[blackshoe]

In North America it could be either.

Heh. I have a friend here who has developed his own version of Precision. His last name is D'errico. He calls his system "Derision Club".

[Bbradley62]

 mgoetze, on 2013-January-05, 07:49, said:

You definitely shouldn't use "Standard American", because while in America it means a system where 1♣ and 1♦ both promise 3 cards, in Germany it means a system where 1♦ promises 4 and 1♣ could be a doubleton!

"General Approach" does not ask for a detailed description just a, um... general approach. Some people playing SA play 1m-2N=11-12 others play it as 13-15; doesn't mean they're not both playing Standard American. That's why we have the rest of the convention card to fill out and itemize details.

[mgoetze]

 Bbradley62, on 2013-January-05, 08:11, said:

"General Approach" does not ask for a detailed description just a, um... general approach.

So what's general enough for you? Does it matter whether I play, say, 4- or 5-card majors, or is that a detail which should be hidden somewhere on the inside of the convention card? Well, if your American convention cards had insides, that is.

[Bbradley62]

Once upon a time, "Standard American" meant four-card majors as Goren taught it in the 1950s-60s. It evolved to predominantly be five-card majors but it's hard to imagine that during the interim there was a a day when it suddenly became wrong to describe four-card majors that way.

Mostly what I've seen (when I used to play in the 1980s and 1990s) is that people wrote "Standard American with short club" or "Standard American with four-card majors" when they played those variants. Most of the people who did that were 80+ years old then, so I have no idea how common it is today.

Certainly, not everyone who writes "Precision" as their general approach plays exactly the same way, and as their opponent I'm perfectly happy to be simply told "we play Precision" and ask questions later, if necessary.

[blackshoe]

My usual at the table conversion with most of my partners might go like this:

Me: Partner, they're playing Precision. What defense should we play?
Partner: Huh?
Me: How about we double their 1♣ for the majors, and bid 1NT for the minors?
Partner: Okay
Opp: Can we play this hand please? We're behind.

[aguahombre]

 blackshoe, on 2013-January-05, 18:38, said:

My usual at the table conversion with most of my partners might go like this:

Me: Partner, they're playing Precision. What defense should we play?
Partner: Huh?
Me: How about we double their 1♣ for the majors, and bid 1NT for the minors?
Partner: Okay
Opp: Can we play this hand please? We're behind.

I do not find opponents who play an artificial system to be that way, ever..let alone "usually". They patiently answer any preliminary questions, and allow a reasonable time for us to prepare.

[blackshoe]

Well, perhaps that was a bit OTT. My main point is that most of the people I play with these days haven't thought at all about defenses against anything other than SA or 2/1, and not much of that.

We don't have many regular Precision partnerships around here. All of them are quite patient about this stuff. Now that I think about it, the pairs who bitch about being behind are usually playing SA.

[TylerE]

 mgoetze, on 2013-January-05, 07:49, said:

You definitely shouldn't use "Standard American", because while in America it means a system where 1♣ and 1♦ both promise 3 cards, in Germany it means a system where 1♦ promises 4 and 1♣ could be a doubleton!

Even funnier, here in the US I've heard that referred to as "Italian" 2/1, although there is perhaps more truth in that as many of the Italian champions DID play such a system, after they abandoned blue club and the click.

[Zelandakh]

 mgoetze, on 2013-January-05, 07:49, said:

You definitely shouldn't use "Standard American", because while in America it means a system where 1♣ and 1♦ both promise 3 cards, in Germany it means a system where 1♦ promises 4 and 1♣ could be a doubleton!

Oh dear, is this really true? We have, or rather had since they have moved, one pair who described their system as Standard American in the local club. They did not alert their 1♣ opening. Sadly, this is about the only system played there that I thought I understood, the rest playing either some variant of Forum D or some pre-Forum D German bidding system which is (apparently) impossible to explain. Notice that even the pairs who say they play Forum D cannot ever tell me whether 1♣ - 1♦; 1NT denies a 4 card major or not. What use is a system card when noone even knows what basic bids mean?!

As for filling out a CC in a foreign language, I recommend everyone trying this before suggesting some universal standard. Having spent many hourse trying to create a CC in German for a simple system and ending up with some unintelligible nonsense, it would not be top of my recommendations for the general player base.

[nige1]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-January-17, 09:59, said:

As for filling out a CC in a foreign language, I recommend everyone trying this before suggesting some universal standard. Having spent many hourse trying to create a CC in German for a simple system and ending up with some unintelligible nonsense, it would not be top of my recommendations for the general player base.

Is Zelandakh's argument against a universal standard? Many of the arguments advanced in this topic seem to favour a universal standard -- although some imply that the current WBF format could be simplified.

[blackshoe]

 nige1, on 2013-January-17, 11:04, said:

Is Zelandakh's argument against a universal standard? Many of the arguments advanced in this topic seem to favour a universal standard -- although some imply that the current WBF format could be simplified.

I have an idea! Let's ban all artificial calls. Everything must be natural. Simple, right? And if it's in the laws, it'll be universal. Unless of course the Lawmakers give RAs the choice to ignore it.

[Vampyr]

 nige1, on 2013-January-17, 11:04, said:

Many of the arguments advanced in this topic seem to favour a universal standard

All of them yours...

[campboy]

How do you expect to have a universal standard CC when we don't even have a universal standard blank piece of paper?

[mgoetze]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-January-17, 09:59, said:

Notice that even the pairs who say they play Forum D cannot ever tell me whether 1♣ - 1♦; 1NT denies a 4 card major or not.

It probably does; Walsh is almost unheard-of in german clubs.

[aguahombre]

 Zelandakh, on 2013-January-17, 09:59, said:

Notice that even the pairs who say they play Forum D cannot ever tell me whether 1♣ - 1♦; 1NT denies a 4 card major or not.

 mgoetze, on 2013-January-17, 12:25, said:

It probably does; Walsh is almost unheard-of in german clubs.

And they cannot tell Zelandakh whether it denies a major?