[blackshoe]

Romex deals with the wide range 1NT rebid via Two Way Checkback Stayman. Works like Two Way Stayman. 2♣ is invitational, not a puppet as in some modern variants. There are some little tricks involved.

Romex has four strong bids because it is strongly oriented to game and slam bidding. So perhaps not the best system for matchpoints.

If the Romex 2NT opening (25-26 balanced, 9 controls) never comes up, why do people play Kokish Relay (it has a different name now, but I don't remember it)?

[Cthulhu D]

 blackshoe, on 2018-February-13, 10:48, said:

Romex deals with the wide range 1NT rebid via Two Way Checkback Stayman. Works like Two Way Stayman. 2♣ is invitational, not a puppet as in some modern variants. There are some little tricks involved.

Romex has four strong bids because it is strongly oriented to game and slam bidding. So perhaps not the best system for matchpoints.

If the Romex 2NT opening (25-26 balanced, 9 controls) never comes up, why do people play Kokish Relay (it has a different name now, but I don't remember it)?

If you play transfer responses to one club, you could split the range. So you could do

1NT: 11-13
1C-1X-Accept the transfer: 14-16
1C-1X-1NT: 17-19
2NT: 20-21
2C-2D-2NT: 22-23

Etc

[Cyberyeti]

I used to thoroughly enjoy playing wide range no trump including a mini but going higher, it's horrible to defend against at MPs as the auction goes 1N-P-P-P and you don't know if it's the second undertrick you're striving for or second overtrick you're trying to prevent. You need some very unusual arrangements over it to make it work though.

[akwoo]

I play quite a bit of weak NT. Haven't played the mini but I'm temporarily in a hotbed of mini and am playing against it on a regular basis.

The mini is quite effective, but it's true that a good deal of its effectiveness has to do with players not knowing how to play against it. Quick - what are the invitational+ advances in your NT interference system? If you're like most partnerships, you have no clue.

Beyond system preparation, you don't have a good understanding of the risks and rewards of coming in against 1N (10-12)-(P)-3C (drop dead 0-11). If they play it, they're used to stealing a couple tricks from you at the 3C contract because you don't know realize you should be aiming for down 3. Also, they understand matchpoints and know that down 3 or down 4 are almost the same score but down 2 is a lot better for them than down 3, or whatever the case is given the vulnerability and their strength.

If you need 65% to win pairs and 110/140 VPs to win a Swiss, you'd better have some mechanism for beating up on average opponents.

Okay - you're playing in the Blue Ribbon Pairs - now what? I think the mini usually puts you ahead at competing for partials, though occasionally you end up in the wrong partial. (You can have a more complicated system that gets you in the right partial more often, but it helps the opponents compete also.) Non-vulnerable (and especially all white), it wins you the important race for 1N. Against that, you give up an occasional -200 against air. (The most terrifying auction with mini (and weak) NT isn't being doubled in it; you have runout systems for dealing with that. The most terrifying auction is 1N-P-P-P, vulnerable.)

Basically - it's like any other decent system - if it suits your style, play it.