[shevek]

1♣ ¹⁶⁺ - (1♥) - 2♥?

What should 2♥ be?
You only get two choices.

(a) Michaels
♠KTxxx ♥x ♦AJxxx ♣xx

(b) Stopper ask (so balanced GF with no stopper)
♠Kx ♥xx ♦AKQxx ♣Jxx

Would it be different at the 3-level:
1♣ ¹⁶⁺ - (2♥) - 3♥?

[gordontd]

If you only have two options it should be the first. With the second why would you not just start by bidding your hand? It's true you have less space if they have made a jump overcall, but I think you should keep the same agreement for consistency. You can deal with the question of stoppers for NT on the next round if it becomes relevant.

[mycroft]

Yeah, "cards and no bid" (cards and no bid and no interest in defending over 2♥) seems to be classic. If that's the meaning for double, then whatever the double would otherwise be (in my Precision variant, it's usually semi-positive)?

I agree with Gordon: Michaels is a great meaning - the once a year you get to bid it. Certainly better than the other option - why do we think we should be captain opposite "any" 16+? We'll almost always get another chance to stopper ask, especially if it's 6NT that's in the picture rather than 3.

Another benefit of the classic meanings is that they don't completely degrade when their overcall is conventional (as 30-40% of defences are, if you treat "hearts and" as conventional). "Hearts and Spades"? "Hearts or takeout of hearts"? "majors or minors"? "hearts and a minor"? "spades or minors"? Sure, there are ways to defend against some of those that work better than "generic agreement", but then again, I don't play this system as much as MeckWell or Grue - so there's a limit to "what we will both remember, the one time a year it comes up".

[akwoo]

I'm not sure what really is the difference between "stopper ask" and "cards and no bid". I suppose the latter contains some 3-suiters, and the former contains some hands with long suits in a minor?

It's true that Greek-letter-asking-bid Precision is bad at handling two-suited hands, but I'm not sure this is the right place to address that weakness.

You do need some way of handling the "cards and no bid" hands; they're pretty frequent, much more so than the two-suiter. Making the double too wide puts you at risk of further preemption from fourth seat.

Also, mycroft's point about many overcalls being conventional and needing some reasonable meta-rules to cover all the different conventional meanings people have is a good one. In any field where opponents have prepared against Precision, you're going to see 2!H as hearts and spades or hearts and a minor or Suction or psycho Suction or inverted psycho Suction a fair a mount of the time.

[mycroft]

The hands are pretty similar, I would think (although I wouldn't expect a 13-count without a heart card too often!), but "cards and no bid" to me means "GF, any other call would be lying". So, yes, usually it will be flattish without enough heart stuff to make the "GF BAL" bid if you're playing pretty natural otherwise against overcalls.

The difference to me is that "stopper ask" means I'm taking (at least some) control over the auction, and I don't get enough hands where I can take control of the auction opposite "any 16+ unbal, any 17+ BAL". I have lots of hands where I can say "okay, partner, I have a GF without a good suit and without a great stopper".

It's a captaincy thing, to be short.

[KingCovert]

I used to play:

Pass: 0-4 or 10+ HCP.
Double: 5-9. No 5-card suit.
Suit: 5-9. 5+ cards in the suit. You could conceivably play this as a transfer.

This kept the bidding nice and low. I found it very effective.

I can't recall the meaning of a NT bid or a cue-bid, I don't think they were really agreed bids. You could conceivably play it as two-suited and stopper showing, there seems to be enough room.

Cheapest NT: Two-Suited.
Cue-bid: Shows a stopper with balanced hand.

I chose that allocation because, why not? You're surely not playing NT after having 2 five card suits.

EDIT: I guess, you might need to declare to guard the stopper, although, it is well positioned on the auction? *stream of consciousness*

[akwoo]

KingCovert, on 2020-July-16, 13:27, said:

I used to play:

Pass: 0-4 or 10+ HCP.
Double: 5-9. No 5-card suit.
Suit: 5-9. 5+ cards in the suit. You could conceivably play this as a transfer.

This kept the bidding nice and low. I found it very effective.

I can't recall the meaning of a NT bid or a cue-bid, I don't think they were really agreed bids. You could conceivably play it as two-suited and stopper showing, there seems to be enough room.

Cheapest NT: Two-Suited.
Cue-bid: Shows a stopper with balanced hand.

I chose that allocation because, why not? You're surely not playing NT after having 2 five card suits.

EDIT: I guess, you might need to declare to guard the stopper, although, it is well positioned on the auction? *stream of consciousness*

How high up did you play this? I can't imagine playing pass as 2-way after a 3-level preempt.

For that matter, how did you handle 1C-(1S)-P-(3S)-P-(P)? Was double 10+ no obvious place to play, or penalty? Was it generally the right risk to take to bid 4H in that position with only 5 hearts (and 10+ points)?

(I can tell you that, after (1C)-1S-(P) with 1C alerted as 17+ any and pass alerted as 0-4 or 10+, I'm bidding 3S on any excuse. In fact there is a non-negligible chance that both spade bidders are psyching!)

[KingCovert]

akwoo, on 2020-July-16, 14:53, said:

How high up did you play this? I can't imagine playing pass as 2-way after a 3-level preempt.

For that matter, how did you handle 1C-(1S)-P-(3S)-P-(P)? Was double 10+ no obvious place to play, or penalty? Was it generally the right risk to take to bid 4H in that position with only 5 hearts (and 10+ points)?

(I can tell you that, after (1C)-1S-(P) with 1C alerted as 17+ any and pass alerted as 0-4 or 10+, I'm bidding 3S on any excuse. In fact there is a non-negligible chance that both spade bidders are psyching!)

I think this is a good criticism. Honestly, the auction didn't occur too much, because, as you could imagine, the amount of times you legitimately have such bids at favourable vulnerability (because unfavourable vulnerability sounds like an absolute scoring nightmare) are rare. It's hard for me to say that any methods would be particularly effective if both opponents are psyching, to be honest, but, yeah that would be quite difficult to handle.


I think I could make the following adjustments:

PASS: 0-4 any shape OR (10+ HCP AND no 5-card suit).
Double: 5-9. No 5-card Suit.
New Suit: 5+ HCP. Transfer bid showing 5+ in the suit.

Seems like it would work better. This should make it so that a PASS and then double in pass out seat is basically telling Opener to set the contract or leave it in for penalty.

[akwoo]

KingCovert, on 2020-July-17, 11:27, said:

I think this is a good criticism. Honestly, the auction didn't occur too much, because, as you could imagine, the amount of times you legitimately have such bids at favourable vulnerability (because unfavourable vulnerability sounds like an absolute scoring nightmare) are rare. It's hard for me to say that any methods would be particularly effective if both opponents are psyching, to be honest, but, yeah that would be quite difficult to handle.

I have to say that most of my strong club experience has been in MPs in fields that had a fair number of players who were more experienced playing against it than we were in playing it. My experienced opponents all thought they were better off (at MPs) taking a chance they'll be -2000 if they had a good chance of getting you to play the wrong game (plus a small chance of having disrupted a delicate slam auction). Being at a high level with everyone guessing, knowing you were behind the field, was not a comfortable experience. (On the other hand, it was very nice when you ended up in a competitive auction after a 1M opening knowing you were ahead of the field in knowing your side's total strength.)

So we got the 1C-(1S)-X-(3S) auction or 1C-(3H) a lot, regardless of vulnerability. (We played X there as 5-8 not single-suited. We were in a Suction-popular area, so 3H would frequently have been spades or minors.)

[mycroft]

We're way off topic, I know, but my advice to players who ask me about defence to strong club is "do whatever you can to get to 2M or 3m before 1♣ bidder's second call." So I intensely dislike systems where "the goal is to confuse" - confusion doesn't gain as much as taking away space does in the auction, and it usually is made clear early in the play. I like systems where you can raise one of two suits, whether it's "one of the two partner has shown" or "I have a red suit and a black suit, which one is our fit?"

I also explain that with only one or two pairs playing some Strong Club, it has to be a defence you can get right three weeks from now when it first comes up. With my regular partners I play Mathe, not because it's the best - it's definitely not - but because it's easy to remember(*) and they play it with other partners, so I and they will remember. By preference I would play the version of Truscott where the 1 level is "suit-worth-leading", 2 level is "this and the next", and 1NT is "two non-touching", but if I have to bid it 10 times to get an advantage over Mathe, and if we forget it once, it will lose all the gains, I know which one I expect to happen first.

So, I plan my "defence to defences" against what I find hardest to deal with, and then look to see how badly it degrades against the poker players. And then remind myself, again, of hrothgar's maxim: "I hope to break even on the strong club hands, and get my wins when I bid something else (in particular 1M).

(*)Well, easy to remember after it goes (1♣)-X-(something)-3♠; X-AP and the doubler had a "normal takeout double of clubs". The 7-card fit played better than it could have (-500 into vul game instead of 8 or 11 if they sussed out the misbid earlier), but it won't be forgotten again anyway!

[Zelandakh]

Just to clarify, you do realise that you can play your usual response structure over a 1♥ overcall, right? It might not be optimal but for most non-expert pairs it simplifies things enormously and can sometimes act as a useful insurance against the opps messing around with psyches or "misbids". How do you play a 2♥ response to your 1♣ opening? Maybe you can keep the same meaning intact?

Oh yes, and for reference I agree wholeheartedly with mycroft's post - when designing a defence against a strong 1♣ opening, gear it to getting to 2M/3m as quickly as possible whenever it is reasonable to do so.