[nullve]

So what did you open with 11-13 BAL in 3rd/4th?

[effervesce]

 nullve, on 2024-September-02, 01:24, said:

So what did you open with 11-13 BAL in 3rd/4th?

In 1st/2nd, 1NT=11-13, 1D-1M-1NT was 14-15(16).

Flip it around for 3rd/4th - 1NT=14-16, open 1D with 11-13.

This structure enables you to do some really interesting things since 1D opener denies 6m -

1D- 1H - 2C promises 5/4-5 in the minors

1D - 1H - 2D (an "impossible" rebid) shows a "good"/max 4 card heart raise, and 1D- 1S - 2H would show a good spade raise

while 1D - 1H - 2H would be a "bad"/min heart raisem, and 1D - 1S - 2S would show a poor spade raise

while 1D - 1S - 2D would show 4 hearts and 5 diamonds.

This allows you to avoid lots of unnecessary invites, and gives partner super good description of your hand even with a "nebulous" diamond.

[blackshoe]

Interesting system. When's the book coming out? :-)

[effervesce]

I have a 30 page document with all the info required to play the system.

It has full symmetric relays based on Paul Marston's Moscito system over 1C opener, with 1C-1S as the negative, 1C - 1D as gameforce, and others as semipositive (full relays available for both the gf and semipositives but also nonforcing bids after semipositives).

You (or anyone else) want to learn the system?

Im looking for a partner to get back into bridge. I was ridiculously good back in 2009, now im 1/10th the player I was back then.

But this system let me and partner get 68% every session of the Australian open pairs, and helped carry me in the Asia Pacific junior championships (Im very very good at defence and bidding, but mediocre declarer, and partner was very good at declaring, but mediocre bidding and defence).

Anyone living down under wanting to learn give me a buzz

[awm]

effervesce, on 2024-September-02, 01:15, said:

The system me and my partner played to extreme success was had the following

1C* = 16+ ANY unbalanced or 17+ balanced
1D* = 10-15, 0+ diamonds, no 5 card major or 6 card minor (not balanced 11-13)
1H = 10-15, 5+ hearts
1S = 10-15, 5+ spades
1NT* = balanced, 11-13 in 1st/2nd, balanced 14-16 in 3rd/4th seat
2C = 10-15, 6+ clubs
2D = 10-15, 6+ diamonds
2H = about 5-9, weak 2, 6 card suit
2S = about 5-9, weak 2, 6 card suit

Like you said, it makes the 1D - 1X - 2m bids quite well defined.

We saw extreme success with this, winning some junior and open tournaments until life and work made me stop playing.

This is very similar to what Sam and I have been playing for the last 20 or so years, although we dropped the weak notrump pretty early on (we play 14-16 in 1st/2nd and 15-17 in 3rd/4th now) and our 1M opening standards may be a bit different from yours (we pass most balanced 10s and open most unbalanced 9s).

I suspect some of our follow-up agreements are different though, certainly we play different relays over 1♣.

[effervesce]

awm, on 2024-September-03, 10:20, said:

This is very similar to what Sam and I have been playing for the last 20 or so years, although we dropped the weak notrump pretty early on (we play 14-16 in 1st/2nd and 15-17 in 3rd/4th now) and our 1M opening standards may be a bit different from yours (we pass most balanced 10s and open most unbalanced 9s).

I suspect some of our follow-up agreements are different though, certainly we play different relays over 1♣.

You didn't like a weak NT in a precision system? Sure, you might occasionally get hammered with it, but part of the reason for using it is to clean up the 1M auctions especially in a 2/1 "Lawrence" style 1M system since the 1M balanced openers would have to be a maximum hand not a minimum balanced hand (which would have opened 1NT).

For example, after 1H - 2C

	2D = 4+ diamonds
		2NT = artificial, forcing
			3C = club fragment (3+ clubs)
			3D = 5+ diamonds
			3H = 6+ hearts
			3S = 4+ spades
			3NT = 2542/3541
	2H = 5+ hearts, min
		2NT = artificial, forcing
			3C = 4+ clubs
			3D = 3 clubs
			3H = 6 hearts, 0-2 clubs (may have 4 spades)
			3S = 4+ spades
			3NT = 2632/3622 shape
	2S = 4+ spades, max
		2NT = artificial, forcing
			3C = club fragment (3+ clubs)
			3D = diamond fragment (3+ diamonds)
			3H = 6+ hearts
			3S = ---
			3NT = 4522
	2NT = 14-15(16) balanced (5332)
	3C = max, 4+ clubs

[awm]

effervesce, on 2024-September-04, 10:19, said:

You didn't like a weak NT in a precision system? Sure, you might occasionally get hammered with it, but part of the reason for using it is to clean up the 1M auctions especially in a 2/1 "Lawrence" style 1M system since the 1M balanced openers would have to be a maximum hand not a minimum balanced hand (which would have opened 1NT).

For example, after 1H - 2C

	2D = 4+ diamonds
		2NT = artificial, forcing
			3C = club fragment (3+ clubs)
			3D = 5+ diamonds
			3H = 6+ hearts
			3S = 4+ spades
			3NT = 2542/3541
	2H = 5+ hearts, min
		2NT = artificial, forcing
			3C = 4+ clubs
			3D = 3 clubs
			3H = 6 hearts, 0-2 clubs (may have 4 spades)
			3S = 4+ spades
			3NT = 2632/3622 shape
	2S = 4+ spades, max
		2NT = artificial, forcing
			3C = club fragment (3+ clubs)
			3D = diamond fragment (3+ diamonds)
			3H = 6+ hearts
			3S = ---
			3NT = 4522
	2NT = 14-15(16) balanced (5332)
	3C = max, 4+ clubs

Our observations were:

1. Against weaker opponents, the 11-13 NT can get some big wins, but it's also a big randomizer and we don't necessarily want this opposite pairs we should beat easily. Against strong opponents, 11-13 NT especially at vulnerable does not seem to be a winner. For a while we played weak NT at NV only, but this means we need to play different methods in some auctions (like over our 1M) based on vulnerability and we didn't think it was worth it.
2. The 1♦ opening is already somewhat difficult for us to deal with in competition, and putting a strong notrump in there makes things quite a bit worse. It basically forces us to act with a lot of hands that "make game opposite 15 balanced" where we'd be better off passing opposite the common 11-counts that get opened.
3. Our continuations over 1M have never looked like what you play; we have found that "2/1 GF" is not a good approach when you open as light as we do (we typically open on "rule of 18" for unbalanced hands which means a lot of 9s and some 8s). It's just devoting too many calls to hands that are too infrequent.

Our balanced 1M openings are stronger in high card strength than our unbalanced ones, since balanced 1M is 11-13 and unbalanced major is 9-15.

[foobar]

 awm, on 2024-September-04, 12:48, said:

Our observations were:

1. Against weaker opponents, the 11-13 NT can get some big wins, but it's also a big randomizer and we don't necessarily want this opposite pairs we should beat easily.

2. The 1♦ opening is already somewhat difficult for us to deal with in competition, and putting a strong notrump in there makes things quite a bit worse. It basically forces us to act with a lot of hands that "make game opposite 15 balanced" where we'd be better off passing opposite the common 11-counts that get opened.
3. Our continuations over 1M have never looked like what you play; we have found that "2/1 GF" is not a good approach when you open as light as we do (we typically open on "rule of 18")

+1 to all of the above. Depending on your preference, it's best to assign one canonical GF over 1M and one invite bid (say 2C/2D if you want to keep things simple).