trial in clubs
..................3♥ - long suit trial in diamonds
..................3♠ - long suit trial in hearts
3♣ - short suit trial in clubs or a "power" try
3♦ - short suit trial in diamonds
3♥ - short suit trial in hearts
3♠ - obstructive

I've not seen the Polish approach in print, although Ron Klinger published the same idea (immediate trials are long suit, delayed are short suit) in The Modern Losing Trick Count. He had specific loser count requirements for the trials and replies, but I don't remember them off the top of my head. I'm not sure if either approach is significantly better than the other.

Note that Romex uses an "up the line" scheme to show what you're showing. The other approach I've seen is to use a "replacement" approach, where the suits bid are "natural" in that they reflect a trial in that suit, and the trump bid is used to indicate the odd suit out. Either works, it's just a matter of making sure you know which you're using. Romex uses the "up the line" scheme wherever it does this kind of thing, so that makes it fairly easy to remember.

[awm]

I like a similar approach advocated (I think) by Kokish where:

1♠-2♠
.... 2NT asks where responder's values are
---------> 3♣/3♦/3♥ "would accept game try in this suit"
---------> 3♠ shows a terrible hand
.... 3♣/3♦/3♥ are short suit tries

This method tends to give less information about opener's hand (responder discloses his location of values instead of opener disclosing his shape) and also permits a purely quantitative try (i.e. opener can bid game if responder indicates he would accept any try). This seems better for slam bidding too.

From my experiences playing against Romex, it seems that a lot of work is devoted to the bidding of very strong hands. The opening style is pretty sound and the number of preempts available is not so high. While I bet this works quite well on the rare strong hands, it's not really the modern style where people are opening more and more hand types. In fact Rosencranz himself seems annoyed by the modern style and doesn't hold with all this "bidding on garbage" even though I've obtained many good boards against him from it.

[blackshoe]

awm, on Aug 8 2009, 01:34 PM, said:

From my experiences playing against Romex, it seems that a lot of work is devoted to the bidding of very strong hands.

True.

Quote

The opening style is pretty sound and the number of preempts available is not so high. While I bet this works quite well on the rare strong hands, it's not really the modern style where people are opening more and more hand types. In fact Rosencranz himself seems annoyed by the modern style and doesn't hold with all this "bidding on garbage" even though I've obtained many good boards against him from it.

One of the things I find interesting about the last four Romex books (all written with Phillip Alder) is the places where the two authors disagree about the best approach, and they give both opinions and let the reader decide. Not so much on opening bids, mind you, but it is there.

I'm not sure what you mean by "number of preempts is not so high". In straight Romex, you have weak twos, 3 level suit preempts, 3NT and 4 of a minor (Namyats), 4 of a major, 4NT as a good minor suit preempt, and 5 of a minor. Much like the 2/1 card I play with several partners. If you play the "two card" system I've mentioned, you also have 2NT as a "bad minor suit" preempt, though you lose the weak two in hearts when playing the forcing club variant.

You can play your preempts however you like, and still be considered to be playing Romex.

The upper limit on opening one of a suit in Romex, while higher than in Precision, say, still gives you some leeway to open hands that are "less sound" in the traditional sense. It's nothing like Roth-Stone, for example. Well, maybe it is when Rosenkranz plays it; I've never played against him.