BBO Discussion Forums: How long has 2/1 been around? - BBO Discussion Forums

mugsysmom, on 2026-January-12, 17:44, said:

I bought Hardy’s first book on 2/1 in the mid 1970s. I never thought much of Hardy as a writer or a player but, in fairness, he was honest in writing the book. He didn’t claim that any of what he was describing was his idea. He was collating a collection of ideas that had circulated amongst the top California players since, I believe, the mid to late 1960’s, with Richard Walsh credited for a lot of it…the style of bypassing diamonds in order to show a major in response to 1C is still known as ‘Walsh’.

AFAIK, Hardy’s book (published iirc correctly in 1974 but I got mine in 19776-7) was the first actual book on the approach. It took a long time to spread to the east coast.

See Richard Walsh, out in California, and Eastern Scientific
1960's..His wife Rhoda certainly was influential..

Eastern Scientific was big by 1971 with MIT students among others..

See John Swanson

Hi,

I am not sure, but the start of 2/1 would be the introduction of the forcing NT response,
and this was done by Roth, only a guess.

The Roth-Stone system from 1953 ... 1958
http://www.gwilliams.../rothstone.html

Roth lived in New York, ..., which is not too far away from MIT.
Wikipedia mentions Richard Freeman as a partner of Roth, ..., I believe there is a connection
toward Richard Walsh.

As always, the final outcome was certainly a fusion of ideas floating around,
Simon / Marx / Gray certainly developed Acol, but used known idea that and
formalized them / made them more stringent.

With kind regards
Marlowe

5-card Majors, Western Style by Max Hardy, 1974.

Two Over One Game Force by Max Hardy, 1982. (Original)



P.S. Two Over One Game-Force Quiz Book, 1993.