[the hog]

I didn't say "count me out, Ben", far from it. I thought Luis was going to take group suggestions on board and run with them, to produce a more common system acceptable to all. I am glad he produced a document. It certainly wasn't a "dummy spit", (do you have that expression in the US?) I am just disappointed he didn't take anyone else's suggestions into account, because we all knew that the suggested system was going to have to be a compromise if it was going to get up and running.

I actually have an earlier simple version based on natural openings, not transfers. I emailed the details to Luis, and I hoped he would take into account so that we could reach a consensus solution. I didn't want to go off on my own tangent as I think, as no doubt does everyone, that to have x numbers of different versions is counterproductive.

Sure, Ben I can post a simplified version as soon as I have a bit of time, but what is the point now if my relays are based on symmetric and Luis's aren't, and our openings are different. Everyone will be confused, and that is what I was getting at.

Ron

[luis]

Ron,

As I said this is just one version, we can easily take the document and modify it with your or Richard's suggested changes and produce another version, then players will be able to choose the system that they will play with their pd. As for me I can play and will like any version of Moscito.

The reason why I used Neil's relays instead of symmetric is that I wanted the relay structure to cover all distributions including balanced 4432 and 4333 hands so there's less to remember, I also like to distinguish a minimum balanced hand from the rest of the hands, I find that important when the first relay can be invitational. Symmetric relays can be used (I guess) without any problems changing the way we handle balanced hands adding one step to show minimum if we want to. The point is that I think that this scheme is easier to learn as an introduction to relays and symmetric can be plugged without any problems.

About the opening bids the 2c opening bid showing majors is one of the best aspects of the German Moscito variation, you can inmediately blast your side into any major suit game or 3 level contract and that makes thi ngs very hard to your opponents. Rene may be better prepared to explain the design reasons but in practice the 1s opening for unbalanced hands, 1n for balanced hands and 2c for both majors work very well together.

The 4d terminator was left out just to simplify the system, I don't think it has any utility at all so why add yet another thing to remember? The best approach to the 4d utility I read in this thread was "it is widely used" I can't accept that as a solid reason to add complexity to the notes. As I said before 4d lets you play RKCB besides the control asking bid, after 2 years I never wanted to use RKCB instead of CAB + denial cuebids and I do like the ability to signoff in 4 of a minor when prospects for game don't look any good at all. I used that many times with great success.

[inquiry]

Quote

I didn't say "count me out, Ben", far from it.

Hi Ron.

I think you misunderstood. The "count me out" dealt not with learning and playing moscito.... in fact, I have read quite a few moscito systems and I have examined hands played by moscito pairs, including you, through the use of the myhands site. The "count me out" dealt SPECIFICALLY with particiapting in getting a standardized version (in fact, in the same post, I committed to learning a version offered to me by you or Luis... ). Your quote.. "It also probably means that any hope we had of getting together a cohesive Moscito group is now totally dead." offers the same kind of sentiment that I had when I got frustrated with the effort.... that is getting and pushing a consensus wasn't working. I stand by my statement that you statement is very similar to what let to my tirade in repy 59. Getting a consensus was, well, seemingly impossible, still is.

Ben

[luis]

I don't know if Richard will want to participate and I don't know if Rene is reading the forum and this thread frequently but I do think I can agree with Ron in a standarized version.
I just wrote a first approach, let's call it version 1.

Ron raised the following points:

a) Opening bids
I'll fight this :-) I think that the presented scheme is the more easy to learn version, transfer openings may be better but will have problems in some NCBOs.

Relay structure
Ron suggested symmetric relays instead of Neil's version, I can easily accept that. Just rewrite the relay structures and S1, S2, S3 schemes.

c) 4d terminator
In my opinion it is useless and adds something to remember to the system so I'd like to get convinced of the 4d utility (don't say many systems use it) before agreeing. But I'm not inflexible on this.

d) Others?
If there're other issues with the system let's discuss them.

So we can have a standarized version and the personal versions also available just in case someone prefers on version or the other. As Ben said if there're concise notes on the system then it will be easy to learn and to play so we just have to keep working.

[Dan_Neill]

Hi all,
TOSR has a good write-up online so it can be followed easily.
http://www.geocities.com/daniel_neill_2000.../sys/index.html

Thanks,
Dan

[Free]

Seems good, but in my opinion using the 2C and 2D opening for single suited hands with a minor is a bit a waste, certainly for 2D since there are a lot of other openings which are more usefull. Can't you insert one (or both) of these in the 1S opening??

[the hog]

As I said before 4d lets you play RKCB besides the control asking bid, after 2 years I never wanted to use RKCB instead of CAB + denial cuebids and I do like the ability to signoff in 4 of a minor when prospects for game don't look any good at all. I used that many times with great success.

After 10 years of playing Moscito, I have made a great deal of use of both RKCB and Control asks. In 10 years of playing I have NEVER signed off in 4 of a minor. To not play positives as 100% GF is just plain silly.

If you want a bid to show the Majors, - not a bad idea - as used in old Moscito versions, use 1D. As I stated, the more minor oriented a hand may be, the higher the auction should start. With a constructive Major hand, keep the bidding lower - there is no need to pre empt the auction with 2C.

When I have more time end of next week or beginning of the week after I will try o have some notes cleaned up.

[hrothgar]

Luis, can I make one request:

I don't think that I'm interested in participating with this project.
Realistically, I don't have enough time to contribute as much as I would like.
Equally significanly, I'm really not excited by the system variant that you are proposing.

Please PLEASE try to consistantly refer to what you are teaching as GERMAN MOSCITO or Argentine MOSCITO or XYZ MOSCITO.

There are enormous differences between what you are teaching and what most people would expect if a partner said that they played "MOSCITO". I really don't want to see a repeat of the SAYC debacle.

Once upon a time SAYC was a very specific system. You could sit down with an unknown partner, agree to SAYC, and at least know what the bids were supposed to mean. The system might have been pretty crappy, but at least you know what it meant.

Over time, SAYC evolved to mean something like "5 card majors, no 2/1".
I'd prefer not to hasten the same development with MOSCITO

[trefl44]

I looked at the BBO_moscito and I must admit I liked it. I also run a simulation of opening bids using Henk's dealer.exe:
0-4 pass: 9%
5-9 bal pass: 18%
1C: 14%
1D: 11%
1H: 12%
1S: 6%
1N: 7%
2C: 3%
2H: 3%
2S: 3%
2N (5-5) 2% (I didn't like 5-4)
other: <1%

It is a quite aggresive system (we all know that). What is more important is that the opening bids are nicely balanced:
5-9 -> 11%
10-14 -> 39%
15+ -> 14%
You will pass 27% of the time (not much room left for the opps).

Any comments?

[hrothgar]

Quote

I looked at the BBO_moscito and I must admit I liked it. I also run a simulation of opening bids using Henk's dealer.exe:
0-4 pass: 9%
5-9 bal pass: 18%
1C: 14%
1D: 11%
1H: 12%
1S: 6%
1N: 7%
2C: 3%
2H: 3%
2S: 3%
2N (5-5) 2% (I didn't like 5-4)
other: <1%

It is a quite aggresive system (we all know that). What is more important is that the opening bids are nicely balanced:
5-9 -> 11%
10-14 -> 39%
15+ -> 14%
You will pass 27% of the time (not much room left for the opps).

Any comments?

Your script might be off. I have some fairly complete dealer scripts for other more aggressive MOSCITO variants. Even with these, I rarely opened more that 65% of hands.

[pbleighton]

trefl44 writes:
"5-9 -> 11%
10-14 -> 39%
15+ -> 14%
You will pass 27% of the time (not much room left for the opps).

Any comments?"

Richard responds:
"Your script might be off. I have some fairly complete dealer scripts for other more aggressive MOSCITO variants. Even with these, I rarely opened more that 65% of hands."

Two possibilities strike me:
1) 11 + 39 + 14 = 64. Meaning 36% of hands are passed, in line with Richard's models.
2) If 1) doesn't apply for some reason, are you sure you aren't double counting some hands, i.e. putting a hand into two bids if it qualifies for both?

Peter

[moscito-d]

Quote

I don't know if Richard will want to participate and I don't know if Rene is reading the forum and this thread frequently but I do think I can agree with Ron in a standarized version.

I just came back from a two week vacation and I am a little disappointed
about what happened in the meantime. Before everyone gets into details,
we should agree on our target.

IMHO BBO Moscito should

• be (relatively) easy to learn and memorize
  
• provide a solid base for further steps into the realm of Moscito-like systems
  
• be legal in most NCBOs at club level

I hope all agree on the first point and probably there will be a lot of support
for the second one. The third one may be debatale since we are creating a system
for an online community, but in my experience it helps a lot being able to practise
such a system at the club and/or regional tournaments.

Of course, even if we agree on the basic requirements, we'll have to discuss
their consequences. Here are mine:

As a consequence of the first point I would try to use the same relay scheme
over 1C - positive and after relays to as many opening bids as possible.
In my experience it helps a lot if at least 90% of the time relay-responses
even remain the same bids and not only steps. Therefore, I would
neither use 1C - 1D positive nor a 1S opening on all hands with 4+ spades.

To me, a further consequence of simplicity would be that CABs and denial
cues suffice. There are certainly hands more suited for other methods, but
CABs do their job well enough on most hands.

Consequences of the second requirement would be that we should use a
standard relay-scheme, i.e. symmetric with hi shortness first, since that seems
to be the most widely used variation nowadays. Opening structure may be
an issue here too, but since there is no Standard-Moscito anyway (Marston
seems to change the system every 2-4 years), I would accept any structure
that the reflects the original "majors first" approach.

As I said before, the third requirement my be debatable, but it is the one
that led to German Moscito and the "funny" 1N and 2C openers. I am
not going to defend them in any way, but I want to explain how they
came into being:

In Germany 1N must be balanced unless it is 17+ (for the ROMEXicans)
and majors must show at least 3 cards precluding transfer openings.
Given these restrictions, I still think the German Moscito resolution is best.

The 1N with spades is a little more difficult to defend and offers an
additional safety net when responder is weak.

We, too, were a little suspicious concerning the 2C opener but it proved to
be a big success. First, it is relatively difficult to defend (a little like Ekren)
and second, it is "majors first" at it's best: with a fit responder can wreak
havoc on the opponents contructive bidding, without a fit there are two
suits to run to and a simple method to show a third, clubs. ;-)

All this does not mean, that we should stick to this structure. It was the
best solution under the resctrictions by our NCBO and proved to be very
playable. But if there is either no general agreement on my third requirement
for BBO Moscito or the system restrictions of most other NCBOs are less
strict than the ones in Germany, there is no good reason to choose it
as a standard.

Rene