Tramticket, on 2016-June-01, 05:30, said:
- Check and agree that you and your partner are playing the same basic system (note, for these purposes there is more than one version of Acol: Opening the Major first leads to a fundamentally different system to opening the minor - one post even suggested "Acol with five card majors" - this is a different system!).
- At this stage any advantage from playing one system rather than another will be slight. Play the system that you have been taught and/or is used by most people at your club.
- Learn your system in depth. Learning the basic system is more important than adding more conventional gadgets. learn which bid to make, but also learn WHY a particular bid is recommended.
- When you are ready to add conventions to the system, make sure that they are compatible with the bidding system that you play and logically consistent with other conventions that you play. (Be careful with a forum such as this - you will receive well-meaning advice from some players based on their own systems rather than yours!).
That advice resonates strongly with me.
My partner has played social bridge for many years, i have been playing for three years, beginning with Modern Acol, so we come from different starting points. Our ambition is to become really good players within our bridge community. Our play will get better with practice, but we can accelerate our bidding skills / understanding by reading / discussing / analysing hands that we could have played better.
Quite a few of our opponents are a lot better than us, mostly because they have been in playing partnerships for many years. They have their own sets of conventions based on Acol (eg. Benji, weak 2's, Cansino, Standard Blackwood or Gerber), but mostly standard Acol, not Modern. Few if any play splinters, Jacoby 2NT, Michaels, negative double etc.. They tend to do well because they play the hands better, because they have been playing for many years.
We each have a pair of books on Acol by the same author, one on uncontested auctions, one on contested auctions, and we have gradually been converging our methods to so that now most of what we play is what's in the books. For example, partner didn't realise that 1S - 2H guarantees five hearts, or why. And we have moved from a 1NT showing 15-16 to 15-17, and why (1any - 1any - 2NT rebid after a one level response is game forcing). And we have added other devices such as inverted minors after 1D - 3D -3NT went off, and super accepts after transfers. We play splinters, negative doubles, exit Transfers, Landy and more. The most recent addition was checkback Stayman after 1m-1M, which we like - we have used it twice. I have often checked ideas out on BBO before suggesting them to partner, and have had some really valuable responses (in amongst some where I have no idea what the poster is talking about - way over my head!!).
Last week, when I saw partner opening 1C with four weak clubs and four good spades, I realised that this is an area where we have not yet 'converged'. He still bids up the line as he has done for many years, but will rebid 1NT with a balanced 15-17 hand. Rather than address that whole area just now, I wondered whether we could just tweak Checkback to include 1m - 1m -1NT. Hence my question on BBO.
The responses have been interesting and much appreciated. Posters have put a lot of time into their responses / advice. Unfortunatley much of it has not been very helpful in answering my question. I have been trying to follow it by googling Walsh, Drury, NMF, New Major Forcing, 5 card majors, and more, and generally feeling that partner and I were, like everyone else at our clubs (and the UK) playing an inferior system, and were referring to sources from authors we trusted but are now beginning to doubt.
After a good night's sleep, my conclusion is that we will stick with what we have got, and add to it as and when we think it is useful and we can absorb it. I will suggest to partner that we add 1m - 1m - 1NT to our CBS, since I have not read anything that suggests it is a bad idea, and we will 'suck it and see'