[NaeosPsy]

My Swedish Club openings are :
1♣ - 11-14bal or 17+unbal or 21+any
1♦- 4+, unbal,11-16
1♥/♠ - 5+, 11-16
1NT - 15-18,may be 4441
2♣- 6+ or 5+4M, 11-16
2♦- three suiter with short diamonds, 11-16
2♥/2♠ - weak, 6+, 6-10
2NT - 19-20

Are the wide NT openings ok if it helps making 1♣ more resistant to preempts?

[gwnn]

No, they are not OK. You will be way behind the field on two common auctions. The 11-14 problem you can solve by passing many 11 counts but 15-18 is not cool.

[NaeosPsy]

gwnn, on 2012-June-17, 09:53, said:

No, they are not OK. You will be way behind the field on two common auctions. The 11-14 problem you can solve by passing many 11 counts but 15-18 is not cool.

Any ideas how to include NT bids in bids other than 1♣, while still maintaining normal ranges and 2-way club?

[mgoetze]

I see the point. When gwnn and I worked on Swedish Club we had a lot of situations where not bidding implied 11-13 bal, but bidding with 17-19 bal was just a bit too much. What you need to keep in mind is that "natural" bidders have the same problem. If they open 1♣ showing 12-14 bal or 18-19 bal or 11-21 nat and it goes 1♣-(3♠)-p-(p) they will also be in a very tough spot with 18 bal.

That said I would prefer to play

1NT 15-17 bal
2♦ 18-19 bal
2NT 20-21 bal

rather than what you have above. With 4414, open 1♣ on 11-14 and 1♥ on 15-16.

[gwnn]

Maybe Mexican 2D? We included 17-19 bal in 1C and (potentially) passed with these hands in competition sometimes.

I would definitely not like opening 1H on 4414, even very rarely...

[straube]

NaeosPsy, on 2012-June-17, 09:34, said:

My Swedish Club openings are :
1♣ - 11-14bal or 17+unbal or 21+any
1♦- 4+, unbal,11-16
1♥/♠ - 5+, 11-16
1NT - 15-18,may be 4441
2♣- 6+ or 5+4M, 11-16
2♦- three suiter with short diamonds, 11-16
2♥/2♠ - weak, 6+, 6-10
2NT - 19-20

Are the wide NT openings ok if it helps making 1♣ more resistant to preempts?

Have you tallied your opening frequencies? For 100 hands, I got...

1C 48
1D 11
1H 14
1S 19
1N 8
2C 2
2D 0

Offhand it seems that the main advantage of your Swedish Club is that your 1D opening promises diamonds and an unbalanced hand. So you win with those, but notice the relative infrequency of these hands.

I think these 2-way clubs place way too much pressure on your strong hands. About 48% of your openings you will have to later sort out 12-14 from these strong hands. Maybe that's why you want your 1N to include 18s....you're reacting to the problem.

I see that you're trying to open balanced 11 counts, but your opening organization is such that it's difficult to handle light openings. Really, your desire to open 11s and keep your 1M to 11-15 is more reminiscent of a strong club system.


Why not play strong club?

[NaeosPsy]

straube, on 2012-June-17, 10:24, said:

Have you tallied your opening frequencies? For 100 hands, I got...

1C 48
1D 11
1H 14
1S 19
1N 8
2C 2
2D 0

Offhand it seems that the main advantage of your Swedish Club is that your 1D opening promises diamonds and an unbalanced hand. So you win with those, but notice the relative infrequency of these hands.

I think these 2-way clubs place way too much pressure on your strong hands. About 48% of your openings you will have to later sort out 12-14 from these strong hands. Maybe that's why you want your 1N to include 18s....you're reacting to the problem.

I see that you're trying to open balanced 11 counts, but your opening organization is such that it's difficult to handle light openings. Really, your desire to open 11s and keep your 1M to 11-15 is more reminiscent of a strong club system.


Why not play strong club?

Are there any tools for calculating those frequencies?

Well, I just prefer playing Swedish Club based systems, it's more fun for me, and I'm not kind of happy with Swan.
I think it's not hard to sort out weak bal from strong unbal after 1♣ opening, they are pretty different.
Originally I played 11-13/17+any 1 C and 14-16 NT, BTW.

[awm]

It seems like you wouldn't lose much by opening 1♣ on the three-suiters with short diamonds. These are rare hand types anyway; you can bid 1♣-1♦-1M or 1♣-1M-raise just as you would with a weak notrump (or possibly upgrade to jump-raise if you are maximum; 4441 hands play quite well opposite a fit). This frees up your 2♦ opening, which you could use to help partition the strong hands; for example:

1♣ = 11-13 balanced, or 11-16 three suited, or 17+ unbalanced, or 21+ any
1♦, 1M = 11-16 natural
1NT = 14-16
2♣ = clubs 11-16 (this can even promise six if you open 1♣ with (431)5 types including a 4M and 1♦ with 4♦-5♣)
2♦ = 17-18 balanced
2M = weak two
2N = 19-20 balanced

[antonylee]

NaeosPsy, on 2012-June-17, 10:32, said:

Are there any tools for calculating those frequencies?

<advertisement mode on>If you know Python, you can try https://github.com/anntzer/redeal (or Thomas Andrews' Deal, if you prefer Tcl).<advertisement mode off> Otherwise BBO's hand generator will give you the frequencies as well.

As an aside, in my Polish club partnership, 4414 hands are, as a rule, opened 1♣ (1N possible if in NT range and singleton A/K, as usual); they are rare enough that it isn't really a problem.

[NaeosPsy]

Maybe I can use 2H as three suiter instead of hearts pre-empt?

[mgoetze]

NaeosPsy, on 2012-June-18, 15:02, said:

Maybe I can use 2H as three suiter instead of hearts pre-empt?

You can, but is it worth it?

[perko90]

NaeosPsy, on 2012-June-18, 15:02, said:

Maybe I can use 2H as three suiter instead of hearts pre-empt?

As, long as you like the 2-way 1♣, I would definitely recommend Adam's suggestion of including 4-4-1-4 hands in 1♣. There's really no rebid problems.

[gwnn]

Note that if you're gonna bid 2D or 2H with 4414 you can make 2C always 6+, at the cost of making 1D 4+ or 1435/4135. If you open them 1C always then I think you can also include 5C4M hands. However, in that case you will end up in some silly contracts when partner bids in competition (say he has KJxxx of spades and a queen, he will/should bid 2S over 1C-(2 any) if 1C is a weak NT, but it will be more tricky if you included some unbal C hands).

[NaeosPsy]

5314 hands are opened with 2H or 2D, so are 5440 with five clubs.

My partner suggested me to play 2D as any major 2nd level pre-empt or 17-18 bal, 2H as three suiter and 2S as some pre-empt like Spades + Minor.

[gwnn]

2D as weak 2 OR mexican probably doesn't work. 17-18 is not strong enough (this is not something I tried but I've just heard it discussed)

[NaeosPsy]

We have a problem with 1C-1D(0-6or13+)-2x It's 5+,17-20. After that, we can't think of a response scheme which could show if responder has weak or strong hand, and would allow to go to slam if strong.

[NaeosPsy]

-

[mgoetze]

We didn't play two-way 1♦ but in any case I don't see why you would bid 2M with 17-20? Why not just bid 1M?

[antonylee]

At least in a Polish club context, 2M should be 21-23 (approx) and (17)18-20 hands go into 1M (together with WNTs and 15-17 5♣4M). Over 1M it's easy: weak hands pass/bid 1♠/1N, 2m=5-11, jump to 3oM=12-16 bal, asking opener to bid 3N. If opener bids 2M then weak hands should probably go to game directly (or pass), strong hands can take it slowly (more or less anything should work).

[NaeosPsy]

mgoetze, on 2012-June-28, 16:15, said:

We didn't play two-way 1♦ but in any case I don't see why you would bid 2M with 17-20? Why not just bid 1M?

We bid 3+c M as 1M with weak NT hands.