System philosophy

2015.02.19

Fantunes Lite - System philosophy (modified Fantunes designed for IMP play)

 

It is easier to understand our “Lite”system if you read the excellent book ”Fantunes Revealed” by Bill Jacobs first.

When Bill Jacobs published the book ”Fantunes Revealed” I was one of the first in Sweden to buy it. The system basics meats my ideas about the best design possible for constructive bidding. Opening one of a suit, forcing and the weak one no trump 12-15 hcp are both big winners. The champ, however, is the unbalanced one diamond opening. It makes a clean sweep with weak and short openings in standard systems and some weird club systems, where it can be a void or a single-carder. The amazing thing in the Fantunes system is of course the forcing one of a suit opening!

 Opening one of a suit is 12+ hcp and forcing for one round. However, the one club is 16+ for all balanced and unbalanced hands or a strong Acol (clubs) opening .

These demands on openings and the transfer responses we predict will be mainstream soon. In the bridge world this means in some decades.

Fantunes Lite is a natural system with simpler bidding than in big club systems. Of course for instance Meckwell Precision is more precise but requires much more work.

I have read “Fantunes Revealed” over and over again. It is very good. I have played versions of Fantunes since the book arrived. I liked the structure from the beginning as I am a believer in weak NT and unbalanced diamonds. As an ordinary, lazy bridge player I find some of the original Fantunes sequences awkward or causing too much memory strain for a non-professional. I and my partner(s) have therefore made the bidding easier to handle. Maybe we are too lazy?

We have therefore made the following basic modifications:

  • The one club opening is 16+ or a distributional “Acol two”. The two club opening is 12-14 to enable heart hands to be bid naturally and to reverse with more. Consequently we can introduce the intelligent twist; one club – transfer to a one-level bid followed by two clubs to show 22+ balanced a true improvement. Big balanced hands are now much simpler to bid.
  • After 1club – transfer to a major we play a three-tier; a) accept of the transfer to show NT (15 good)16-18 and b) a 1NT bid to show NT 19-21 and c) followed by two clubs to show 22+. Very convenient to have all balanced hands quickly defined.
  • As a result we need neither the preemptive jump to 2NT nor the opening 2NT nor the three-card trump support jump. We use the 2M support jump with four-support and 15-17. A 2NT jump is the same hand but 18+.
  • Gazzilli is a very important fundament in the system. Now a two diamond opening is a Multi 12-15hcp with a sixcard major. The obsolete 2NT opening is now used to show both majors and 11-15 hcp. These two changes result in a very accurate and very new Gazzilli.
  • Unbalanced one diamond openings we have played since long. The opener uses transfers after 1D – 1M which results in magic bidding. Also some other diamond bidding twists we find better than standard Fantunes.
  • There are some other modifications too but these are the main issues.