[akwoo]

mikestar13, on 2014-October-03, 16:24, said:

A fantasy of mine is that ACBL would adopt something like this (though surely more restrictive, given the current GCC)--it is clear and easy to apply!

Sure. In addition to the assignment of dots in the Swedish system, add 3 dots to all forcing 1 level bids, 2 dots to 1N openings allowing fewer than 14hcp, and 1 dot for every non-natural direct overcall (excepting cue bids and 2N overcalls). (For overcalls, count the maximum available over any single opening bid by opponent.)

Allow at most 3 dots.

Takes out any playable strong club system and most weak and mini NTs, both of which get significant whining among local players.

[glen]

mikestar13, on 2014-October-03, 16:24, said:

A fantasy of mine is that ACBL would adopt something like this...

that would require them to connect the dots, too hard

[helene_t]

What about defence against strong or otherwise strange passes? Suppose our normal first seat system is seven dots and opps play a pass that shows a weak hand with diamonds or a strong hand. We would like to play a strong diamond system in second seat then. Can we do that?

[helene_t]

TylerE, on 2014-October-03, 13:37, said:

Also, 2H Flannery = 0 dots, and the usual 2D Flannery is 1?

The 2D variety is muuuch easier to defend against as direct seat will get a 2nd crack at it 99%+ of the time, whereas 2H can be passed with quite a bit of frequency, and usually on the hands where the defending side is most likely to have a good spot (e.g. 3rd hand is weakish)

akwoo, on 2014-October-03, 14:54, said:

If I'm playing with a novice partner who has never seen Flannery before, I don't have to explain how to defend against 2H Flannery. I do need to spend 15 seconds explaining how to defend against 2D Flannery.

Exactly. It's not about how effective a defence PhilKing or KenRexford would be able to construct, it's about how much time typical club or tournament players need to discuss a defence.

[steve2005]

its a bit confusing without having the flow chart available. did I read right an artificial strong 2♣ is 1 dot but an artificial strong 1♣ is 0 dot? seems unfair if true. but I guess 1 dot doesn't matter.

Giving standard American 1 minor openings 1 dot is funny too.

[Kungsgeten]

An Unassuming Club (AUC) gets less dots than Standard American, if playing weak twos and strong 2NT:

1C = Clubs and a major, strong with clubs, 15+ bal or any 19+ (natural or strong, 1 dot)

The rest of the opening bids are natural.

[helene_t]

No Steve, any 15+ opening gets zero dots

[Kungsgeten]

helene_t:

Quote

By the way, how many dots do I get for playing 1NT as any weak one-suiter?

I forgot to write about this in my initial post. An artificial 1NT call, which isn't covered by the rules about suit pointers etc which takes precedence, gets 2 dots unless weak. If also weak it gets 3 dots. A bid counts as weak if it can contain less than 8 hcp. So 1NT 6-9 with 6+ cards in any suit gets 3 dots. 1NT 8-11 with 6+ cards in any suit gets 2 dots.

Quote

What about defence against strong or otherwise strange passes?

An artificial pass is considered as an opening bid. This means that if the opponents open with an artificial pass you may play whatever you want after such a call. A pass is considered artificial if it may contain more than 13 hcp or if it doesn't contain all weak hands (less than 8 hcp) with 4333 distribution. Examples:

Pass = 0-7 hcp or 17+ is artificial
Pass = 0-13 hcp is natural
Pass = 0-14 hcp is artificial
Pass = 0-5 hcp or 10-13 hcp is natural
Pass = 0-11 hcp, but not 4333 and 7 hcp (lets say you play mini-NT showing 7-10 hcp), is artificial

[campboy]

helene_t, on 2014-October-03, 15:58, said:

On the other hand, 2♥ defined as a preempt with four spades and a canape-suit which may or may not be hearts is somewhat difficult to defend but gets only one dot. Then again, EBU and WBF don't have issues with it either.

The EBU does -- it's not allowed at level 4. (You could play it as any combination of meanings which show five spades, with or without strong alternatives, or any combination of 5-4 hands which don't include hearts, again WOWSA.)