[Walddk]

Pass in 1st seat denies ♦7. It makes partner much more relaxed when he knows there is no risk of having to buy a beer. I think this convention was devised in Scotland.

Roland

[jvage]

I felt the recent and true story above fitted this thread well. However, in response to the original question I have vague memories of one time having played strong pass and openings in the shortest suit (with relays, possibly based on the Polish "Regress") in the students club. This was based on reading a pamplet provided by partner before the game.

While it may not fit the strict definition of "Bridge" in a social game we once played that you could only bid suits by showing the equivalent card (♣A=1♣ etc) from your hand. A typical sequence would be 2 spades raised to 5 spades, indicating that opener had some values and some spades (including the 2 but without the four!) and his partner had some support with the 5 of spades also without the 4

John

[Furlan]

In the lines of the Totti thing that Hanoi5 mentioned, there was a pair of an expert and a beginner who played the 2♣ and 3♣ openings as Stayman with a 1NT/2NT hand. Thus when the expert held a NT hand he opened a standard NT and eventually became declarer, but when the beginner held a similar hand she opened 2/3♣ and her partner got to declare anyway!

[awm]

1NT opening = 8-10 or 15-17, balanced

We were not allowed to play "systems" over this, so we agreed that two-level suit bids were to play, and that 2NT and 3-level suit bids were game forcing (and natural). We managed to produce the auction:

1NT(1) - 2NT(2)
4NT(3) - 7NT(4)

(1) 8-10 or 15-17
(2) Game forcing
(3) Hey, I have 15-17
(4) To play

[JoAnneM]

Since you only have a 25% chance of being dealt the D7 do you ask for it to be passed to you so you can lead it?

[Gerben42]

We played that 1NT opening shows a weak hand in ♣ or 15 - 17. Overcall also, although that is I guess more common.

Also the mini 2NT is fun (13 - 14 NT). We only play that 1st 2nd white vs red (chicken, huh!). Actually the corresponding 1NT opener (9 - 12) seems to be the more dangerous part!

[Free]

Reverse Fishbein

Seriously, random 2♣ opening (0-5HCP any distribution). At the time the club allowed every bidding system (this is BSC). After playing this opening 1 session, having it occur 4 times out of 28 boards, we had so many TD calls at our table that the club decided to ban HUM and BSC in the future.

[mgoetze]

Gerben42, on 2010-July-02, 09:06, said:

Or the 2-way 1NT opening (15-17 or weak with ♣).

Oh, you've played Blue Club?

[mycroft]

Before we started playing Crazy Bridge in the bar for our last bridge night of term, we had one pair come in for the "last game" with "whatever they could think of that was fun or sane or whatever".

Their pride was rule 44 (which I realize now should have been rule 34 (warning, tvTropes link), but hey, I didn't write it, and it was years ago.)
"4C opening is a request to spend the aftergame with LHO."

They were hoping for 4C (?)-X (No!)-p-p; 4D (RHO?)-p-p-X (Not me!); 4H (partner?). Of course, as partner can't double... (well he could, but it would be inadmissible, and bar his partner (which I guess is "No!", so it should have worked).
No, it never came up.

No, I won't tell you whether I think it's a better use for that call than Gerber.

[Gerben42]

Update: This weekend the weak 2NT struck again. One hand was normal (2NT - transfer - accepted - game), but the other one was...

---

in a 3 - 3 fit... Unfortunately we tossed out two undertricks.

I wanted to quit this when we were getting some bad results, but they don't seem to materialize. Oh well.