Magic D-light

Magic Diamond is a “weak openings system”, based on Carrotti, which is a semi-forcing “pass system”. Magic Diamond actually sprung from Carrotti when the administrators decided to make life hard for players who adopted these tactics, the main idea being to get rid of the hateful pass opening.

Over the time, Magic Diamond became more and more hairy, in some old-timers’ eyes too hairy. Magic D-light is a clean, basic version of Magic Diamond with focus on natural bidding and few but frequent conventions.

1.1 List of Authors

Magic D-light

Sven-Olov Flodqvist	tjolpe@telia.com
Tomas Brenning	tomas@brenning.se

Magic Diamond

Hans Göthe	hans@gotheit.se
Lars Andersson	bridgetruck@hotmail.com

Carrotti

Sven-Olov Flodqvist

tjolpe@telia.com

1.2 Strategy

Bridge is a battle between two pairs. Therefore it is at least as important to make it difficult for the opponents to find their best contracts as finding one’s own. Most pairs bid better when left alone to open and use their system. For this reason it is important to take the initiative in the bidding as often as possible.

Setting weights on its opening bids and multiplying these with the frequencies you may measure the aggressiveness of a system. If Pass gets the weight 0, 1§ 1, 1¨ 2, and so on, the aggressiveness of a standard system will be approximately 1. Since 45% of all bridge hands contain 8-12 hcp, it is obvious that by opening hands in that interval instead of, say, 13-16 hcp, the aggressiveness will increase, actually up to about 2.

This is the theoretical background to all “weak openings systems”. It seems that one may raise the aggressiveness by simply apply lower limits for the opening bids, like Acol compared to Culbertson. But such a strategy will create problems in the constructive bidding, because of the greater span of the openings. That is why it is a good idea to combine controlled weak openings with artificial and economical strong ones.

1.3 Magic D-light Principles

a) Natural approach with bilateral exchange of information rather than relay bidding.

b) Well and narrowly defined strengths for most openings to enable “fast arrival” as often as possible. This is especially important at the game level. It is better to bid games fast and anonymously rather than aim for the theoretically correct contracts only, using extra rounds of bidding.

c) Accurate slam bidding.

d) Module approach where the same bidding structures are used over and over again after different preludes.

e) In Magic D-light the weaker hand is very often allowed to speak first. Thus there is no need for the opener to crowd the bidding. Waiting-bids after transfer responses and general positive bids are often used rather than natural space-consuming bids, except for hands with huge direct fits.

1.4 Document Conventions

As far as possible we try to stick to the ”official” bridge notation conventions, but, as a vegetarian friend of mine said when I caught him eating red meat, ”I’m not religious.”

1.4.1 Distribution Notation

This is an area where we have chosen our own path. Since Magic D-light is not a relay system, the need of specifying exact distributions is not as great as describing hand patterns.

4441, 5332, 6322 are all notations of hand patterns, not exact distributions, as many people prefer. If we want to describe an exact pattern we use suit symbols. A few examples may be in place:

· 4ª4©41 or 1m444 is a three-suited hand with a minor shortness even though we would prefer to write ”4441 with a minor shortness” or something along that line.

· 5M332 is a balanced hand with a 5-card major.

· The notation 5431 may be used when referring to an unknown suit.

1.4.2 Suit Length Notation

Lengths of suits are described in the following manner:

1-3©	1-, 2- or 3-card heart suit.
4+©	4-card heart suit or longer.
=4©	Exactly 4-card heart suit. We use this notation since ”4©” could be mistaken for a bid.

1.4.3 Terminology

We make a distinction between ”cue-bid” and ”control-bid”. A cue-bid is a bid made in a suit shown by the opponents. The purpose may be to ask for stopper or send another type of message over the table. A control-bid (see page 21) is a bid that shows a 1^st/2^nd round control and aims at slam.

1.4.4 Abbreviations

When it comes to abbreviations, we try not to use any. The purpose is to keep this document free from abbreviations since they tend to cloud the contents of the texts. Nevertheless, sometimes we have to use abbreviations. If we do, they are very clear and in need of no explanation. J

Even though the ambition is set on using no abbreviations, sometimes they come in handy since it is easier to use the abbreviation than writing an essay.

M / m	Major (© or ª) / minor (§ or ¨).
OM / om	Other major/minor. When one major/minor is the base suit the other major/minor can be referred to this way.
P/C	Pass or Correct. A P/C bid is a bid that asks the partner to pass if a suit has been found.
SysOn	System is On if we, after interference, bid according to our normal methods regardless of the interference.
NSF	New Suit Forcing.

There are a few abbreviations we use that are specific to our methods.

Since we use transfer bids in many situations we need to be able to abbreviate ”transfer to 2 of a minor” or ”transfer to 3 of an agreed major”. We use the terms TRA2m, TRA2M, TRA3m, TRA3M, and so on, to refer to bids that transfer to a certain strain and level. A few examples may be in place:

1©-1N/2§	TRA2m
1©-2¨ and 1ª-2©	TRA2M
(1x)-2§; 2ª or (1M)-2¨; 3§	TRA3m (according to our transfer defensive methods called Rubens after Jeff Rubens’ Bridge World articles)

We have several well-specified trump support modules. All of those modules are referred to by a combination of level and strain, i.e. TS2M, TS3m, and so on. This is explained more in detail on page 9.

Opening bid	Neg dbl. through	1^st/2^nd hand	3^rd/4^th hand
1§	3¨	· 12-16 hcp, any unbalanced hand including 5M332. · 15-17 hcp, balanced.	· 12-14 hcp, balanced. · 13-16 hcp, 5+M5+m.
1¨	7ª	· 17+ hcp, unbalanced. · 18+ hcp, balanced.	ç
1©	3¨	8-11 hcp, 4+©, unbalanced or 5©332, possibly longer minor.	ç but 11-16 hcp.
1ª	3¨	8-11 hcp, 4+ª, unbalanced or 5ª332, possibly longer minor.	ç but 11-16 hcp.
1N	—	12-14 hcp, balanced.	ç but 15-17 hcp.
2§	3§	8-11 hcp, 6+§ or 5+§4+¨, no 4-card major.