MesSer

I tried putting together a structure for this convention based on a strong club system where openings are 11-16 (10-16). What strikes me thought is that you rarely gain anything from it in that situation. Might be different for a natural system where opener is pretty unlimited in opening strength and responder hence must be really wide range. Our convention was based on the fact that we were to play it in MP and we spent a lot of time in partnership bidding room to find out wether it was decent or not... The first thing you have to consider is what type of hands you'd like your convention to handle, is it reaching game when we have fit instead of ending in 1NT or is it to find a good partial instead of 1NT when we have a potential H/S fit or semi-fit? Playing with limited opening we came to the conclusion that there are two situations where you'd gain playing this convention. a) When you have a long heart suit and opener is min with semi-fit. (End in 2H/2S instead of 1NT) B) When opener intended to pass on 1NT with 3card hearts and 12-14hp and you have decent hand with 9-11hp. Every hand with 4card hearts could actually be removed from the opening hand since he'd almost always rebid these with 2H over your 1NT... Every hand with 15-16 would find another bid over your 1NT-call. In Case A you could end up in 2H on 5-1 when you have a 5-2 spade fit, or, if you design a system that would allow a non-forcing 2S bid to be made (if you have only 5), you could end up in 3H on 5-3 and 5-2 in spades instead of 2H on 5-3. Or, you could end up in 3H where others would play 1NT. In some rare ocassions we found that you actually lost leverage to those playing natural where bidding would start 1S-1N-2m-2H-3H since here you could make accurate judging based on your minor suit holding whereas with transfer you have to guess wether it is right to bid game or not. This leaves us with case B where some 14pointers actually would be bid again thus finding the fit eventually (with more info given to partner). The rest of the 12-14 hands are the hard case and probably open for discussion wether the system works out fine or not... The most important thing about these hands though, is that in MANY cases these hands are purely judgment calls are my 9 good against his 14etc. Here information about the different hand's distributions are more important than anything else and more importantly -- where in the suits is his strength? We tried a few different approaches to invites in these sequences, however, there is limited space. After a while we decided that it was easier to just find the major suit on most hands and differntiate between misfit/regular raise/good raise/super raise and then make a judgment call which might or might not be correct... OR to just play natural and be in the same situation as any other pair and trust to our superior skills (or opponents stupidity) to give us the advantage :) In the end we decided to put the project on ice until later and just keep the bidding alive with our 14-16hp hands and any hand with 5S and 4H regardless of strength... There are so many risks and very few gains, at least with showing this hand type against an 11-16 hand. The targeted hands where the convention is supposed to win against a normal approach are very few and rare and usually requires more than just fit in one suit or turns out to be based on judgment/bidding style anyway. If you decide to try it out, make sure you spend A LOT of time trying the convention out to see it's strength and flaws and make sure that you from the beginnning decide on what it is you want the convention to do for you!

I thank you all for your responses. I will look up on these things. If someone has a module that is made when opener is limited that would be best of all. Nonetheless, a big thanks to you all.

Thinking about the numerous advantages to playing 1S-2D showing hearts in "any" system. I was wondering wether someone had a good response structure or bid summary over what each bid should contain and how to follow up on this. I'm especially looking for one structure where opener is limited to 15-16points or so but anything will actually go. I would also like the 2D-bidder to be able to bid 2D with 8+hpc-hands. Could someone direct me to where I can read more about this? Thank in advance /Daniel

1C-1S 1NT-2C = 5-4 hand 2D = with a 4-card major or extra strength 2H/2S/3c/3d = shortness and marmic 2NT = min bal. Don't know if that's what you're looking for. Probably isn't but you might find something of interest.

imo partner showed a bad raise to 2S. That's what the 1NT+2S is for after all... I don't see any problem with this hand. I'd pass without a doubt and expect it to make 8 or possibly 9 tricks on a good day. Since I didn't have any body (only xxxx:es in all suit), and, you need around 6 good hcp from partner I don't think you have much chance in 3NT. He would have bid 2S directly if he had those hcp's...

I favour 1S-2D = transfer to hearts 5+suit and 6+hcp and 1S-2H = 5+D. Over 1S-2D --> 2H = 2+H and a hand that doesn't see a chance for game against 8-11hcp, 2S = no heart fit, 2NT = Relay with 2+H 3H = 3+fit and invitational. Works great playing together with 2/1 or any natural system where 1M can contain 11-22 and you won't usually miss a game in hearts or a good partscore. Plus, it gives you the chance to pass out 1S-1NT more often. And, you are able to bid on those 6-card heart-suits with 5-8hcp. So far, I have only recieved good results by using this. You need to work a bit on the structure over 1S-2H though, but that's about it...

Only problem when people use dbl as a bid to show something except strength is that it's quite vulnerable to psyches. I think I have opened with 5-8 hp nv vs vul showing 15-17 or 14-16 when I noticed that they didn't have a penalty double to use ;/

This is something I have played in a weak 8-12 limited openings system for quite some time now. But, after reading through some early moscito notes we decided to start using transfer opening bids instead and just use a very simple scheme. 1D = H 1H = S 1S = clubs or any minor (depending on how much you'll like to adapt from moscito) Seems better to me since opp will find it harder to interfere with 1H/1S over your "showing minor suits"-bid with 1S instead of 1D as in your system...

Many good replies pointing out different things. Maybe a strong club system is not that bad after all... I would still aim at keeping it simple, very simple though. That means not relaying, just bidding your suits and telling them that 1C-1D is a negative bid. I don't think anything else would be needed. Keep it as simple as you can for a starter and then let them learn the rest if they are really interested. I don't think letting them study relay-schemes is a good start for inexperienced players.

I think I can call myself a recent beginner. Started out my bridge playing career maybe 2½-3 years ago or something. I learned swedish modern standard as my first system. It's basically as any normal system (SAYC / 2/1) but all openings on 1-level shows a 4-card suit and you bid 1M prior to 1m with 2 4-card suits. I dont play that any more nowadays, but since that was what most swedes played at that time, it was a good way for me to be able to find partners to play with. Later I was introduced to online bridge and as a result I had to learn SAYC and 2/1. These are actually very good systems for beginners since they are easy to learn and you understand why you bid things. I think any natural system is a great way of starting your bridge career. With that said I can't but say that I fully agree with Mishov and Hrothgar. They have very good points in everything they say. Card-reading and understanding how to count your tricks and play thereafter is the key to winning bridge. Not to mention the ability to visualize hands. If your students learn a normal bidding system they will be able to play with most partners and have a good foundation in their comming bridge career. Dont emphasize on conventions. Just let them find a reasonable contract in the beginning. Later introduce them to jacoby and stayman and such conventions. When they get a GOOD hang of bridge in general and learn how to use these conventions, you can teach them more advanced conventions. When me and my friend play nowadays in competitions we use 2 conventions, 1) an agreed NT-module and 2) two way-checkback... Rest is standard, easy to understand, 5542 bridge (5+M opening, 4+D opening and 2+C opening). And so far, when playing in ~10 tourneys with varying competition, we have always received our share of Master Points... So, to sum it up, conventions aren't really that important when playing standard bridge. And I assume that's what you want to teach those to-be bridge players. Nowadays I can play with almost any partner and tell them to choose a system. I just hope that I will receive a complete version of Mosquito, when Hrotghar finishes his work on it, soon so I can learn that very interesting system... :(

Words can't express the feeling to logon and not being able to send an oink or moo message to Steve. Unfortunantly I didn't have the pleasure of meeting ece, but, if he is even close to being as nice and friendly as Steve is, it's with big grief I bid thee farwell. I'm sad that it all had to come to this, I will really miss you during my online time at BBO. I sincerely do hope that you will be able to work this all out and return to BBO. Even if that might not be possible, I still hope for it. Until then, moo and oink my friend!

Hi, my address is messer@gamingeye.com I'd be interested in reading this text and all other texts that you have concerning moscito :))

I was talking more about the situation where you hold a bad 4-card major and a good 5-card minor. You can't systematicaly open this one in a good way. This is the same for other sequences as well. But, on the other hand you put a lot of pressure on opponents in 1M-2M sequences. The version you showed up with seems good though. And it's a shame that the creators of the system hasn't updated their system notes during the last 5 years or so :huh:

Hi Peter! You might be interested in having a look at Magic Diamond. A very fun system that is based around 8-11 4+ Major openings that might contain a longer minor. http://w1.836.telia.com/~u83607584/carrot/...ght%201.0.1.pdf Magic Diamond Light (a simplified version of Magic Diamond) http://w1.836.telia.com/~u83607584/carrot/Magic_25.pdf Magic Diamond v2.5 Unfortunantly, the system doesn't really give you a chance to use your judgement and it overloads the 1C-structure a bit. But, it's really fun to play which is a good reason for me to keep playing it :huh:

hahahaa lol ;)))