[DinDIP]

After four years of playing a Moscito-like system partner suggested Polish Club, and now we've put relays aside for a system that allows partner much more freedom.

Polish club has some theoretical merits but it also has some flaws. Surprisingly to me, two of these flaws involve diamonds. The first one became obvious pretty quickly: how to bid strong hands with principal length in diamonds after opening 1♣? Partner said he'd rarely encountered this problem at the table but indulged me by making a few changes:

* 1♣-1♦/1M-3♣ shows 5+D and 4+C

* 1♣-1♠-2N is either BAL or 1-4-5-3

* 1♣-1M-3♦ promises 6+D

* 1♣-1M-3N is either solid C or solid D.

As well, if the auction goes 1♣ (P) 1M (inter), 2♦ is NAT, not Odwrotka.

Given that partner likes Odwrotka, is there anything else we could or should consider to handle this problem? I'd add that partner is not attracted to the intriguing suggestion of David Collier to open 1♦ with 18-21 as well as the 11-17 hands.

The other diamond problem only became apparent when partner and I started to practise 1♣-2♦ auctions. We kept having auctions where responder could not tell what hand type opener had and we were unable to sort out strength, strain and level. (We didn't want to play MAFIA responses, and we wanted to allow opener discretion about how to bid his weak notrumps.) I've now concluded that after the companion auction (1♣-2♣) rebidding 2♦ with all BAL hands seems a significant improvement. I'm still testing whether to adopt the same method (step=BAL) after 1♣-2♦. Does anyone have any experience with this? With some alternative?

I'm also considering the idea of swapping the 1♣-2♦ and 1♣-1♦-1M-2♦ sequences, based on a suggestion from David Collier. Again, I'd be interested in any experience anyone has with this, or any ideas about how to implement it better.

And I'm open to other solutions to Polish Club's diamond problems.

[phoenix214]

Not having played that much polish club, id still go with a variation of the following:
Up to range of 1D, as it shows an unbalanced hand anyway, and you would want to open that more, if partner resists, ask him, how often does he pass 1D? If the answer is infrequent, it should not be a problem.
As to keep 1D limited, I'm assuming you are playing multi, so you can add the strong D hand types there.

[Kungsgeten]

I play Swedish Club, which is basically Polish Club but 2C is (11)12-16 instead of 11-14, so 1C is weak NT or 17+. We use Odwrotka too, so we had similar problems after our 1C opening. Here's a document which may give some suggestions: http://snortingmarad...swedishclub.pdf (we've updated our structure since that document).

What we did after 1C-1M was to let 2C be a two-suiter with a 5+ minor, and 1C-1M; 3m was 6+ minor single-suiter. I do not think that would work in Polish Club though, since the Polish 2C rebid isn't game forcing. I really think you should consider expanding the range of the 1D opening, especially if it promises an unbalanced hand.

Another thing we did was to let 1C-1D; 1H be forcing for one round: 12-14 NT with 3+ hearts / any unbalanced hands with extras but not enough to force game / GF balanced hand / GF with hearts. I think that works pretty well over 1C-1D, but it won't help over 1C-1M.

We play minor suit transfers after the 1C opening: 1C-1NT shows clubs and 1C-2C shows diamonds. They're constructive and unlimited, but doesn't need to be GF (we play them as 8+ hcp, so in our case they're GF vs the strong hand). The consequence of this is that 1C-1D is a negative hand, or a hand containing the natural 1NT response (in our case 0-7 hcp or 8-10 flat without a four card major). I think that's less of a burden compared to the Polish 1D response. Over the minor suit transfers opener accepts with the weak NT, can bid 2m+1 as a GF relay, or bid something else as natural and strong (2NT replaces the relay).

[Kungsgeten]

phoenix214, on 2017-January-18, 01:41, said:

As to keep 1D limited, I'm assuming you are playing multi, so you can add the strong D hand types there.

We considered this too, but if you want strong diamonds hand in the multi I think the diamond hands should be game forcing, so I'm not sure how much it solves.

[sfi]

What DinDIP isn't telling you is that his partner is a system curmudgeon who is comfortable with trading off theoretical advantages for the practical ones of natural bidding and ease of memory.

In short, don't encourage DinDIP.

[Zelandakh]

Have you considered using the "1♣ = 15+ bal or 15+ nat or 18+ any" base? That allows you to retain your relays while keeping to a Polish-like 3-way base. Since you no longer need to use the auctions 1♣ - 1♦; 1M for non-forcing hands, you also gain some efficiency, albeit at the cost of a. losing the weak NT protection for your strong opening; and b. being easier to penalise on the weak NT hands.

If you do want to stick with traditional PC then the idea of adding some additional hands into 1♦ is not without merit. The other solution that I have seen here is to borrow from AUC, using a 2♣ rebid to show a strong hand without 3 card support and bumping the natural club rebid up to 3♣. Here is one of several discussions we have had on BBF regarding various aspects of these auctions that might give some additional ideas and insight on the matter (one further idea is to switch the 3♣ and 3♦ rebids for example). One final suggestion would be to contact MickyB - he has a simple (simpler than Matula at least) but effective relay structure over 2♦ that might help to solve some of your issues.

[nullve]

sfi, on 2017-January-18, 04:37, said:

What DinDIP isn't telling you is that his partner is a system curmudgeon

Since when did system curmudgeons have a problem with 1♦ as 11-21?

[Siegmund]

I echo OP's partner's experience, that I don't remember it being a common problem at the table.

Partly this is because, if you come from Standard or 2/1, you are used to having horrible problems with diamonds after a 2C opening, and no matter how bad your problems are after 1C-1M, you say to yourself "hey, at least partner got in that 1M bid, instead of it going 2C-2D-3D." It makes it feel like an improvement if you EVER get the diamonds introduced before getting to the 3-level.

I certainly don't like the idea of jamming more hands into Odwrotka - it's bad enough having 3- and 4-card support hands going through the same sequence. (But the upside to playing Odwrotka is that when it goes 1C-1M-Jump, responder doesn't worry about showing a 5th card in his major.)

* * *

As for your second problem, "we didn't want to play MAFIA responses" is most of the problem - I struggle to imagine a Polish style system without MAFIA - as for MAFIA folk the problems after 1C-2D are not so different as after 1C-2C or 1D-2D. I have been using 1C-2D-2M as "assume for now it's a stopper, and if it goes 1C-2D-2M-2N-3M, I really had 18+ with a long major", since on a frequency basis the minimum balanced hands greatly outnumber the strong hands --- but if you like using 1C-2C-2D artificially, you can certainly consider using 1C-2D-2H similarly.

[benlessard]

I got 3 solutions

1- open 1D 11-21. You lose some psych opportunity, the non-forcing jump shift, and 1D-4M with a wide range. You will also need to make some light courtesy raises (1D-1M-2C-3C). Small cost compared to the trouble of strong D hands in 1C.

2- this one is weird but 1D is unbalanced with clubs or 4-5 both minors unbalanced, 1C now include some D hands instead of the club hands.
The idea is that 1C-1Y-2C as artificial or D is significantly better than 2C as artificial or clubs. Of course a 1D opening that is NF but show 5C is not for everybody.

Add the switch
1D-1H-??

1S both minors (may have 3H)
1NT 4S (may have 3H)
2C only clubs

1D-1S-??

1NT-both minors
2C clubs or clubs +4H

and you have 2C free for something else. I think my firend play that 2C is 6D so that when hes got D hands under 1C its always a 2 suiter.


3rd one is a bit complicated but 1NT = 12-14 and 1C is 15+bal, 15+ with clubs and 18+ any.