Dealing with pre-empts over a 2-way Club

[brianshark]

Imagine you are playing carrot club or polish club or something, and you open 1C with the weak balanced variant. LHO bangs in with 3S. How do you get him?

 

- Should you allow opener to make a re-opening with any decent 13/14 count (ie. a maximum weak balanced) with suitable shape, no matter the level of pre-emption?

- Should responder's double at a level where opener is not allowed to re-open with a double, be for 100% penalties opposite a weak balanced hand?

- Should responder's double promise some stuff in the pre-empt suit but opener can pull with not much defence (small doubleton)?

- Do we just keep playing negative/take-out doubles by responder, and if they pre-empt, they get us?

[helene_t]

They get us, unless opener has enough length in opps suit to convert the double.

[david_c]

Yeah, take-out doubles are the way to go. You can't penalise them when opener has a weak NT and responder has good trumps. But you would have had the same problem in a "standard" system with these cards. So you're not really losing out much, I think?

[rbforster]

So you're not really losing out much, I think?

No, you also lose when you have to pass as responder with only intermediate values (fearing the weak NT), but opener actually has the strong hand and can't reopen with his shape/values at the high level (fearing you're broke).

[david_c]

No, you also lose when you have to pass as responder with only intermediate values (fearing the weak NT), but opener actually has the strong hand and can't reopen with his shape/values at the high level (fearing you're broke).

Again, you would have the same problem in a standard system.

[helene_t]

But when you do reopen with a double, you are promising extras. Not so in a standard system. So this gives the PC'ers an advantage.

[rbforster]

No, you also lose when you have to pass as responder with only intermediate values (fearing the weak NT), but opener actually has the strong hand and can't reopen with his shape/values at the high level (fearing you're broke).

Again, you would have the same problem in a standard system.

True, I guess I was thinking in comparison to a 1-way strong club, where you don't have this problem. Responder knows opener's minimum and he can act with appropriate strength and shape.

 

The "invitational" range is always hardest to sort out when someone preempts - basically you have to upgrade (and act) or downgrade (and pass) in a lot of situations. What system you play determines how wide the invitational range is, which tells you something about how vulnerable to preemption you'll be. Playing transfers by responder with superaccepts by opener might help some, but that's going to work a lot better with a 2♦ jump overcall than a 3♠ one.