Polish Club - why better?

[luke warm]

Playing with weak NT will not help to 2/1, because opening still may contain strong bal hand and you can preempt badly your own partner.

 

Misho

hi misho :blink:

 

can you please explain this? it seems to me that playing a mini nt solves almost all 2/1 problems, given other agreements (maybe something like ben's 2♣ structure over 1M)

 

if possible i'd like to see some hands you might consider problematic using the 10-13 nt so i can determine if an answer is in place... thanks, friend

[mishovnbg]

Playing with weak NT will not help to 2/1, because opening still may contain strong bal hand and you can preempt badly your own partner.

 

Misho

hi misho ;)

 

can you please explain this? it seems to me that playing a mini nt solves almost all 2/1 problems, given other agreements (maybe something like ben's 2♣ structure over 1M)

 

if possible i'd like to see some hands you might consider problematic using the 10-13 nt so i can determine if an answer is in place... thanks, friend

Playing mini NT all time is suitable only for bridge adventurers. It also ruine one or both of your minor opening bids, because they need to handle another ranges of NT. Shortly mini NT is bad bid, suitable for hunting swings in NV vs V 1st/2nd position playing IMPs. Note it is not only my opinion, but also Erick Rodwell and Rumen Trendafilov...

 

When your minor opening can contain 14-16 bal hand with doubleton in minor, you practically lose any raises in opening suit and play nebulous 1 bid, not natural. This often put you in worse position in competitive auctions, esp if your 1♦ opening can contain such range. It is also important, if you play natural responses to such opening, you will play often wrong sided contracts against the field, which is simple losing bidding.

 

Friend, I don't know your experience and knoledge of systems, but imo will be good idea for you to take some aggressive system like "Nightmare" or Fantoni-Nunes and play it.

Misho

[luke warm]

it's true, with a 4432 or 4423 14-16 count i'd have to open either 1♣ or 1♦ and either raise partner's major suit response or bid 1nt showing this range... it's also true that partner could possibly have to raise my 3 card minor, if that's his only available bid... but the same is true in any 5 major system that doesn't use 15-17 nt range, isn't it? and of course wrong siding the contract is always a danger...

 

it seems to me that a lot of precision pairs are on even shakier ground, especially with their 1♦ opening... i respect your knowledge and experience, and while 2 hands could be constructed where a mini nt is *always* wrecked, i was hoping for a couple of practical examples to see where the weakness might come in

 

i've played against some good pairs while using the mini, and from what i can see they pretty much *hate* playing against it... but i admit it isn't for everyone

 

thanks for your reply

[pbleighton]

"Playing mini NT all time is suitable only for bridge adventurers..."

 

Well, yes, but so what? :D

 

"i've played against some good pairs while using the mini, and from what i can see they pretty much *hate* playing against it... "

 

Yup. And good pairs guess wrong and make plain stupid bids too. ;)

 

"it seems to me that playing a mini nt solves almost all 2/1 problems..."

 

An exaggeration, and it does create some problems of its own, but it certainly solves a lot of problems for me. I play 2/1 with light openers, and find the mini really helps.

 

I play a 10+ to 14- NT, so the NT rebid is 15-17, 2NT 18-19. 15-19 count 4432 and 4333s are always opened 1C (12-21, 2+ clubs and forcing), along with all 4441s not short in clubs. NMF works with 8+ points, allowing us to rebid NT after 1C-1H with 4 spades, and mitigates the loss of a strong NT.

 

I have 3 ~5 card openings, which work well for light (decent 10) openers. I open 10 and 11 count 5M422s not 54 in the majors 1NT, along with 10-13 5any332s and 10-13 5m422s.

 

In the minors, the NT opening takes the balanced crap out of the openings.

 

In the majors, we make a 2/1 GF with 13 points, but need 14 for GF with the NT opening. Opening two thirds of the dead minimum hands without 6 card suits 1NT mitigates the overbidding effect of the 13 point 2/1 GF.

 

The wide NT range occasionally hurts, but not too often. Vulnerable isn't as nice as NV, but into every system a little pain must fall..

 

Is this a world class system? I highly doubt it!

 

Does it work well against a reasonable field? Yes!

 

Is it fun? Guess!

 

Peter

[hrothgar]

"Playing mini NT all time is suitable only for bridge adventurers..."

 

Well, yes, but so what? :D

 

"i've played against some good pairs while using the mini, and from what i can see they pretty much *hate* playing against it... "

 

Yup. And good pairs guess wrong and make plain stupid bids too. ;)

 

"it seems to me that playing a mini nt solves almost all 2/1 problems..."

 

An exaggeration, and it does create some problems of its own, but it certainly solves a lot of problems for me. I play 2/1 with light openers, and find the mini really helps.

 

I play a 10+ to 14- NT, so the NT rebid is 15-17, 2NT 18-19. 15-19 count 4432 and 4333s are always opened 1C (12-21, 2+ clubs and forcing), along with all 4441s not short in clubs. NMF works with 8+ points, allowing us to rebid NT after 1C-1H with 4 spades, and mitigates the loss of a strong NT.

 

I have 3 ~5 card openings, which work well for light (decent 10) openers. I open 10 and 11 count 5M422s not 54 in the majors 1NT, along with 10-13 5any332s and 10-13 5m422s.

 

In the minors, the NT opening takes the balanced crap out of the openings.

 

In the majors, we make a 2/1 GF with 13 points, but need 14 for GF with the NT opening. Opening two thirds of the dead minimum hands without 6 card suits 1NT mitigates the overbidding effect of the 13 point 2/1 GF.

 

The wide NT range occasionally hurts, but not too often. Vulnerable isn't as nice as NV, but into every system a little pain must fall..

 

Is this a world class system? I highly doubt it!

 

Does it work well against a reasonable field? Yes!

 

Is it fun? Guess!

 

Peter

Peter

 

Curious about the frequency of your 2/1's.

 

Suppose that you open 1M...

 

How often is responder able to 2/1?

Equally significant, how often is here required to respond with a forcing NT?

[MickyB]

Peter, IMO opening 5M422s 1NT is horrible, you will miss so many fits. How about playing 2D as a multi and 2H and 2S as Lucas, both fairly constructive, then your 1M openers will be sounder and you can make lighter 2/1 responses, which will improve your bidding accuracy greatly. Also you say the mini isn't great vul, why not bring it in half a point when vul then? Maybe bad 11-14 NV, good 11-14 vul.

[flytoox]

All these discussion remind me of a famous economics theory: revenue equivalent theorem, which roughly says all auction rule, be it sealed bid auction or english auction, or other auction, will usually generate same revenue for the seller under quite general condition.

 

 

What do i want to say here? Well, I think most system should be equally good, or very close. Who will win out depends on not the system, but the players. There are many world champion, they play different system. This should explain my point.

 

 

Hongjun

[pbleighton]

"Suppose that you open 1M...

 

How often is responder able to 2/1?

Equally significant, how often is here required to respond with a forcing NT?"

 

Richard, your point is well taken, and is the major (no pun intended) disadvantage, part from some bad NT results vul. I haven't done the math on frequencies, but we are one point away from the field (which in my area responds 2/1 with 12/strong 11), so we are responding with 1NT forcing with strong 11 - OK 12 when the field is making a 2/1 response. We have essentially split the difference between the level of our openings (decent 10s vs most 12s - a little less than 2 points) and the level of our 2/1 response (1 point). Using the mini NT to take the dead minimum balanced and semibalanced hands out of the 1M openings reduces the penalty for the increased overbidding caused by splitting the difference. In fact, we don't seem to get to too many underfunded 3NT games, and this is definitely helped by the mini.

 

As to the frequency of responding 1NT forcing when the field is making a 2/1 response, they happen, but seemingly much less frequently than our opening hands the field would pass. We are therefore quite comfortable with our system vs Rule of 20/strong NT 2/1, which is the field in our area.

 

As to an alternative response structure, for a while, we tried a relaxed Standard approach (forcing for one round but not guaranteeing a rebid). We didn't really give this much of a chance, as my pd had developed a fondness for 2/1 GF when we played The Science, and it didn't seem to hurt us there, so we went back to it. Now 2/1 GF is integral to The Science's system, and optional in ours. It is possible that a relaxed Standard approach is theoretically better, but the fact is that my pd bids 2/1 better than F1, so there you are :rolleyes:

 

"Peter, IMO opening 5M422s 1NT is horrible, you will miss so many fits. How about playing 2D as a multi and 2H and 2S as Lucas, both fairly constructive, then your 1M openers will be sounder and you can make lighter 2/1 responses, which will improve your bidding accuracy greatly. Also you say the mini isn't great vul, why not bring it in half a point when vul then? Maybe bad 11-14 NV, good 11-14 vul."

 

Thanks for the input, Mickey.

1) We only open 5M422s 1NT when they are dead minimum, for the reason explained above. Most of the field isn't opening most of these hands, so we don't miss much by missing the fits.

2) "2D as a multi and 2H and 2S as Lucas" - ACBL - nuff said :)

3) We are considering making the vul range start at 11+ rather than 10+. The tradeoff would be that we would probably also not open 1M quite so light (it would also make our NT bidding more accurate). We aren't quite ready to do that, but I am keeping note of the bad results at vul. This could be a halfway move to true variable NT, which we are definitely not willing to make at this point.

 

Peter

[the hog]

Imho the mini is a poor substitute for 8-12 openings. As these are unfortunately restriced by many organisations, I guess you are forced to play these greatly inferior methods if you want to create action. The mini concept is quite poor in term of system design - I have 10-11 points balanced. This gives you an immediate pre emptive effect at great cost. It also has a penchant for increasing the difficulty of your constructive auctions. (Contrast this to the 1C/1D showing 8-12 with H/S and how much more information this conveys and how much more pre emptive it can be if partner can raise. This is largely an academic argument as this is banned in the US).

 

I personally believe the mini is a very easy bid to counter; US players tend to have problems with these methods due to their unfamiliarity with these methods - another argument against legislating against systems. Eventually the mini will die out as players become more accustomed to dealing with it.

 

I would also agree with Misho's statement that the mini places too much of a burden on your minor suit openings. We have found a natural 1D opening to be an Imp and MP gainer.

 

Ron

[Flame]

i've played against some good pairs while using the mini, and from what i can see they pretty much *hate* playing against it

When im strong in the field i play, i hate when someone make a non common bid because this give me less chances to use my better skills then most of the field.

If the pair who use the non common bid is also a weak pair then i hate it even more.

This doesnt mean its good for them, just bad for me.

[cwiggins]

I found the following at http://www.ipipan.waw.pl/~amat/Polish_Club/ankieta.htm

 

Kowalski echoes some of the comments in this thread that Polish and Precision are close.

 

 

 

What is your opinion about the effectiveness of Polish Club comparing with other general bidding systems (Standard American, Precision, Canape, different Italian Clubs and Diamonds)?

 

Apolinary Kowalski

In my opinion Polish Club is superior in this respect to above mentioned foreign bidding systems except perhaps Precision. However Precision is more vulnerable to interventions, than Polish Club is.

 

Krzysztof Martens

The main criterion to evaluate the bidding system is how it fulfills certain postulates of the natural bidding. In the modern bridge high culture of the bidding (especially while fighting) is much more important that a bit better or bit worse construction of the basic system.

 

Julian Klukowski

I am quite certain that Polish Club is more effective than any other foreign system known to me.

 

Stanislaw Bitner

I think the question is ill defined. Every bidding system is effective provided it is based on logical premises and handles some 80% distributions (hands) to be faced with in the course of bidding. If two partners achieved perfect understanding they can successfully compete with the pair playing any other system but lacking such understanding.

[mishovnbg]

i've played against some good pairs while using the mini, and from what i can see they pretty much *hate* playing against it

When im strong in the field i play, i hate when someone make a non common bid because this give me less chances to use my better skills then most of the field.

If the pair who use the non common bid is also a weak pair then i hate it even more.

This doesnt mean its good for them, just bad for me.

Agree! I need to add hate not because bad bid, but because lottery result. When you are better than field, you try to keep most of contracts with field and gain from better card play.

Misho

[luke warm]

there was a time when bergen/cohen were either winning or almost winning every national event they entered... one of the reasons was their preempt style, which presented a little of misho's "lottery result" into the mix... however, i don't believe they used this style because they felt somehow inferior, cardplaying-wise, to the field, but because they felt it was a better way of bidding

 

the acbl eventually banned some of their weapons, which (i'm sure) made the rest of the field feel much better... after all, they could then fall back on their own bidding skill and card playing ability, and not have to worry about b/c taking the bidding away from the field... if you can't beat 'em, legislate 'em..

 

i disagree that the mini wouldn't fit into a 'world class' system... i also disagree that it will fade away as more pairs learn to combat it more effectively... the nature of such things is that as defensive weapons improve, so do the offensive weapons...

 

i don't believe the mini brings a lesser player up to par with a better one... my opinion of it is based solely on the fact that i think it fits in better with 2/1 bidding, period... i've proven the (admittedly limited) results to my own satisfaction, on those few times i've found someone to play it...

 

but all of this is just my opinion

[Flame]

The lottery result idea was just to exaplain that the fact that your opponents hate your system doesnt mean its good, this by itself doesnt mean your system is bad either.

[luke warm]

The lottery result idea was just to exaplain that the fact that your opponents hate your system doesnt mean its good, this by itself doesnt mean your system is bad either.

i know... and i don't necessarily think the mini is better than the weak or strong nt, just that it seems to simplify 2/1 bidding (for me), since the nt rebid ranges seem to lend themselves very well to 2 way ckback bidding.. that's just one reason, but for me a big one

[Flame]

just that it seems to simplify 2/1 bidding (for me), since the nt rebid ranges seem to lend themselves very well to 2 way ckback bidding.. that's just one reason, but for me a big one

This i dont understand.

playing weak NT , you already covered 12-14 so you dont need to worry about it when you open 1x.

playing strong NT , you already covered 15-17 so you dont have to worry about it when you open 1x.

playing 10-12 you have more balance hands to worry about after biddint 1x, so how can it be eaiser ?

[Flame]

I found the following at http://www.ipipan.waw.pl/~amat/Polish_Club/ankieta.htm

 

Kowalski echoes some of the comments in this thread that Polish and Precision are close.

 

 

 

What is your opinion about the effectiveness of Polish Club comparing with other general bidding systems (Standard American, Precision, Canape, different Italian Clubs and Diamonds)?

 

Apolinary Kowalski

In my opinion Polish Club is superior in this respect to above mentioned foreign bidding systems except perhaps Precision. However Precision is more vulnerable to interventions, than Polish Club is.

 

Krzysztof Martens

The main criterion to evaluate the bidding system is how it fulfills certain postulates of the natural bidding. In the modern bridge high culture of the bidding (especially while fighting) is much more important that a bit better or bit worse construction of the basic system.

 

Julian Klukowski

I am quite certain that Polish Club is more effective than any other foreign system known to me.

 

Stanislaw Bitner

I think the question is ill defined. Every bidding system is effective provided it is based on logical premises and handles some 80% distributions (hands) to be faced with in the course of bidding. If two partners achieved perfect understanding they can successfully compete with the pair playing any other system but lacking such understanding.

I read this article, but i am guessing those guys are polish and knowing one polish guy , i cant tell you they arent objective, the guy i know think everything in poland is better , especially the women.

[luke warm]

i think you have a good point playing 12-14, but i'm not sure if 15-17... the same can be said about 10-13, eh? 1x is almost always 14+ (or distributional) and 1nt *does* have a preemptive effect... also, the mini is sure a lot of fun to play, tho i understand that "fun" is relative heheh

[cwiggins]

I found the following at http://www.ipipan.waw.pl/~amat/Polish_Club/ankieta.htm

 

Kowalski echoes some of the comments in this thread that Polish and Precision are close. 

 

 

 

What is your opinion about the effectiveness of Polish Club comparing with other general bidding systems (Standard American, Precision, Canape, different Italian Clubs and Diamonds)?

 

Apolinary Kowalski

In my opinion Polish Club is superior in this respect to above mentioned foreign bidding systems except perhaps Precision. However Precision is more vulnerable to interventions, than Polish Club is.

 

Krzysztof Martens

The main criterion to evaluate the bidding system is how it fulfills certain postulates of the natural bidding. In the modern bridge high culture of the bidding (especially while fighting) is much more important that a bit better or bit worse construction of the basic system.

 

Julian Klukowski

I am quite certain that Polish Club is more effective than any other foreign system known to me.

 

Stanislaw Bitner

I think the question is ill defined. Every bidding system is effective provided it is based on logical premises and handles some 80% distributions (hands) to be faced with in the course of bidding. If two partners achieved perfect understanding they can successfully compete with the pair playing any other system but lacking such understanding.

I read this article, but i am guessing those guys are polish and knowing one polish guy , i cant tell you they arent objective, the guy i know think everything in poland is better , especially the women.

This is what I would expect, that they would think Polish is better.

 

Given that natural predisposition, I found it interesting that Kowalski thought that Polish and Precision are close.

 

I also found interestig what Bitner said: "Every bidding system is effective provided it is based on logical premises and handles some 80% distributions (hands) to be faced with in the course of bidding." Wouldn't most modern bidding systems meet that criteria?

 

I.e. persons you would expect to say Polish is a better system were not clear cut on that point.

 

I included the other experts for completeness. I find little value in unsupported statements that "x is better" whether x is Polish, Precision, 2/1, Moscito, etc.