[Arcenium]

I tried playing precision club, but partner was squeamish at the entire idea of opening with 11 pts.

[helene_t]

Maybe you should try Fantunes. An opening of 1 in a suit shows 14+ points!

[Old York]

Arcenium, on Jan 16 2010, 11:50 PM, said:

3) I am very aggressive at bidding while my partner is very conservative.

You seem to have the perfect partnership. Get 2 aggressive or 2 conservative players together and things are more likely to go wrong.

System is less important than style, flair and intuition for you, but your partner needs a firm foundation. Try to explain the basic differences in the systems to your friend and let him choose

Be lucky
Tony

[P_Marlowe]

Arcenium, on Jan 17 2010, 02:08 PM, said:

I tried playing precision club, but partner was squeamish at the entire idea of opening with 11 pts.

Well - the criteria you gave, were partially pointing toward EHAA
(the letters stand for Every hand an adventure), I was not suggesting it,
because you were asking about SAYC vs. 2/1.
But if your p does not like to open very light than EHAA is not for your
partnership.

Personnaly I would recommend to avoid precision club, at least if you start
to learn bridge.
And to play precision club in a sensible manner, against reasonable opponents,
you will need to invest a lot of energy, espesially if they know, that you can
make the life for precision bidders hard, if you agressivly interfere against
their 1C and 1D opening, ... and you wont find a lot of literature, how to deal
with agressive overcalls against precision 1C and 1D.

And you need to understand natural bidding, so I would recommend to start with
a natural system (SAYC or 2/1), since you will find a lot more guys playing either
of the two, ..., but other disagree with the above recommendation, that one should
avoid to start with precision.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Arcenium]

I played it (Prec. Club) with him as a joke. As far as I know. 1C means 16+, and 1D after 1C is weak.

If we play SAYC, I think we need to install a few edges in to beat our friends. But I can't really get him to play 2/1 even though I like it.

[P_Marlowe]

Arcenium, on Jan 17 2010, 08:07 PM, said:

I played it (Prec. Club) with him as a joke. As far as I know. 1C means 16+, and 1D after 1C is weak.

If we play SAYC, I think we need to install a few edges in to beat our friends. But I can't really get him to play 2/1 even though I like it.

Yes, a 1C opening is forcing, and a 1D response is a neg.

But of course the question is now, what do you open with hands, which would
have opened 1C before.

Say a hand with 5 clubs, 4 hearts and 11-15HCP.
=> This basically leads to the so called "precision" 2C opening, which showes
roughly either 11-15 and 6 clubs or 5 clubs + a 4 card major.
Another hand type to think about is a hand with 5 clubs and 4 diamonds with
11-15, those hands will usually be opened with 1D.
=> And to be able to find out, what partner has for his 1D / 2C implies certain follow up agreements.

All in all, even if you would want to continue playing "Precision" you would need
to install a few edges to beat your friends. "Precision" works, but ..., well you
already know, that to play "2/1" you need to add something.

But never forget the most important thing - have fun.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[gwnn]

Sounds like your p is really stubborn and you have to play what he wants and as it usually is the case the system of his choice REALLY sucks this is life ...

[helene_t]

Arcenium, on Jan 18 2010, 02:07 AM, said:

If we play SAYC, I think we need to install a few edges in to beat our friends.

No, SAYC is not that bad. For the system perfectionists at this forum (including me) it is frustrating to have to play a suboptimal system, but it's not like it will differ a lot of MPs or IMPs whether you play SAYC or 2/1.

SAYC has the big advantage that just by mentioning a 4-letter word you tell partner how you interpret most common calls. Can't achieve the same by saying "Acol" or "Prec".

There are some ambiguities in SAYC. Most annoyingly, it is not clear how to avoid game when opener has a balanced 12-count and responder a balanced 11-count, as
1banana-2oranges
2NT
is forcing. One solution is not to open with balanced 12-counts. Maybe your partner will approve that solution

[Codo]

It does not matter much. Bidding systems are totally overrated by their supporters.

You can win with ACOL, Prec., 2/1, polish club, fantunes, mosquito, Standard American or any other given system.

But it seems to be that you are more flexible then your partner, so you should ask him what fits him best and play it.

IF you want something easy and short, try "SAYC" the way it is played at BBO- named BBO standard.