[keylime]

Since we are in disagreement about conventions, what about the worse general systemic approach? I'm sure that'll draw some comments.

[Trpltrbl]

SAYC

Mike

[Trpltrbl]

[quote name='luke warm' date='Jun 28 2004, 06:38 PM'] Mike [/QUOTE]
i think you have flannery on the mind ... it was actually only mentioned once (tho it's possible some more will say something, now that i've drawn attention to it heheh)... i do wonder why you call it a 'close second' tho... here's the list i found from all the posts, copied word for word (tho without some of the comments):

good ole flannery only got one vote (wtg ron!! heheh) And mine of course [/quote]
I think I do, but then again most European and other countries, but the USA, have even heard of Flannery or Capeletti . And few others.

Mike

[Chamaco]

Trpltrbl, on Jun 29 2004, 10:01 PM, said:

I think I do, but then again most European and other countries, but the USA, have even heard of Flannery or Capeletti  . And few others.

One point in favour of Cappelletti.
In Italy "cappelletti" is the name of a kind of pasta filled with hashed meat and cheese (much similar to Tortellini or Ravioli), very good with Bolognese sauce or even other kind of sauces.

Suddenly the perspective about Capp becomes much more ... appetizing !

Can you say the same about "DONT" , "Landy" or "CRASH" ?

[aisha759]

my least favorite convention is Gerber, never comes up, and when it does, cant even tell what it is!

Evil Aisha

[slothy]

Reminds me of a bridge drive i was playing in local club when i just started playing bridge.

Partner opens 5NT and i alert it having no idea what it meant.

Opp looked at bid and asks me if this a convention. At which point i said "Well, yes but i have no idea what it means"

The other opp looks at my p and says very "What do you expect him to say to this ummmm bid"

He looked at her and said "Depends. If i make it i expect him to say 'Hi, Barman, a lager for me and a double celebratory scotch for my p"

In fact p had thought his RHO had opened 1 ♥ and he had

- - QJ98xxx KJ98xx and was making in his words a super unusual NT.

Well it got passed out and i bet you can guess what my hand was cant you ((

[keylime]

Ok, I have to admit, this was not one of KLP's finest hours.

Recently, the lovely Mrs. and I got into an auction:

1♣* - 1NT*
2♣ - 2NT*
3♥!! - 3NT*
4♦!!! - 5♦*
6NT - P - P X XX all pass for....-2800!!!

What happened? Well pard did something that was strange....3H was NATURAL, not asking!!! Talk about confusion.

FYI: 1C-art, 16+, 1Nt - GF, 2 suiter, 2C - asking, 2NT - pointed or round.

[whereagles]

Quote

5. Weak two bids - gee, let's tell the opps you're WEAK, that their PARD can be double dummied for most everything OUTSIDE of the preempt seat, and gee, let's through a little speed bump on the way to game....for the OPPONENTS.

Well, for many years, I've tried all sort of 2-level preemptive bids, only to find out that natural 5-card weak twos (6-card if vuln) are the most practical and effective pressure bids available.

In fact, I deliberately messed up bits of my system in order to release the 2♣ opening bid for a weak two in clubs! This is actually easy to do in a strong club system, but you CAN do it even playing a natural system by putting the strong 2♣ opening into 1♣, though things can get messy if the 1♣ gets preempted.

[aisha759]

Someone mentioned least favorite system (i guess to add more opinions to this thread), and SAYC was mentioned.... why is that?? You can add all the gadgets you want and still play this system..... I play Acol and SAYC, and i find that many do not like ACOL either.... so maybe now you can all tell us your favorite system and why?

Not so Evil Aisha (today)

[helene_t]

I suppose that bridge nerds have to hate SAYC for the same reason that computer nerds have to hate Windows.

But I don't think that "1m is natural but may be a 3-card" or "a 2-over-1 response is almost GF so you have to jump rebid with 15+ HCP" are serious candidates for the title of the worst convention. There are hundres of conventions that are much worse. What do you think of this one:

A 2♠ opening shows 12-14 HCP and a 4333 or 3433 shape. This is because in some versions of Dutch Acol, 1♥ shows 4-4 majors or 5+ hearts, but you would still prefer to avoid 1♣ on a 3-card.

[Free]

Worst convention ever: something some people play at my local club: (1X)-2♣ = GF hand

Also close is normal Blackwood, normal Gerber, normal Muiderberg.

And if you really want to make it dirty: Lorenzo-two's (0-7HCP 4+ card) when Vulnerable

[flytoox]

To those who list Blackwood as the candidate for worst convention, i think Blackwood is a pretty good convention, most of time it didnt work well only because the users didnt use it properly.


As for the worst, perhaps sth like Opp open 1x, you cuebid 3x, asking pd, do u have a long solid minor suit pd? I do have a stopper:)

[Chamaco]

I'd like to add to the list of "worse-ever" convention, the application of the Jordan/Truscott invitational+ unbalanced raise to minors openings.

1m-(1Y)-2NT or
1m-(Dbl)-2NT or
1m-pass-2NT

Used as 10+ with good support for the minor is the very best way to wrongside the 3NT contract.
Obviously the conventional use of 2NT is not a problem when you have a fit in a major .

[helene_t]

During my training to become a bridge teacher, we were asked to provide examples to illustrate Blackwood. It appeared that in the old versions of a Dutch beginner's bridge course, control-showing cuebids were introducd only after Blackwood, which was criticised because it is difficult to argue why not to use Gerber if you haven't mentioned cuebids, and apparently the Dutch Bridge Federation is fighting a religion war against Gerber. Therefore the order was reversed in the new version, which was reason enough for our instructor to recommend using the old version, since beginners will never understand cuebids.

I said that I would, given the premise that Gerber is a swearword, choose not to teach any slam conventions at all, because beginners have huge problems telling quantis and Blackwood appart, and also frequently use Blackwood when they want to play in clubs. Then they sign-off in 5NT if 5♦ shows too few aces, but partner thinks 5NT is king-asking ......

The answer I got from our instructor was that that is excactly the reason why we must teach Blackwood: it is so obviously flawed that beginners will not be tempted to use it. Teaching Gerber would cause beginners to become obcessed with the number of aces. Therefore I conclude that Blackwood is even worse than Gerber.

Another silly slam convention is the Zimbabwe convention, which asks for the 7 of diamonds. According to some obscure survey, most slams are defeated if the 7 of diamonds is lead. However, since the dummy is obliged to buy a beer for declarer if the 7 of diamonds wins the last trick, it is probably better to bid more conservatively if you do have that card, because declarer might get obcessed with the possibility of earning a beer and therefore use a sub-optimal playing strategy. So I recommend not to use the Zimbabwe convention, but use inverted Zimbawe instead.

[Gerben47]

An impressive list before of good conventions that are suggested as "worst".

Negative Double of 1h promising four spades
---> Easily improved if you play double showing 4 or more spades and 1S denying 4S.

Short minor suit opening in an otherwise natural system
----> If it's so bad then why are almost all good pairs playing this?

Blackwood
----> Conventions that people misuse are not per se bad. Blackwood is VERY IMPORTANT in some auctions if you want to avoid a slam with say 30-32 HCP but off two aces. You just need to know when, as with all bids.

Weak jump shift not in competition.
----> Not a convention, it's natural bidding
----> If you suggested this go read http://www.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de/~di...e/weakjump.html

Namyats
-----> I think this is a very good convention. Today I held 8 hearts to the KQ and AQx in a side suit. 1H? And let them find their fit cheaply? 4H? And miss slam?
No thanks! Namyats please.

Exclusion Blackwood
-----> See comments for Blackwood. Same applies if you have a void.

Gerben

[mikestar]

Chamaco, on Jun 30 2004, 10:59 AM, said:

I'd like to add to the list of "worse-ever" convention, the application of the Jordan/Truscott invitational+ unbalanced raise to minors openings.

1m-(1Y)-2NT or
1m-(Dbl)-2NT or
1m-pass-2NT

Used as 10+ with good support for the minor is the very best way to wrongside the 3NT contract.

I agree 100%. Let's look at them case by case:

1m-(1Y)-2NT: this should be natural, why not 1m-(1Y)-2Y for the raise?

1m-(Dbl)-2NT: the best use of this is from Bill Root's convention book--natural but based on support for partner's minor. Here you bid it when you have the sort of hand that wants to declare NT as well as having the support. (With a game inv+ balanced hand without the support, you redouble.) Flip-flop (3m=invitational, 2NT=preemptive raise of minor) is less dreadful perhaps as we are less likely to bid game--but the wrongsiding will hurt worse when it happens and the preemption will be less effective.

1m-pass-2NT: this is just insane. Inverted minors anyone? If you don't care for this, there are several other methods that provide a full range of minor raises without using 2NT.

[Free]

Namyats is quite fine, but not in 3rd & 4th seat imo. Any thoughts?

[whereagles]

In 3rd and 4th seat namyats is a bit pointless, yes. Namyats was meant to help partner distinguish between a good and a bad 4M preempt, but opposite a passed pard that's not important as being able to open a 4m preempt, which can really mess up things for opponents much more than a "mere" 3m pree.

[inquiry]

Too many people are picking on Blackwood, so I thought I had better stand up for this one and defend it. The problem with blackwood is not that it is a bad convention, the problem is that it is used wrongly by too many players as a crutch in their slam bidding. I suspect that 96% of bridge players would bid better if you took blackwood away from them for 2 years, and forced them to learn cue-bidding to check for controls. Blackwood should only be used AFTER you are certain you are not off two quick tricks somewhere, or perhpas when you know you have a great preponderence of HCP and you are going to bid grand slam on power, and just checking to make sure that your 36-38 hcp or so does not include a missing ACE.

Here is an example hand from yesterday.

Scoring: IMP

---

TABLE 1
West North East South
 -     -     -     1♣!
 3♦    4♦    Pass  4♠
 Pass  4NT   Pass  5♣
 Pass  7♠    Pass  Pass
 Pass  


Table II
West North East South
 -     -     -     1♠
 3♦    4♥!   Pass  4NT
 Pass  5♠    Pass  6♥
 Pass  7♠    Pass  Pass
 Pass  

The results here are of course excellent, 7♠ is cold. But let's examine the use of blackwood here, especially at table I. North was lucky his partner had all three missing keycards, if he had two, this could be a grand slam or not depending on who held the ♦A... if partner, no grand is possible, if opponent, grand is still a great beat (north can imagine 5♥+5/6♠+2♣+2♦ruffs). Here is totally inappropriate for north to use blackwood.

At table II, north might have taken a huge risk bidding 4♥ if that was a passable fit jump (I am not sure what alert means). South's hand is great for blackwood, as he has first or second round control in all four suits. The grand slam might be based on some agreement about the quality of 4♥ that I don't know.

But north missed the obvious call on both of these hands. The right call, it seems to me is not 4♥ or 4♦, but rather 5♦ by north as exclusion blackwood. South will show two keycards outside of ♦ and north can comfortably bid the grand slam.

When used properly, Blackwood is an absolutely essential weapon for your arsenal, and it very much deserves its place among the most popular conventions. Sadly, too few use it properly, I shudder everytime my partner in an individual pulls it out... 90% of the time, they shouldn't be bidding it.

Ben

[luis]

Ben,

Isn't it funny that, to defend blackwood, you choose two hands where it has been missused ? :-)