awm, on 2019-August-31, 03:46, said:
This statement doesn't make much sense to me. While it's true that people often play identical (or very similar) methods in first chair or in second chair after an initial pass, this absolutely should not apply against a forcing pass system! If I'm opening in first seat it doesn't much matter to me whether opponents play forcing pass or not; if I'm in second seat against forcing pass it makes no difference whether my first seat methods are strong club or 2/1 or forcing pass myself because I'm always playing my "defense after opponents action" methods (which obviously depend on what action opponents took) and not my general system.
Precision normally does well when it gets to take advantage of its range-limited openers. A forcing pass essentially eliminates this benefit except when you are sitting in the first seat. Forcing pass systems also tend to be *more* precise in their bidding than precision. So you don't have much of an edge when you are 1st seat vs them being 1st seat either. So you are getting less mileage on the bids that work best and still bearing the cost of the ones that are a weakness.
Could be 100% wrong here. But the effectiveness of a bidding system partially depends on what other people are allowed to play. So the prominence of some systems can be the result of other systems being restricted.
But maybe players from outside of ACBL-land will have better perspective on this.
johnu, on 2019-August-31, 16:53, said:
What do you open in Precision with 4=4=1=4, 4=4=0=5, 4=3=1=5, 3=4=1=5 (short in diamonds) hands? You don't have a 5 card major to bid. Do you want to open an unbalanced hand 1♦ on your 4th longest suit which is a singleton or void?
With a 5 card club suit, do you want to open 2♣ with a bad club suit? You can better define 2♣ openings in combination with the 2♦ openings on some hand patterns.
I play precision, I play with the 2
♦ bid. I tried the unbalanced diamond system from Marshal Miles and didn't like some of the sequences. But the precision 2
♦ is still a kludge. I wish there was a better way to handle it. But AFAIK, there isn't.
PrecisionL, on 2019-August-31, 18:47, said:
One solution is to open 1♦ as artificial (0+♦) and promising at least one 4-card Major.
I played this in two partnerships and it works amazingly well.
^This seems to complicate bidding 11-13 hcp balanced hands e.g. 5332. The website you linked says to just pass them. Maybe that works on-net, but I'm not a fan of the idea in abstract.
rhm, on 2019-September-01, 06:27, said:
I think the major reason is the popularity of 5 card majors, which are not very compatible with Canape system.
But it is not only popularity. 4 card major systems are more difficult to play than 5 card major systems requiring better judgement.
Most of what you are saying has been discussed above, but you seem to have misunderstood some of it. (Poss. language barrier?)
Canape and 5CM are both alternatives to "4-card majors"; they both try to solve the same problems by communicating more information about major suit distributions. They use different methods, but they seem to be informationally equivalent.
And in any event, my question is historical. How did we get from Alberan's system to the Italian ones? Their ideas are different enough that I don't think someone just made up Neapolitan Club after reading Alberan.
As far as the Italian systems themselves go, the "not competitive" argument was discussed above. I don't think it is convincing.
"Not popular enough for people to keep using" is *very* convincing. You can use negative doubles and the like for analogous situations in canape, but if the two are equivalent (or even if canape is slightly better), you'd be better off using 5-card majors just because that's what most of the conventions and literature are focused on.
rhm, on 2019-September-01, 06:53, said:
I think you have it backwards.
The 1NT response used to be non-forcing. Then bidding theorists came along arguing the case for making it forcing.
Both Kaplan-Sheinwold and Roth-Stone had the forcing 1NT response. I can't find an early 5-card major system that does not. Do you know of one?
I'm aware that in "standard american" people swapped to 5-card majors but kept the non-forcing 1NT from Goren. But my question is *why*.
Quote
I suggest you look at
Building A Bidding System from Roy Hughes (2005) (It does discuss bidding theory, but not specific systems like SEF or AMBRA)
The Notrump Zone from Danny Kleinman (2004) (which also discusses the 1NT response to a major)
Thank you for the suggestions, but I have read both of these.