32519, on 2012-January-30, 00:13, said:
Thus far we are fairly comfortable with our 1-level bids, excluding the continuation bids for the 1♥ opening. We are now coming to the forums for some creative suggestions here.
Without boring you with excessive detail, the 1-level structure looks like this –
1♣ = 20+ any distribution
1♦ = 16-19 HCP (a 4 HCP range) any distribution
1♥ = 13-15 HCP (a 3 HCP range) any distribution
1♠ = 11-12 HCP (a 2 HCP range) balanced in 1st and 2nd seat, 5X♠ in 3rd and 4th seat (Rule of 15)
1NT = 10 HCP exactly, balanced, absolutely denying a 5-card suit
Regarding the 1♥ bid, without opposition intervention partner is forced to make a noise as the bid is artificial. The cheapest available step is a negative response (0-6 HCP); 1♠ without opposition intervention, Pass with opposition intervention. 7 HCP was decided upon as a positive response on the known guarantee that our side has at minimum half of the HCP in the deck (opener’s 13 + responders 7). With a positive response, the premise is that it should be reasonably safe to bid up to 2NT. With that as a starting point we started experimenting with “any bid greater than the 1st step (the negative response) = shortest suit” (or weakest suit with two 2-card suits, 1NT showing ♠ shortness/weakness). With ♠ as openers best suit, it is easy to just sign-off in 1NT. This scheme was working out OK until we started dealing random hands with a singleton Ace in any suit, more than half of the promised 7 HCP. The problem here being that in any trump contract responder had little left to offer in HCP in the trump suit.
Hopefully somebody from these forums may choose to re-evaluate our initial assessment and provide an alternative solution.
This post has been edited with what follows below.
To bring a bit more sanity to this thread, I will include the 2-level bids as well. I didn’t think this was necessary initially.
The 2-level bids are there for the more distributional hands –
2♣ = 1 of the following: 6-card ♣ suit or 5X♣ and 5X♦ or 5X♣ plus 4-card major 10-13 HCP
2♦ = Our own version of the current Multi. I absolutely loathe the current Multi. If you want some clues as to where we are going with the revised Multi, you can find some of them here:
1.) Is the Multi Worth It? http://www.bridgebas...lti-2-worth-it/
2.) Flannery http://www.bridgebas...49815-flannery/
3.) The Hated 4441 Hand Pattern http://www.bridgebas...1-hand-pattern/
4.) Showing 2-Suited Hands http://www.bridgebas...2-suited-hands/
You won’t find all the answers, but this I will say (for now). The Revised Multi we intend using includes 4 possible hand patterns a) A natural weak 6-card ♦ suit with 2 of the top 3 or 3 of the top 5 honours, b) The 4441 hand pattern 17-24 HCP. The other 2 will be communicated at a later stage.
2♥/2♠ = Muiderberg in 1st and 2nd seat, Constructive 6-card suit in 3rd and 4th seat 8-12 HCP.
2NT = 5/5 Majors 8-12 HCP as used by Blue Team Club. We have tested BTC continuation bidding structure and found it to be very effective. Sure you get some bad results, but they aren’t that many. You can find it on Dan’s website. http://www.bridgewithdan.com/
A lot of the threads started by myself have been to find alternatives to what is currently considered the “norm”. Others are just general information being sought by myself.
Me and my partner Milton are planing to play this against the silent
Brother Anthony and expect great results.