[Cthulhu D]

 mycroft, on 2012-May-22, 10:08, said:

Wow, as an ACBL player and occasional TD who play(s|ed)* EHAA, I think you're missing something there...

They "banned" the 8-12 NT (so we play it 10-12).

*: I would play EHAA here if I could find a partner willing to do so. Might still happen. It's fun, especially at matchpoints. Having said that, when I *was* playing book-EHAA, while it *was* legal in the ACBL at GCC, it was a *YELLOW* system in Australia; banned at several events. Something about opening 86432 AQ7 T4 742...

I'm fascinated by EHAA (and it's relative? Cousin? Maybe it's the redneck cousin of Fantunes). What other differences between EHAA now and then are there?

Quote

Unofficially, the ACBL frowns on methods like EHAA. As an outsider, it seems to me that they would prefer people to play similar, natural systems. Then matchpoint events would be decided by bidding judgement and cardplay skills.

EHAA is a simple natural system.

[mycroft]

Well, standard, "Northern" EHAA, is defined by:

• 10-12 NT all seats, all vuls
  
• EHAA 2-bids (5+card suit, 6-12 HCP, essentially ANY hand that fits - in particular, opposite unpassed hand, you can't not open such a hand)
  
• 4-card majors and sound opening bids
  
• EHAA preempts (<6 HCP, unless at game level, LTC-based on vul)
  
• and most play EHAA overcalls (a 2-bid is a 2-bid, sound overcalls and doubles, IJOs to the 3-level)

You can see that at Wikipedia or Eric Landau's precis at bluejak's site.

"Southern" EHAA puts it into a strong/two-way club context; whether you reduce your 1-bids to Precision minimums and 1♣ is 16+ (and that makes your EHAA 2-bids even weaker!) or you keep the sound openers, but go Polish-style with your 1♣ is up to you.

Various other things were tried over time, like K/S-style "systemic psychics" and 8-12 (or 8-11) 1NT openings; but were ushered out by the ACBL with the regulations that banned them across the board. I've seen people play it in a 5cM context, but that seems like too much work for me (but then again, I can actually *play* 4cM; there are many that can't, now).

I think anything that does EHAA-style 2 bids and a 10-12 NT (at least NV) can be EHAA; but I still prefer playing 1960's style. It certainly improves my judgement given that there's a lot more of it than in my normal systems!