Conventions to Learn

[awm]

Suppose an intermediate player wanting to improve asks which conventions are worth the time to learn. What would you recommend?

 

Okay, I'm sure a lot of us will say "conventions are not that important, you should spend most of your time trying to improve your declarer play and defense." And I definitely agree with that sentiment. But at some point it makes sense to learn a few conventions, if only because it can be hard to get good players to partner you otherwise. Since most of the intermediate player's time is supposed to be spent improving play/defense, which are the conventions they should definitely bother to learn?

[gwnn]

I found Raptor (or Lindquist or Polish) NT overcall quite effective. Gets rid of 90% or ELC, a rather hard to swallow concept.

 

direct 1NT overcall=about your usual 1 level intervention strength. a 5+ unbid minor and a 4 card unbid major. Rather simple and helpful. I don't know if it's the most important convention to learn, tho.

[hrothgar]

Here's my list of conventions in order of importance

 

1. Takeout Doubles

2. Stayman

3. Negative Doubles

4. Jacoby Transfers

5. Fit showing Jumps / non-jumps

6. Inverted Minor raises

7. Some type of forcing major suit raise

8. Cue bidding

9. Lebensohl

10. Roman Keycard Blackwood

11. Something over weak 2 openings (Ogust, shortness ask, feature ask. Don't really care what)

 

the rest is gravy (I should have probably included 4th suit forcing and the pitiful crutch as well)

[Guest Jlall]

stayman/transfers

takeout/negative doubles

count/attitude/suit preference

blackwood

jacoby 2N

weak 2s

4th suit forcing

new minor forcing

 

FWIW in terms of bidding once they've learned these things I think they'd do best to learn hand evaluation, law of total tricks (good for familiarizing themselves with competing with 9 trumps etc even though they should unlearn it later :)), and what is forcing, invitational, and competitive/sign off.

[bid_em_up]

I think one thru seven are almost mandantory.

 

1. Stayman

2. Negative Doubles

3. Takeout Doubles

4. Jacoby Transfers

5. Blackwood (plain old vanilla)

6. Reverses

7. Weak 2 bids, 3/4 level preempts and any appropriate asking bids thereafter.

 

Wide seperation between those above, and the following (in just about any order), which help to supplement the above:

 

8. Roman Keycard Blackwood (1430)

9. Michaels and Unusual NT

10. Jacoby 2N

11. Interfering over opponents NT (Capp, Dont, whatever you pick, I prefer Capp.)

12. Lebensohl over NT opening interference

13. Splinters

14. New Minor Forcing

15. Fourth Suit Forcing

16. 1N forcing

17. Puppet Stayman (especially over 2N openings)

18. Lebenshol after Reverse

19. Lebenshol after takeout double of a Weak 2 bid.

20. Inverted minors

21. Checkback Stayman

22. Extended Stayman

23. Ghestem or Modified Ghestem.

24. Multi and especially, a DEFENSE to Multi.

25. Exclusion Keycard Blackwood

 

I used to regularly play with a partner in sectionals and regionals where she refused to play anything more than conventions one thru seven. The lack of our sophisticated bidding sequences was more than compensated by not having system (conventional) misunderstandings. She could defend and play reasonabley well, and we arrived in the right contract at least 95% of the time. In 5 years, I do not recall ever not placing in the top 3 teams at any sectional or Regional that we attended (of course, we were also in Flight B at the time).

 

As a side note, I'll include a few conventions that I think are worthless, useless, or have better uses for the calls required by them:

 

1. Flannery

2. Drury

3. Bergen Raises

 

(yea, I know. Don't bother telling me I have to play drury or bergen, cause I don't and I won't.) :)

[mikeh]

1. Stayman

 

2. Jacoby (and Texas) Transfers

 

3. Drury.... at least a simple form of it

 

4. negative doubles

 

5. RKCB

 

6. Weak Two bids

 

7. Jacoby 2N over the majors

 

8. Takeout doubles (I wouldn't have thought of this as a convention for anyone beyond a complete novice)

 

9. Two Way New Minor Forcing

 

10. Lebensohl (at least over interference of our 1N)

 

11. Fourth Suit forcing

 

12. Reverses/Jumpshifts

 

These are not in any order of priority... more a stream of consciousness list of 11 very useful agreements.

 

One thing I would stress is that the player THINK about what problems these gadgets solve and, more importantly, what problems they create. All too often, improving players want to play conventions simply because they know that the good players play lots of stuff, and most newer players can't tell the difference between an eager but confused advanced player and a true expert. Anyone with a lot of small print on their convention card looks like an expert so they want to emulate those players. The result is a mishmash of ill-considered 'solutions' to low frequency problems, creating even more problems with other hand-types.

 

If a player lacks a persuasive answer to the question: why do you play such and such a convention, he or she ought not to play it.

[rona_]

I think one thru seven are almost mandantory.

 

1. Stayman

2. Negative Doubles

3. Takeout Doubles

4. Jacoby Transfers

5. Blackwood  (plain old vanilla)

6. Reverses

7. Weak 2 bids, 3/4 level preempts and any appropriate asking bids thereafter.

 

Wide seperation between those above, and the following (in just about any order), which help to supplement the above:

 

8. Roman Keycard Blackwood (1430)

9. Michaels and Unusual NT

10. Jacoby 2N

11. Interfering over opponents NT (Capp, Dont, whatever you pick, I prefer Capp.)

12. Lebensohl over NT opening interference

13. Splinters

14. New Minor Forcing

15. Fourth Suit Forcing

16. 1N forcing

17. Puppet Stayman (especially over 2N openings)

18. Lebenshol after Reverse

19. Lebenshol after takeout double of a Weak 2 bid.

20. Inverted minors

21. Checkback Stayman

22. Extended Stayman

23. Ghestem or Modified Ghestem.

24. Multi and especially, a DEFENSE to Multi.

25. Exclusion Keycard Blackwood

 

Has Csdenmark seen this list yet? :)

[MickyB]

Some of this will vary wildly between countries and even regions, particularly in terms of being able to play the conventions that potential partners might insist on.

 

1. Takeout doubles

2. Stayman

3. Transfers

4. 4th suit forcing

5. Blackwood

6. Cuebids primarily as stop asks

7. Cuebids (and 1suit-(X)-2NT - thx Gerben) as good raises

8. Lebensohl

9. Jacoby

10. RKCB

11. NMF

12. Michaels/UNT

13. Cuebid controls (deserves to be higher up but requires more effort than the others)

 

Do weak twos and reverses-showing-extras really count as conventions? NMF will be higher up if living in a region that advocates Walsh (are there such regions in the US?). I'd put Landy quite high up if it wasn't so underrated, it does pretty well both in terms of effectiveness and simplicity.

[Gerben42]

1. Stayman

2. Negative Doubles

3. Takeout Doubles

4. Jacoby Transfers

5. Blackwood  (plain old vanilla)

6. Reverses

7. Weak 2 bids, 3/4 level preempts and any appropriate asking bids thereafter.

 

Wide seperation between those above, and the following (in just about any order), which help to supplement the above:

 

8. Roman Keycard Blackwood (1430)

9. Michaels and Unusual NT

10. Jacoby 2N

11. Interfering over opponents NT (Capp, Dont, whatever you pick, I prefer Capp.)

12. Lebensohl over NT opening interference

13. Splinters

14. New Minor Forcing

15. Fourth Suit Forcing

16. 1N forcing

17. Puppet Stayman (especially over 2N openings)

18. Lebenshol after Reverse

19. Lebenshol after takeout double of a Weak 2 bid.

20. Inverted minors

21. Checkback Stayman

22. Extended Stayman

23. Ghestem or Modified Ghestem.

24. Multi and especially, a DEFENSE to Multi.

25. Exclusion Keycard Blackwood

´

 

As someone who does well in indy tourneys, let me go through the list.

 

1. Stayman: Good one since partner expects you to know it.

2. Negative X: Ditto

3. TO X: Ditto

4. Jacoby Transfers: Ditto

5. Blackwood: Ditto

6. Reverses: I didn't know that was a convention. I don't know how to play "we don't play reverses"

7. Weak Two bids: Important. Further conventions like Ogust and things - can live without.

 

8. RKCB: Can do without but since it is so popular, a bit like the first 5...

9. 2-suiters in comp: One should know what these bids show and that they dont apply in balancing position.

10. Jacoby 2N: Useful to have 2N as general forcing raise, but usually partner expects you to know more than that. Why can't we just bid natural after that?

11. DONT Capp etc. : waste of time. Natural bidding will do

12. Lebensohl: Although complicated it's worth learning since it applies in more than 1 situation (opps W2 and double is another)

13. Splinter - keep for later

14. Useful and pretty simple if you just bid nat. after it

15. 4th suit forcing. Why is this at rank 15, I'd put it at 6 or so! It's logical meaning, with the 4th suit stopped you can bid NT

16. 1N forcing: wait with that

17. Puppet Stayman: worthless unless in regular pdship

18. Lebensohl after reverse: if you get the idea at #12, useful.

19. after W2 opener: important!

20. Inv. minors: pd expects you to know this, but lots of misunderstandings even so...

21. Checkback Stayman: Only with reg. pd.

22. Extended Stayman: Forget about it. Ehh... what is meant by this anyway?

23. Ghestem: KEEP AWAY - DANGER!

24. Multi: is what opps play. Defense: Keep it simple for now.

25. XRKC: useful but limited mileage.

 

WHAT IS MISSING IN THIS LIST

26. minor suit transfers (useful!)

27. Truscott 2N after 1M X (also useful)

28. General logic about competetive situations, for example that when there is a choice a raise to 3 is not inv. but weak.

[awm]

I think there are really two parts to this. The first part is conventions I really can't imagine trying to play without. These are things beginners should learn, and most intermediates should already know:

 

(1) Takeout doubles.

(2) Fourth suit forcing.

(3) Stayman.

(4) Weak two bids.

(5) Negative doubles.

 

It's also essential to have agreements about which bids are forcing/show extras and which bids are passable. Of course this is not exactly a "convention" so much as an understanding of basic system. At this point it's probably better to start working more on play/defense. However, there are a few conventions that are on nearly all reasonable established pairs' cards. These aren't exactly universal (heck, I've played without stayman on many occasions and I know Fantoni-Nunes play without weak two bids) but they're very popular in the expert crowd and probably worth knowing.

 

(6) Some form of new minor force.

(7) Jacoby transfers.

(8) Feature or ogust or some other kind of asking bid over weak twos.

(9) RKC.

(10) Jacoby 2NT.

(11) Lebensohl.

(12) Some kind of Drury.

 

Beyond this, you see people using a lot of conventions but I can't think of any others that are so nearly universal on good players' cards. For example, almost everyone plays a conventional defense to 1NT but there's a lot of disagreement over which. Multi is fairly common at high levels (probably you see it more at clubs outside north america). Some people play various forms of puppet stayman, or various artificial calls in other sequences, but I wouldn't say any particular method is all that universal. Certainly I could list a number of additional methods that "I think are good" but I'm trying to stick to those that the vast majority of expert players seem to agree upon.

[csdenmark]

I think one thru seven are almost mandantory.

 

1. Stayman

2. Negative Doubles

3. Takeout Doubles

4. Jacoby Transfers

5. Blackwood  (plain old vanilla)

6. Reverses

7. Weak 2 bids, 3/4 level preempts and any appropriate asking bids thereafter.

 

Wide seperation between those above, and the following (in just about any order), which help to supplement the above:

 

8. Roman Keycard Blackwood (1430)

9. Michaels and Unusual NT

10. Jacoby 2N

11. Interfering over opponents NT (Capp, Dont, whatever you pick, I prefer Capp.)

12. Lebensohl over NT opening interference

13. Splinters

14. New Minor Forcing

15. Fourth Suit Forcing

16. 1N forcing

17. Puppet Stayman (especially over 2N openings)

18. Lebenshol after Reverse

19. Lebenshol after takeout double of a Weak 2 bid.

20. Inverted minors

21. Checkback Stayman

22. Extended Stayman

23. Ghestem or Modified Ghestem.

24. Multi and especially, a DEFENSE to Multi.

25. Exclusion Keycard Blackwood

 

Has Csdenmark seen this list yet? :)

Yes Rona - I have seen the lists - most of them looks very much alike - and they certainly ougth to do so. There ought to be little difference in what is needed for a solid basis. This list is very much like what I offer for free download so that all interested have a short description available for help during online play. Therefore you might have noticed my impatience with persons failing here.

 

I rarely use much of them myself because I play systems with personal interpretations of most of them. But those systems in fact works in exact the same way as conventions do.

[blackshoe]

Do weak twos and reverses-showing-extras really count as conventions? NMF will be higher up if living in a region that advocates Walsh (are there such regions in the US?).

I wouldn't call either weak twos or reverses conventions. OTOH, bidding after those calls may well (should, IMO) involve some conventions, as they're hard to handle otherwise.

 

Walsh was invented, if I'm not mistaken, in California. I play it, and I'm in New York. :) I imagine there are a lot of people in various parts of North America who play it, but the only region I'd expect it might be the norm is the West Coast.

 

BTW, my pet peeve with reverses is the statement "I/we don't play reverses". Bull. A reverse is mechanical. If you as opener on your second turn, bid simply in a new suit above what the English call your "barrier" - two of your first suit - you have reversed. In Standard American, Acol, and similar systems, the logic of the system requires that a reverse show extra values. However, if you play a system where responder's initial 2/1 response is forcing to game, the logic of your system does not require that you have extra values to reverse, since you're already in a game forcing auction. So what many of those who "don't play reverses" really mean is that they don't treat them as forcing. Unfortunately, some of those folks aren't playing a 2/1 system, they're playing Standard American. So now their partner puts them back in their first suit at the three level, and they aren't going to make it. Hey, fine with me! :D Just don't tell me "we don't play reverses".

[cherdano]

I will have to change my profile to intermediate, as I have never played extended stayman, checkback stayman, Ghestem (well, not quite true, I have played twice on a particular partner's insistance, but he gave up after I forgot it the second time) and don't currently play Puppet stayman or multi.

 

Seriously, there is a lot of non-sense listed in this thread. I agree with Gerben, a lot more useful is stuff like cue=good raise, or jump raise in competition = weak, or that a forcing new suit bid at the 3-level is pretty much always game forcing, or some understanding of cue-bidding auctions.

 

That kind of stuff plus Justin's list plus good judgement is enough to win a world championship, so why waste an intermediate's time learning teaching him other stuff? Ok I am getting a bit radical, but I am sure I am closer to the truth than puppet stayman being a necessity.

[Guest Jlall]

Ok I am getting a bit radical, but I am sure I am closer to the truth than puppet stayman being a necessity.

dude how else will you find the 5-3 fit????? come on now.

[mike777]

I pick one and only one thing. COUNT! THe hands

 

Call it count the hands, visualize whatever...:D

 

If it is not a convention then make it one :)

[neilkaz]

Ok I am getting a bit radical, but I am sure I am closer to the truth than puppet stayman being a necessity.

dude how else will you find the 5-3 fit????? come on now.

Since this is the intermediate forum I can ask this question.

 

Regarding Puppet. Most everyone plays it only over 2NT openings or 2C openings followed by 2NT (a strong 2NT opening).

 

So for those of you who commonly open the typical strong 1NT (15-17) what do you use for Puppet to find a 5 card major in opener's hand ?

[fred]

I regularly open some number of notrump with virtually all "in range" hands that contain a 5-card (and occasionally 6-card) majors.

 

I do not use any form of Puppet Stayman after any of my notrump openings.

 

Sometimes this works well. Sometimes it works poorly. It is hard (impossible?) to say if Puppet Stayman is a net winner, but my experience suggests that there is not a lot in it one way or the other.

 

One this is for sure: if I was banished to a desert island and could take only 10 conventions with me, Puppet Stayman would not come close to making the list.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[blackshoe]

Not that my opinion is worth much, but I agree with Fred. :)

 

IIRC, Marty Bergen suggested jumping to 3 clubs as Puppet Stayman over 1NT.

[MickyB]

Going rather off-topic here, sorry Adam.

 

IMO the greater benefit of puppet is not being able to find 5-3 fits, but that responder can show 4M5m with ease. Compare this with the Stayman auction 2N:3♣, 3♦:4m which hasn't specified responder's major suit. Still, it in no way deserves a place in this thread.

[david_c]

Wow this thread has grown quickly!

 

Most of the important conventions are fairly obvious. If they want something more fancy I would suggest Lebensohl over (2M) : dbl since this is one of the most useful ones when it actually comes up.

 

Round here not many intermediate players have a way to make a forcing raise of a major. I think they would do well to learn one. While it's true that people can easily mangle a convention like Jacoby, it's still an awful lot better than the things they do if they don't have a forcing raise available (immediate Blackwood, anyone?)

 

Also I found out this evening that my partner hadn't heard of this one:

 

When switching, a low card suggests a better holding in the suit than a high card. (So a high card generally suggests that partner lead back a different suit if (s)he gets in.)

 

I find this much more important than, say, what your opening lead is from Hxxx(x)(x), so I suppose I would put this at the top of my list of things people should learn if they didn't play already.

[inquiry]

An odd piece of advise here.

 

1) dont just learn the convention. Learn when to use it, and when yuo have a hand that looks like it might fit the convention, when NOT to use it.

 

2) Don't just learn the convention, learn the follow ups after the bid is used, and make sure you understand which hand types look like the convetion but are not used. Pay espeically attention to the obvious subsequent competitive auctions that might arrise.

 

3) When picking conventions to learn, focus on two kinds:

  Ones your parnters wnat to play -- it makes for happy partners

  Ones that fit gaps in your system to simplify yur actions

  Ones that are not easily forgotten in the heat of battle.

 

Try to add them in some logical sequences, not all at once. BTW, I love raptor (an early suggestiong in this thread), but for god's sake safe that one for much, much later.

 

Ben

[MikeRJ]

I am surprised how few people mention a cue bid in response to an overcall to show a good raise (eg 1H-1S-P-2H on Kxx, xx, AJxx, Kxxx). This has a high frequency of occurence and is certainly valuable opposite wide ranging overcalls.

 

Mike

[Winstonm]

Stayman

Jacoby Transfers

Negative Doubles

Roman Keycard Blackwood

Good/Bad 2NT

Splinter Bids

[Guest Jlall]

I regularly open some number of notrump with virtually all "in range" hands that contain a 5-card (and occasionally 6-card) majors.

 

I do not use any form of Puppet Stayman after any of my notrump openings.

ditto :)

 

Just for the record my post about how do you find the 5-3 fit was very very sarcastic... I am a big believer in 2 balanced hands just bidding 1N-3N and coming out ahead with a 5-3 fit.

[bid_em_up]

I will have to change my profile to intermediate, as I have never played extended stayman, checkback stayman, Ghestem (well, not quite true, I have played twice on a particular partner's insistance, but he gave up after I forgot it the second time) and don't currently play Puppet stayman or multi.

 

Seriously, there is a lot of non-sense listed in this thread. I agree with Gerben, a lot more useful is stuff like cue=good raise, or jump raise in competition = weak, or that a forcing new suit bid at the 3-level is pretty much always game forcing, or some understanding of cue-bidding auctions.

 

That kind of stuff plus Justin's list plus good judgement is enough to win a world championship, so why waste an intermediate's time learning teaching him other stuff? Ok I am getting a bit radical, but I am sure I am closer to the truth than puppet stayman being a necessity.

I dont recall ever saying that anything on my list was an "absolute must have" or a necessity (other than maybe the first seven). Anything after that, and at a very distant order of importance, I thought I stated that all were about equal in merit, and you can use them or not as anyone sees fit. However, it does help to at least be familiar with all of them, imo, for when they are used against you. And of course, the further down the list you get, the less value I would assign to any of the conventions (other than the defense to Multi).

 

Other things, like "a lot more useful is stuff like cue=good raise, or jump raise in competition = weak, or that a forcing new suit bid at the 3-level is pretty much always game forcing, or some understanding of cue-bidding auctions", are things that you would/should have an agreement with your partner regarding these bids (I dont necessarily consider these to be "conventions"). And also, I wasnt thinking about bids with unusual meanings at the time of posting. (Note I didnt include Western Cuebids).

 

Reverses, I included because many (even advanced players) do not use them properly, or insist that they do not carry any extra meaning, which is, to the best of my knowledge, outside the mainstream philosophy.

 

You dont like splinters? Don't play them.

 

You like Drury, by all means play it.

 

You think 4SF should be #6 on your list, please feel free to place it there.

 

Minor suit transfers are (at least in my case) included in Jacoby.

 

Really, why do people insist on picking apart what is/was an attempt at a helpful post?

 

Just as an fyi, extended stayman allows a partnership to further inquire about NT openers hand pattern, after 1N-2C-2x, to find out if opener has a 5 card major, or a side four card minor, or in the case of a 2D response, which 4 card minor(s) or 5 card minor that the NT opener holds. I only use this in one partnership but I have found that it can be quite helpful.