VJ

Nobody for opening 1N? According to my evaluation rules (see my book "SAYC: Poisons & antidotes"), North's hand belongs to the 15-17 range. Then a DONT overcall of 2♣ would be followed by a (say) Lebensohn of 3♥, raise to 4♣, a Comfortable BW (see my book) at 4♠ or the usual RKCBW at 4N, a response of 6♣ and a landing at 6♥. IT all seems easier with better tools, but here you also need the Defense to show their ♣ fit :)

In my opinion, one possible solution is to teach bridge at school. Not any bridge though, logical bridge with not the slightest requirement for swallowing anything by heart. I am about to write a book that will show the method I use. Minibridge? Hell not! Pure logic, that could be taught at school for great benefits. After 1 hour, my young students go to the local club and perform reasonably well, usually fazr above 50% if not on the podium. Then the following lessons build up seamlessly on their bidding system and improve their play of the cards. This being said, I agree on being harsh on convicting cheaters and players consistently lacking ethics. I also agree on simplifying side rules and local regulations. If interested in this book, look for my name at amazon.com 6 months from now. John N. Nève de Mévergnies

This is perhaps just a sign of how much sound and common sense bridge is fading away. With bread and butter bridge, you cannot get elsewhere than to 2♠, with West opening the fight.

The Canapé Inversé was my first bidding system. I switched as few people played it, and also as i found there major flaws compared to more natural and artificial systems that I played subsequently. If I dare say, you may get a difference between SEF and SAYC as well as many recommended improvements to boost your scores by reading my books. - A first one is available on amazon, but is unfortunately in French as it addresses the SEF French system: SEF: Poisons et antidotes by myself (John N. Nève de Mévergnies): https://www.amazon.com/N%25C3%25A8ve-de-M%25C3%25A9vergnies-John-N/e/B07S754DQ1?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1566618962&sr=8-1 - A second one will be available Q4 this year: SAYC: Poisons & Antidotes. - Both books are the first ones in a series and make you evaluate your current bidding system vs. the reference bidding system with and without the recommended improvements. Hope this can help :)

I only can agree, all is a matter of style, but it is difficult to communicate with your partner if you open on any of these hands and want to convey along a message that you have a constructive hand ready to go for a plus score. Statistically, you are off to a bad score. None of those hands should be opened, whether constructively or destructively. Bridge tuition should lead even average players to better standards. The question does not even deserve to be raised, in my opinion. The poll result only shows how low the average level of the teachers and players is. I feel sorry for them.

I agree LIN is a good foundation, and serves well its current purposes. But it is not a de facto standard -just a nice remedy to limited and pressing requirements-. It however deserves an upwards compatibility to a real standard. LIN format is not addressing the issues I mentioned in this topic, and is not the result of a comprehensive analysis of the requirements towards a solution enabling a single manual encoding of a hand, its corrections if any, its history as an object, and its publication and easy editing in text processors.

I agree we should reuse as much as possible and build on the existing. Yes an unique standard, but file formats varying on the purpose. LIN should for sure be one of the building stones. We however need an initiative or support from big entities, like BBO and/or perhaps big puplishers or a syndicate of bridge authors or...

Many thx Fred. I will make good use of your info and let you know of the conclusions of the thread I engaged with Le Bridgeur. Meanwhile I will still push for the English version which remains quite a reference, until I can possibly recommend the French one.

Thanks very much Fred! I have just checked their catalog and asked them a few questions on the thoroughness and quality of the translation. I will let you know in case -as I expect- they will not know of some answers. At this point however, it seems clear already they do not cover all the deals we have in our versions (Bridge Master 2000 + all extra deals): they have all the original 36 deals for each level, and they sell separately "all" -i.e. only 180 i.o. 12*30=360, I do not know which ones yet- extra deals as "Volume 2". I have no idea of the sales figures, hence whether they plan a Volume 3 with the missing 180 deals. If not, should I contact you (preferred) or them for contracting it? Nota Bene: No to mention the Audrey Grant version but interest would probably be limited in France for that one.

Thanks for your comments. As you say, there are the formats that you listed, but many other ones as well, and to my knowledge, none satisfactory and deserving the name of standard, after a thorough review of the requirements.

Because of its dominant position on the international scene, it appears to me BBO should be leader in proposing an ISO format for the recording of bridge hands, associated with a standard for the bidding of it, and another one for the play of its cards. All of them should be nicely printable in Open Office tools, in isolation or combination. I am ready to help. My former role as a Standards architect may be useful. Rationale: I am tired of having to retype hands in my bridge publications and bridge tools. The tools should all be able to export and import bridge hands in the To Be Defined standard.

A report on the effectiveness of your bidding system. Rather than basing it on theoretical considerations on the description of the system, its input would consist ideally on a partnership (a single player may also in all honesty make the bidding for all 4 players) bidding a set of representative hands against either bots or another partnership, the contract being compared to its statistical value in a scoring system (easiest is rubber bridge). The report gives a factual score (%) for your partnership bidding, as well as scores for various topics such as bidding strong hands, 3-suiters, slammish values, homogeneity of the partnership when swpping hands, a.s.o. The listed maximum scores are 100%. There is practically no minimum in case of rubber scoring (negative values). Actually the minimum for 1 deal is -4000/2540=-157%. As an example on my existing benchmark tool, I have following overall scores for a limited set of deals: Me partnering bots: 52% My 5CM bidding system against itself: 76% My precision system (VJ): 100% Me and my female partner against bots: 53%

Thank you for your answers. However: Issue 1: I had no problem finding the solution right away. But leading the jack of spades at trick 2 makes West lead a heart at trick 3, which is ruffed (by the seven of spades): indeed BM sets up a void in hearts for East. Issue 2: is there no profitable market for Windows 10? If so I would be happy to fix the source and be given royalties in those sales...

I already have mine, which can be improved and expanded. Interested in a joint venture there? A first step could be access to public libraries of deals with or without (this is more the BBO spirit) fee. Those libraries would be accessible from bidding practice selection of source deals.

I bought for my club a number of Bridge Master softwares, with the extra libraries. All of them in English. I do recommend it to my students, but most of the French ones are allergic to English and would only buy a full French version that would contain SEF bidding and French explanations (when using the Movie icon). Does this exist? If so, where for instance can I buy it (I guess on BBO site???)? If not, I am ready to provide all the FRench specifics in text files, or even to program it if given the source code.

Perhaps this has been reported (and corrected) in later versions, but on the ones I bought, there are some bugs, particularly: 1. there seems to be no way of winning deal Level 2 A33 2. All Level 5 C deals are missing the explanations (there is no movie icon). I made my own. For items 1&2, is an update available? For item 2, if explanations have never been created, I have my own text file and am ready to share it.

The idea is to propose for selected books ranking out of poll per bridge level, errata, and special topics: e.g. for Bidding Challenge from Larry Cohen: give opportunity to readers having performed well to provide their bidding system, scores, and bidding sequence on all (20) hands of a chapter. A minimum overall score would be required to participate (e.g. an average at least equal to 1 IMP/deal). This follows up on suggestion I gave once upon a time to Fred to add tools to measure the efficiency of a bidding system. I have tools myself, but some programming effort is required to build an user-friendly and efficient selling tool.

Claus, I had a brief look at Lambda and Beznazwy. 1.1. I found the openings interesting but with it seems to me obvious improvements to be easily added. 1.2. I also did not find what to do with a balanced hand 8-12 and 2-3 in majors, unless that is covered by 1C??? 2. to invest in the system, you need a thorough description (in English). Is that available? 3. At first look, my forcing pass VJ system is much better, but I am ready to make sacrifices to gain commonality :) Thanks for your contribution, John

Thanks for the invitation too, Claus. I designed my own out of the Indian Veejay relay precision club, but I am interested in learning and probably playing those Polish systems. I am on my way to Moldavia right now for 10 days, but I will look into this on my return. Keep in touch. By the way Ben, we are never too old: bridge is making you younger :) John

I am reviewing my openings in the 5 card major system I am using when I am not allowed to use my preferred systems. The best I came up with recently is/ 1. Sheinwold-Kaplan 1x openings that may contain 2-6 points with 4+ cards in suit bid and at least a top there. 2. Tartan 2H/S/N openings 3. Klinger's new 1N opening and extended ranges for NT openings so that you never more commit to the 2 level without a mountain if balanced.

Puzzling to me that strong club is authorized whilst forcing pass is about always forbidden everywhere. Fine that is should be reserved to competition, but it is merely a logical extension of strong club. acbl seems very frigid to me. Protect and encourage newcomers: perfect! be very strict about ethics: excellent! but let's be open...