Scottish System

Due to the hectic nature of Scottish bridge it has been suggested that all players learn the same basic system. This would allow the common partner swapping required to be a far smoother process than it is now.

In order to reach a system in which 95% of situations are covered by agreements is a lot of work. In order to stop one poor soul having to do this I advise that we all work on creating a basic system with lots of agreements to cover the great majority of situations.

In order to ensure that all are reasonably happy with the base for the system I am asking for a debate over which basic system wouldbe easier to work upwards from.

As far as I can see there are 5 real chocies

1;Acol (12-14 NT 4cM)
2; ??? (12-14NT 5cM)
3;??? (15-17NT 4cM)
4 SAYC (15-17NT 5cM)
5 2/1 (15-17NT 5cM, 2/1GF)

I have not made this post a poll as i belive this is an issue which would be better resolved through a debate.

In terms of simplicity for 2 level openers i think we will be all agree that 3 weak 2's and a strong 2c is the easiest option.

I would like to make it clear that I am not attacking anyones current system and am not suggesting we all play exactly the same. I am merely trying to make it a lot easier to change partners. Once a partenership has been playing for a time they will be able to move towards meathods which better suit their playing style. However they will still have the backbone of agreements laid down by this system when it is completed.

As for my opinion I would suggest the SAYC option as a starting point. This is because of the large amount written about it and my unfamiliarity with 2/1, though I am willing to be persuaded.

Once the starting point is agreed I ask for four other juniors to help me build up all the required agreements. This is beacuse I belive that there a 5 main areas which must be covered.

1;2c+ opening bids and continuations
2; Major openings
3;Minor openings
4;When the opponents open
5; after opening 1nt

People willing to help me fill in these gaps would be rewarded with lots of cash and gratitude. (where lots of cash= Ł0.01)

since this seems to have bombed a wee bit I wish to contribute an idea to the website instead. I suggest we have a Scottish Junior agreement database. The basic idea would be that each time you an your partner make a new agreement you briefly write it up and it gets stuck on the website. This would allow all of us to gain agreements for many situations without making the mistake ourselves. Im sure this would save a large number of IMP's, would make people think about their agreements more and give us something to put on the website.

Anyone else fond of this idea?

Much prefer the second idea to the first.

The first seems a bit impractical to me, I'd prefer if we had to agree to keep partnerships for a minimum length of time. However I won't go into that just now as it won't be constructive.

Hurrah!
I think Frazer has a lot of good ideas there. Wish we could get some sort of response from other juniors. This does NOT need to be only juniors who play for the team! My suggestions are simply 15-17NT, 5 card Majs 3 wk twos with ogust responses. responses to 1Nt are staymen, xfers, splinters, gerber.All xfers broken to values with 4card supportand max and to 3 level if min. Checkback over nt rebids. Bid what you have GOT. Neg x all the way responsive x -4H. RKCB 1430 Rev att standard count carding . Leads AQ att K count 4th and 2nd. Responses to 2c are 2d shows better than 2Qs, 2H shows less than 2Qs, 2nt +-in Hs siut +- headed by 2 of top 3 hons at least 5 carrds...most responses go thru 2Ds. 2Nt=20-22 and I suggest Baron and xfers for simplicity.Agree on dbls, leb, def to Nt etc
I believe it is ESSENTIAL that you do this and PLEASE contribute to debate

Durham University has a "Durham A" system that all players can play but really none of the good players play it and it only covers basic situations that might come up at say a club night. It is useful to teach to the new players/intermidiates and useful so u can just sit down with anyone anytime. Having a scottish general system would be good if we all played together but all do know the same thing 4c M weak NT. There wont be one member who couldnt play that to standard.

The problem is more things like trial bids, how strong do u play 1M-2N
wjo throughout, what is your wk 2 standard, echos and peters.
and its more about which version of a converntion do u play?
i know about 5, 5card major stayman convetions and 2 sorts of checkback (showing off...but doesnt sound good enough). What would the advantage of us all knowing one system be? As soon as you get a partner you'll add systems, make agreements and then you wont be playing 'standard scottish'.

I do like teh idea of a database of useful agreements

anyone else ever agreed this one?

(P) - 1S - (2D) - X
(P) - 3C - (P) - 3S

5c M
-ve X
is 3S forcing? show a stop? distribution? anything at all?

I know Myles has argued this for a while, but I finally agree with him after a discussion with Mike La wrence.

(1x)-P-(!NT)-X = PENALTIES!!!!!!!!!!

Also, 15-17, 5CM, better minor, Bergen (Clubs better) and Jacoby (Resp:3 suit, 4 Splinter) raises and Inverted minors (2N=12-14 BAL, 3m=wk UNBAL, 3x=CUE, FG).

thats teh way to grow a few inches over night, u are now eye to eye with me (on 1x-p-1n-X) so are officially 6'4

well played

its time to punish them when they have a misifit
its time to punish them for opening light and respoding light
jsut punish

for i am Marv and i kill

[SIN CITY + MAN = AWESOME]

On his CD "Counting at bridge 2" Mike Lawrence specifically says to play this as take-out of X

Let's suppose you have a flat 19 count

Opener has 13

Responder has 7

you have 19

this leaves your partner with?!? 1. 1 solitary Jack.

Plus you've told your opponents how to play the hand. Not good.

Yes, because you never open with less than 13 points Mark!

Seems to me that the arguments for and against this double being penalties are similar to a 1NT overcall being natural after 1X-P-1Y. Not quite sure where I stand...

Ok, so they open with an 11 count. Now partner has an extra Q as well. Feeling better?

Or maybe responder has it, which gives your partner that J again.

PENALTY DOUBLES AFTER 1X P 1NT ARE A STUPID IDEA.

Similarly 1X P 1Y 1NT as 15-17 is a stupid idea. This should be Raptor, showing 4-5 in the unbid suits.

All this does is tell opponents how to play the hand

I feel half of you are missing the point here.

No system is perfect or 'the right' system otherwise everyone would play it. Similarly, it's not how many weird or wonderful conventions or agreements you have that is going to make you a good partnership. You would all get on so much better if you played a simple, standard system and got it 100% right rather than having lots of weird and wonderful conventions that you will rember, at best, 75% of the time.

If you look logically at Scotland's performance over the past 5 years, partnerships are solid for about 18 boards out of 20 but then always manage 2 major cock-ups that cost the match or turn a small defeat into a 25-whatever defeat.

A scottish system does not mean simply agreeing 4/5 card majors, your NT and your 2 openings then deciding what extras you and your partner can add on to it. It would mean standardising every bit of your system across the team so that every bid by every team member would mean the same thing. There would be no adding on of extra gadgets once you pick your partner.

The most obvious advantages of this approach are as follows:

1) When one of your team mates abandons you at the last minute, leaving the rest of you in the lurch, the problem can be easily solved by bringing in a subsitute who is already 100% up to speed with the system. (Yeah, you can do this now but how competitive do you really think that partnership will be able to be in a 300 board event?)

2) You can get proper play and bidding practice by playing with any member of the squad, which will better suit all your work/uni commitments.

3) A team can be picked on an individual basis rather than a partnership basis. Squad members without a partner will no longer be prejudiced against. Similarly, a good player will a tool for a partner will not suffer either.

4) The half-hearted attempts that most of the squad have had at making a basic system file for their partnerhsip can be combined into one concerted effort to produce a system 'bible'. This can be tweaked year-on-year and passed on to new squad members.

5) Your attempts at a system file are not wasted when your partner decides 12 months later that he doesn't want to play with you anymore, or wants to take up skydiving instead.

6) Post mortems can be productive because you are discussing a bid in the context of the same system. A 'right' answer can be agreed, added to the system bible and will be there to refer to in the future.

7) Your coaches can tailor teaching to the one system rather than having to make all training sessions generic to cover 4 or 5 systems.

8) -10 imp swings from system misunderstandings/disagreements will be reduced. (If you scientifically study the U25's results from the last 2 Europeans, we would have won > 50% of our matches if we were able to disregard one board of our choice from each match)

You have to face the cold hard facts abut Scottish Junior Bridge:

1) Lovely as you all are, none of you are elite players and there are going to be some teams that beat up on you no matter how well you play. What you need to focus on in the short term is moving from the bottom of the field to the middle third. This whole exercise has to be viewed as a long term project over 2-3 years that will benefit Scotland - even if it means you have to sacrifice your favourite convention in the process.

2) Scotland has only a small pool of players and people are going to come and go from it from year to year. It is extremely unlikely you will be playing with the same partner in 3 years time that you are now. Even Harold and I played with different partners in our 10 years in the junior team. No matter what you think, you cannot develop or pick up a new system in a few months that will survive the rigours of a 300 board international tournament. Especially the amount of practice the typical Scottish junior puts in. If some of you think so, then I fear you are in for a reality check when you head for Italy next month.

3) However you want to look at it, you are representing your country in a team event. This is not a pairs tournamant. In football, players don't run around the pitch making up their own tactics and doing their own thing... this may be Scotland but Catherine is not Berti Vogts!

A good squad will agree on an approach, learn it well and then stick to it so that if someone has to be brought into the team at the last moment, the team doesn't suffer as a result.

4) You are unlikely to agree amongst you on a system and therefore the basics (NT, 4/5c M, etc) should come 'from above' and then intricacies agreed through a series of workshops/training sessions. In my opinion, if you don't like the system you are told to play for the national team then you should either accept it for the good of the team (I hated 2/1 to start with but I was told to play it and so did) or go and play for someone else.

Myles' comment about the Durham 'A' system is interesting. If you are teaching beginners you need a basic system to start them off, but obviously this isn't going to be enough for more advanced players. Why don't the good players at Durham play an advanced version of the basic system rather than ignoring it to play their own thing? What hope do the beginners have of ever aspiring to play with the more advanced players?

There is no reason why you can't have two Scottish system files:
Scottish System v1 for the U25s and
Scottish System 'Lite' v1 for the U20 squad which Joan could teach

I'm now off to trademark those names...

I'd' be interested to hear people's counter arguments against the above points. It would certainly be more constructive than debating the meaning of (1x)-P-(1NT)-X.