Author Topic: I LOVE this system!  (Read 7242 times)

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Offline OliverC

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I LOVE this system!
« on: January 22, 2018, 10:10:32 PM »
Aces are generally worth their weight in gold in a trump contract. Indeed many people favour variations on Milton Work's 4321 method of counting points that give more precedence to Aces and less to Jacks. Marty Bergen, for example, favours a scale of

Ace     = 4.5
King    = 3
Queen = 1.5
Jack    = 0.75
10      = 0.5

Anyway, there's no doubt that the bullets really pulled their weight in this contract. It's also very true that final contracts of 1 !H and 1 !S are much more common when a Pair is playing Precision. This hand shows off Precision at its best in staying low:

NS Game, Dealer South

North (Dummy)
!S 6
!H 5
!D Q763
!C Q1087632

!D 4 led

South
!S J109832
!H A109
!D A82
!C A

I had opened the South hand with 1 !S, and everyone passed (Eszter apparently without a care in the world and not a moment's hesitation LOL). I decided to play West for the !D King and went up with Dummy's Queen at trick 1 (and it held the trick). A Heart to my Ace and a !H ruff, a Diamond back to my Ace and the !C Ace saw me with 5 tricks, and I'd not even touched trumps yet.

In practice nothing could stop me from making an overtrick in this unpromising misfit. I knew it would be a decent result: EW can make 3 !H, but an amazing number of NS Pairs just kept on bidding all the way up to 4 !S. Even the handful of NS Pairs whose EW Opps overstretched to 4 !H and were doubled, going -1 weren't getting quite as good a result as our +110.

I love this System!
Oliver

Offline kiwi_2o1

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Re: I LOVE this system!
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2018, 10:23:19 AM »
I'm not sure its really system Oliver. The opponents have 24 HCP points and 9 hearts and are likely to bid at most tables? Its nice yours didn't. As a check I put the hands into Jack and redealt a number of times (10, true not enough to make a statistician cheerful, but its time consuming to do more) only remixing EW cards. Not once was the contract left in 1S, either West bid or East balanced.

I doubt that any sensible North would bid on that hand even if a blow torch was put on them, and especially with the S singleton ... that's just 'asking' for a spade rebid by partner. Even worse if opener bids hearts at some stage  :)  The only bid I might consider on the North hand, if a system allowed it would be a pre-emptive 3C over 1S.

IMO its not system getting NS overboard to 3S (and game !), its very poor bridge sense. Most openers would be anticipating a 2S rebid over whatever North bids. If North passes, what is so great about the South hand? Why would other Souths consider going higher than 2S even in competition? Even my Jack programme set on its most aggressive settings doesn't consider that sort of action when playing 5M's.

Oliver, no need to state my ideas are radically different again, you have emphasised that in most replies and I know it now. :)


« Last Edit: January 23, 2018, 10:25:30 AM by kiwi_2o1 »

Offline brian_m

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Re: I LOVE this system!
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2018, 11:11:33 AM »

I doubt that any sensible North would bid on that hand even if a blow torch was put on them, and especially with the S singleton ... that's just 'asking' for a spade rebid by partner. Even worse if opener bids hearts at some stage  :)  The only bid I might consider on the North hand, if a system allowed it would be a pre-emptive 3C over 1S.


Well, just for once, Ash, whatever Oliver may say on the subject, I'll say that you have my total support on that point. Unless you're playing 0-6 WJS or some kind of transfer responses or a system where 1 !S is forcing (Roman Club, for one) then the idea of responding on that hand with opponents silent is nothing short of suicidal. Obviously anybody playing OCP is going to use a MOTOR runout to  !C if an opponent is obliging enough to double, but other than that...   ::)

Any pairs reaching 4 !S on those cards need some VERY basic bidding lessons, IMO.
Please note that the responses I give are based on my current understanding of the system, and I've checked the website if in any doubt. I didn't attend Oliver's classes until 2021-22, so if Oliver has said anything different in his lessons in earlier years, I don't know about it!

Offline OliverC

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Re: I LOVE this system!
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2018, 09:51:24 AM »
Ash, clearly (from the results) quite a few North's did enter the fray with that hand, some at quite high levels. Some people do still like weak jump-shifts (as opposed to fit-showing ones). I agree totally that EW should be getting into the bidding on this hand.

I think most of the South's who ended up bidding Spades at a higher level did so after EW competed.


I still love this system :)
Oliver

Offline kiwi_2o1

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Re: I LOVE this system!
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2018, 10:07:19 AM »
:) That's fine to love your baby. But in this case some one else baked it.

Offline OliverC

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Re: I LOVE this system!
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2018, 10:05:28 AM »
It's very true that you can often only play as well as Opps allow you to play. Opps remained silent here and that helped us. Clearly on this occasion any sensible auction is going to go 1 !S - Pass if Opps are silent. Some people do play weak jump-shifts, however, irrespective of their support for Partner. I spotted one table where the bidding did go 1 !S - 3 !C.


The original point of the post was as much to do with the value of bullets in trump contracts as anything else.
Oliver