jdiana

The ACBL has some resources that might be helpful - https://www.acbl.org/club-corner/ Howell - https://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/VACB/howell.pdf Mitchell - https://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/VACB/mitchell.pdf (I'm not a director and have no experience with this.)

"For me 3NT shows a solid 6/7 card suit." For us, a jump rebid of the major shows that type of hand. I think that's fairly standard, at least in American 2/1 systems. I agree, though, that 2NT would have been a better opening bid. After that, it depends on agreements. I've been considering adopting the simpler of the two approaches described here - https://www.advinbridge.com/this-week-in-bridge/225 - but haven't done so yet. With our current agreements, I think we would just bid 2NT - 4♣ -(Gerber) - 4NT (3 aces) - 6♣. (I'd be concerned about transportation for a 6NT bid.)

We play that opener's 2NT rebid shows either 12-14 or 18-19 HCP. (Responder assumes it's 12-14.) If responder then bids 3NT, opener will raise to 4NT to show 18-19 HCP. Opener's jump rebid of 3NT shows 15-17 HCP and a hand that didn't bid 1NT for some reason (probably 5-4-2-2). We also play that notrump rebids promise stoppers in the unbid suits but not everyone plays that way. We play the same way after 1M-2m, so this keeps things internally consistent and easy to remember.

Just echoing the recommendation of Larry Cohen's materials for a basic 2/1 system. You may have found these already but here are some links: LC's basic 2/1 ABCL convention card (old format) - https://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/play/basic2over1CC.pdf LC's "Conventional Wisdom Lite" series, which corresponds to that convention card - http://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/marketing/Conventional_Wisdom_Lite.pdf Larry's 2/1 series on his website, which goes into more detail - https://www.larryco.com/bridge-learning-center/detail/435 He has a set of three workbooks for sale called Larry Teaches Modern Bidding, which I'm sure are very good. Good luck!

Maybe this is too aggressive (I'm not used to playing with a weak 1NT) but how about 1NT - 2♦ - 2♥ - 5NT (pick a slam)? At least it's simple. :)

Fargo, Season 3

This recent article by Bobby Wolff defines it as a particular way of combining our chances, i.e., "cashing the ace-king of one suit and then falling back on a finesse in the other." https://www.goerie.com/go-columns/?amu=/acesonbridge/2022/11/01/parsimony-requires-no-providence-no-sagacity (Richard Pavilcek's "plan (1)" and "plan (2)" both start with cashing the A-K of hearts.)

Inspired by ruleof20's post looking for partners to play Gavin Wolpert's intermediate system, I'm wondering if there are any other intermediate players who have built their system around Robert Todd's teaching materials. (As an aside, I think Gavin's system is also good. If I had found his lessons first, I might be playing "Gavin Intermediate".) If you play Robert Todd's intermediate system and are familiar with his TWiB articles, etc., let's compare notes! For those who might not be familiar with it, the core 2/1 system includes: Opener's 2M rebid may be a 5-card suit ("waiting") Opener's 2NT rebid promises stoppers in unbid suits A new suit at the 3 level shows some extras It also includes a semi-forcing 1NT and 3/1 invitational, e.g., 1♥-3♦ would show a good 6-card diamond suit with about 11-ish points.

Thanks! I've also watched several of his classes and enjoyed them. He's a good teacher. I haven't adopted all of his suggestions though. You may have already tried this, but I think you can also look for partners on the Wolpert Bridge website. Good luck!

Just wondering - Is "Gavin Wolpert Intermediate" documented somewhere as a complete system? Or are you referring to having taken his lessons? Thanks!

Some of this seems overly complicated. If 2♣ promises a 4-card major, and opener is 4-4 in the majors, he can simply bid up the line. If he bids 2♥ and responder has four spades (and not four hearts), he will normally bid 2NT or 3NT and opener can correct to spades. The method that David mentioned, where opener's 2NT shows 4-4 in the majors, is used by the Argine bidding engine. Patrick Laborde describes the full structure here (you'll need to scroll down to find his comment) - https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/quantitative-sequence-after-1nt-2c-2h/

This is very similar to hand #5 in Root's How to Play a Bridge Hand (p. 7). "The only chance to win four tricks is to find West with a doubleton king. So lead low from your hand and finesse the queen. If the queen wins, cash the ace and hope for the king to drop. Note that leading toward the jack is a hopeless play."

This may be what you're looking for - http://learn2playbridge.com/

"Someone tried to encourage me to go there for a fun game once but they are usually just teachers looking for a victim." I don't think that's really fair. I did sign up for it and, with respect to Maureen Hall (who started it), the BIL's website is pretty much useless. But several teachers run teaching games on BBO, there's a partnership desk (again, not really high tech), and Maureen sends out a monthly email. Sure, teachers would like to have new students, but I think that's true of most bridge teachers who put out free information. Some of the teaching games are, I believe, restricted to those who have paid the membership fee for BIL, while some are freely available to anyone. I've pretty much stopped using BIL and won't renew my membership, just because I've kind of moved on to other ways of working on my game. But I think it was a nice idea when it was started. It just hasn't kept up with technology. I'd actually like to see more places for advancing students to try to improve their games and maybe share ideas with peers, as opposed to always being in the position of asking for help, if that makes sense.

I agree that learning 2/1 is a good idea, especially if you're in North America. Be aware that there are a few different versions of 2/1 in common circulation. These articles summarize the two main approaches, as well as a "third way" called the Schuler shift. https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/building-a-better-21-structure-the-troublesome-2m-rebid/ https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/building-a-better-21-structure-the-schuler-shift/ https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/better-21-bidding-the-nebulous-2c-bid/ Probably best to start with one of the two mainstream approaches. I don't think the "Schuler shift" is very common among intermediate players. If you have a regular partner, my advice would be to take a good 2/1 class together and talk it through while building some system notes.