Acol

[Cyberyeti]

Posters might look at "The Science", a 4 card Major 14-16 2/1 system. It is fun.For many years, beginning with Baronised Acol. a 2/1 was forcing to 2NT. Very few play that responder does not need to bid again.

 

Almost everybody in the UK plays 1♥-2♣-2♥ is NF but anything other than opener repeating his suit requires responder to bid again. 1♥-2♣-2♦-2♥ is also NF.

[the hog]

Almost everybody in the UK plays 1♥-2♣-2♥ is NF but anything other than opener repeating his suit requires responder to bid again. 1♥-2♣-2♦-2♥ is also NF.

Seriously, do you always have to make a comment and be a contrarian? Actually you are quite incorrect. Perhaps beginners and weak club players play this as nf, but strong Acolites do not. Having said this, there are not that many strong pairs in the UK who still play Acol.

[TMorris]

Seriously, do you always have to make a comment and be a contrarian? Actually you are quite incorrect. Perhaps beginners and weak club players play this as nf, but strong Acolites do not. Having said this, there are not that many strong pairs in the UK who still play Acol.

 

I would agree with Cyberyeti both are NF. Opener can have a 10 count and responder a 9 count.

[the hog]

I would agree with Cyberyeti both are NF. Opener can have a 10 count and responder a 9 count.

 

"I would agree with Cyberyeti both are NF." So you are an expert?

[helene_t]

Almost everybody in the UK plays 1♥-2♣-2♥ is NF but anything other than opener repeating his suit requires responder to bid again. 1♥-2♣-2♦-2♥ is also NF.

I think

1♥-2♣

3♣

is also nonforcing for most. Which means that if you play that a 2434 opens 1♥ (as in "Standard English") you probably don't want to raise clubs (also because that would suggest a fifth heart), you rebid 2NT and the club fit might never surface.

[TMorris]

"I would agree with Cyberyeti both are NF." So you are an expert?

 

No, nor have I suggested I was. What of it. It is common for these auctions to be NF in Acol. Some may play them otherwise. I play regularly with experts and am confident they would consider these auctions NF.

[helene_t]

Seriously, do you always have to make a comment and be a contrarian? Actually you are quite incorrect. Perhaps beginners and weak club players play this as nf, but strong Acolites do not.

I am not sure which strong Acol players you are referring to. Maybe the two Acol pairs from the Welsh team that won the Camrose in 2011, I think they were the last Acol pairs that won something major although there might have been others which I didn't notice. They both state "2/1 9+" on their system card without any clarification about forcing character. If 2/1 is 9+ it seems unlikely to me that it promises a rebid, but I suppose it is possible.

 

We have one strongish Acol pair (has won an inter-county and various congress events) at the local club and they play as Cyberyeti explains. In NZ we had an Acol pair at the local club who were on the team that won the NZ county teams in 2020, they also play that style.

 

If 2/1 promises a rebid I don't think anyone would call the system Acol here in the UK or NZ. Maybe it's different in OZ, I wouldn't know.

 

Then again, I don't think I have ever come across a natural weak4 system with 2/1 autoforcing, it seems unplayable to me as you will be at the 2-level with a combined 20 points and a misfit so you need to stop ASAP.

[helene_t]

I don't think many people would refer to Italian "Lungo Corto" as "Acol" either, although it shares the key characteristics of 2/1 as a simple force and 4 card major openings, in this case combined with strong NT. In many ways it was a bug-fix of Acol, but nevertheless died abruptly once the Italian variant of 2/1 5cM emerged.

It may just be a question of whether the system has historically evolved from Acol or not. Dutch Acol branched off from English Acol at a time when English Acol was mostly played with a variable NT, so it was similar to how the English would play when vulnerable. So they still call it Acol, or at least until recently (I think most teachers stopped calling it Acol when they switched to 5cM, on the other hand some 15-20 years ago most club players would learn 4cM but play 5cM, and both would be called Acol).

 

On the other hand, if you are in North America and you play Goren with limit bids (and maybe 5cM), there is no particular reason to call it Acol even though it may be identical to Dutch Acol.

[Cyberyeti]

Seriously, do you always have to make a comment and be a contrarian? Actually you are quite incorrect. Perhaps beginners and weak club players play this as nf, but strong Acolites do not. Having said this, there are not that many strong pairs in the UK who still play Acol.

 

You have no clue about what is played in the UK, when I played in the last 8 of the gold cup (UK's prime KO, 48-64 board matches) all 3 pairs in our team played this way.

[Tramticket]

I think

1♥-2♣

3♣

is also nonforcing for most. Which means that if you play that a 2434 opens 1♥ (as in "Standard English") you probably don't want to raise clubs (also because that would suggest a fifth heart), you rebid 2NT and the club fit might never surface.

 

You don't necessarily lose the club suit. One method has the sequence 1♥-2♣; 3NT as showing this hand-type with club support. Alternatively, responder can rebid a forcing 3♣ over 2NT (if not playing Check-back), if responder is interested in playing in clubs opposite a fitting club suit.

[pescetom]

It may just be a question of whether the system has historically evolved from Acol or not. Dutch Acol branched off from English Acol at a time when English Acol was mostly played with a variable NT, so it was similar to how the English would play when vulnerable.

In the case of Italian Lungo-Corto, the extent to which it derives from Acol is an interesting question to which I don't know the full answer. Certainly there was English (but also French) influence in the 1930s, when bridge was popular among the ruling classes although regarded with suspicion by Mussolini who renamed it 'ponte'. Post-war, most Italians were playing regional variants of strong club, which evolved into powerful competitive systems in Naples and Rome, remaining more primitive and extremely varied elsewhere. But Milan became (or remained) a cull of natural 4 card majors which evolved to a more rigorous approach than Acol and incorporated some refinements from Italian artificial and US natural systems. During the 80's the federation defined and imposed a national standard of Lungo-Corto which largely supplanted strong club systems except in some diehard areas like Turin. The culmination of the system was Franco di Stefano's version in 1987, which was still the way most club players played until ten years ago. Now it is almost gone and beginners are taught 2/1 GF.

[the hog]

"You have no clue about what is played in the UK," It appears neither do you. Anyway your posts are of little value to anyone except yourself, so I will ignore you unless you have some rare interesting post to make

[the hog]

Helene, 4 card Majors 2/1 GF is not unplayable. The Hacketts played something like this for many years until they switched to 5 card Majors. I played it in Oz with a Scottish international. It was a lot of fun.

 

1M openings 10+. 1m openings up to strength.

1M - 1N 4-12 NF if opener is minimum. Else opener rebids using transfers.

14-16 NT2/1 GF

 

Mind you, this was nothing like Acol of course.

[helene_t]

Helene, 4 card Majors 2/1 GF is not unplayable. The Hacketts played something like this for many years until they switched to 5 card Majors. I played it in Oz with a Scottish international. It was a lot of fun.

 

1M openings 10+. 1m openings up to strength.

1M - 1N 4-12 NF if opener is minimum. Else opener rebids using transfers.

14-16 NT2/1 GF

 

Mind you, this was nothing like Acol of course.

This sounds similar to Scanian?

I played a congress event with Cascade in New Zealand, we played this NT ladder:

11-12: open 1M if you have one, otherwise pass (maybe 1♦ in 3rd seat if you have 4 good diamonds)

13-15: 1NT

16-22: 1c

I worked quite well but I wondered if the frequency of 1M of a 4card suit was too low to bother.

[Cyberyeti]

"You have no clue about what is played in the UK," It appears neither do you. Anyway your posts are of little value to anyone except yourself, so I will ignore you unless you have some rare interesting post to make

 

From the guy who hasn't said a constructive word in his life and doesn't live here, there are probably a few pairs who play as you describe, but I've met like 2 of them in 20+ years and none recently. Certainly none in the local area now. And yes I've played pretty much all the big tournaments here, Tollemache final, Crockfords final, Gold cup last 8 (and won the plate) etc.

[bluenikki]

If 2/1 is 9+ it seems unlikely to me that it promises a rebid, but I suppose it is possible.

 

If the only 9-hcp hand you respond 2♣ has AKQxxx, how is requiring rebid a burden?

[Cyberyeti]

If the only 9-hcp hand you respond 2♣ has AKQxxx, how is requiring rebid a burden?

 

Almost nobody requires that, we require pretty much any old 5 card suit (Ax, xxx, xxx, KQ10xx is fine for 1♠-2♣ and will pass 2♠) with the exception of 1♥-2m where we won't have 4 spades unless prepared to bid them over 2♥, otherwise we respond 1♠.

[the hog]

Yeti, no one cares what system you play, what double dummy auctions you have to get to that wonderful contract or what events you played in and finished third in the plate.

[smerriman]

Yeti, no one cares what system you play, what double dummy auctions you have to get to that wonderful contract or what events you played in and finished third in the plate.

Whenever someone makes general statements about what "no one","we", or "everyone" thinks or wants, I replace those words with "I". It makes the post a lot more accurate. "We" get what you think; no need to imply everyone else agrees.

[Cyberyeti]

Yeti, no one cares what system you play, what double dummy auctions you have to get to that wonderful contract or what events you played in and finished third in the plate.

 

Look when somebody who doesn't live here keeps telling me all good players where I play play a system they flat out don't and I'd be surprised if 1% of them actually play and flabbergasted if 10% of them do, what am I supposed to say ? YOU DON'T PLAY BRIDGE HERE AND HAVE NO CLUE WHAT PEOPLE PLAY, so don't pretend you do. I was summarising my achievements to indicate that I do know what I'm doing at the bridge table and have played against pretty much all the good Acol pairs in the country.

 

Locally we had one pair 25 years ago that played this until one of them moved out of the area. His partner rapidly abandoned it.

 

Some would argue that if a 2/1 is F2N it is no longer Acol, as Acol tends these days to involve fairly light openers and 2/1s on 9 or 10, and this style just doesn't work with that.

[Gilithin]

On the other hand, if you play 2/1 as auto-forcing (as in SAYC and SEF) I don't think many people would refer to the system as "Acol".

Interestingly enough, a number of Master Bridge series books proclaimed the advantages of making Acol 2/1 responses auto-forcing back in the late 80s and 90s. It was not controversial for such systems to be regarded as Acol at that time.

 

To the OP: yes you can convert Acol to 2/1 GF but you have to make some specific conventional changes (such as IJS responses) and the resulting system is somewhat less harmonious than the alternatives.

[P_Marlowe]

I don't think this is right. See Standard English Acol, System File 2020. And Beginning Bridge Book One

http://wanttolearnbridge.com/acol.html

Acol is an approach forcing system - whether or not a bid is forcing, i.e. systemically requires a response, depends on the previous bidding (approach).

The description of Acol as "approach forcing system" can also be found in Skid Simons book "Why you loose at bridge" (I am not 100% sure, but pretty certain),

and if this is the case, you cant have a better source, after all he was part of the group, who invented / developed Acol, and the book was written close enough

with the regard to the date of birth of the system.

What does this mean: If you make a 2/1 response auto forcing / game forcing, the system is no longer approach forcing.

This does not mean, that such a change is not sensible / and even an improvement, but it does mean, that you change a fundamental design principle of the system,

and it is debatebke, if you still should call such a system Acol.

On the other hand, what peoble associate with a given name / Acronym changes over time, the true meaning gets lost, and other meaning become the "true" meaning.

On BBO, if you say you play SAYC, does it mean you play the booklet (nobody has read)

or a 5 card major version of Acol with strong NT? (And it is anybodies guess, if a 2NT response to a major is ... ).