[H Potter]

Hi all

Some years ago I posted a question regarding system notes, shortly after which I had to give up playing but I am now back playing F2F with a new established partner. So the same question again;

What software/applications/tools do people use when creating system notes for your partnerships?

Also any suggestions regarding layout/construct would be appreciated.

Many thank

Nigel.

[jdiana]

There have been several threads on this topic on Bridge Winners. See, e.g.,

https://bridgewinner...g-system-notes/

https://bridgewinner...g-system-notes/

I think it comes down to a few factors:

1. Is your process collaborative, with you and your partner both editing the notes as you go along? Or will you be primarily writing and keeping the notes for your partnership? If collaboration is important, then something like Google Docs might be better. If you'll primarily be the keeper of the notes (as I am for my main partnership), then MS Word might work. (That's what I use.)

2. How tech savvy are you? Something called LaTeX seems to be popular, but it looks like a lot of work to me.

3. How extensive are your notes? The simpler they are, the more likely that MS Word or something similar will do the job. Mine run about 35 pages, with a lot of examples, white space, etc., and MS Word is adequate. I had to do some self-training in how to use styles and the automated table of contents, but it's not hard.

Good luck!

P.S. FWIW, this is how I structured our simple 2/1 notes. (Apologies for the messy copy and paste - the formatting didn't carry over to here. I tried to indent sub-topics but it doesn't seem to have worked so I tried putting the main headings in bold.)

General Agreements ..................................................................................................................... 1
Notation ....................................................................................................................................... 1
Definitions and General Principles ............................................................................................. 1
Forcing Principles ....................................................................................................................... 1
Treatment of Doubles .................................................................................................................. 2
Helpful “Rules” ........................................................................................................................... 2
Notrump Bids and Responses ...................................................................................................... 3
Systems – Stayman and Transfers ............................................................................................... 3
Handling Interference After a 1NT Opening .............................................................................. 4
Slam Bidding After a Notrump Opening .................................................................................... 6
Majors - Standard Bidding .......................................................................................................... 8
Help Suit Game Tries .................................................................................................................. 8
Two-Way Drury .......................................................................................................................... 8
Jacoby 2NT ................................................................................................................................. 9
Splinters ....................................................................................................................................... 9
Majors – 2/1 ................................................................................................................................. 10
Responder’s 2/1 Bids ................................................................................................................ 10
Opener’s 2nd Bid ...................................................................................................................... 11
Opener’s Special Rebids ........................................................................................................... 11
Responder’s 2nd Bid .................................................................................................................. 12
Responder’s Special Rebids ...................................................................................................... 12
Opener’s 3rd Bid ........................................................................................................................ 12
Handling Interference ................................................................................................................ 13
1M – 1NT (Semi-Forcing) ........................................................................................................ 13
Minors – Standard Bidding........................................................................................................ 15
Invitational Jump Shifts ............................................................................................................ 15
Inverted Minors ......................................................................................................................... 15
New Minor Forcing ................................................................................................................... 16
Fourth Suit Forcing ................................................................................................................... 17
Minors – 2/1 (1♦ - 2♣) ................................................................................................................. 18
Other Constructive Bids ............................................................................................................. 19
Strong 2♣ Opening .................................................................................................................... 19
Reverses and Opener’s Jump Shifts .......................................................................................... 19
Preemptive Bids and Responses ................................................................................................ 20
Showing or Asking for Stoppers ............................................................................................... 21
Slam Bidding ............................................................................................................................... 22
Control Bids .............................................................................................................................. 22
Gerber ........................................................................................................................................ 22
1430 RKC .................................................................................................................................. 23
We Open With a Suit and They Interfere ................................................................................ 24
Over Opponent’s Takeout Double ............................................................................................ 24
Jordan 2NT .............................................................................................................................. 24
Over Opponent’s Overcall ........................................................................................................ 24
Negative Doubles ...................................................................................................................... 25
Reopening Doubles ................................................................................................................... 25
Over Opponent’s Preempts (Jump Overcalls) ........................................................................... 25
Weak Jump Shifts...................................................................................................................... 26
They Open and We Interfere ..................................................................................................... 27
Takeout Doubles ....................................................................................................................... 27
Overcalls.................................................................................................................................... 28
After Opponent’s Preemptive Opening Bid .............................................................................. 29
Michaels and Unusual 2NT ....................................................................................................... 30
Modified DONT ........................................................................................................................ 31
Balancing ................................................................................................................................... 32
Defensive Agreements ................................................................................................................. 33

[stanmaz]

H Potter, on 2022-April-28, 07:09, said:

Hi all

Some years ago I posted a question regarding system notes, shortly after which I had to give up playing but I am now back playing F2F with a new established partner. So the same question again;

What software/applications/tools do people use when creating system notes for your partnerships?

Also any suggestions regarding layout/construct would be appreciated.

Many thank

Nigel.

Personally I use GoogleDocs because of:
- collaborative editing
- publishing the document as a web page

The bidding system has always some tree structure which can be best represented by bulleted lists as in the sample.

By installing the BBOalert browser extension for Chrome or for Firefox and by observing some simple syntax rules you can use the document as data source for automatic alerting (see BBOalert Project Page).

How to code the data with Google Docs is described in the document

If you have any questions, please write a mail : stanmaz.git@gmail.com

[pescetom]

If you're prepared to bite the bullet of being controlled by Google, then I think Google Docs is hard to beat.
I use Open Office (because I already learned the bugs, Libre Office is better) on principle, but acknowledge it is masochism, given that I gave in to use Google Drive to share the notes and system card (on competitors to BBO) anyway.
Cannot imagine any good reason to pay Microsoft for Word (which I used for decades).

[sfi]

pescetom, on 2022-April-28, 15:41, said:

Cannot imagine any good reason to pay Microsoft for Word (which I used for decades).

Formatting between applications is never quite the same, and Word does provide more features than the other programs I've looked at. If you need to see the format exactly the same as other people who use the document, then paying for Word makes sense. If not, Google Docs or one of the free Word alternatives should do the trick.

[mycroft]

LaTeX is fabulous for the second document you write. For the first, it is a nightmare.

The joy of LaTeX is that it is a document processing language - you tell it what to put on the page, and how you want the page laid out, and it does all the hard work of actually doing it for you. You don't have to go back and renumber everything after 4.5.3 because you added a new 4.5.4; you don't have to worry about widows and orphans, and exactly what combination of font, size and colour is a second level chapter header; if you move a table from page 22 to page 60, it will automatically resize everything, reset all the references and re-hypehenate the world.

If you need to write the same thing 14 times in 15 documents, you can build a macro library, complete with {insert company here} and one command drops the whole thing in to each document. If you have a Name of something, and that name changes, you've macro'ed that as well, so one change and it's corrected everywhere - without that one embarrassing holdout you can never find until the customer sees it.

It's also plain text in source, so it works very nicely with source control systems. So I can pull up *every different copy* of my document from day 1, and even find out when I put in that stupid idea about {whatever}. You can see where this is helpful with system notes (and the eventual "we don't play that" arguments).

The pain of LaTeX is that it is a document processing language. And an old one. That is committed to backwards compatibility *forever*. That means that it's as easy to learn as COBOL, as easy to use as COBOL, and as sensitive to stupid mistakes as any programming language. And those issues will never be fixed or modernized. And its error messages are *famed*, even in a world of "you missed a semicolon 100 lines back, but I've only realized it's a problem *here*, so this is where I'll tell you the error is" compilers, for their incomprehensibility and "loose" connection to the actual problem.

It's also plain text in source, so you have no idea what it's going to look like on the page until you make it. And then when you change it, you don't know how that's going to look either. Computers are fast enough that there's now "real-time background building of LaTeX documents" and you can have one screen with the document and one with the text updating basically immediately, but getting that set up is - as much of a pain as everything else.

But it's universal in academia, because of all the legacy information and tooling that has been created for the last 50 years - and all the tools that have been created by scientists for scientists, like possibly the most thorough and straightforward (once you learn it) citation system. Which, for writing 150 page theses referencing 450 papers by 700 authors, is something you don't want to have to hassle with more than absolutely necessary. So those of us who did graduate work, learned LaTeX because we had to (in my case, (re-)learning vi at the same time, another "it *eventually* saves you lots of time, but the learning curve is steep and long, and the first step is a doozy" tool) and got familiar enough with it that when it's the right tool, it's "easy" to pull up.

So much so that all my convention cards (including the new ones, shh, they're not *quite* ready for prime time yet) are LaTeX documents. And it takes me less time to fill out a new card in the template, build it and print it than it would to write one out neatly. (Ignore all the time it took to get to this point, please.)

[DavidKok]

mycroft, on 2022-April-28, 18:54, said:

It's also plain text in source, so you have no idea what it's going to look like on the page until you make it. And then when you change it, you don't know how that's going to look either. Computers are fast enough that there's now "real-time background building of LaTeX documents" and you can have one screen with the document and one with the text updating basically immediately, but getting that set up is - as much of a pain as everything else.

Overleaf is an in-browser LaTeX editor that offers this, no setup required. It even lets you share the document with others.

[jdiana]

Nigel:

I just saw a reference to this site on another forum - https://www.mybridgecontracts.com/

I haven't tried it, so can't give any opinion. If you (or anyone) decide to give it a try, please post and let us know how it goes.