Just my two cents worth.

I pride myself on being able to play a wide range of conventions. I've taught myself these over several years, and now consider myself to know what conventions and system suits me best.

However, I have strong tendancies to work away from the Acol set-up we're all taught from day 1. I've explained my dislike of Acol on Bridgebase Forums (http://www.bridgebase.com/forums) and I'll explain it again now:

1) 1 major openings are vastly overloaded. How often have we held a 5 count, 5 card support and some shape and jumped to 4 of a major, only to find out that partner held a flat 15 count with only 4 of the major, and we go two off against nothing.

This same reasoning suffers when we want to use 1M 3M as pre-emptive (to require 4 trumps is going anti-law. 5 card major systems gain strongly with this approach.

2) There are very few forcing raises of a suit available. 1M 2m 3m is defined as minimum with support, so we either have to bid 4m with completely unsuitable hands (bypassing 3NT which is usally the correct spot) or risk the "part-score making slam" disaster of playing in 3m only for partner to pass it.

3) Weak NT is a high risk manouver, particularly at unfavourable vulnerability. This method also leaves certain opening hands virtually unbiddable.

E.g.

you hold:

x
AKxx
Kxx
Kxxxx

You open 1C and partner rebids 1S. Your bid? AGGH! Playing strong NT I can rebid 1NT as only a small lie.

You are forced to make 2/1s on a wide variety of unsuitable hands to avoid missing the 16 opposite 8/9 3NT when opener has a strong NT. Thus the 2M rebid after 1M 2any 2M is NF, which means that opener has to invent a lot of suits he doesn't have (particularly the club suit). This doubt over whether a suit is real or not makes slam bidding very difficult.

As a result, Acol is not a system I have confidence playing, and there are very few top class partnerships who play it either.

If I were told from above to play a specific system that I had no confidence in when I was "certain" that the system I had a preference for (strong club) could deal with problem hands in a much better way, this would have a detrimental effect on both my scores and general confidence.
Everyone has the odd system misunderstanding, and it's true that those of us who play a more artificial system may well suffer more of those than others. But the playing in 3 of a minor with 6 cold that frequently comes up playing Acol is no less of a disaster, just a fault in the system. The systems I like to play do not give me bad results as a result of flaws in the system. And this generally gives me confidence in both my partners bids and my ability

In my opinion if you dont have agreements for a situation you are no longer playing a system so anything helping in that area is worthwhile.

And as Armstrong said "Its not what system you play" it seems silly then to argue that your system is "better". Surely a fully formed system with very in depth notes is better than a "half baked" system. If a system is written with lots of depth and agreements everyone can benifit from the suggestions for agreements there even if they decide to play standard ACOL. If anyone honestly believes they would learn nothing then I accept that they know there system very well and there is no point trying to change what they play.

I am not trying to stop anyone playing whatever they want, i cant stop you, but i do feel the suggestions for agreements which would come of of devising a system would make the exersise worthwhile.

Interesting discussion.

I cannot see how a standard system is ignoring this advice? Surely the whole point of one is to achieve exactly what he is saying. As Frazer points out, a full and comprehensive system file (whatever the system) is going to allow you to play 'it' better than a system thrown together in 6 months and 'adapted' whenever a partnership changes.

I admire your confidence in your partnerhships' knowledge of your current system... I genuinely hope you will prove me wrong in Italy when the opponents start making life tough for you in the auction. But I've been there, done it and brought home the free-but-slightly-to-small-for-me T-shirt. I just can't believe you have had enough time in the past 6 months to develop a system that will be robust enough for you not to be found out over 300 boards.

mr1303, I personally agree with you about the inadequacies of Acol and a weak NT (I would hope a national system wouldn't be Acol based). I also don't doubt you know a wide range of conventions and could pick up and play different systems if need be, but you are forgetting there are two people in a partnership.

Your are hoping to play your way into the Scottish team while you are based down South and don't have an eligible Scottish partner just yet. In a perfect world, you should have the same chance as evryone else but logically, are you (and players in a similar situation) not going to have a better chance of getting in the team if you can show up at a training session and play (and perform well) with any squad member? If you and your partner for the day both already know what system you are playing you will produce a better showing.

I have to confess I don't know a lot about a strong club system but I do know it's not as widely played as SAYC or 2/1 based system and it's general principles are completely unique. (Acol, SAYC and 2/1 are all different, but they do have a lot of similar general principles and therefore they are easier to cross between). That in itself means you are limiting your chances of finding a partner who will play it with you. You are probably also limiting the resources available to you when developing a sophisticated system file.

Is it not also quite technically complex? If so, then it doesn't seem the best system to use when you are trying to develop new young players and bring them into an international squad.

Completely agree that you have to have confidence in the system you are playing but you are surely having a laugh by saying you are "certain" your system will deal with problems better than any other? If that was really true, then every world class player would have worked this out by now and would be playing it. In reality, SAYC and 2/1 are the most popular, although the simple fact is that there is no 'perfect system'. If you really have no confidence at all in playing either of these systems then you are going to limit your opportunities in the long term unless you are lucky enought to find a really good partner who loves the strong club too (or a Scottish System becomes strong club based! )

Going back to the original point that Gyles made. Yes, it shouldn't really matter what system you play - hence a standard system could be a strong club or SAYC or 2/1 (though not Acol ).

All the arguments against a standard system sound very much like 'me' reasons rather than thinking about the long term benefit to the team/squad. Everyone has there own system preferences, but you need a partner to play the game. Let's face it - you don't know what he/she is going to decide to do tomorrow. If they pack it in or decide they want a new partner (which seems to happen a lot in Scotland ) then you and the team will be left in a much stronger position if you can pick up with a new partner and be pretty much in the same position you were with your old partner (albeit you need to get a feel for agression levels, etc).

It would be nice to hear the views of some coaches or experts on the topic. Let's keep up the constructive banter.

I have to leap in and defend precision (or a strong club system) because it is by far the easiest system in the world to learn. It was created for this purpose , to be simple. The reason why a strong club system should be the one we use is that it is proven to be successful. The precision team had enormous success with the system, even beating the blue team in their prime. The best junior team in the world play polish club, maybe that should be our system. Precision would mean pretty much exactly the same agreements for everyone (except defence to NT etc.) rather than everyone starting with the same system and adding and overcomplicating it until we have three different systems.

Personally I don't think there should be a standard system because it would promote the bad habit of partnership changing which seems rife in the squad at the moment. Partnership understanding is much more important than what system you decide and unless you work on the partnership for at least two years there is no point in this discussion, because you'll get into a competitive auction where whether you are playing SAYC or 2/1 or precision isn't going to help you much. It is not something that can be discussed in just 6 months, 25 year partnerships have misunderstandings in this situation so what chance have 6 month partnerships (let alone 6 day).

However, that is the end of my rant for this year!

I'm not actually in a team so i dont know if i can comment... but a standard system shouldn't be too complicated, especially considering that once you are old and grey (like frazer is now) there will be other people coming into the junior squads who might not be of your proficiency and talent...
I dont think a standard system should be implemented as different partnerships would have different system agreements so it would be the problem all over again...
To contradict my earlier point... people in the squads will (should) be able to learn new systems fairly comfortably and there may need to be no point in adopting a standard one. Would it not just be easier to find a partner that you play well with and stick with them?

To reply to your earlier comments:

It would not be my intention to turn up to any training event to play with a partner that I hadn't played with previously, nor had any system discussion with. If I had no choice in the matter, I would not expect to score as well as I would do if I were in a long term partnership. And there is a lot more to a partnership than you both playing the same conventions. I for example, play a sound pre-empt and overcall strategy, but am quite an agressive balancer and frequently upgrade hands, and accept invitations on most hands given half an excuse. Therefore, my regular partner in Manchester (David Collier) knows what to expect from me, which makes us a regular partnership. He is more agressive a pre-emptor than I, and I know to take this into account.

In order to build up the current system file that I use, it has taken since last September, and is still not yet complete. Admittedly, my thesis on some chemistry project has taken up a fair bit of time, but this is what happens with system files when you're a student.

Besides which, my system is based upon us both playing a LOT of hands against opponents who play a lot of artificial defences against our openings, and we have been able to deal with it. Who here has a serious agreement about intervention over their strong 2C opening, other than possibly discussing whether double was for take-out or penalty.

Anyway, out of the top players in the world, a great deal of them DO play strong club. The number who play SAYC are extremely limited. Just because a system is popular with people who play infrequently and usually not very well doesn't make it a good system.

I have an acceptable amound of confidence in a 2/1 based system, since a) my strong club system still uses 2/1 GF responses after a 1D opening, before we went to full relays, we used to play 2/1 in a limited openings context c) We use a forcing 1NT response to 1 of a major.

It does appear to me that this "everyone must play a standardised system" is an attempt to cover over the fact that partnership stability is a problem, rather than addressing the underlying problems and dealing with them. I also don't think that saying that we all need to play the same thing because it's going to be for the good of the team will instill any confidence in the team, or the organisation of it.

Catherine has just said that a standard system would consist of stayman, 4 suit transfers and Gerber over 1NT, which has already been arbitrarily decided as 15-17.

1) Stayman and 4 suit transfers are, IMO a poor system since any invites that involve a major (i.e. 75% at least of them) get you to the 3 level, frequently going off. My methods (Keri) are, I believe, a vast improvement. Being forced to switch back from Keri to stayman & 4 suit transfers would wind me up apart from anything else.

2) Who in their right mind still plays Gerber?!? When was the last time a Gerber hand actually came up, when a) Gerber was actually useful and the hand couldn't be dealt with in some other way and c) Gerber wasn't cronically abused, like Blackwood?

I hope Catherine knows me enough to know that that wasn't a personal dig at her....

Mark

How about the following then where no standardisation comes into it and would help with partnership stability.

All pairs must present a comprehensive system file before being allowed to play in an event.

I mean really comprehensive. Lots of agreements for lots of situations the kind of document that takes hour and hours to finish. Would help pairs make sure they have agreements and once that was achived would help stability, ant support for that ?

Seeing as you also draw attention to the fact that partnership stability is a problem and that you dont want to play a system that is in any ways standard what do you suggest as a solution as the current meathod dosent seem to be working?

I really think we're getting slightly sidetracked here with confrontational, worthless arguments such as that Frazer.

The current system is no worse than other countries, the problem Scotland has is lack of depth. If we can attract more players there is more competition for places and so partnerships have to develop strongly in order to get into the team. David touched on this when he said we aren't playing for our places, we don't need to put the work in. Instead of trying to create a mythical 'standard system', which will in all likeliness be disputed over again and again, why don't we put a bit more effort into making our own bridge better and attracting new people to play and provide competition.

In all the major bridge powers there are loads of pairs playing for just 3 spots, this ensures they have good stable partnerships, in Scotland we just can't afford to drop a partnership for a year while they sort themselves out.

Yeah sorry Gyles. Not trying to annoy anyone it just seems im the only one putting forward any ideas and then having them shot down.

Phils got a good point if there was real competition for places then everyone would see a reason to improve there game and form a solid partnership as that would help.

I shall once again advance an idea but I really dont like it.

Only 2 Scottish Pairs will be allowed in the junior camrose team next year.

Instant competition but it seems really shady.

How many pairs do we actually have that are capable of playing together and playing together well? It worryingly sounds like 3....

well, with totally 100% attendance we have 4 'quality' pairs of the same standard (good but not great, competent). 21,21,20,20,19,17,16,16 are the ages i believe

so of them playing for the U25 places 4 are still aged for U20 next year...freaky

but we only got 2 and 2 1/2's pairs for this summers quest

2 for the camrose sounds a good idea with a 3rd on local standby incase of problems? for only 12 board matches and with a max of 8 rounds anyone can play that many and be fine

12
* 8
-----
96 boards in 2days, and since in summer it is 40 a day for a week....easy

more people is always good so long as a decent system of trials is found

As for partnership stability...

Not all your ideas are bad Frazer and I would never be annoyed at bridge. I said in an earlier post that you had a good idea for collecting agreements for situations that occur in bridge from our mistakes. Why not make it from experts mistakes instead? Ask, for example, the people who do the bidding quiz for the SBU News to give their 10 most important partnership agreements excluding basic system details. You wouldn't want a list of conventions they play; different people play different things.

I agree with Phil's point, no standard system get better at bridge. Catherine's example being learning how to play card combinations correctly for the required number of tricks.

EDIT : as u can tell, that is frank under my name...

I don't think anyone is being confrontational, just trying to put their view across. This has been the most productive discussion in ages.

This is basically true and the crux of the argument - partnership stability IS the problem. If this could be solved then I would not be in favour of a standard system because it does have its disandvantages (and is not as much fun). The question remains however, how do you solve it when it's a team of 20ish-year-olds whose interests are going to change over the next 5 years? You can't say to someone that you MUST commit to your partner for X years. How do you enforce something like that? You can't make someone play with someone they can't get on with without creating a bad atmosphere.

You are perfectly entitled to a say! You obviously learnt a system at School (whether you were aware of it at the time or not) - if you had learnt a simplified version of a Scottish system at grassroots level, would that not make it easier for you to partner someone from another school who had learnt the same thing? From what I saw in Dundee, there were several kids who had a lot of potential but were playing with partners who perhaps didn't.

It's obvious that the general consensus is against playing a standard system. Perhaps the conversation should now turn to how else to solve the underlying issues:

1) Lack of squad depth meaning that there is major disruption when someone pulls out of an event

2) Ensuring all partnerships have a robust and comprehensive system agreed before competing for their country.