Strong 1C opening

[inquiry]

Too bad only MOSCITO players respond (and Misho and Mikestar - tnx)...

Hmm, I responded, and I am not a moscito player. I also stayed on topic, giving what for me, turned out to be the best advise I could give concerning 1♣ auctions, as this treatment proved to be a big winner for me when I played precision regularly. Oh well....

 

Ben

[Free]

Sry Ben, overlooked your post. Tnx to Ben as well ;)

[luke warm]

Hog: you have no right to accuse me of not having read someone else's post.

 

hrothgar:

 

> "Anyone who believes this doesn't understand Strong Club systems."

 

That's a rather dogmatic accusation as well. I guess people who developed bidding tools, like asking bids, relay schemes and all that didn't understand a thing of strong club systems?

 

In any case, while your effort to maximize bidding efficiency after a strong club is commendable, you must realize bridge is a game where tactical considerations play a big role. You cannot forget that

 

1. Bidding accurately to the correct game or slam is worth more IMPS than a bunch of impeccably bid part-scores.

 

2. Opponents are aching to disrupt your bidding. When a game is on, it's 10 IMPS that are at stake. You already lost time by opening a strong club, so now so you must start bidding suits as soon as possible.

i guess the obvious question is, why do so many (world class/winning) pairs use a strong club system, given the weaknesses you think it has? like many of you i watched the recent usbc vugraph and there sure seemed to be quite a few great players using either precision or some other strong club

[cwiggins]

Ron Klinger, who does NOT play this, but plays a similar system, (big C, transfer openings), is winning a lot at the moment.

Do you have any more details on Klinger's current system?

 

When opps intervene after 1♣ (p) 1♦ (game-force), you run a serious risk of misguessing your strain and lose 10 imps.

Not exactly on point, but Hamman and Soloway play that 1♣-1♥ is 8-11 HCP any distribution except 4441, and 1♣-1♠ is 12+ HCP any shape other than with 5+ hearts, clubs, or diamonds (so 5+ spades, balanced, or 4441). Over these responses, they manage to guess the strain well enough to compete in world championships.

 

This suggest that a limited undefined positive is playable at the highest levels.

[the hog]

Free,

what we have done is to develop a means of distinguishing between decent 6-8 hands with a good suit, and gf hands when the opps have overcalled 1C with (2?)

We play a form of Leb here by responder; 2N is a puppet to 3C, whereby resp can pass or bid their suit to show 4 in a Major and a stopper and 3 everything else is GF. The cue in their suit shows no 4 card M no stopper. X shows all the rest.

 

Over 1 level intervention an amusing convention we played some years ago was Archimedes:

1C (1 level bids) X = 0-5, pass = 6-8, bids = GF

[mikestar]

Semipostives have considerable merit. Whether and how much they are superior to 1D negative and GF positives may depend in part on the strength of the 1C opening.

 

Playing a MOSCITO version with a 14+ big club, responder's expected HCP is 8 2/3, game invitational but not GF. Semipositives make a lot of sense here.

 

Playing my own preference of a 17+ big club, responder's expectation is 7 2/3 almost GF. So the probability distribution of semipoistive hands vs. GF hands is different.

 

(Carrying on with this line, opposite a 19+ Romex dynamic NT, responder's expectation is 7, clearly GF.)

 

I might well gain by using semipositives--the question is worth some research. But I won't gain as much as Richard does, and a Romex player will gain little or nothing.

[helene_t]

[....] the conditional probability that we're dealt a game forcing hand opposite a strong club opening is only about 36%.  Lets assume for the moment that bidding space opposite a strong club opening should be allocated using a Fibonacci sequence.  [....]

This is true if 1♣ shows 14+. However, if it shows 16+, as in traditional Precision, I just simulated 451 8+ hands versus 498 7- hands. Of course, if you open in second, third or fourth seat the odds for a GF hand become even bigger. Also, it is not obvious that the Fibonacci series provides an optimal solution. Since the 1♣ opening is rather infomartive itself, the optimal frequency of 1♦ is probably closer to 50% than to 38%. So information theory actually provides a case for the traditional approach.

 

Interference is another matter, of course.

[Free]

The 1♣ opening we play has 9+ slam points, and around 15+HCP. In 3rd and 4th seat it's raised to 10+ slam points, around 17+HCP. So I don't know if it might be better to use different structures according to position :D However, after 3rd and 4th seat 1♣ opening, partner has passed already, so the GF hands are again a lot less...

[mikestar]

My experience has been that GF responses are more frequent when opening 1C in second or fourth seat, but not in third seat unless the opponents quite a bit lighter than we do. The size of the effect varies with opponent's opening style. For example opening 1C in second seat playing against a MOSCITO pair, I would expext partner to have a GF considerably more often than not.

 

One nice thing about third and fourth seat 1C openers--responder's GF has a fairly tight upper limit and you have many opportunites to blast to the correct contract and minimize the help you give the defense. The upper limit helps in competition as well.

[whereagles]

Hi all,

I was away for two weeks, so only now could I reply. Again, I didn't have time to go through all the posts, so I address only those which had something to do with the issues I raised.

Atul:

(...) what you seem to be suggesting that this structure is for some reason inferior to the traditional 1C - 1D structure because it's susceptible to inference by the opps. Do you have any data to support this conjecture?

Sorry, but I don't have time at the moment to run simulations nor to look for examples from expert play. But see my reply to mikestar, below.

 

Hog:

I won't accuse you of not having read Richard's post if you address the issues he raised in his response - something you conveniently chose to ignore.

I guess by "Richard" you mean hrothgar. If so, I did coment on his table. Check 2nd paragraph of my post after his table. Please don't accuse me of doing things by convenience. I resent that.

Then don't make dogmatic assertions which are not supported by any evidence apart from conjecture.

What on Earth are you taking about? I didn't make any dogmatic assertions. My claims are backed with appropriate argumentation (which you may or may not agree with), and are in no way whatsoever unsupported. Finally, I don't have to convince anyone. The onus to prove unusual methods are superior lays upon those who play them.

Furthermore, don't tell me the auction 1C (3M) X is easier to cope with than

1C (P) 1D (3M).

This is irrelevant. This auction has nothing to do with semipositive responses.

The semi positive responses have full relays which get you to good games/slams if the combined strength/shape is there. In other cases the semi positives provide a huge bulwark against pre emption. How much better off am I when I KNOW my pd has 5-8 with 5S in response to my bid C, rather than 1C (P) 1D (3H), where I know my pd has 0-8 with anything?

You can argue the other way around as well, so your point really isn't quite valid. After 1C (p) 1H (3S), where 1H is nat 8+, I'm much better off than if it had been 1C (p) 1D (3S) with 1D=8+ any shape.

 

 

Free:

I didn't ask for specific opinions. I asked what your favorite answers are, and most important HOW you deal with intervention. (...) you only gave negative comment on a structure some people use.

Well, you know as well as I do these discussions often go beyond their initial subject :rolleyes: But to honor you, here are my replies to your original questions.

1. My favourite 1C response structure is the classic one, with 1C-2H and above as weakish (but good suit) and 1C-2NT a 4441. Classic is easy to remember and does the job. I've toyed with just about every other response scheme except semipositives, with mixed feelings.

2. 2nd intervenes: I use Rigal's scheme. That's basically: suit bids GF, cue three-suited take-out, dbl=5-7. I used to emply the semipositive method but was never too happy with it.

3. 4th intervenes: natural, take-out doubles through 4S.

 

cwiggins:

Not exactly on point, but Hamman and Soloway play that 1C-1H is 8-11 HCP any distribution except 4441, and 1C-1S is 12+ HCP any shape other than with 5+ hearts, clubs, or diamonds (so 5+ spades, balanced, or 4441). Over these responses, they manage to guess the strain well enough to compete in world championships. This suggest that a limited undefined positive is playable at the highest levels.

Actually, I used to play a similar scheme for a few months. It is more playable than 1C-1D 8+ unlimited, since opener has a better notion at what level to play. I didn't like the method for various reasons and eventually gave up on it.

 

Mikestar:

Semipostives have considerable merit. Whether and how much they are superior to 1D negative and GF positives may depend in part on the strength of the 1C opening.

Now this is good reasoning. The lower the 1C is, the more important it is to start bidding suits if weakish. But, as helene_t showed, if 1C is 16+, the classic scheme appears to be better. If you lower it to 14+, then maybe there's a point to semipositives.

 

Finally, there's much more to semipositives or positives than frequency tables. Many top players use precision these days, so time will tell whether semipositive responses are better than positives or not.