[Jinksy]

straube, on 2014-March-18, 11:43, said:

He knows that. He's saying after 1C P 1D (2S) P (3S) that the 0-6 hand would pass while a double or bid would confirm GF with hearts. He's also saying that you would be ahead of certain other systems at this point. For example, Moscito uses a 1D response for most of their GF hands; so after 1C P 1D (2S) P (3S) dbl would be takeoutish/balanced/action but would not promise 4+ hearts. Zelandakh is not saying that responder should be able to pass 1C.

Ah, sorry.

I'll experiment with it when I have some time. My instinct is that this won't solve the problem - if the hand comes back to responder at the four level (esp 4Ss), the difference between a balancedish hand with 4Hs, a distributional hand with 7ish broken Hs, or a distributional hand with 5+H/5+other is drastic, with plenty of room for 1-card differences to play very differently.

Bidding 7-point hands at the two level would worry me - I suspect it wouldn't go too wrong much of the time, but semibalanced hands (esp 5431s and 5422s) seem like they could cause frequent headaches.

I realise I'm being fairly negative here, though - Zel, what would you expect the main advantages of your approach?

[Zelandakh]

One would be the ability to use relays quite often.

Having the semi-positives go high is an interesting counter-point to the Fantunes OBs in that these hands are comparatively common and getting them into the auction straight away in a somewhat defined way is good. These hands are effectively invitational over a Fantunes 1♣opening so reaching the 2 level is not so bad.

And the very weak hands stay low.

Obviously I have never tried this so it needs some practical testing. The structure comes from some work I have been doing on my own system to incorporate semi-positives and it seemed to translate across to your issue well enough to suggest it. I certainly feel that the 7-9 range is going to be easier to handle than the 5-10 I saw suggested, even with an extra step available. It is harder to compare with your structures because you have the hands so strangely split up - for me that makes an additional advantage in memory load but for you the OP schemes are probably more logical so the reverse is true!

[straube]

I think 1N+ for the semipositives will get you too high. It's too little room to handle all the possible shapes. If we were in a GF auction and were using relays then we would be +2 compared to symmetric. But we aren't in a GF auction and aren't using relays so it's a problem.

IMprecision responses would seldom bid at 1N or higher and when they do, they're being pretty descriptive such that opener can often sign off with a fit or tolerance or if all else fails rebid 2N.

I'm not sure if IMprecision responses would work without relays but seeing how opener is restricted to having clubs or a balanced hand, I think that will compensate enough or more than enough to make it work.

[Jinksy]

[edited] answered my own question

[PrecisionL]

Quote

Just a thought, but could your 1C-1N be both majors? 4/5 or 5/4 or either one? This avoids the wrong-siding (to an extent) and then you don't have to account for the other major in your 1C-1D and 1C-1H responses.

Yes, I love using 1NT response to 1♣ as 5-4 in the majors or better and GF. We also have all the 5-5 GF hands in 1NT.
This allows responders 3 bid responses to be Transfers to a 6-cd suit.

Edited 4/7/2024: We are now using 1♣ - 2♥ as the 5-5 module (except for majors). This idea from Rodwell several years ago

(he used 2♠ as the module for all 5-5 hands).

Thus, 5-4, 6-4, and 5-5 major hands are all included in the 1NT GF response to the A&F 1♣ (plus freaks: 7-5, 6-5, etc).

[Jinksy]

For what it's worth, after many years playing something very similar to the second system I've been a big fan of it - I much prefer it to the original (or to any other Fantunes version's outcomes on similar hands).

[ETA] One change is that the 3C response to 1C is (45) in the minors, 7-9 points, which seems to come up slightly more and be slightly more useful.