[Balrog49]

I just rewrote the Wikipedia article on canapé. Not all canapé systems were (or all) the same, as implied by the previous article, the examples in particular.

What you (the OP) play sounds vaguely like Roman Club except that 1♣ is artificial in that system: 12-16 balanced or a very strong hand. Everyone who plays canapé should read the Roman Club book along with the Italian Blue Team Bridge Book (Blue Team Club) by Garozzo and Forquet. Even if you have no desire to play those methods, the thinking that went into the systems is still valuable.

[nullve]

A real treat:

http://www.members.s...ca/valintro.htm

[Zelandakh]

nullve, on 2015-December-03, 15:34, said:

http://www.members.s...ca/valintro.htm

Have I read the system notes correctly that a 12hcp 53(32) hand has to pass?

System designers should also probably be made aware of the first piece of advice from the site:

Quote

Holding a flat hand a person can open a natural 1C, 1D or 1H
and then rebid 1NT over an 1-of-a-suit response. Only with Spades
is this impossible. We may draw two conclusions from this: the 1S
opening should promise an unbalanced hand; and, 1NT should be used
to show 4 or 5 Spades in a flat hand.

Sadly I will have to wait until I have more time before I can update my system to take advantage of this insight.

[nullve]

Zelandakh, on 2015-December-03, 16:27, said:

Have I read the system notes correctly that a 12hcp 53(32) hand has to pass?

Yes, and I think hands with with 12 hcp and either 4333, 43(42) or 44(32) have to pass as well. As conservative as that sounds, Valentines actually tends to open lighter on balanced hands than Blue Club and many contemporary systems did.

Quote

System designers should also probably be made aware of the first piece of advice from the site:


Sadly I will have to wait until I have more time before I can update my system to take advantage of this insight.

Faulty logic aside, I think the real reason why 1♠ is unbalanced is to to be able to use the 1 step response as F1, just like in the Roman Club system, which, after all, must have been the main source of inspiration.

This post has been edited by nullve: 2015-December-03, 20:47

[Zelandakh]

nullve, on 2015-December-03, 19:09, said:

Yes, and I think hands with with 12 hcp and either 4333, 43(42) or 44(32) have to pass as well. As conservative as that sounds, Valentines actually tends to open lighter on balanced hands than Blue Club and many contemporary systems did.

Not opening 12hcp hands with pure balanced shapes is a small negative but ok in the grand scheme of things. Not opening the hand with a 5 card major is a bigger issue, hence my picking out this case.

nullve, on 2015-December-03, 19:09, said:

Faulty logic aside, I think the real reason why 1♠ is unbalanced is to be able to use the 1 step response as F1, just like in the Roman Club system, which, after all, must have been the main source of inspiration.

I have no problem with the idea of the 1♠ opening being unbalanced and use it myself in my favourite (admittedly 5cM) system. It makes perfect sense when you examine the number of hand types and compare with the number of bidding sequences. Indeed, my unbalanced 1♠ opening is even slightly overloaded.

That it logically follows that 1NT should contain 4-5 spades is simply a case of blinkered thinking - a better methodology is to try to match the number of hand patterns to the number of available (game) auctions while maintaining a solid frequency and homogeneity for each opening. At the end of the day though, what really matters is how often you reach a good contract, how resilient the system is against interference and how often you can cause difficulties for the opponents.

An unbalanced 5cM 1♠ opening is usually good at the first two of these, depending on what is done with the excess 5(332) hands, but bad at the third. With canapé I would expect the homogeneity to go down and thus the performance in the second category to suffer while getting a boost in category 3 - but I do not have a lot of experience with it and would trust, for example, hrothgar when he would tell me this was wrong. A 1NT opening showing spades is also good in the second category and bad in the third - the 13-16 range possibly makes it poor in the first although again it is difficult to say without having tried it out.

[nullve]

Ken, do you know how old the Valentines system is? I know it's used by some of the characters in Ward's 'Session from Hell' series (http://bridgewinners...sion-from-hell/), which a Google search indicates goes back to 1997 at least. But some of Ward's remarks in his Valentines write-up suggest it's much older.

For example:

Quote

Systems use one of two methods of introducing bidder's long suits. North Americans are more familiar with the Long Suit First method. Europeans tend to prefer a canape style whereby players bid their four card suits before their five carders.

If the latter statement (about Europeans and canape) has ever been true, and then presumably only at the topmost level, it must have been many decades ago.

Another example:

Quote

Imagine the benefits of knowing that 1NT Opener has a "core" of 4-3 in the majors! Responder can compete with as few as four Hearts or as few as three Spades. Responder need not worry about competing in or running out to 2-of-a-major on a 4-card suit--only to discover that 1NT Opener has a doubleton there.

That doesn't sound like coming from someone addressing an audience whose default meaning of 'double' is takeout. That again suggests the system is quite old.

[kenrexford]

It was a while ago that I played this. Maybe 15 years ago. I had forgotten that the 1C bid was so messed up. If I recall correctly, I convinced the people I played it with to seitch to a tendency canape with the weaker club-other hands, making 1C more purely stronger when canape. The original version seemed odd after playing MICS for about two years by that point. I had remnants of Rosso e Nerro, a variant of Leghorn/Livorno on the brain and was versed in two way canape, where canape was used if sound but not if light. We also thereby dropped the two bids slightly lover somehow. Regardless, whatever the tweaks, all canape seems to work much better with Roman 2s and 2D as minors, IMO.

[all loomis]

canape has its moments, but in the end you are more likely to have strength in your long suit, so i abandoned short suit openings. i like pd to lead my suit against nt.
canape responses are more valuable: we played 1m 1s,2m 2h as 6-9 hcp, and canapeed with 10+

[Zelandakh]

all loomis, on 2015-December-11, 00:05, said:

canape responses are more valuable: we played 1m 1s,2m 2h as 6-9 hcp, and canapeed with 10+

What benefits do you feel you get from this approach over natural? The more common advantages given for a canapé approach seem to be missing here and, in general, most prefer either a natural or a coded (relay) approach for game and slam investigations.

[all loomis]

kugw, on 2015-August-29, 19:52, said:

My regular partner and I play a canape system.

I know that canape systems are not a new idea. However, the way we play it is that all one suit openings are natural and do not deny a longer suit. If we have two four card suits of the same rank (minors or major) we open the lower ranking and if we have a 4 card major and a 4 card minor we open the 4 card major. This opening does not deny holding a longer suit.

To date we have not had problems.

long suit is better than canape. you are more likely to want your long suit led, if opps seize the auction. if you open your long suit, there is much less to be gained from substandard response. and negative x loses its value, since opener will not know if 4 are opposite, or 3, or 1.
canape was an attempt to solve a problem which the neg x solved much better.

[Zelandakh]

all loomis, on 2016-January-04, 00:08, said:

canape was an attempt to solve a problem which the neg x solved much better.

Negative doubles have been popularised since the 1950s (hence the old term Sputnik) but are still used at the highest level today. Do you think those expert pairs still using canapé are so out of touch with bidding theory not to be aware of this alternative?