[pbleighton]

Has anyone played a system with no forcing opening bid
with satisfactory results?


If so, what is it like, especially:
1) How light do you respond?
2) What do you use the 2C opener for?
3) How much of a performance difference is there between
IMPs and matchpoints?


Peter

[hrothgar]

I've played EHAA in a couple partnerships with some success

I eventually stopped playing the system because I felt the undisiplined 2 openings were too ugly..

[MickyB]

Yes, I reached the same conclusion Richard. Fantoni-Nunes seem to disagree, obviously.

Cut down version of my reply to this post on RGB - I responded on 4-5 points, played 2♣ as 4-5♣, 4 major, and my guess is it worked slightly better at IMPs than MPs.

This post has been edited by MickyB: 2005-February-25, 19:07

[pbleighton]

Richard:

1) How light did you respond to the one bids?
2) What were your results like on the "2 club openers"?

Peter

[mycroft]

Not Richard, but my experience (EHAA again):

1) "Standard". So 0 if we could raise, and a good 5 if we couldn't.

2) Pretty good. If partner responds, you can SJR your way. If he doesn't - and that happens very rarely - the opps often come in to rescue you, because they have an ugly balancing problem with 10 HCP (Do you have 13 for your opener, and we might miss game, or do you have 26 and are missing game?) Similarly, direct hand has to pretty much overcall as normal, and with junk overcalls as popular as they are,...

Only really bad result I can remember was one hand that went 1S-4S; 6S. And if my 1-count had been 6=3=2=1 or 6=3=1=2 instead of 6-4-2-1, it would have made (partner couldn't pitch enough hearts from my hand to ruff his second one).

Remember, sometimes 1H-AP is a win, because +140 (or +120, but nobody else can stop short of game) can frequently be par with no entries to the weak hand. And trust me, if you're not playing the Reisinger, having the following conversation in the bar:

"How did you manage to stay out of game on 23?"
(smugly) "1H float. What's the problem?"

is worth at least 3 "missed game" results. :-)

Notes: you are talking 2% of the hands - probably even less, as it doesn't always go pass to you, even with a rock (I remember my partner saying he had 6 22+ hands over two weeks and didn't get to open (or play) one of them). If the rest of your system wins enough, you can flush those 2% down the toilet and still come out ahead. Obviously, though, because of the high potential variance, your system will have to win a lot more at IMPs than MPs...

F-N, from what I can see, play unlimited *but forcing* openings. That solves that problem, while adding others (as I'm sure you're more aware than I).

Michael.

[Chamaco]

MickyB, on Feb 26 2005, 01:04 AM, said:

Yes, I reached the same conclusion Richard. Fantoni-Nunes seem to disagree, obviously.

Maybe not:
Fantunes do have a forcing opening bid, ANY 1-of a suit opening in natural and forcing 1 round, promising 14+ hcp unlimited, and lumping minimum openers together with weak hands into the 2-level openings.

[MickyB]

Chamaco, on Feb 26 2005, 01:08 PM, said:

MickyB, on Feb 26 2005, 01:04 AM, said:

Yes, I reached the same conclusion Richard. Fantoni-Nunes seem to disagree, obviously.

Maybe not:
Fantunes do have a forcing opening bid, ANY 1-of a suit opening in natural and forcing 1 round, promising 14+ hcp unlimited, and lumping minimum openers together with weak hands into the 2-level openings.

I was replying to Hrothgar's statement on the undisciplined 2 openings. Sorry, I should have quoted.

[Chamaco]

MickyB, on Feb 26 2005, 01:10 PM, said:

I was replying to Hrothgar's statement on the undisciplined 2 openings. Sorry, I should have quoted.

Np, sorry if I misunderstood.

Fantunes do have "weak 2" very disciplined, e.g. 5+ bagger, 8-13, always constructive in 1st/2nd seat.

While this loses preemption for hands very weak (too weak to open a "constructive" weak 2 as well as a 3-level preempt), it adds preemption to hands we would normally open at the 1 level.

Wild souls may preempt at the 3 level with hands too weak for a constructive weak 2.

[Gerben47]

What's the point of having no forcing opening bid? Having 1♣ as forcing opening bid does not seem to cost much.

[mycroft]

Gerben47, on Feb 27 2005, 08:21 PM, said:

What's the point of having no forcing opening bid? Having 1♣ as forcing opening bid does not seem to cost much.

Well, I can teach EHAA with 5-card Majors to somebody in 15 minutes (although it will take more time to get the "feel" of it). I can't teach an effective strong club system to a pickup partner in anywhere near that time.

That's one big reason. And from the arguments of several people more theoretical than I, most strong clubbers just try to not lose on the 1C hands (and take their system wins from the rest). They're spending all this time and memory effort to try to break even on most 16+. EHAA chooses to pay off, occasionally, to the much less frequent 23+, getting in return a useful, frequent 2C preemptive opening (useful not because it's particularly preemptive, but because nobody else will face it, and it isn't *ineffective*).

Again, at MPs, this is a very valid point...

[DelfinoD]

I used to play so called almost-no-pass system, it looks like this:

pas - 0-7pc 4432 or 4333 without 4 card minor
1 suit - standard better minor 12-37pc
1nt - any 8-12pc
2 minor - 4+ 0-7pc
2 major - 5+ 0-7pc

It's 100% legal (with WBF restrictions) system so you can play it everywhere you want. As for my experience in matchpoints 50% or more is rather sure, good luck