Ever have a partner try to get you to learn a new convention by telling you, “It’s easy. All you have to know is…”? Let me tell you, System Happy Stella is lying to you! If you are Stella, you either have a better memory than most, or, more likely, you haven’t thought through all the ramifications.
“Simple” Conventions
Let’s briefly look at some “simple” conventions that you are probably familiar with.
Takeout Double
What could be simpler? You’ve got the other 3 suits. But are you sure you are on the same page as your partner. Could you have a side doubleton? What does it show if you bid a new suit after doubling? What does NOT doubling mean? What does it mean if your partner bids 1NT? 2NT? Jumps a level? Jumps 2 levels? Bids the opponent’s suit? Is it still a takeout double if the opponents opened at the 3 level? What about the 4 level? What about 4♠?
Are you confident your regular partner(s) would give the same answers to all those questions as you do? What about that pick-up partner you are playing with tomorrow?
Stayman
This has to be simple, right? Maybe. Are you allowed to pass your partner’s response? What does it mean to rebid a new suit over partner's response? What if you jump in a new suit? What if you bid 4NT? What if the opponents double the 2♣ bid? What if the opponents bid a new suit?
Blackwood
This is the first convention a lot of people learn, because it is fun and so simple. Just count your aces. What about voids, what do you do with them? What do you do if the opponents interfere over the 4NT ask? And are you always sure that you know when 4NT is asking for aces vs. invitational vs. a place to play? Based on a recent article in the ACBL Bridge Bulletin, not even experts are in agreement to that last question, so it isn’t as easy as it looks.
Our Story
This came up because William and I recently came across a convention that we both thought would be helpful, easy to remember, and not take away any already useful bids: “XYZ”. The real short version is that if your side has made 3 bids at the 1 level, with neither of you passing (e.g. 1x - 1y; 1z - ?), 2♣ and 2♦ as the fourth bid are now artificial. 2♣ shows an invitational hand and 2♦ shows a game forcing hand.
What could be simpler?
I won’t bore you with all the questions and complications we had, but the questions I raised for the above conventions should give you an idea. William and I started exchanging emails asking about different scenarios, and proposing meanings. Each proposal brought up more questions and each email was longer than the last. We tried asking almighty Google for guidance, but different sites contradicted each other and just raised more questions. Pretty soon we were both ready to throw in the towel.
Except it really looks useful.
That is the siren’s song of new conventions. Wouldn’t it be useful to be able to do <x>? What the Stella’s of the world don’t see is the possible confusions that the convention could add and the places where you get a horrible result because you and your partner were on different pages as to what a bid meant.
What we eventually decided to do was to add XYZ to our system, but as simply as possible. It’s not on in competition. All non-XYZ bids (i.e. not 2♣ or 2♦) mean what they used to mean (except they're not forcing). I’m not suggesting this as a good treatment. As a matter of fact, I think it is less than ideal, but it has the advantage that it is simple enough that we are likely to not get confused. As we get more comfortable with it and see how it comes up in real games, we’ll try adding in the subtleties that will make it more powerful. Or maybe we’ll drop it because we hate it.
The important fact is that William and I have discussed many permutations and have some hope that we’ll be on the same page when the convention comes up.
