[olien]

Hi all, I recently just started playing the moscito 1♣ structure based on Marston's 2005 booklet (which can be found at www.bridgewithdan.com/systems) and have a couple questions which don't seem to be answered in the pamphlet.

1) After 1♣-1♥// 1♠, what does responder do with a single suited hand with ♦?

2) Should the bids be re-arranged at all to avoid wrong-siding? for example, responder bidding 1NT to show a balanced hand seems like it wouldn't be good, what are people's experiences with this?

3) What are the continuations after 1♣-3♣?

Also, for non 1♣ openings, what is recommended for other openings; especially 2m? (1♦/♥ openings showing ♥/♠ respectively is not allowed)

Thanks

[Free]

1. A singlesuited semipositive hand with ♦ responds 1NT instead of 1♥. The explanation of 1♣-1♥ is pretty poor.

2. There are some bids that are used to rightside, but not everywhere (examples: 1♣-1♦-1♠ denies ♠; 1♣-1♦-1NT-2♣-2♦=4-5♥). The efficiency of the relay structure is more important than rightsiding, especially after 1♣ openings. Without the immediate semipositive responses, the GF hands were at the optimal level but semipositives were +2 steps. Since SP are more frequent, the relays were changed to 1♦ GF, which made every hand +1 step. Taking the frequencies into account, this is a better relay structure. But you don't want to make it worse for rightsiding purposes, because +2 is very high, and +1 sometimes is too high already.

3. I have a writeup somewhere but I don't have it here. I believe there's a relay so you can show your extreme shape in this case.

(4.) There are no recommendations for other openings, transfer openings are pretty much the core of MOSCITO (Major Oriented Strong Club In Transfer Opening)

[DinDIP]

Free, on 2010-October-22, 01:54, said:

(4.) There are no recommendations for other openings, transfer openings are pretty much the core of MOSCITO (Major Oriented Strong Club In Transfer Opening)

Well, that may make sense now but the original and second versions of Moscito didn't use TFR openings. Marston's original acronym was
Major Oriented Strong Club In Trouble Often

On the OP's substantive question: it is possible to use a Moscito strong club and different openings (even five-card majors). Alternatively, Shevek has played a majors first-principle structure without relays with some success when visiting ACBL-land. Don't have all the details to hand but 2m were NAT denying 4M and 1M promised UNBAL hands so that a 1N response was F and could be used with all GI+ hands, and 2/1 after 1M were NF (as usual). (Can't remember whether whether 1D and 1N were both BAL hands or whether 1N remained BAL without 4M and 1D became BAL with 4M -- both are sensible.) Those who have read Peter Winkler's great new book ("Bridge at the Enigma Club") will recognise the similarities with his suggestions.

David

[Free]

As with all strong ♣ systems, the 1♣ opening is a system on it's own and doesn't depend on the rest of the system (except perhaps NT openings). In the past I modified a local strong ♣ system to make it better. Originally it used a 17+HCP strong ♣ openings, limited openings were 10-14, and all 15-16HCP hands were opened at 1NT or 2-level (no idea why). So we incorporated the MOSCITO 1♣ opening, kept the limited openings (1♦=any hand without 5M, 1M=5+M) and changed the 1♣ opening to 15+HCP. We had 1NT and the entire 2-level free for preempts (the random 1NT was awesome but HUM).
So while it's possible to use other meanings for limited openings and other stuff, no MOSCITO player really recommends an alternative structure.

There are other acronyms as well. The MOSC-part is always the same, but I read about "Intermediate Two Openings" and "Intrepid Two Openings".

[shevek]

DinDIP, on 2010-October-24, 17:39, said:

Well, that may make sense now but the original and second versions of Moscito didn't use TFR openings. Marston's original acronym was Major Oriented Strong Club In Trouble OftenOn the OP's substantive question: it is possible to use a Moscito strong club and different openings (even five-card majors). Alternatively, Shevek has played a majors first-principle structure without relays with some success when visiting ACBL-land. Don't have all the details to hand but 2m were NAT denying 4M and 1M promised UNBAL hands so that a 1N response was F and could be used with all GI+ hands, and 2/1 after 1M were NF (as usual). (Can't remember whether whether 1D and 1N were both BAL hands or whether 1N remained BAL without 4M and 1D became BAL with 4M -- both are sensible.) Those who have read Peter Winkler's great new book ("Bridge at the Enigma Club") will recognise the similarities with his suggestions.David

I think ITO originally didn't stasnd for anything, just making MOSC into a word. The system could then be called "The system with bite" Adter system restirctions, Marston jokingly said ITO stood for "is that allowed"?
In US, we played 1NT as any 12-14 bal including 5cM. Full relay over that.
1♦ was Precision style, meaning diamonds or 10-11 bal. In theory that could include 5cM but we never did that, partly through legal concerns.
1♥ & 1♠ denied 4 OM, always unbalanced.
Worked okay for 2 goes at Fall Nats.

[olien]

Quote

In US, we played 1NT as any 12-14 bal including 5cM. Full relay over that.
1♦ was Precision style, meaning diamonds or 10-11 bal. In theory that could include 5cM but we never did that, partly through legal concerns.
1♥ & 1♠ denied 4 OM, always unbalanced.
Worked okay for 2 goes at Fall Nats.

What did you do with hands with both majors? How about 3-suiters?

[dake50]

Weren't these choices made to facilitate the distribution relays -- the hallmark of the system?
Little concern for right-siding.
So whichever most efficiently answers relay is your answer.