What is ACOL?

[the hog]

This thread has come a long way from its original discussion of Acol. Perhaps we should move it to a thread based specifically on NTs and responses to such? It would seem that quite a few people are not familiar with Scanian responses - (very good), or Keri (even better imho - sorry Richard  8) ). That neither of these methods is more commonly played in the States is probably due to unfamiliarity with the methods and the inertia of the typical bridge player.

 

In response to EricK. I have not played garbage stayman in years. I think its silly, so I have not missed it. All of our stayman responses have been constructive. Playing Keri, 2C is constructive anyway. In response to your question as to what we do with weak hands, I generally take out to my best suit if vul.

 

1NT 2C 2D 2NT is a gf. You are no worse off than any pair in the room which is investigating a 4-4 M fit.

 

1NT 2C 2D 3C/D are inv hands with long ms. The only time you are going to get a lead directing x here is in this sequence

 

1NT 2C 2D 3D, where they can x the C bid. If you have an inv hand with C and they x, you are laughing anyway.

 

"Also, don't sequences like 1NT 2C 2D 2NT 3C 3D 3H 3NT, give lots of opportunities for the defence to make lead directing doubles."

 

Granted, doesn't seem to happen that often though and sometimes when it does you can avoid a dodgy 3NT to play in a making Moyse. Also sometimes you can play a xx contract judging by the sort of waste paper some players x on these days. That has happened a bit recently and 2CXX making, perhaps with an overtrick, does not do much for their morale in a long team's match.

[hrothgar]

Any chance that you could provide a basic Keri summary?

I haven't had the chance to really look it over

[inquiry]

Any chance that you could provide a basic Keri summary?

I haven't had the chance to really look it over

 

I am neither endorsing or validating that the following web page has keri right. I remember reading about it in a borrowed book on improving NT, but no one I knows plays it, so I read it as an educational exercise. Since you asked, I googled the term and found this colorful webpage describing Keri... looking over it, I don't think this is exactly as I remember keri, but it appears  close. Maybe someone more up on keri could comment.

 

http://www3.cm.deakin.edu.au/~doug/bridge/1NT-keri.htm

[the hog]

This was written by the guy I played with last year; it is in fact an good summary of Keri and true to the original.

I have the notes and would be pleased to email them to anyone who wants them.

 

Very briefly:

Keri structure

 

1NT      2C puppet to 2D.   4333s/4432s and good 5   card Ms

 

          2D/H      Transfers to S. If GF with a 5 carder,  suit will be Qxxxx at best - else go via 2C

 

          2S      Range probe OR s/suited slam hand

 

         2NT      Transfer to 3C

 

        3C/D/H/S      GF with a s/t in the next suit

        Usually 4441, 4450, 4351, 3361. Not 1345

 

       3NT      To play

 

 

 

Continuations

 

1NT      2C

2D        2H      Invit with 4/5 H Various continuations

         

1NT     2C

2D       2NT          GF. various hand shapes

 

The above allows for 4333 opposite 4333/5332 to play in 3NT rather than 4M where you may have 9 tricks only.

 

The system also includes canape transfers in the Ms to show GF and inv hands with both Ms at an acceptable level.

 

Obviously the above is a very condensed summary.

[oldfogey]

On the two occasions I've started a topic it's been invaded and taken over by 'high-flyers' ("advanced" or "world-class" posters, like US Generals with rows of medal ribbons) talking at great length about things irrelevant to the subject.     I wish they'd keep to their own patch.     No offence X,Y, Z and W.     ;D

[Rhutobello]

On the two occasions I've started a topic it's been invaded and taken over by 'high-flyers' ("advanced" or "world-class" posters, like US Generals with rows of medal ribbons) talking at great length about things irrelevant to the subject.     I wish they'd keep to their own patch.     No offence X,Y, Z and W.     ;D

 

LOL, take no offence from this either, but if you ask a question, who is the better to answer this then just those who you blame:)

 

If a thread goes out of the hand, maybe you have asked the wrong question, or maybe the question is to broad, but the info given by the partisipants I think is good for us "lowerlevel" players:)

[inquiry]

On the two occasions I've started a topic it's been invaded and taken over by 'high-flyers' ("advanced" or "world-class" posters, like US Generals with rows of medal ribbons) talking at great length about things irrelevant to the subject.     I wish they'd keep to their own patch.     No offence X,Y, Z and W.     ;D

 

As the only "world class" poster responding in this thread, I guess you must be specifically referring to me as "x".  :)

 

When the post was initially made, I read it but did not post, as I am not a person Acol questions should be directed to. But when a beginner (pbleighton) thinking about playing weak notrump, which I do frequently play, posed a question about switching to weak notrump, and asked about getting a bad result because missing 4-4 major fit. I thought the three replies to his question, including one from you (oldfogey)did not address his concern. So I weighed in that his concern was justified, and even pointed out that his exact concern was why matchpoint precision suggest not open weak NT with any four card major.

 

Later, again the same beginner then asked six very specific questions, none ACOL-specific, one addressed specifically to one person, so I answered the other five, as did several other posters, because everyone has their own ideas. From these diverse six questions, you then get post focusing on the idea raised in these responses. This is the way forum threads frequently, as a matter of fact, almost always go. They develop a life of their own when one persons answers includes a related question that then leads to branching. It certainly isn't limited to threads started by you.

 

In fact, until this specific response, all my post in thread have been in specific response to specific questions asking for help (write up on Keri, for example). This is the essences of how branching occurs. A perfect example of this branching is your own post in this thread that the thread has gone off topic, and both my reply and the one by Rhutobello. You found it interesting enough to complain about degradation of a topic, creating the same kind of off topic item in the thread you were complaining about, and then at least two of us felt inspired to respond, extending the off-topicness of the issue you raised yourself. You may find this a bad thing, but threads that grow and expand are actually good in my opinion.

 

And like Rhutobello, I take no offense in your comments, after all, I have a chest full of row upon row of medals, so must have a very thick skin.  :o  But I find it odd that you would suggest these posters (including myself) should stay in our own patch, since I didn't know some patches were limited to specific people.

[byroner53]

Having read the postings re: Acol with interest & as an Acol practitioner of 25+ yrs  I should like to add my 'two-penny-worth' to the discussion.

I dissagree with Draco that weak NT (12-14) is generally Tournament Acol but it is probably appropriate to playing casual bridge on BBO with non-regular partners - a feature of on-line bridge.

I can well understand Orla being a "scaredy cat" (doesn't sound your style  :)) of being left in 1NT with little support from ptr. In my experience this should seldom occur; either ptr will trans. for weak t/o or ops will intervene.

It also seems to me that you have everything to gain by making a weak 1NT opening, esp. when non-vul. against vul. ops.  I would go so far to say that the limit should be extended to 11-14 hcp when 3rd in hand.  It may be possible to engineer a profitable sacrifice with little risk: often ops will not be able to collect a large enough penalty to compensate them for loss of their vul. game

Concerning weak NT being a feature of Tournament Acol, in my opinion to use weak NT, irrespective of vul., in Tournament (playing for imp's) or rubber (playing for money) bridge, is foolhardy.

 

Yes, bidding a weak NT when non-vul. makes certain hands (bal. 11-14hcp) easy to bid, but I am strongly of the opinion that when you are vul. you must treat it with respect. For this reason when playing with a regular ptr. I prefer the variable NT ref. to by Gordon who started this thread.  Note of caution! .. this is fine playing with a regular 'understanding' ptr., but is difficult in BBO with casual ptrs as all responses have to be modified accordingly.

 

Incidentally, does anyone remember when t/o doubles were ref. to as "Sputnik" doubles, or is my memory playing tricks  :-/

 

Cheers,  Charlie

[Laird]

Hi Charlie

 

Sure I remember Sputnik doubles, used to have it on my profile but was getting regular complaints about not calling it by its proper name of negative double so i just changed it to avoid confusion.

 

Better watch out you will be changing the point of this Acol thread  ;D

 

John

[byroner53]

Thanks John, ... for reminding me!

Of course, "Sputnik" doubles were negative doubles not t/o as I wrote in my posting.

But I guess you know me and my memory  :)

Cheers, Charlie

[hallway]

Well, now that Charlie & John have put in their two penneth worth so shall I  ;D

 

Way down here in the BLN department  (that stands for BeginnerLearnerNovice by the by) (If you want to comment on that pls start anoher thread )  ......now where was I ? oh yes  ACOL !

 

I am very fond of our weak 1NT 12-14 Balanced Opener  -  there's no need to worry about one's faulty judgment  ;D     We play it as 4432,4333, 5(minor)332.

- over to you P you're in the driver's seat.    It can / does put a spoke in the BLNOpps wheel - they can't get started at the 1 level  :)

 

Likewise our 1NT response is a wee gem 6 - 9 hcp not necessarily balanced , denying a holding of a 4 card suit that could be bid at the 1 level.   No ambiguity - nice.

 

And ofcourse the BLN's greatest asset the 4 / 4 fit.   Such a pleasure to sign  score sheets 3NT making 3-5 with all the other tables with their 5/3 fits having bid to 4H/S going variable sums of light .  (Now I know thousands of you will have sound mathematical probabilities in favour of the 5 card opener but I liked the odds on Fri when the above actually happened twice in 24 boards  ;D )

 

But when all is said and done isn't the first essential in Bidding to simply be having a 'legal' conversation at the table with one's Partner with  both of you 'speaking' the same language .  

 

And then there is .......JUDGMENT....... for which there is no System :'(      A BLN forever.... :-/

[oldfogey]

What is Acol?    That is the topic - the definition of the Acol system.    About three replies addressed this.    The question on the use of weak NT was relevant, but became a point of divergence as we got Matchpoint Precision, Kaplan-Scheinwald, Nightmare, Moscito, and question and answer about the definition of Keri.

 

Of course no topic is banned to any poster, but if he is going to contribute to it he might have the consideration to keep to the topic, even if a query, such as the weak NT one, tempts him to branch into his pet systems and theories.    There must be forums or topics that cover these, or they could be started as "Scientific Systems", "Modern Systems", "Advanced Systems", or whatever he prefers.     I promise I will not trespass on his patch to talk about Acol, etc.

 

My other topic received worse treatment.     It was under 'Find a Partner', and sought an Acol-using partner.    Yet again we got Nightmare, Moscito, Forcing Pass, as well as game theory, the science of information exchange, and scientifically designed systems.    What have these to do with finding an Acol partner?

 

One expert poster has expressed disregard for Acol, and described Acol, SAYC and 2/1 as obsolete.    Maybe they are, but one wonders why he bothers to read such topics as Find an Acol Partner.

 

 

LOL, take no offence from this either, but if you ask a question, who is the better to answer this then just those who you blame:)

 

If a thread goes out of the hand, maybe you have asked the wrong question, or maybe the question is to broad, but the info given by the partisipants I think is good for us "lowerlevel" players:)

 

Rhutobello, if you read the question  raised when I started the topic you will see that the people referred to made no attempt to answer it, and self-proclaimedly are not interested in it.    The question was not too broad, but specific.    What do you mean by "asked the wrong question"?    Should I have asked a question that required discussion of scientifically-designed systems, etc?    If you are a lower-level player perhaps you'd do better to use simpler systems for the time being;  but it's your life.

[inquiry]

What is Acol?    That is the topic - the definition of the Acol system.    About three replies addressed this.    The question on the use of weak NT was relevant, but became a point of divergence as we got Matchpoint Precision, Kaplan-Scheinwald, Nightmare, Moscito, and question and answer about the definition of Keri.

 

Well once again, you point your finger directly at me with three of these comment. I am the only one who mentioned matchpoint precision and kaplan-scheinwold, and I a) ridiculed the mention of keri when it was raised by another poster and :) then went and found a web-link for keri when someone asked about (even though I do not play nor even like keri).

 

Let's handle my introduction of the phrases "matchpoint precision" and "Kaplan-Sheinwold." As I said I don't play ACOL, but the question was about weak notrump. I only introduced matchpoint precision to point out that one system had modified it's weak notrump for exactly the reason that questioner was asking his question. That is all I said about MP Precision. I then I added KS to explain the experience behind my view that weak notrump works ok even at MP despite the problem with missing 4-4 fits on part-score hands. Never once did I advocate people play either system or try to change the topic of this thread from ACOL to these other systems. That is, I have not once advocated any pet theory at all, nor try to switch people from ACOL to either of these systems.

 

I do admit your find an acol partnership thread has been responded too somewhat poorly. If you look, you will find that I am not among the responders to that one. I almost responded volunteering to play ACOL with you. I have played it once in a while, but I am a beginner at it, so I thought maybe not qualified to be volunteering myself.

 

But ok, to make my post relevant to your first post, I will address your intitial questions. Where you said "So there are not many features defining ACOL.    Yet we see described as ACOL, e.g. 15-17 NT, 5-card majors, 5-card Spades (why?), weak 2s in S, H and D, and sometimes a 2C opening which obviously isn't good enough to force to game.

 

From my very limited understanding of ACOL...

1) What feature defines acol? To me it is the ACOL two bids that no one bothered to discuss. Opening 2H or 2S with a good 8/9 trick hand.

 

2) The times I play Acol, I play 12-14 1NT

 

3) Why 5S? I think this comes from dutch ACOL where they open 1H when 4-4 in the majors to keep the bidding at the one level when looking for 8 card major fit.

 

I think acol is losing its unique appearance because of conventions like multi-2D, and strong 2C which can include acol 2 in major hand and the "drop dead" 2H and 2S responses to 2C. Once you take away the ACOL 2 bids from ACOL, the system becomes very much like other systems, at least in my humble opinion.

[EricK]

What is Acol?

 

Here is something from rec.games.bridge by David Burn (English International), who, by the way, does not play Acol by choice.

 

Acol is not a system; it's a state of mind. "Get in cheap, get out quick" was Simon's watchword, and that about sums it up.

 

Here is another quote from the same post

 

It has often been a source of some bafflement to me that, whereas five-card majors and a weak no trump is a perfectly playable method without much preliminary discussion, as is four-card majors and a strong no trump, most "natural bidding" in the world at levels other than the highest has tended to be based either on "weak and four" or "strong and five". Zia remarked, a couple of years ago, that he couldn't understand this either - "if you are going to play a weak notrump, then you *must* play five-card majors", were his words.

 

So there you have it!

 

Eric

[Cave_Draco]

Good points, Ben.

 

However, I don't know of many who still play "vanilla" Acol. I ditched "vanilla" Acol over 30 years ago,  :).

 

1) The Acol 2 bid is alive & well as the Benjamin 2C but 2H/S bids are so much more useful as Weak 2s.

2D has always been the theoretician's "problem child" be it Flannery, Multi, Tartan... etc. Benji uses the bid to distinguish between distributional & semi-balanced hands. You can open a Benji 2C with a powerful 2-suiter.  Maybe someone plays Benji SAYC but I've never seen it; Benji Acol, on the other claw, is fairly standard.

 

2) The Weak NT is not integral to Acol, it's just more common with Acol than it is with 5-card major systems. It fits in with being able to bid 4-card majors somewhat better, IMO.

When one opens 1 of a suit in Acol, one is announcing "I have points (15+)" and/or "I have distribution"; as opposed to a system like SAYC, where 1M says "I have distibution, might have points too" and 1m says "I don't have a Strong NT opening".

 

3) I've had debates about the 5-card S suit implication. To some extent its justifiication depends, IMO, on what system one is playing against.

I prefer to grab the Spade suit if I can and quite like the inferences that flow from Acol's handling of 4-4-4-1 hands.

Playing against 5-card major systems, I see no good reason not to grab the Spade suit; playing Acol V Acol it is less clear.

 

4) Oops, lol. Acol has "always" allowed a "prepared" Club, but there is no way I am going to allow opps to play "short club", or "inconvenient minor", I paid the table stakes...

 

5) The other key point about Acol is the concept of limit raises, if memory serves they originated in Acol? I still have a problem with the Jacoby 2NT, :o.

 

P.S. to Eric...  At IMPs "Get in cheap, get out quick" is not a winning strategy, at MP...  :D.

Zia has... a reputation, but not as a theoretician; mostly it's what people learn, 5-card majors & Strong NT are "safe"... we'll all live to a ripe old age,  ::).

Wrt "if you are going to play a weak notrump, then you *must* play five-card majors" as I pointed out above; playing the Weak NT a 1NT bid says "I don't have distribution & am 12-14, you decide, P".

[Rhutobello]

(/quote)

Rhutobello, if you read the question  raised when I started the topic you will see that the people referred to made no attempt to answer it, and self-proclaimedly are not interested in it.    The question was not too broad, but specific.    What do you mean by "asked the wrong question"?    Should I have asked a question that required discussion of scientifically-designed systems, etc?    If you are a lower-level player perhaps you'd do better to use simpler systems for the time being;  but it's your life.

 

Well I am in dager to repeat other in the same thread, but hopefully this can not be said to often so here I go:):

 

A) A community is a living and pulsing thing. There are many opinions, and even if they are diffrent, they don't need to be wrong, in other word, we are not into science.

 

B)In my opinion, when you start a thread with a question on a community board, this question and the answers become  public ownership, and must be threted like that.

If you want spesefic answer to spesefic question then you must narrow it down to ask questions that have no opinions,but just facts, like how many card are there in one deck:) (then you get asking is it normal or tarot you thinking about?) or you must use email to people that you think can give you a concret answer to your question.

 

When you start a thread, think about it as a tiny little tree. Often it will not grow, because the question is not of public interest, or to narrow. But if it grow, be proud, and look at all the information it held, use your ego to say, look how popular this thread have become:)

 

As for complaining, I must say that is a negativa act that not just damage you, but the whole community.

Think about it, you share your thoughts with fellow community folks, trying to do the best you can, and then you get pepper for it, I think you will be more restrective to whom you respond to next time.

 

So I hope such complain is the last we see, and that our advance and world class posters keep up the good work, I like it! (but who care about me (JK):)

[the hog]

With due respect oldfogey, you brought it upon yourself in your first thread with this comment:

 

"I would think that true expert (as distinct from some self-proclaimed experts) and world-standard players are guided more by logical reasoning and knowledge of their partner's bidding style, rather than by ANY rigid system.     Presumably an exception would be the Italian Blue Team with their very precise Blue Club.

 

oldfogey "