[paulhar]

whereagles, on Aug 22 2004, 05:31 PM, said:

Besides, give pard a not-so-unlikely 1534 and they might regret the heart overcall. You don't always need to think in terms of the worst-case-scenario

You're going to pass 1H doubled?

[Free]

whereagles, on Aug 22 2004, 11:31 PM, said:

I don't see what's the problem of opening a strong club.

Play strong club for 1 month against decent opps (this is players who actually know something about bridge) and you'll KNOW what the problem is...

[Gerben47]

Open 4♠ on the first and 1♠ on the second.

Just to mention this. Accurate slam bidding is important. It has been identified as one of the key reasons the Dutch Open Team did not do well in recent European Championships (don't know about Malmö).

If the opposition is good enough, don't worry they won't reach game where you are considering to bid slam or not. With grand slams it's different. It might be that others are in game only.

The problem with strong club can be summarized as:

1♣ (2♠) now what? Oh well, at least you can double for takeout. Next round:
1♣ (2♥ = ♥ or ♠+♣) now what? Don't they ever shut up? What suit do they have? I'm confused...

Gerben

[whereagles]

Free, on Aug 23 2004, 10:10 AM, said:

whereagles, on Aug 22 2004, 11:31 PM, said:

I don't see what's the problem of opening a strong club.

Play strong club for 1 month against decent opps (this is players who actually know something about bridge) and you'll KNOW what the problem is...

Look... how about you stop talking to me like I'm a beginner? I've played strong club for years against top competition in european championships. And quite honestly, I don't remember any particular board where opponent's overcalls on my strong club openings led to disaster. But I do remember a few boards where I myself made unsound overcalls on their strong club openers and got trashed.

Just because you open a strong club on an unbalanced hand doesn't mean you'll always get preempted to death. That sort of thing only happens on american movies!! Reality is different. Overcalls on strong clubs are not that hard to handle, especially if you hold a flexible hand like AQTxxxx -- KJxx Kx.

[mishovnbg]

whereagles: "I've played strong club for years against top competition in european championships. And quite honestly, I don't remember any particular board where opponent's overcalls on my strong club openings led to disaster. But I do remember a few boards where I myself made unsound overcalls on their strong club openers and got trashed."
Do you really believe to your own words or you again just kidding? Any player who used to play strong ♣/♦ had a lot of mistakes after opps preempts, as well as some gains of course.
I watched several matches, here in BBO, where Rado&Joro played vs Ron&Rubin. Rado's pair used to play vs 1♣ opening (16+) Rambler (complicate, but most destructive, based on Law). Several times (!) Ron&Rubin give up when after 16 boards they already lose by 50/70 imp, because 1♣ coming too often!!!

Shortly: if opps know what to do after strong 1♣/♦ opening, you are in trouble, because need to guess almost all time. It is true that most of pairs are too lazy to use something complicate...

Misho

[whereagles]

Well... I agree it's not easy, but I don't think the situation is as bad as you make it. If it were unbareable, no world-class expert would be playing strong club systems, don't you agree?

[Free]

I played MP at top level in Belgium this year, and we came against 1 strong ♣ pair which had the bad luck to open 2 boards with 1♣ against us in the semi-final. Result: 2 tops for us! In the final we met them again, and they opened only once with 1♣. Result: a top for us on that hand!

In my local club (not the highest level, but still ok) they have a club system called "Petit Carreau" which is a strong ♣ system. These days our opps actually FEAR to open a 1♣ against us, because we have a really great system (and it's quite simple) against it. I can't count the successes on my fingers and toes that I've had with intervening with it after strong ♣s, but I actually can count them on 1 hand where I ended up in the brown mess: 3 times. And these days the system has been adjusted so these cases don't come up anymore.

The problem is not the strong ♣ SYSTEM, it's the strong ♣ OPENING. Against the pair mentioned above, we played again on an international tourney (mostly benelux) in Ostend. They didn't open with 1♣ and they got 2 nice scores.
The power (why the world-class experts play it) is the limited openings, and despite of the poor 1♣ opening, we/they accept the consequences and try to deal with it. That also means you shouldn't open 1♣ as much as possible, but as few as possible. That's why I think opening strong 1♣ with such hand is an awful bid.

[mishovnbg]

whereagles, on Aug 23 2004, 05:47 PM, said:

Well... I agree it's not easy, but I don't think the situation is as bad as you make it. If it were unbareable, no world-class expert would be playing strong club systems, don't you agree?

Yes!
Actually in not vul the best way is to play strong ♣/♦. In vul there is no right answer at all, so most of top players continue play it. One of best solutions is to play in vul something like polish club (look Rumen-Kalin system).
Misho

P.S. I did research about systems of top world players and posted it here in BBO. Only 25% of them use strong ♣/♦ system and between theese 25% some use in vul different system.

[pclayton]

Free, on Aug 23 2004, 08:01 AM, said:

I played MP at top level in Belgium this year, and we came against 1 strong ♣ pair which had the bad luck to open 2 boards with 1♣ against us in the semi-final. Result: 2 tops for us! In the final we met them again, and they opened only once with 1♣. Result: a top for us on that hand!

In my local club (not the highest level, but still ok) they have a club system called "Petit Carreau" which is a strong ♣ system. These days our opps actually FEAR to open a 1♣ against us, because we have a really great system (and it's quite simple) against it. I can't count the successes on my fingers and toes that I've had with intervening with it after strong ♣s, but I actually can count them on 1 hand where I ended up in the brown mess: 3 times. And these days the system has been adjusted so these cases don't come up anymore.

The problem is not the strong ♣ SYSTEM, it's the strong ♣ OPENING. Against the pair mentioned above, we played again on an international tourney (mostly benelux) in Ostend. They didn't open with 1♣ and they got 2 nice scores.
The power (why the world-class experts play it) is the limited openings, and despite of the poor 1♣ opening, we/they accept the consequences and try to deal with it. That also means you shouldn't open 1♣ as much as possible, but as few as possible. That's why I think opening strong 1♣ with such hand is an awful bid.

I totally agree with Free. The worst thing about playing a strong club system is opening 1♣. Opponents feel a lot more liberties to come in at the one level. Why? Because the opening is a lot lower than a strong 2♣ opening AND its a level lower. Sure, sometimes if we are forced onto a natural bidding track after we open a strong 1♣ we frequently land on our feet, but I can tell you some significant disasters that have occurred which have cost us some big events.

As a result, our competive bidding section of our strong club is close to 30% of the notes. Know what to do every conceivable situation at the one level and 2 level.

Edgar Kaplan once suggested playing a strong club ONLY when the opponents were vulnerable. I don't feel this strongly, but you see his point.

[inquiry]

The basis of a poll I gave last week was mucking with the opponents big club.. the full hand was....

Scoring: IMP

West North East South
 -     -     -     Pass
 1♣!   3♣    3NT   5♣
 6♥    Pass  Pass  Pass
 

---

Playing for the first time with a pick up partner, at favorable vulnerability, I applied the pressure witha 5♣ bid. Turns out we are a bit too high, given that we are surely down one too much in 5♣. Perhaps this would be a better story for the strong club guys if they had stopped to double us in five clubs. But it turns out, that West took the push. Even 5♥ is down on non-club/heart leads. But it is difficult to pass that monster west hand, to give partner a chance to double (clearly that is the winning auction if you are then brave enough to sit for it with a void and an unannounced great 6 card heart suit).

In fact in the pass out seat i had a difficult time for some reason. I could see no club tricks for us on this auction, and clearly what I thought was no heart tricks (how was I to guess there is no entry to dummy to hook my king). So partner needs two tricks in spades and diamonds. given the bidding, I thought this EXTREMELY unlikely. But after some thought and despite teh bidding, I choose pass. And low and behold partner began ACE-ACE. Happy diays.

Ben

[whereagles]

Well, you guys are going off-topic. On our case, the hand is

AQTxxxx
--
KJxx
Kx

and I don't have a problem opening a strong club on it. The opps would have to bid to the FIVE level to inhibith my 4S rebid. Even if that happens, I wouldn't be much better off than if I had opened 1S.

As for the off-topic discussion, those who say "preempts will be the death of the strong club" have been saying that for 30 years already, and what I see instead is more and more players and experts using Precision. Also, that players use Precision only for the limited 1D/H/S openers cannot be a correct statement. Why would they spend time going through all the asking bid structures if they didn't think they could use it? But then again, this is a futile discussion. Time will tell who's right or wrong.

[Free]

whereagles, on Aug 23 2004, 05:44 PM, said:

As for the off-topic discussion, those who say "preempts will be the death of the strong club" have been saying that for 30 years already, and what I see instead is more and more players and experts using Precision. Also, that players use Precision only for the limited 1D/H/S openers cannot be a correct statement. Why would they spend time going through all the asking bid structures if they didn't think they could use it? But then again, this is a futile discussion. Time will tell who's right or wrong.

Now THIS I agree with I don't think strong ♣ systems will disapear because of preempts, I don't think Polish ♣ systems will disapear,... UNLESS the regulations would certainly ban them like strong pass systems. They all have their advantages and disadvantages, and we accept the disadvantages as a trade for the advantages. And everyone has his own preferences

[1eyedjack]

whereagles, on Aug 23 2004, 11:44 AM, said:

Well, you guys are going off-topic. On our case, the hand is

AQTxxxx
--
KJxx
Kx

and I don't have a problem opening a strong club on it. The opps would have to bid to the FIVE level to inhibith my 4S rebid.

Having opened a strong Club I do not feel inclined to rebid 4S opposite no encouragement from partner (unless forced to do so by 4H overcall, of course).

whereagles, on Aug 23 2004, 11:44 AM, said:

Even if that happens, I wouldn't be much better off than if I had opened 1S.

I don't have a strong opinion about the merits of opening a strong Club on this particular hand. But generally I found, when playing precision, a marked increase in accuracy by opening 1S on hands whose playing strength derives more from distribution than high cards and, trusting that the auction will not die, making a strong rebid. You lose the theoretical advantage of responder trap passing you in 1S with values and a misfit.

whereagles, on Aug 23 2004, 11:44 AM, said:

As for the off-topic discussion, those who say "preempts will be the death of the strong club" have been saying that for 30 years already, and what I see instead is more and more players and experts using Precision.

Odd, that. My experience is otherwise. I find that most players start with a natural system, then experiment with precision, then move back to natural again. So precision will never die, as there will always be a substantial population going through their precision phase.

[the hog]

"Well, you guys are going off-topic. On our case, the hand is

AQTxxxx
--
KJxx
Kx

and I don't have a problem opening a strong club on it. The opps would have to bid to the FIVE level to inhibith my 4S rebid. "

Would not open this 1C for a number of reasons, some of which Free has already mentioned.

Also opening this with 1C is to compromise the 1C opening. If the bidding proceeds 1C (4H) X are you happy? No!. You intimate you would bid 4S without a qualm. Well, now you might find partner with QTxx and an outside card or 2. Will you make 4S? Who knows. I also might consider 4S but I certainly would not feel confident. Worse still if the bidding is 1C (5C) X. How much easier is it if the auction is 1S (4H) X. Now you feel much more comfortable in passing.

We had a rule that 1C openings were always full value. This had 2 side effects. When pd x a high level contract, I could pass in comparative comfort. Also when we opened with 1 suit we were able to jump around to show length etc. This hand qualifies nicely.

As to the discussion re the continuation of strong C opening systems; they will continue of course, but probably only in the hands of good partners who are prepared to put in a lot of work, especially in coping with intervention. I would expect to see more and more 2 way club systems in the next few years.

Ron

[whereagles]

The_Hog, on Aug 24 2004, 12:01 AM, said:

We had a rule that 1C openings were always full value. This had 2 side effects. When pd x a high level contract, I could pass in comparative comfort. Also when we opened with 1 suit we were able to jump around to show length etc. This hand qualifies nicely.

Well, I prefer to see strong club openings as a bidding tool that I can use whenever I have a hand that is fit for it, regardless of points

The hand is, of course, good for opening 1S and rebidding 4S. But if pard has

Kx
xxxx
AQx
Qxxx

1S 1NT
4S

he is not much better off than if you had opened 4S

[paulhar]

whereagles, on Aug 23 2004, 11:44 AM, said:

Well, you guys are going off-topic. On our case, the hand is

AQTxxxx
--
KJxx
Kx

and I don't have a problem opening a strong club on it. The opps would have to bid to the FIVE level to inhibith my 4S rebid. Even if that happens, I wouldn't be much better off than if I had opened 1S.

Which auction would you prefer?

Standard: 1S (2H) 3D (4H) ?

or strong club: 1C (2H) Dbl (4H) ?

presumably 3D in the strong club auction shows some specific strengh...

[whereagles]

In 1C (2H) X, if double is game-force, then I would prefer to have opened 1S. But if double is just for competition, I actually prefer to have opened 1C. Now I know I don't belong in slam and can bid 4S with confidence.

[the hog]

"Well, I prefer to see strong club openings as a bidding tool that I can use whenever I have a hand that is fit for it, regardless of points."
I totally agree with this statement; thats why I open 1S.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The hand is, of course, good for opening 1S and rebidding 4S. But if pard has

Kx
xxxx
AQx
Qxxx

You seriously can't be suggesting your auction of
1S 1N
4S

Firstly responder has an 11 count - too good for 1NT unless you play a forcing NT
Secondly, why on earth would opener not autosplinter on the hand? Now responder can see that the hands are a superb fit and make some move to slam.

[whereagles]

Hog, you're coming exactly to my point! If you have the gadgets to show the long spades and void heart after opening 1S, by all means open 1S. It is only if you don't have the gadgetry that I prefer opening 1C.

Though I still think there's a lot to be said about a straight-forward 4S opener. Like for instance, what might be

1S (2C) X (5C)

1S (2H) X (4H)
4S (5H)

is now

4S p p p