[the_clown]

Hi,

Up to now I have been playing a fairly natural strong club system. Now I want to try out 1C-1H as 8-11 any. The obvious problem is that you have ♥s, the auction could get awkward.
Has any of you have some experience with this?

Anyway my idea is to play 1C-1N as 12+balanced or 12+ and exactly 5 hearts. After that it should be able to show the exact shape below 3NT via relays. Not sure if thats playable though since when they preempt opener cant really know what to do. Maybe it would be better to include only the 5332 hands with 5♥s in the 1NT response.

Another option is to switch 2C and 2H so that you can be better placed when you hold hearts.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

[Free]

You can relay 12+ hands, why do you want to lose a step to distinguish between 8-11 and 12+? Just play relays from 1H and figure out the strength later.

This seems to put the focus way too much on slam bidding. At first sight I'd prefer to play 1H as 12+ and the rest as 8-11, but only if I really had to. At least I would be able to quickly sign off once a fit has been established.

[rogerclee]

A standardish structure is

1C...

1D = 0-7 any
1H = 8-11 any, not 5 spades
1S = 8+ with 5+S
1N = 12+ with 5+H
2m = 12+ with 5+m
2H = 12-13 balanced
2S = 12+, any 4441
2N = 14+ balanced

The 1C-1H auctions are pretty good, but as in any naturalish strong club structure, you are trading relay slam bidding (much more accurate than this system, though this system is a good deal better than standard) for more flexibility in your choice of games auctions as well as ease of memory and simplicity.

I have no strong feelings about the particular merits of this strong club system as opposed to some other system. I think that it is probably better to play something like 1C-2C is 12+ balanced game force with relays, but I have not worked out the details yet.

[JLOGIC]

Yep, never really had problems with 1C 1N showing 12+ with hearts. That is a pretty good auction to start with lol. Can you expand on what you mean by the auction getting awkward when you have hearts?

1C 2H and 1C 2N as balanced hands can get awkward, but at least you have a tight range that has guaranteed a lot of HCP (so getting to 4N is not a big deal).

FWIW I personally play the reverse of clee, 2H=14+ bal, and 2N=12-13 bal. I know greco/hampson keep going back and forth on which is better, not sure what they currently play but both are reasonable.

[benlessard]

Is the goal of such a system is avoiding leaking information when there is no slam prospect or there is another reason for this ?

[JLOGIC]

benlessard, on 2012-August-10, 20:39, said:

Is the goal of such a system is avoiding leaking information when there is no slam prospect or there is another reason for this ?

yes

[chasetb]

Ok Roger and/or Justin, what do you guys use for 1♣ - 3♣ and higher ? On the Grue-Lall card (BB 2011), it lists 1♣ - 3♥ as a 1-suited hand with Hearts. Assuming that is correct, what kinds of criteria do you use for it?

On a related tangent, I want to switch my Precision partnership to 1♣ - 2♥ as 14+ balanced, but again after looking at the Grue-Lall card, it uses 1♣ - 2♥ ; 2NT as a 2-suited hand with Hearts. Extrapolating, I'm assuming that you use 1♣ - 2♥ ; 3♥ as a single-suited hand. Why can't I just put any hand with 5+ Hearts into 2NT, and use the 3♥ rebid as a hand with primary Clubs?

Anyone who has any experience with these responses can chime in, I'm just asking for Roger and Justin's advise because they posted above and I know they have tons of experience with this stuff. Thanks for any and all help!

[rbforster]

the_clown, on 2012-August-09, 03:38, said:

Up to now I have been playing a fairly natural strong club system. Now I want to try out 1C-1H as 8-11 any. The obvious problem is that you have ♥s, the auction could get awkward.
Has any of you have some experience with this?

Anyway my idea is to play 1C-1N as 12+balanced or 12+ and exactly 5 hearts. After that it should be able to show the exact shape below 3NT via relays.

I think a natural introduction to relay precision is to just do full relays on balanced hands. For example, an early system I learned was

1D 0-7
1H 5+ ♠ unbal
1S bal, including 5332s
1N 5+ ♣ unbal
2C 5+ ♦ unbal
2D 5+ ♥ unbal
2H ...

The point is that if you're willing to learn relays eventually, it's better to focus on that since with relays you don't need to separate the 8-11 vs 12+ strength early on. There's lots of space to do that later.

[SteveMoe]

Agree Rogerclee outline.
Have found 1♣-1♥ usually leads to the 17-19 or 18-20 1NT auction with full NT structure (we do not play 3♣ over opener's 1NT response as puppet as we do NOT bit NT after 1♣ with 5 card majors). Opener's bids are otherwise natural. If you play alpha/suit ask (we don't) we recommend opener's 2♥ response be that a.
Have found bidding by past hand (1♥ = ♥s and 1N = 8-11 balanced) often leads to memory error. Sigh. You should deecide whether to keep the 1♥ artificial game force on here.
This structure does avoid wrong-siding contracts somewhat(partner won't bid naturally unless they hold 12 HCP). You will rarely have the 8 HCP hand declaring.

As for 3-level partner and I play WJS hands 3-7 HCP with 7+ cards. Have not agreed to value of transfers because these bids occur so infrequently.

4-level bids are super positives (4441, one under shortness promising 4+ controls). Extremely infrequent.

Over 2♥ 12-13 HCP we play 2N as Stayman (3♣=both majors, 3♦=♥, 3♥=♠, and 3♠=none/3N=none with 5-card minor).
Over 2N 14+ we play 3♣ italian transfer stayman 14-16 or 17+; 3♦ through 3N(=♣) are alpha/SAB. 4♣ is gerber (or beta if you prefer) and 4♦ is HCP ask in 1 point steps.

[dake50]

Is the goal of such a system is avoiding leaking information when there is no slam prospect or there is another reason for this ?

***
Exactly! Listing methods is *NOT ANALYSIS*!!
Give some reasoning.
Some why is this hand type handled better by
this method at what cost to what other hands
handled worse/different.

[SteveMoe]

dake50, on 2012-August-13, 20:43, said:

Is the goal of such a system is avoiding leaking information when there is no slam prospect or there is another reason for this ?

I see 2 additional benefits:
1) An immediate game force is established, leaving great room for strain and shape exploration, and
2) Declaring from the 8-11 side is drastically reduced, increasing the likelihood the stronger hand will declare.

There is a downside - We have lost MPs when RHO can double the artificial 1♥ call for a lead...

[akhare]

I suspect that a lot (most?) of your positive responses will be 1♥ (8-11). As Rob suggested, it might be best to invest in a vanilla relay system and differentiate the strength later.

If you really want to play this structure, I suspect that you might get more mileage out it by inverting the meanings, i.e.:

1♥ = 12+ any
1S=8-11 bal OR ♣
1N=8-11 with ♠
2♣ = 8-11 with ♦
2♦ = 8-11 with ♥.

Over the ambiguous 1♠, 1N asks and then 2♣ is ♣, with the remaining Stayman type responses.

This should right side contracts most of the times opposite a 8-11 hand...

[the_clown]

Thank you for all responses

[benlessard]

If your goal is mostly concealing information why not use a transfers method than ?

Im playing weak or GF transfers and I find that

1- Its simpler
2- you rightside more often
3- You can bid with weak hand so you are ahead in comp bidding.
4- you can stop in 1M wich is often better than 1NT.

[SteelWheel]

Take a look at Barry Rigal's book on Precision sometime. He had a response scheme which also sought to avoid having the weaker hand declare. Off the top of my head, it went something like this, after a 1♣ opening:

1♦=0-7
1♥=8-13 balanced
1♠=5+ ♠s, game force
1NT=5+ ♣, game force
2♣=5+ ♦, game force


Theory was that you've already right-sided all club contracts by the 1♣ open, so now you get to right-side all strains except for spade contracts, and the part-score diamond contracts (which is kind of a who-cares situation).

I believe that opener's "accepting the transfer" could be used either as natural, or natural-ish with implied Beta acceptance for the relay-minded people.