akhare

It might be worthwhile to read Chip Martel's thoughts on defensive bidding against the Polish Club. As I recall, he was of the opinion that the system wasn't sound and that the 1♣ opening was the Achilles' Heel...

I am guessing the OP meant to ask about the relative merits of 1430 vs. 0314 and whether it really makes any difference to non-experts. In any case, discussions about vanilla conventions like this one likely belong in the General or Advanced forums? ;)...

Interesting video on evidence, science and open mindedness.

Can you please post a summary of the Slawinski leads? I will try and obtain the issue in question, but it's likely going to take a while. From what I understand, the gist is: 1) Low from doubletons 2) Low from interest 3) High from worthless tripleton 4) Potentially second best from worthless four card or longer suit Are there more specific details?

I toyed around with a system that combined strong ♣ with F-N type 2 level openings (2♦ / 2♥ / 2♠ = 7-10). It seemed to work OK, but I really haven't had sufficient mileage on it in serious competition to reach any firm conclusions. Serapuff and PuffynPaw have been playing the F-N system for a while now on BBO...

I concur with RobF et all regarding the efficacy of AKQ points. BTW, why restrict the relays to balanced hands only? They work equally well for all hand types. Also, it's nice to include a provision for opener to reverse relay holding a minimum balanced hand too -- this typically results in a much more compact (and less informative auction) if the final contract is destined to be 3N / 4M.

I second that -- BTW, I am still not convinced that 2/1 is all that better than SAYC (not the archaic version of course). Having good partnership agreements is more important than the differences between the two systems...

What's your opinion on using reverse relays to limit opener's strength after 1♣ - 1♦ (any GF)?

IMO, the best use of reverse relays to limit opener's strength and it seems to work pretty well in Moscito scheme that uses 1♦ response to 1♣ as any GF. For instance, the auction: 1♣ - 1♦ (GF) - 1N (RevR. balanced hand with 9-11 QPs) - 3N is much better than 1♣ - 1♦ - 1♥ - 1♠ - 1N - 2♣...3N. Also, responsder can completely resolve RevR's shape if needed. Does anyone have an opinion on whether the RevRelays should be optimized to maximize the chances of responder becoming declarer? The structure that pard and I came up with actually maximized the RevR's chances of become declarer. The idea was that after opener limits the hand by reverse relaying, the chances of a slam become remote and therefore responder should relay once or twice to resolve relative suit length and place the final contract. This also allows responder to completely break out relays as well (say by using transfers over a 1N rebid). For example after 1♣ - 1♦ (GF): 1♠: All unbalanced hands with with ♠ 1N: All balanced hands 2♥: Single suited with ♥s 2♠: ♥+♦ (reversed) 2♠: ♥+♦ (LL) etc.

Here's a outline of the version that I (foobar) play with DrTodd. It's very similar to Moscito (with 2 under transfer openings though) and symmetric relays. http://www.geocities.com/drtodd13/dejeuner.doc IMO, one of the improvements is that 1N shouldn't be so restrictive (presently no 4CM unless 4333) and it can be easily accomplished by tweaking the 1N scheme. PM if you want more details...

IMO, it's not worth going through the motions of learning two completely different system just out of fear of interference by opps. Also, I don't see how playing Polish Club when vul. solves the problem -- IMO, responder is at a disadvantage in competitive auctions over 1♣ because opener may hold the weak NT hand. A simpler solution might just be to bump the point range on the 1♣ opening to 17+ when vul and open a 14-16 NT.

As many others have mentioned, Precision Today is a pretty good read. Rigal's book contains some advanced topics like transfer positives if I remember correctly. Viking Club was an interesting read too, but frankly, I would opt for symmetric relays instead of the ones mentioned in the book...

This seems to have been written for a standard system. Are there any adaptations for limited openings? I suppose it's possible to just scale down the HCPs in case of the jumps, but there are other sequences that would be awkward...

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How about the following following over 1♠: X = Power X (15+), including hands that would overcall 1N 1N: Takeout of ♥s (NTO) 2♣/2♦: Natural, but limited 2♥: 4♠ and a longer minor 2♠: ♠

Well, you *can* construct a very playable and sound 100% GCC legal relay scheme starting with a forcing 1N response (ducking for cover before this starts another 30 page thread on the GCC :))...

I agree with RobF -- in my experience, standard style responses work better with light limited openings. Of course, I have never really bought the "The 2/1 system is much better than standard" argument and that may very well explain my bias...

Responder should NOT relay out opener's hand completely after a reverse relay without slam interest. Given that opener's hand is usually limited to < 12 QPs, the probability of slam shrinks dramatically unless responder is really shapely or holds a 9+ QPs. Also, it's perfectly possible to explore slam with a very distributional hand after a reverse relay by reverting to natural bidding -- we are already in a GF and still at the one level at that. In most cases, responder may relay opener's hand once or twice to resolve relative suit length, but shouldn't continue beyond that without serious slam aspirations.

The one thing to keep in mind is that leaving sufficient room for constructive auctions is a tradeoff, i.e., in doing so, we don't want to leave them too much room either. Also, in competitive auctions, the allocated amount of space might be rapidly gobbled up, thereby quickly negating the purported advantages that stem from the ability to completely relay out the hands completely. In summary, it's an interesting way of looking at system design, but it really depends on your ultimate goal...

Actually, I am intimately familiar with duck typing and even considered that very analogy once. In this case, I would argue that the type of the 1♦ is IUnknown, because while it's true that a typecast of IUnknown -> IDuck will succeed *most* of the type, you may very well get a NULL pointer, meaning that the type is actually IUnknown<Foo>, where Foo = 3+♠. BTW, what if a typecast of IUnknown always returned IBalanced? Would you object to it the lines that since it always contained balanced types, it couldn't possibly be a catch all opening? Has there ever been any canononical statement about the of the "intent" of the C&C?

And what's the limit of the smell tests? What if the system genuinely allows opening of some hands with 3+ ♠? Should standard system with mini-NT openings that use 1♣/1♦ to show the stronger NT ranges flunk the smell test too because a pre-ponderance of hands are likely to be balanced? By similar logic, it takes very twisted bridge lawyering to come up with such a restrictive view of the GCC. Even assumming your interpretation is correct, it seems that Precision is OK because it uses only one catchall bid and one strong bid: 1♣ = 15+, strong (NOT catch all) 1♦ = 10+, (one and only catch all)

Jan, Can you please specify what doesn't make the 1♦ an "all purpose" bid in this system? 1C-16+ 1D-all-purpose, with hands that fit nowhere else. these happen to have exactly 4♠ 1H-4+ ♥, unbalanced, but not 4♥, 4♠ 1S-5+ ♠ 1N-balanced 2C-six clubs or (31)-4-5 2D-six diamonds or (31)-5-4 It's really frustrating to have rulings along the lines of "You can play XYZ only if you rub your stomach and do something else that's impossible at the same time" and never any explanation as to *why*. Of course, depending on whom you ask and the phase of the moon, you might get a slightly morphed version, or in some cases, a complete volte face.

Also, given that the body (which makes the final decisions) wields such enormous clout, surely it should be subject to some degree of transparency? In other words, to prevent potential conflicts of interest, the rationale behind why a particular convention was approved / disapproved must be recorded and such records should be accesible by ACBL members.

1C=10+, 4 ♥ 1♦=10+, 4♠ 1♥=5+♥ 1♠=5+♠ 1N=11-14 2♣/2♦ = Natural I would really like to know what's illegal or impossible about this system other than the fact that it looks weird.

Isn't this a chcken and egg problem? How can anyone play it at the entry level if it's forbidden to begin with? Also, I really cannot fathom the logic behind why nebulous bids are considered easier to defend against than a bid promising a specific suit. Does anyone seriously think that it's the case? If so, can someone provide a lucid example on why defending 1♦ = 4♠ is actually harder than 1♦ = 0+?