Acol advice

[xcurt]

What - you want to play 4cm with strong NT at MP?! Shoot me now. I had some respect for you Fred. About the worst combination I can think of.

 

I consider strong NT and four-card majors to be much better at MP than IMPs - very important to be able to find your 4-4 and 4-3 major suit part-scores at MPs, where +110 can be much better than +90. For game and slam bidding, on the other hand, you are better off playing five-card majors, which is more important at IMPs.

 

Weak NT and four-card majors, on the other hand, has little to commend it at either form of scoring.

I agree with this statement, but I think the reasoning is wrong.

 

4cm/strongNT has a relative advantage at matchpoints because you can conduct rapid and efficient auctions on partscore hands but slower and more informative auctions on game and slam hands, which are upweighted at IMPs. You also give the opponents nastier low-level bidding problems but get nastier high-level competitive problems.

 

I have a little experience playing these methods in national pair games and they work just fine as long as you put in some artificial methods to fill some of the holes in the system (and all systems have some holes).

[Finch]

I also prefer 4cM/strong NT (or 14-16 NT) at MPs to IMPs. I've played it occasionally (in speedball and simple system events) and it works fine. It falls over on the hands where you want to bid scientifically to slam or to a delicate 5-2 fit or similar. It gains hugely on the in-and-out nature of the partscore bidding.

 

It also irritates opponents who are used to playing against 5CM and like to protect on the auction 1M P 2M P P only to discover they are 3-3 in our suit!

[Wackojack]

This hand came up last Wednesday in a sims MP event where I believe at least 90% play 12-14 NT Acol. You are 4th in hand at game all and all pass to you.

♠ Q85

♥ Q43

♦ Q74

♣ AQ104

 

Of course all weak no trumpers will quite correctly open 1NT. We were playing 14-16NT and my partner who held this hand, took the view that the risk of opps buying the contract in a major was too great and passed.

 

As the cards lay the opps can make 2♠ on normal play and we can make 1NT on normal play. ♠AK742 ♥952 ♦96 ♣ K96 was 1st in hand and would obviously overcall partner's 1♣ but would be reckless to overcall 1NT. Our way +90 scored 75%, allpass scored 25% and -110 scored 8%. Even without looking at the opps cards, clearly you would want to be playing 12-14NT on this hand. What's more these types of hand come up very often.

 

Even if a convincing roundabouts and swings argument could be made about the difference between Acol and 5 card major strong no trump systems it is clear that if you are in a field of weak no trumpers and you dont want to risk a bad result then you should play with the field.

 

Just to repeat; playing Acol in a field of mainly Acol players is rational. That is a good reason (but not the only reason) why Acol persists

[MickyB]

However you can create quite a decent theoretical system with weak NT and opening lengths with minimum requirements of

S - 5

H - 4

D- 4

C- 3

 

within the general context of opening suits DOWN the line subject to the above criteria.

Aha - does this involve the lesser-spotted "Half-Walsh", where you need to bypass diamonds to bid spades but not hearts? :)

[Walddk]

Well, you're entitled to your opinion.  Count me out.  Frankly I found Roland's original post ill considered and even offensive - so I definitely don't agree.

 

Nick

'Offensive' because I think Acol is over and out? Well, if you are that sensitive, there is probably no cure for it. It may be your preferred system, and I don't mind; you are obviously entitled to your opinion.

 

Perhaps you will grant others the right to express their views too? I did not criticize any human being. In my view, Acol is hopelessly old-fashioned, and I will claim that it is 24/7, whether you think that it's offensive or not. Taking offence on behalf of a bridge system is hilarious.

 

Roland

[NickRW]

Well, you're entitled to your opinion.  Count me out.  Frankly I found Roland's original post ill considered and even offensive - so I definitely don't agree.

 

Nick

'Offensive' because I think Acol is over and out? Well, if you are that sensitive, there is probably no cure for it. It may be your preferred system, and I don't mind; you are obviously entitled to your opinion.

 

Perhaps you will grant others the right to express their views too? I did not criticize any human being. In my view, Acol is hopelessly old-fashioned, and I will claim that it is 24/7, whether you think that it's offensive or not. Taking offence on behalf of a bridge system is hilarious.

 

Roland

Roland, most of the more prominent posters on this board count themselves as either "expert" or "world class" or at least quite knowlegable. Yeah fine. You say Acol is 1930s outdated - maybe so - maybe. But the people posting this opinion mostly use what exactly to evaluate hands - er - Milton Work points - also dead ancient - and, in reality, quite inaccurate as has been well enough documented for some years. And the people usng this ancient system of hand evaluation despite evidence of its inefficiency to the contrary decide that Acol is "dead" - humbug - you don't have any idea of how good a limit system can be if it is deconstructed and put back together with 21st century hand valuation. Further, with your current attitude to Acol you'll never get any idea because your eyes are closed.

 

Instead you want to tie people up - including inexpert people who don't have years to study the game in what - systems littered with forcing sequences - don't tell me even experts don't forget what is forcing and what is not - I've seen it happen even to the Italians.

 

Acol has got more legs, certainly at grass roots level, than you're giving it credit.

 

Nick

[han]

Ah, I went through the thread a couple of times and couldn't find the offensive remark, glad that's cleared up.

[NickRW]

However you can create quite a decent theoretical system with weak NT and opening lengths with minimum requirements of

S - 5

H - 4

D- 4

C- 3

 

within the general context of opening suits DOWN the line subject to the above criteria.

I'll certainly concede that this 5cM versus 4cM debate is perhaps unnecessarily polarised and the 5 card spades only option has its attractions. Responding to a 1♠ opening with a smattering of high cards can be quite uncomfortable when it only shows 4 and is often made easier when it unconditionally gurantees 5. On the other hand, if you play 5 card hearts as well, you are arguably not opening 1♥ often enough - even at IMP scoring. Put it with (for my money anyway) a strong NT at IMP and a weak one at MP and you have what seems to me to b a viable alternative to both 4 and 5 card majors.

 

Nick

[NickRW]

Ah, I went through the thread a couple of times and couldn't find the offensive remark, glad that's cleared up.

There are no 4 letter words Han - that's right :)

[helene_t]

But the people posting this opinion mostly use what exactly to evaluate hands - er - Milton Work points - also dead ancient - and, in reality, quite inaccurate as has been well enough documented for some years.

I think this is a misunderstanding. When someone says "I open 1NT with 12-14 HCPs" it is implicit that some hands justify up- or downgrading.

 

It may be problematic to talk in terms of HCPs when it comes to unbalanced hands. Saying "we open 1♣ with 16+ points" leaves some obscurity as to how often this includes a nice hand with 13-14 literal HCPs.

 

But for balanced hands, it is hardly an issue. Of course we sometimes disagree whether a particular hand is worth a 12-14 1NT opening, but only in narrow borderline cases, and in any case it is irrelevant to a discussion of the relative merits of weak notrump openings.

[helene_t]

the 5 card spades only option has its attractions .... and a weak [NT] at MP and you have what seems to me to b a viable alternative to both 4 and 5 card majors.

How does such a system work? If 1♠ promises 5 I would like to play 2/1 GF. I don't see how I could do that after a 1♥ opening. Are you suggesting Acol followups to 1♥ but 2/1 (or at least something with more forcing bids, e.g. SAYC) followups to 1♠? Too much memory load for me.

[Codo]

Helene, here in Germany it is called "Swiss Acol" and it works quite easy. Well as easy as any good system, so with around 30 pages of system notes. :)

 

F.E Gromöller/Kirmse (Representing Germany in Peking right now and in the recent EM f.e.) play it, so it is playable, successful and works well.

 

They surely have no 2/1 approach over the 1 Spade opening and you surely don't need it, why should you?

[paulg]

Acol has got more legs, certainly at grass roots level, than you're giving it credit.

I don't believe this is true. Acol has inertia, not momentum.

 

At club level, partnerships change frequently and it is common for partner swapping to happen on a weekly basis. This leads to the development of club-specific systems which, in the UK, are almost always Acol-based. For most of these people the idea of maintaining multiple systems is abhorrent for what is, essentially, just a friendly night out. So Acol is perpetuated at this level.

 

More serious partnerships will look at, and try out, different methods. Acol still dominates the clubs and is the majority choice at tournaments, but at the higher levels in the UK (which, admittedly, is not that high) 4-card majors with a weak 1NT are a minority system.

 

Will this change? Not soon.

 

But I believe online bridge will be a major factor when it happens. To play online you really need to be able to cope with 5-card majors and a strong 1NT - there will come a time when two people agreeing a system will find it easier to agree on SAYC (more precisely, the anglicised form of the system) than to agree on Acol. The fear, and lack of knowledge, surrounding 5-card majors and/or strong 1NT will go.

 

Paul

[helene_t]

They surely have no 2/1 approach over the 1 Spade opening and you surely don't need it, why should you?

Well the reason for not playing 2/1 is that 1♠ can be a 4-card, I suppose. See no reason not to. Other than consistency with the 1♥ opening if that doesn't promise 5.

 

In a strong notrump system it's different, one can then play sound 2/1 responses even if 1M can be a 4-card.

[EricK]

The main benefit of old-fashioned Acol is that it makes it much harder for the opponents to intervene.

 

In an uncostested auction, it probably does very slightly worse than a more modern system, and in a contested auction it possibly does worse too. But by opening 1M or 1NT so often, it makes it much harder for 2nd hand to intervene than over the very common 1m openings in 5CM/Strong NT systems, and by playing relatively light 2/1s it makes it very much harder for 4th hand to safely intervene as well.

 

So you end up with more uncotested auctions; or, if the oponenets do intervene, more opportunities for penalties because their intervention is forced to be a level or two higher. And that is where it gains - the Acol pair having an uncotested auction while the other table has to contend with a competitive auction.

[nige1]

IMO, Weak notrump (10-12 or 12-4) and 4 card majors (but open majors freely) seems to have worked well at pairs, for Acol experts in the past: Flint-Pender, Shearer-Allan, and so on.

 

Originally, Acol recommended a strong notrump when vulnerable and there is a case for that.

 

There can sometimes be an advantage in bidding 1N first. Especially when not-vul, you can often collect a reasonable score even when opponents can make a notrump partscore.

[NickRW]

Acol has got more legs, certainly at grass roots level, than you're giving it credit.

I don't believe this is true. Acol has inertia, not momentum.

 

I agree that Acol, like any national system, has inertia. That doesn't inherently make it good or bad.

 

Anyway, if Acol has "intertia", then Milton Work Points has it in spades.

 

More serious partnerships will look at, and try out, different methods. Acol still dominates the clubs and is the majority choice at tournaments, but at the higher levels in the UK (which, admittedly, is not that high) 4-card majors with a weak 1NT are a minority system.

 

Paul

 

More serious partnerships certainly do try out other methods - both variants of the basic system they are used to and completely different systems.

 

More serious partnerships also tend to at least dabble in the team game which is scored by IMPs and that puts a whole different light on things.

 

If you want to assert that 4cM with weak NT is not best at IMPs then I am all ears - if you want to assert that this is dead for MP then I think you're not thinking very hard about the different requirements of MP and IMP. Most ordinary people around here play MP - the IMP considerations don't even enter their heads (and why, indeed, should it!)

 

Frankly, for pairs, the MP version of the game is far preferable to my mind. I hope we don't ever see the IMP scored version ever become prevalent in Britain. Why BBO has IMP scoring as the default method of scoring for pairs tables is quite beyond me.

 

Nick

[NickRW]

And I appear to be out of line on this problem as I think this hand is really a bit too good for 2♥. Playing 5-card majors I would be showing an 8-loser hand and supporting at the 3-level and, despite the total lack of support, I'm tempted to do the same under these system conditions.

 

Paul

You're not the only one that thinks this hand is too strong for 2♥. A good 8hcp (that only includes one quack), 6331 shape, singleton in opps suit, 3 card support for opener's major which is almost certainly 5 cards unless substantially stronger than minimum looks more like a 3♥ raise to me.

 

It is true that I would be happier with 3♥ if the ♠T was a club - or if the ♥A and ♣K swapped suits - but 2♥ is just too wimpish.

 

I have examined several hundreds of hands where opener is not strong enough to go on after a 2♥ bid. From a purely constructive point of view, 2♥ would appear to be the stronger bid as there are a few too many cases where 3♥ is one down. But, there are also a lot of cases where you find 4♥ after responding 3♥, but there are not quite enough of these to balance the down one cases (you lose a fraction of an IMP per board on average).

 

However, that is not the end of the story. In the vast majority of cases where partner has not enough to go on after 2♥ opps have at least 8 tricks available in ♦ and probably better than half the time, 9 or more tricks. They are not going to be letting you play in 2♥.

 

So what happens after one of the opps bids 3♦?

 

If passed round to you, then you should be calling 3♥. The hand was nearly worth it anyway, and you're only wrong when neither 3 level contract makes (but this only happens about 10-15% of the time). But is partner going to raise 3 to 4 when you have made what sounds like a purely competitive bid? Unlikely I would have thought. So, bidding 2♥ first throws away all the constructive advantage that a direct 3♥ bid had.

 

Alternatively, partner with poor looking defence may call 3♥ himself over 3♦ - but will you raise this to 4 with any confidence - well - you might depending on if you think 3♥ from partner shows extras in this auction - or simply lack of defence.

 

Further, there are quite a few cases where opps can make 4♦ or save against 3♥ for only one down - but they are much more likely to get this wrong if you bid 3♥ in the first place.

 

So, 3♥ is clearly better in my view.

 

But if people didn't use antiquated Milton Work Points (this hand is only 8hcp) then perhaps more experts would have been able to envisage this.

 

Nick

[Cascade]

- Play a different s ...  Sorry.

The crux of the matter. Why do they still teach beginners Acol in the UK? You have to start somewhere, so let them start from scratch and let them learn a system of this century, not one of the 1930's, 40's and 50's.

 

Acol is over and out, period. Surely some people in England, Wales and Scotland have realised that by now.

 

Roland

I think there is a huge advantage in teaching a 4-card major system over a 5-card major system.

 

There are so many rules to learn when starting out in bridge that it seems to get confusing for most learners.

 

Being able to simplify the choice for opening bids at the one-level to:

 

Open your longest suit (perhaps with some rules for ties)

 

is much better than

 

open your longest suit if it is a five-card major

otherwise open your longest minor

except if you are exactly 4=4=3=2 when you open 1♣

(also with the tie breaking rules)

 

or maybe something even more complicated.

 

The players that are going to continue with the game can very easily adapt later to five-card majors or whatever.

 

The choice of NT range is less important in getting players started in the game.

 

Armed with a simple system learners can start playing quickly to begin to find out whether or not they enjoy the game.

[jikl]

Acol is much easier to learn, I have supervised players that have 5♠ and 7♣ that always will open 1♠ because they have a 5 card major, then they call me and ask "What do I do now?". If they learn with a 4 card system they already know how to adapt to a 5 card major system without these hangups.

 

Sean

[the hog]

- Play a different s ...  Sorry.

The crux of the matter. Why do they still teach beginners Acol in the UK? You have to start somewhere, so let them start from scratch and let them learn a system of this century, not one of the 1930's, 40's and 50's.

 

Acol is over and out, period. Surely some people in England, Wales and Scotland have realised that by now.

 

Roland

I think there is a huge advantage in teaching a 4-card major system over a 5-card major system.

 

There are so many rules to learn when starting out in bridge that it seems to get confusing for most learners.

 

Being able to simplify the choice for opening bids at the one-level to:

 

Open your longest suit (perhaps with some rules for ties)

 

is much better than

 

open your longest suit if it is a five-card major

otherwise open your longest minor

except if you are exactly 4=4=3=2 when you open 1♣

(also with the tie breaking rules)

 

or maybe something even more complicated.

 

The players that are going to continue with the game can very easily adapt later to five-card majors or whatever.

 

The choice of NT range is less important in getting players started in the game.

 

Armed with a simple system learners can start playing quickly to begin to find out whether or not they enjoy the game.

I categorically concur with Wayne here. I also believe that teaching beginners a 4 card M system teaches them bidding judgement. If they want to switch over later - fine.