hrothgar Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 There are some systems that have a combination of 4-handedness and 2-handedness. Moscito, for example (of which I am no expert, so Hrothgar/Free will probably correct me) has taken the conscious decision to lump all strong openings into a 2-handed 1C opener, in the interests of making the other opening bids more 4-handed. That is an interesting comment and I have not thought of it in that way, but "yes", I think this is an accurate assessment. While I had never considered things quite this way before, I think that your comment is dead on... MOSCITO's relay structures, following both strong club and limited openings are clearly an attempt to play 2 handed bridge. The rest of the system is optimized for a 4 handed game. Personally, I had always compartmentalized these in to the "good" parts of the system, where I expect big pluses and the "weak" parts of the system where I hope to break even relative to the field. Really interesting post which did a lot of expose some personal biases... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 There are some systems that have a combination of 4-handedness and 2-handedness. Moscito, for example (of which I am no expert, so Hrothgar/Free will probably correct me) has taken the conscious decision to lump all strong openings into a 2-handed 1C opener, in the interests of making the other opening bids more 4-handed. Strong 1♣ openings are pure 2-handed, and hope to be able to cope with intervention. All other bids of such system however become more accurate, so it makes 4-handed bridge a lot easier. If you take a look at the frequency of these openings, the system is most of the time able to play 4-handed bridge. However, ALL openings have the possibility to play very accurate 2-handed bridge as well, so there's the big + of the system imo. ;) Remark 1: most strong ♣ systems have this advantage, so it's not a pure MOSCITO-advantage. They make competitive bidding easier after limited openings, and hope to handle intervention over their strong opening (and nebulous 1♦ perhaps). Remark 2: same goes for strong ♦ systems... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 well i got that simplified club book (thanks mike)... it looks interesting to me, and it's definitely 2 handed, with 2 suited one bids (canape style) and 1 suited two bids, and strong club with weak (12-15) nt... there appears to be very little chance for 4 handed bridge in this system, which shows me how the italians thought 'back in the day' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricK Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 An interesting measure of a system is the mean opneing. If you assign 0 to pass, 1 to 1♣, 2 to 1♦, 3 to 1♥ etc, and work out the expected value of the opening bid then it is generally the case that 4-handed systems will have a higher value than 2-handed systems. Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 hmmm... i'm not exactly sure what that means... if, as i think most opinions show in this thread, most strong club systems are, or are largely, 2 handed systems, why do these systems seem to have a greater frequency of international success? and why do a large percentage of the world's best play them? especially if a 4 handed system of bidding is, according to some 'mean' analysis, superior? of course i could have misunderstood eric's post, or the opinions of others re: strong club openings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hrothgar Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 One quick comment While this thread is interesting, I think that some of the posters are losing track of precisely what 4-handed versus 2-handed actually means. The differentiating factor has to do with a styl;e of bidding rather than a bidding system.Some bidding systems may be more conducive to 4-handed bridge, however, I think that folks are really getting carried away here... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inquiry Posted October 10, 2004 Report Share Posted October 10, 2004 Its ok ben i gladly read it all becouse this sounds interresting, its it difficoult to use this system? And if u have time and are up to it can u please check how many times i open 1 nt on a 14 count hand? my p say i do it so often we should state our nt to be 14-17.and is my 14 count nt openings sucsessfull?(I know what u mean uf u think "hey, what am i your bellboy or somting??? bye the programm and do it yourself" ) but if u are up to it i would be glad ben ty:)) kennethHey, what am I, your bellboy or something? Anyway, in the main room, from may 4 to sept 30, you played 714 hands,of these you (not your parnter) opened 1NT 28 times, of these the total with exactly 14 hcp was 4 times . Your average result for these hands opened 1NT was minus 0.55 imps. In the tournment and team game area, you played many more hands. Of these, you opened 1NT a total of 1894 hands. You (not your partner), opened 1NT a total of 104 times, of these once you had 11 hcp (playing with carlpsp), once 12 hcp (playing with triper), and 14 hcp at total of 20 times. 11 of these were Imp boards, and you averaged -0.97 imps per board on those, and 9 were matchpoints, and you averaged 84.09% score on those. IMP Hands (first four in bold from main room)DATE Partner Cntr Score IMPS31-Aug olej 5C 400 -1.471-Sep Paal1 4N 630 1.8721-Sep boe47 1N 120 1.737-Jul bkool 3N -200 -4.33 11-Aug bourbon 3N 490 1.0517-Aug miyav 1N -200 -6.218-Sep carlosp 3N 600 018-Sep carlosp 4H -50 1214-Sep roy_en 3N -200 -819-Sep carlosp 1N -100 019-Sep carlosp 5H 650 126-Aug roy_en 2S -200 318-Sep okba 3N -100 -118-Sep carlosp 3N -50 -2.5731-Aug roy_en 6H 1430 0net average is minus 0.86 imps Matchpoint hands, all from tournment/team game roomsDATE Partner Cntr Score MP29-Aug kolosi 4HXX 880 10029-Aug kolosi 5H 0 5020-Aug shampo1 3N 430 88.5420-Aug JAPIE2 3S 200 95.8324-Aug Geysir 3N 630 89.811-Sep roy_en 3N 460 85.2929-Aug tenn 1N 120 79.5512-Sep olerfald 1N 210 90.9129-Aug ivarst 1N 90 76.92 Btw, that 50 percent score for 5H was from a 48 table matchpoint event, where you failed to finishi the hand and the score was not adjusted. They were going to make, and you were going to get a ZERO.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikestar Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 One quick comment While this thread is interesting, I think that some of the posters are losing track of precisely what 4-handed versus 2-handed actually means. The differentiating factor has to do with a styl;e of bidding rather than a bidding system.Some bidding systems may be more conducive to 4-handed bridge, however, I think that folks are really getting carried away here...Correct, but to play a certain style, you need to play a system that facilites 4-handed bidding rather than thwarting it. Now 2/1 as Ben plays it is more 4-handed than Goren-Wei Precision--but on average, Precison or Moscito (even more so) are better adapted for 4-handed bidding than 2/1. Not the 1C opener, of course, but the far more frequent limited openings. In 2/1, you need so much space to resolve the constructive bidding ambiguities that it is hard to cope well with intervention or cause problems for the enemy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricK Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 hmmm... i'm not exactly sure what that means... if, as i think most opinions show in this thread, most strong club systems are, or are largely, 2 handed systems, why do these systems seem to have a greater frequency of international success? and why do a large percentage of the world's best play them? especially if a 4 handed system of bidding is, according to some 'mean' analysis, superior? of course i could have misunderstood eric's post, or the opinions of others re: strong club openings Precision doesn't open 1♣ as frequently as 2/1 does, and it cetainly doesn't open Pass as often, so its mean opening would, I think, be higher than 2/1. Anyway, 1♣ systems aren't necessarily 2-handed (although they have a lot of 2 handed sequences ready to use if opps don't intervene). My point about the mean opening wasn't that higher mean openings make better systems, but that given two systems which work approximately equally well in purely constructive auctions, the one with the higher mean opening may be more suited to the 4-handed game. But as others have pointed out, there is much more to it than this simplistic analysis. Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtfanclub Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 On a number of occassions in the past I have made mention of the 4 handed vs the 2 handed game. Some people have asked me to clarify this statement. I've been practicing with my mentor the negative fourhanded game, as I call it. It's where you count on your opponents getting you out of bad contracts. For example: Your partner opens 1D, promising 4+ and 11-15 hcp. You have:S: J8765H: A65D: J2C: J765 If you bid, your partner's going to get excited. If you pass, 1D can't be a good board. Well, it can't be in 2 handed. In four handed, odds are the opponents aren't going to let you play there, and you'll get a chance to describe this hand exactly. Another example is having 2m over 1M be non-forcing. You can often pass this even with a misfit, counting on the opponents to pull you out. With:S: AK876H: --D: AT87C: A654 If your partner opens 2♥ and you pass, that IMO is a negative four-hand. If you've ever passed 1NT hoping the opponents would double so you could scramble, you might be playing negative four-hand. :blink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricK Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 On a number of occassions in the past I have made mention of the 4 handed vs the 2 handed game. Some people have asked me to clarify this statement. I've been practicing with my mentor the negative fourhanded game, as I call it. It's where you count on your opponents getting you out of bad contracts. For example: Your partner opens 1D, promising 4+ and 11-15 hcp. You have:S: J8765H: A65D: J2C: J765 If you bid, your partner's going to get excited. If you pass, 1D can't be a good board. Well, it can't be in 2 handed. In four handed, odds are the opponents aren't going to let you play there, and you'll get a chance to describe this hand exactly. Another example is having 2m over 1M be non-forcing. You can often pass this even with a misfit, counting on the opponents to pull you out. With:S: AK876H: --D: AT87C: A654 If your partner opens 2♥ and you pass, that IMO is a negative four-hand. If you've ever passed 1NT hoping the opponents would double so you could scramble, you might be playing negative four-hand. :blink: If you play this sort of thing by agreement, you ought to let the opps know that you do. That may make it less effective. Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 My point about the mean opening wasn't that higher mean openings make better systems, but that given two systems which work approximately equally well in purely constructive auctions, the one with the higher mean opening may be more suited to the 4-handed game. ahhh i see... thx for clarifying Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebound Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 My problem with 4-handed methods is their apparent one-sided nature with respect to the partnership. Conversely, I enjoy having a partner defending against them with me, so I ain't complainin'. ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikestar Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 My problem with 4-handed methods is their apparent one-sided nature with respect to the partnership. Conversely, I enjoy having a partner defending against them with me, so I ain't complainin'. ;-) It must be stongly emphasized that four handed bridge involves a mutually agreed on (and properly explained to the enemy) set of partnership agreements, both as to method and style. Four handed bridge can be winning bridge; so can two handed bridge--but three handed bridge (focusing all your efforts on messing with the enemy and forgetting you have a partner) is losing bridge just as much as one handed bridge would be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtfanclub Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 If you play this sort of thing by agreement, you ought to let the opps know that you do. That may make it less effective. It's a philosophy, more than anything. Not sure how I would describe it. But at any rate, that would likely make it more effective. For every time you hope for the opponents to 'rescue' you, there's two or more cases where the opponents leaving you at two level or less misses a good fit for them. You know the fit. They don't. The same goes for raising to the two level with three with 1D-1S-2S. You just take that to the logical extention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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